C

AN the people at home have any understanding of the joy that Bishop Rowe's letter, saying that he hoped to reach St. John's-in-the-Wilderness in February, brought to our hearts? Scant and with long intervals between is the news that reaches our ears, but finally the mail carrier brought a note from Mr. Hoare telling us the date upon which he expected the bishop at Tanana, and the day he thought they would leave for the Koyukuk. But the mail carrier was sure that they could not make the trip in the time they hoped to, for the weather was stormy-there had been a heavy fall of snow and he said that the trail would be "wiped out" and they were sure to get lost. Cheering news!

But he did not know Bishop Rowe and his instinct for finding the trail. The trail was completely "wiped out" so far as the eye was concerned, but the whole 150 miles the bishop led the way upon snowshoes, often getting an hour or more ahead of Mr. Hoare with the Indian and the dogs-even when they reached Arctic City the bishop waited fully twenty minutes for them, that they might all go in together. But even Bishop Rowe cannot make such a trip as this and not feel it. As the Northern Commercial agent at Arctic City afterward said to me, "Oh, yes, he carried the mark." This was the mark of the Arctic trail-breaker, written upon his moccasin in blood. For the thongs of the snowshoe had cut into his foot and for three days it had been bleeding.

About two o'clock the afternoon of Thursday, February 27th, just five and a half days after leaving Tanana, they reached St. John's-in-the-Wilderness- a day or two better than the mail carrier's

run. We could scarcely believe our eyes, though every one had been on the alert all day. After our greetings were over and we had given them some food I found that the bishop's right foot was both cut and blistered and was badly inflamed and swollen. His left ankle, which had been injured in an accident on his way to Fairbanks, as well as his knee was swollen and painful, and when he had sat still for a few minutes it was only with the keenest pain that he could walk. But in spite of all this, in four days they were off for Nolan Creek-the most northerly gold-mining camp in the world-which has been making such a stir, and which is about 150 miles northeast of us.

The Saturday after their arrival Mr. Hoare married three Koyukuk couples, the bishop pronouncing them man and wife and giving the benediction. Then he addressed the Indians through two interpreters, telling them of our Lord and His love for them, and what He wished them to be and to do. Sunday morning we had our first early celebration of the Holy Communion. Our last celebration was when Mr. Betticher was here early in September. At this service the bishop consecrated the communion vessels and the altar cross which were memorial gifts, and were now used for the first time. At our regular morning service the bishop again addressed the Indians, but as both Kobuks and Koyukuks had let us know that on Saturday they understood everything he said to them, this time he spoke to them directly, and eager, earnest listeners they were, for their faces showed that he had spoken straight to their hearts. In the evening at Mr. Hoare's suggestion we had a service just for ourselves, when the bishop

gave us a charge for all the months to

come.

On the return journey Bishop Rowe and Mr. Hoare reached St. John's March 16th. For four days after they left us it snowed almost continuously. Then the temperature dropped to 30° below zero, varying from that to 49.7° below. It was the longest cold snap of the winter, with the usual bitter March winds. Still the bishop made this trip of 300 miles, visiting Bettles, Coldfoot and Nolan Creek in thirteen days.

wellhave

I wish his friends at home could have seen him as he ran in here this time. Tanned and weather-beaten every movement telling of hardened, trained muscles they would scorned the fear that Bishop Rowe was bordering upon a breakdown. Just think, he had not been on the trail since the winter of 1903-04, and with a lame ankle to begin with, he started upon a journey of 150 miles on snowshoes, breaking trail, not having the help of even the handle-bars of the sled, sleeping in a little log hut at night with no floor, no window and no door, just an opening cut in the logs, often so low that a man must stoop to pass in and over which you might hang anything in lieu of a door which you happened to

possess. No wonder that he was cut and bleeding and lame when he reached St. John's-in-the-Wilderness. Then after only four days' rest-if a visitation at a mission may be called a rest and the journey of 300 miles, with again much of the trail desperately bad. At Coldfoot they found that they could go out much more easily over the Chandalar trail, but the same indomitable will and unswerving devotion to the Master's work that first carried the bishop over the Chilcoot Pass and down the Yukon now cast aside any question of choice between a comparatively easy and a hard trail, because a few scattered sheep were waiting for him here to set our Lord's seal upon them. So on March 19th, fifteen Kobuks and two Koyokuks were baptized. In them the foundation of this work is laid

and I am wondering, as I write, if there is any other spot upon earth where such peaceful happiness pervades as at St. John's-in-the-Wilderness. Friday we

must lose our bishop and the great uplift of his presence, but he will leave behind him an inspiration which cannot but bear rich fruit in the years to come.

St. John's-in-the-Wilderness, Allakaket, March 19th.

OKLAHOMA NOTES

From Archdeacon Smith, of Oklahoma, come these notes of progress and promise:

UR work is progressing nicely. Here

OUR

at Ardmore the congregations have more than doubled in the last two months and the Sunday-school has doubled. We have just organized a branch of the Woman's Auxiliary with thirty members. From now on, this point will ask for no aid from the mission funds of the Church, but will be self-sustaining.

At Ada-eighty miles away-we have just organized a mission, and the outlook for its success seems very bright. I can leave here on Sunday at 12:30 P.M., and arrive at Ada in time for evening service.

At Hugo-just one hundred miles away-we found over twenty Church people not long ago, and it is our intention to erect a chapel at this point early in the spring.

The distances down here are so great that it makes my travelling expenses quite heavy. We have no clergy permits any more since the two-cent fare went into effect. We have letters every week from scattered communicants that have come to Oklahoma from every state in the Union asking us to come and minister to their spiritual needs. But the cost is so heavy that we are not able to get to them.

A year ago the rector and vestry of All Saints', Atlanta, decided to ask the congregation to make its Easter offering for missions. This was done with startling results, more than $3,000 having been given for Church extension work within and without the diocese. The same plan was adopted for Easter, 1908, and the rector writes:

N spite of the strained conditions in

the business world, the offerings at All Saints' Church on Easter Day were sufficient to pay the parish apportionment and to guarantee salary for "our own missionary" in China for another year. I feel that to have passed through this period without having to curtail the missionary appropriations is a great triumph. A diocesan missionary is also supported by this parish; and as an evidence of the benefit to the parish itself of the policy which we are striving to pursue, the largest class confirmed this year in the South, so far as I am able to learn, was presented at All Saints' Church just before Easter, numbering fifty-four, most of them adults, and twenty-nine of them men.

hama, Shanghai, Singapore and Colombo, before stopping at other ports to which I have been before. You once mentioned, to me the "opposition of naval officers to missions." I have found some, but not much. One of these days I am going to take up that subject aboard. Can you send me any literature that will help?

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Some Church people must make their livings in queer ways, as witness this from Mexico:

REO

ECENTLY, the Rev. L. M. A. Haughwout, of Mexico City, visited the mission of "El Divino Maestro" in Xochitenco, a large Indian village on the southeastern shore of Lake Техсосо. After a celebration of the Holy Communion, the first stone of a new sacristy was laid, with appropriate

prayers. Under the ministrations of Daniel Arce, a student in the Dean Gray School and a lay-reader, this mission is manifesting a new and vigorous life. The people have undertaken to beautify and refurnish their chapel, and add a sacristy. Although very poor, most of them obtaining their livelihood by the unique occupation of catching flies in the lake, they have raised over a hundred dollars for the projected improvements.