At the drill-ground through which I passed yesterday, men were shooting in every possible direction, without system. at all. The chance passers-by must do the watching out, and cannot be expected to stop this noble game. The shooting is uniformly bad, the arrows usually falling short. Like everything else Chinese, the form and appearance of the thing count for far more than the accuracy or reality. Each man does a heap of posing, until you expect some clever marksmanship, then he falls away, far off from the mark, poses some more, according to established rules, and gives place smilingly to the next fellow, and is judged according to the correctness of his various attitudes. If he passes, he is on the road to advancement in the army perhaps, or in officialdom.

Our viceroy knows that this method is all wrong, but cannot overturn it at stroke, so lets it go on, each year making it less important. At one contest 3,000 men were up. That day it poured and the viceroy, wishing to avoid a postponement, said that everybody on the list for that day could be passed successfully! Everybody was happy, and 3,000 men strutted about, and still strut, and will boast of their success until their dying day, and will refuse, no doubt, many an honest day's work, in the hope of that promotion to honor and wealth which will probably never come. You see these fellows standing, with arms and hands propped up in certain positions by sticks and poles, so as to cultivate form in archery. Some whom I saw did not have even bows and arrows in their hands, but just stood up like overburdened fruit trees with props holding up the branches. What a strange people! This form of sport, as they have it, is typical of all things Chinese. They are a wonderful combination of simplicity and knavery, of cleverness and stupidity, of childishness and decrepitude. Queer! but mighty interesting, always showing up some unexpected side, and surprising you at every turn, by their up-side-down-ways of

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looking at things, and their contrariness in doing things-from our point of view. As you see them you can't help feeling as if you were looking through the wrong end of a telescope, or at the negative of a photograph. Some day you must come and take a look for yourselves!

a

Mohammedanism in China

The other day I had a long talk with Mohammedan. You seldom come across one who is willing to answer your questions so plainly as this fellow did. He is an intelligent coolie, or small workman. He says he is a Mohammedan because he was born so. It would be most unfilial to change his faith for that of the ordinary Chinese. He says there are 700 families of his religion in this vicinity. I asked what day they kept for worship. He said Friday; but nobody keeps it except the priests. He says that once a year the people go to the temple, but not oftener. They leave religion to the priests. I said, "But you have your worship or prayers at home, don't you?" He answered, "No." They have a calendar of holy days hanging up as a rule, but don't keep to it. I was surprised at the indifference. He himself said that the Moslems in this part are different from others as regards zeal and devotion. They abstain from pigs' flesh and perhaps have a public meeting for worship once a year, and there it ends, so he said. They do no missionary work, and only have the families who were converted in former centuries, apparently. We talked about Adam, Abraham and Christ. He knew the names, though the Mohammedan nomenclature is different from the Christian, theirs being more Turkish or Indian-ized. They follow sounds which represent the language of those countries, while our Chinese characters for Bible names are modelled after the proper Hebrew and Greek names mostly. Some few have passed through western tongues.

There are, of course, many Mohammedans in China. Some are very fierce and

gets the advantage of a mysterious influence, which comes by having the girl in the house, which will insure his having a son. This is a common superstition, and men are willing to take the expense of girls' clothing and food for the supposed benefit derived from their presence in the family.

One of us heard of this case and asked the man who gave his daughter why he did it. The man was ashamed of the affair before the foreigner, and said that he could not have afforded to keep the girl. "But you would have managed if she had been a son, couldn't you?" "Yes," he believed he "could have pulled through." "And would you have kept a boy?" "Yes, but that was very different." A few days later we heard that this same man was in the midst of negotiations to get a baby girl,

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recently born to friends of his, into his family, agreeing to support her entirely, for the help she would be to him in moving the proper god to give him a son. The whole thing is a business proceeding, based on the idea that the family name must be perpetuated, and that in old age the parents must be sure of sons to provide for them. After death they must have descendants to carry on the ancestral worship. Any idea of a happy family life, or of love, or affection, is as far removed from their thoughts as can be. Here is one of the roots of evil in China. Children are bound together by indissoluble bonds, and, whether they like it or not, there is no help under the sun for it. Your partner may be an idiot, or a cripple-never mind, you are tied to him for life, without having had a chance to say a word in the matter!

T

HE Archdeacon of Havana was

on his way from Camaguey to La Gloria. It was the eve of

a Church feast. As far as Minas he was accompanied by a multitude of men and women in holiday attire, carrying bouquets of natural or paper flowers; a native Negro orchestra, with clarinets, flageolets, cornets and a kettledrum; a Roman priest in his cassock, and a large image of the Virgin, eight feet high and wrapped in a bed sheet.

As the train bumped along over the rough road approaching Minas, half a hundred horsemen suddenly emerged on both sides from the jungle, and galloped alongside with loud shouts and cries. At first it looked as if it might be a "hold up," but a glance revealed the Sunday attire, and the absence of all weapons, even the usual machete or short, broad sword, universally carried in the country; and this reassurance was quite established when the moreno orchestra began playing a merry march. At the station a multitude of gaily dressed people welcomed the priest and the image. A sort of open palanquin or baldachino, decorated with wreaths of paper flowers, received the image, a procession was formed, and the people with orchestra and priest marched to a new chapel partly constructed. Three little bells and a wooden cross crowned its frontal, and three little boys in white hammered the bells with might and main. The occasion seemed to be the laying of the corner wood of the building. At night there was a great dance.

At Nuevitas the journey was varied by a change from the train to "shank's mares," and a pedestrian trip of a mile. and a half under the noonday sun was made, the baggage following in a cart.

At the tannery landing a small sailboat received the passengers, and a delightful trip of fifteen miles was made among the keys, with a sailor's breeze. Now and then a few black ducks would rise reluctantly from the clear, shallow

waters, and from time to time a rosy cloud of bright flamingos would hover about some little island, and settle in its lee under the ever-watchful guardianship of alert sentinels.

The sail was varied by the passage of the zanja, or ditch. This is a long, straight, narrow canal, recently made, extending about three miles. Formerly it was a winding passage bordered by a dense jungle, and exceedingly difficult of transit. Now it is easy enough, with the right wind; otherwise, the passage must be made by poling.

Two miles beyond the zanja lay the little stern wheel steamboat La Gloria, capable of making, without a head wind, about five or six miles an hour. It was clean and comfortable, and was furnished with an abundance of reading matter, consisting of magazines anywhere from one month to five years old.

After a trip of about forty miles in the steamboat, the landing was made at a dock where a "carry-all" with springs and three seats awaited the passengers, in which the trip of five miles more had to be made. The road was straight as an arrow and as rough as roots, rocks and ruts could make it. The journey was splendid exercise, shaking down one's luncheon, and exciting a ravenous appetite.

The next day two services were held in the very attractive little chapel built from made plans by Archdeacon Sturges. The congregations quite filled. the seats, and at night there were many "co-standers." The people were devout and reverential, and most appreciative. With the limited staff in Cuba a clergyman can get to La Gloria only four times a year. It is a great pity that La Gloria cannot have the visits of a priest more frequently. It is an Englishspeaking colony, which has had a hard, uphill struggle, but now, with the prospects of a good road to the water, and a deep water channel to Nuevitas, it feels that the dawn of a better day is at hand.

S

INCE it is the duty of the Church

to win men to Christ and His righteousness, she must go where the men are, and especially must she seek men who are in the midst of temptation. When she finds men who need her, and are likely to accept her, she should deliver her message without waste of time and at any cost.

Men living in the mining country answer to this description. In the camps of the western states there are now great numbers of the brainiest, the most ambitious, the manliest men in the world. In Tonopah or Goldfield, Nevada, for example, there are probably more college graduates than in any place of equal size in the United States. These men are not in the mining regions for life. As soon as they have made their stake, or reported on a property for their employers, or surveyed a claim or a townsite, or installed the machinery for a mine, they will return to the East or to the Coast. In a few years they will be

heads of great enterprises, leaders in business and politics.

Life in a mining camp is one long temptation. It is very easy to be bad, somewhat lonely and conspicuous to be good. Is it not clear that the mining camp has the men, and that the men need moral help? If it can also be shown that these promising men, yes, and these tempted men, are likely to heed the Church's message, then it will be sheer folly if the Church hesitates to push forward her work in the mining country. I believe I can prove that men are open to religious influence in a mining camp as they are nowhere else.

Some Characteristics of the
Mining Camp

1. In almost every mining camp there are some examples of the finest type of Christian character. The very freedom from all suspicion of expediency, or being good because it pays, in the lives