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FROM FAR AND NEAR

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tunity for telling work. All have received a cordial welcome from the bishops, clergy and people. They all feel, no doubt, as does one, who speaking to this writer recently of the crying need of more men to carry on the work already begun as well as to carry the Church into many towns, which for lack of them it has been unable to enter, said: "I wish I could be seven clergymen instead of one, or could do seven times as much work as I am now doing." If all of our new men could increase their capacity for labor seven-fold, then there would be a chance for the Church to

meet in a more accurate measure the opportunities presented to her in this great and growing state. The spiritual progress of the state must keep pace with its remarkable material development.

The rector of a Long Island country parish writes:

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UR offering on August 2d was for

the work of the Board of Missions. As all the envelopes sent out have not yet been returned, I will wait another week and give the "wet Sunday people" a chance. So far our offering amounts to $206.62. This is the largest offering ever given by the congregation for any purpose. This offering should be credited on the apportionment of the congregation for the next fiscal year, September 1st, 1908, to September 1st, 1909. We have already given the apportionment for the year ending September 1st, 1908.

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St. Luke's Hospital, Shanghai, needs enlargement. Dr. Boone puts the case thus:

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E are in sad need of a new building as we are overcrowded in our hospital. The old houses on the lot we hope to build on are in a dangerous state. The roof of one fell in yester day. It will cost much to repair them. We should do better to pull them down and begin to erect our new building. The Board granted us the permission to build when I was home, and to raise $15,000. We still need $10,500 of that amount before we can build. Do please help us to get the money.

I have been urging the public, both in Chinese and English newspapers, to start an insane asylum here. These unfortunates are kept in cages, or with a ring round the neck, chained to a tree in some courtyard. Treated as wild beasts they do not recover, often die of hardship. The Chinese are responding to my appeal. I may get a temple and

News and Notes

grounds set apart for the proper treatment of the insane. It should pay all its running expenses and be a great blessing to many who could be cured.

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Oregon is a state of many achievements, but also of many prospects. Bishop Scadding says:

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LTHOUGH called a "diocese," Oregon is practically nothing more than a vast missionary district, and is both under-manned and under-equipped for the problems before the Church. Thousands of home-seekers are settling in southern Oregon and in the coast counties. Something must be done for their spiritual needs. With clergy associated together to meet these conditions, the prospect for the Church's growth is most encouraging.

The Associate Mission method is the same principle which underlies "College Settlements," "Neighborhood Guilds," clergy houses for curates in city parishes, etc. It means maximum endeavor at minimum expense. This plan looks to the speedy establishment of self-supporting churches where such are possible.

Missions of this kind are necessarily temporary, and when they have brought the individual missions to a point where they need the undivided labors of one man the Associate Mission will have served its purpose, and have survived its necessity and usefulness, and, like a flying squadron, the company of prophets can be placed elsewhere.

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of his entire ministry. This part of Alaska does not bristle with difficulties and hardships, but has its large share of comfort and pleasures. I wish earnest and continued intercession may be made by those devoted to the missionary work of the Church, that God may move the heart of a priest to offer himself for the work at Cordova and Katalla.

When you know of someone who would like to give an altar as a memorial, will you remember that I want two-one for Cordova, one for Katalla. At Katalla we shall use a vacant store for the present, and I hope build next summer. An altar will make the place proper, and I hope Bishop Rowe may get in there in December or January for confirmation and I want it then.

The altar for Cordova has already been given. If any reader of THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS would like to give the Katalla altar, the editor will supply particulars. The cost would be about $40:

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THE PRAYER BOOK IN JAPANESE

"CAN

AN you furnish, or tell me where I can procure," wrote a Philadelphia layman some months ago, "a prayer book in Japanese? I am very anxious to obtain one for my servant, who wishes to attend the Church services."

Unfortunately, there was not on hand at the Church Missions House at the time, a spare copy of the prayer book in Japanese. A letter, however, to one of the members of the staff in Tokyo was answered by a small package of prayer books and two hymnals. After the needs of this particular Japanese have been supplied there still remain a few of the books. One edition of the prayer book sells for fifty cents; one edition for ninety cents. If there are any other readers of THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS Who would like to procure a copy, their orders may be sent to the Corresponding Secretary, 281 Fourth Avenue, New York.

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A JUNK GOING UP THROUGH THE RAPIDS OF THE YANGTZE GORGES ABOVE ICHANG. THE TOWING ROPE IS BEING PAID OUT TO MEN ON THE BANK WHO WILL PULL THE BOAT THROUGH THE STRONG CURRENT

THE CHURCH AT WORK IN THE HEART

J

OHN

OF CHINA

BY THE REVEREND PERCY R. STOCKMAN

CHINAMAN is hard to fool. He says: "No wantee their joss pigeon. I no wantee go 'Melican top-side; they say come 'Melican land no can do."

This was said to us by way of encouragement by an up-river steamboat captain on the Yangtze. But God's workings among the people of the plains are not to be interpreted from the viewpoint of the captain's cabin on a Yangtze boat.

Here are two little boys who are walking with their father along the muchtravelled road from Sznan to Ichang in Hupeh Province, West Central China. One of the brothers is seven and the other eight, according to Chinese reckoning, but the elder is probably less than seven years old as we would count. They are bound on a strange undertaking, indeed they do not know what is before them. Their father, who has been

a fortune teller and a Taoist priest of sorts, has brought them this way, a four days' journey, to place them in one of our mission schools. We had been told of their coming by Mr. Yang and his companion, who had but lately returned from the same region. Mr. Huntington and Mr. Tseng, the native priest, had sent these two men out, about the middle of March, to sell books and preach and so carry the doctrine into the country across the river southwest of Ichang. They were gone eighty days and reported remarkable experiences. In one place a small district official had assembled all the people together by ringing a gong, and they preached to the crowd for three hours. The father of the two little boys was among the converts of these two earnest men.

In signifying his willingness to discontinue his fortune-telling and other priestly practices, this man gave up the

The Church at Work in the Heart of China

little source of income he possessed. And his family was, as all in China seem to be, a large one. When he heard of Mr. Huntington's trade school for poor boys, chiefly orphans picked up off the street, he expressed the desire to place his boys in the school. He was encouraged to come and see Mr. Huntington, who in opening the "Youth-Loving School" as the Chinese call this branch of the mission, had gained much reputation for good works, not only for himself, but for the Church, both among the Christians and the gentry and people of Ichang. When they came the boys were admitted to the school, and after one awful night of wailing they seemed to feel quite at home and have been bright and smiling ever since.

I am beginning my story with that of these boys because they are the first fruits, as it were, of the new work which is opening to the mission, for which those of the Ichang station must be chiefly responsible. Only a few Roman

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Catholics are in the whole district traversed by these little boys in their journey to Ichang. This region is left to our force to evangelize and educate.

When my wife and I reached Ichang early last March, we were just as new to it all as the small boys from Sznan way. Over 9,000 miles from home, in a land where the fact of being a stranger becomes very real because one is so completely out of it all, rubbing shoulders with those he cannot talk to, anxious to serve but tied and bound by lack of language, it is difficult to throw off a sense of being unsettled and useless. And not only among the Chinese, but with the foreigners as well, who, having been a longer time in the field, seem to move in a strange and unattainable atmosphere, it is some time before one feels at home.

In coming to Ichang we were fortunate in finding a household long established on a home-like basis. Mr. Hunt

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A CROWD OF ICHANG PEOPLE AND COUNTRYMEN GATHERED TO WATCH THE BOAT RACES ON THE OCCASION OF THE DRAGON-BOAT FESTIVAL. THE PATH ALONG THE CLIFF IS THAT USED BY "TRACKERS," THE MEN WHO

PULL THE HEAVY JUNKS UP-STREAM AGAINST THE CURRENT

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ington and his aunt, Miss Huntington, have labored for seven years, mostly alone, to build up the work of the station and to make the large compound house comfortable and its surroundings attractive. I cannot in detail speak of things outside the work itself. However, those who may ere long see in this work God's place for them, and all who are interested in the Ichang station, should know that Ichang is one of the most beautifully surrounded river ports in China, the hills on north and west rising magnificently; that our mission compound with its house is comfortable and pleasant; and that the living, while not so good as at some of the larger ports where ice and other luxuries can be had, yet is much better than one pictures one thousand miles inland in China.

In the work that we found, religious, educational and social, we were impressed by its proportions, the evidences of its vitality and value, and the good spirit prevailing throughout the church. and the schools.

When we first went to the church we

thought the mile walk seemed a long one, for we went through so many strange scenes. Before reaching the nearest city gate we passed several shops and residences and a government lottery establishment, and skirted an alley given over to opium dens. The number of beggars was heart-rending and their pitiful condition most distressing. Within the gate the streets were closely crowded, and the eating shops which open to the street were all full, the men stopping to look at us. Barber shops, where not only the head is shaved and hair braided, but ear and nose cleaning and massage are done in public, were frequent. Оп either side were fortune-tellers and venders of various wares, for some of which, especially eggs, the buyer and seller were gambling. Filth was everywhere on this native city street. The high-class lady in her sedan chair wears a bracelet made of scented wood to avoid the odors. The children played unconscious of the dirt, and called after the foreigner strange childish phrases or vicious words. In one house Buddhist priests made weird

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