THE REV. EDWARD P. NEWTON Alaska

A RECRUIT FOR

T

ALASKA

HE Rev. Edward P. Newton, who has gone to Alaska to take charge of Valdez, Seward and neighboring missions, is a native of Vermont. Although none of his ministerial life has been spent in the Green Mountain State, it has a right to claim him as another of its gifts to the mission field. It has already given men like the Rev. John W. Chapman, of Anvik, Alaska, the Rev. Walter C. Clapp, of the Philippines, and the Rev. R. C. Wilson, of China, as well as Miss Gertrude Stewart, also of China.

Mr. Newton was educated at St. John's School, Manlius, Trinity College, Hartford, and the Berkeley Divinity-school. He is another of Bishop John Williams's "boys," and was ordained to the diaconate by him. After his ordination Mr. Newton immediately went to the West, and for a number of years was rector of Holy Trinity Church, Pueblo. In the

face of many difficulties he endeavored to build up a congregation whose ideals of worship and work should be reverent and unselfish.

In 1902 he joined the clergy staff of Calvary Church, New York, expecting to spend two years studying the work of a great city parish. Instead of two years he spent five, and endeared himself not only to the people of the upper east side, but to many of the more privileged members of the parish.

Last summer, when word reached the East of the great need of the District of Alaska, Mr. Newton announced his willingness to volunteer, if Bishop Rowe could use him. Owing to delay in reaching the bishop, it seemed impossible that Mr. Newton could go to the field this winter. When, however, early in October, an urgent message came from Bishop Rowe that Mr. Newton should come to his help quickly, the rector of Calvary, recognizing the great need of the Alaska mission, released Mr. Newton. He sailed from Seattle November 24th, 1907.

I

A MESSENGER TO
THE WOMEN OF
JAPAN

N Miss Bertha R. Radford, who sailed
for Japan last month, Virginia
gives another worker to the mission

field abroad. She was educated at home until she entered the Lynchburg High School. Then she took two years at Randolph Macon College, specializing. in pedagogy and psychology. After leaving college Miss Radford taught in the schools of her home city of Lynchburg, and at the same time rendered valuable service as a Sunday-school teacher and leader of the Junior Auxiliary in St. Paul's parish. Her successful experience in the parish resulted in a growing desire to serve the Church's work abroad. Japan made a strong appeal to her because of the needs of the

people and the evident readiness of many of them to hear the Christian message. She accordingly entered St. Faith's Training-school in New York and completed the course with credit. Those who know her well predict a successful career in the mission field, for as one layman says, "she has the pluck and energy of half a dozen women."

A LIBRARY IN SIGHT FOR WUCHANG

M

ISS M. E. WOOD, of the District of Hankow, is returning to China on January 20th. During her furlough in this country she has been endeavoring to secure gifts for the erection of a library in connection with Boone College, Wuchang. Of the $15,000 asked for, about $4,800 have been given. The Hon Seth Low, formerly president of Columbia University, New York, in making a gift to the library fund, said that he did so because he believed "Wuchang to be a centre where a library of high order will be of vast benefit to China and the Chinese. It is, in a sense, a nerve centre in the body politic, from which impulses of every sort are disseminated through the vast multitudes comprising the Chinese Empire. The recent awakening of China to the importance of Western learning has added new emphasis to the old importance of Wuchang, and I can think of nothing more sagacious on the part of those who wish China, well than to do everything possible to strengthen at Wuchang the influences that make for good. Believing as I do in the profound influence of a good library, it gives me pleasure to help forward this work."

Dr. Lloyd, after personal observation of the situation at Wuchang, has expressed his conviction that no more valuable service could be rendered to Boone College and the students of the city than to have within their reach such a library as would introduce them to the

MISS BERTHA R. RADFORD Tokyo

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thinkers of the Western world as well as to the works of their own sages. "I was surprised," he says, "and much interested to see how much had been done with

small means. If a proper building with well-lined shelves and a fit reading-room could be added to Boone College, I am sure it would open a new world to the multitude of young men assembled in the city. The enthusiastic craving for learning was pathetic. To be able to bring within their reach sane literature would indeed be a privilege."

Although the full amount is not yet in sight, Bishop Roots proposes to begin the library in such a way that it can be readily enlarged as additional help comes. While this plan is not altogether economical or satisfactory, it is the best that can be done under the circumstances. Doubtless there are many friends who have heard of this enterprise and who intend to help it forward. This is the time to give the help. Gifts may be sent to George C. Thomas, Treasurer, 281 Fourth Avenue, New York.

W

E had a warmer summer than usual, the thermometer registering a number of times between 50° and 58°. All that has now passed, and the messenger of another approaching long winter is making its appearance in the shape of a new white mantle of snow on the Rocky Mountains in the distance.

Bishop Rowe expected to visit Point Hope in August, but he is a very busy man and did not manage to arrive. Why, I have not yet learned. There was a class of twenty-seven for him to confirm. Last year the first new building was erected, the past summer a fine belltower constructed.

The young men of the mission are proving themselves quite capable carpenters, needing but little instruction. The second building will not be started until after Bishop Rowe comes and a consultation is held.

No supplies for the mission have arrived this year. If the vessel delays much longer, it is doubtful if anything can be landed, the fall gales having already begun. At present I do not know what the consequence will be; fuel and oil are about exhausted and my larder is growing slim. The natives were unsuccessful in their whaling last spring, so they have no meat laid by in the icehouses for future use, neither had they bone to trade with the ships for supplies.

It looks as if we may experience hard times next winter. To-morrow, worship will be held in a cold church, there being no fuel to warm it.

It had been my intention to make a trip to Candle last summer, as it would be a good place to establish a mission station, there being nothing in that line there. The tardiness of the supply schooner has upset those plans. Candle City is a flourishing mining camp about

250 miles southeast of here. I also wanted to look around there to see if a whale-boat thirty feet long could be procured; one having an engine of four or five horsepower to drive a twelve-inch propeller wheel, using kerosene oil or wood alcohol to generate its motive force. With such a boat the mission would be in a much safer condition than at present. Should the supply schooner be wrecked any year, Candle City could be visited for fresh supplies, some work done along the coast, driftwood collected for home use, and letters mailed during the fall.

For a number of whaling seasons I have tried to introduce prosperity among the natives by lending aid to the young men, telling them if they were successful

55

in capturing a large whale, to bring me one-half the bone. When enough had been accumulated to be sent down, their supplies would be ordered up for a store, they to run the store themselves for their own benefit. There is no trading-post on Point Hope, and Candle is too distant to be a convenience.

Being the local correspondent of the leading home paper, I receive the news occasionally through the winter when some native happens to be coming along the coast. The nearest post-office station is 150 miles from here, at Kotzeben. It is quite a contrast to the early days, when news would only be received once a year.

Point Hope, Alaska, September.

Let us think, then, of what we may call "The Reflex Influence of Missions"-the blessing which comes to the Church at home through her work done for others. 1. Our work in the mission fields shows us where we stand.

It is the measure of the reality of our religion. There is nothing that more surely reveals a lack of personal religion, a lack of living faith in Christ, than a lack of interest in missions.

The man who feels that his religion is not worth sending to the heathen, is probably right; but if his own religion were more real, he would feel that Christ's message is worth sending to any man, anywhere, who has not received it.

Missions hold up the mirror in which we may see our own religious lives clearly. They show us what we really think and feel about our Lord and His Gospel.

2. Missions not only give us the. measure of Christ's power in our own hearts, they offer us the most unmistakable witness of His power in the lives of

others.

They afford the most striking "evidences of Christianity" that we have today. They are the proof of our Lord's real and active presence in this world.

Men may account for the home ministry. They cannot account for the missionary or explain his work except through the power of the Risen and Living Christ.

The missionary works miracles of help and healing, of moral renewal and spiritual regeneration; he creates a new type of character among those to whom he goes.

There is no other Name given under Heaven in which such works have been performed, and are being performed, except that of Him in Whose Name the missionary goes.

We need to think more of the evidential value of missions.

3. Missions bring home to us the supreme importance of "a certain Faith," a whole-hearted belief, a deep and living conviction.

They show us the weakness of the merely negative and academic and critical attitude which we sometimes see in the home Church.

The missionary is not one who is waiting for the truth of the Christian religion to be discovered or decided upon; he is one who has found the Truth as it is in Christ; who is able to say, "I know Whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day."

If the Christian religion were the mere result of human speculation, if it were only the best philosophy of life and of God that men have so far evolved, there would be little reason for missions.

Few missionaries would be found ready to leave all and go to a strange land to teach men a superior philosophy; men will always be ready to go as the

messengers of the Gospel of the Son of God.

4. Missions offer to us at home the. opportunity for the purest offering that we can make, the offering that is freest from all forms of selfishness.

The money which we give to missions brings us no return; it adds nothing to the numbers or the efficiency or the equipment of our own parishes; it does nothing for our own city; it goes to help men and women whom we shall never even see until we meet them in the streets of the New Jerusalem.

5.

only our most unselfish offerings, they But our gifts for missions are not are our most direct acknowledgment of Him Whom we worship and serve.

We are interested in this work not because it appeals to our sympathy or our imagination or our judgment, though. this it assuredly does, but because it is the carrying out of the wish of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

He is the One Who asks this of us. The last words that He uttered on 'this earth were, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." We who believe in Him must feel it a great privilege and joy to have so actual a share in bringing about His purpose for the world, to be so directly instrumental in furthering His plans.

Those who try to bear their part in this work know how, year by year, in the parish and in the individual it deepens devotion and quickens faith and strengthens the sense of personal allegiance to Him in Whose Name only it is done.

The day of the Missionary Offering is the day when the tides of spiritual life rise to their highest in the parish that has come, even a little, to feel what missions mean.

as

When the Church everywhere comes,

more and more she is coming, to think of missions with the mind of Christ, to feel about them as her Lord and Master does, she will learn the full meaning of His saying that "It is more blessed to give than to receive."