years, has served as pastor. He is talented as a preacher, and a good, tried brother. So we hope that the church under his care will prosper. The Lord has also looked in mercy on us with regard to our financial affairs. Notwithstanding the collections made by myself in England for the purpose of erecting a chapel here on the south, and afterwards a tour by brother Stadling to the United

States to procure means towards cancelling the debt on the chapel when erected, still a heavy debt remained on it. But, having built a large dwelling-house on the chapel premises, we expect now to receive such large rents as will entirely cover the interest on the debt; and thus the chapel may be considered as good as free of debt.

ONGOLE.

I am at Ongole safe and well. I left Liverpool as I expected, and reached Bombay Oct. 8, just ten months and one day away from India. Early on the morning of Oct. 10, brethren Jewett and Waterbury gave me a hearty welcome at Madras; and on the 18th I arrived here at my old home, which I love so well. It has been raining most of the time since I got here. In fact, two hours after I was here, the monsoon, which had been threatening for some days, began in earnest, and twenty-four hours later the "rivers were down;" and the canal and roads leading to Ongole have since been impassable. Lord kept the floods in check, in answer to the prayers of God's people, until I was safely at home.-REV. J. E. CLOUGH, D.D., Oct. 27, 1884.

NURSARAVAPETTA.

The

I am glad to say that cheering reports of the work in the Nursaravapetta district continue to come to hand. At our quarterly meeting, held a month since, thirty-eight believers were baptized. On the 12th of October, a new church was organized at a village called Guraviah Palem, consisting of one hundred and twenty-eight members. Pastor Bandam Titus, formerly a teacher in the Ramapatam Theological Seminary, was installed as pastor of the new church. As this village is large and influential, and the Christians earnest and fairly well-to-do, we are hopeful that this church will become a power for good. It is situated at the foot of the hill on which is to be seen the famous shrine of Kotapatobim, before which many thousands of Hindus come annually. May the little church become a light in a dark place! - REV. R.

HANAMACONDA. We continue to have a constant stream of visitors from the surrounding villages, who come into town upon government business, and visit us before leaving. They are always very respectful and attentive to what they hear at our Sunday services or in private interviews at the bungalow. The touring season has just begun. We hope to reach a great many heathen in their villages during the next four months. Mrs. Newhall and I are in the best of health. REV. A. A. NEWHALL, Oct. 29, 1884.

NELLORE. - Yesterday was a good day here. We had a large gathering to the communion from all parts of the field. Five promising converts were baptized, -a small beginning for the new year, but the future is full of promise. - REV. D. DOWNIE, Nov. 3, 1884.

CALCUTTA. - I left a good school of about eighty scholars at Maooben, and our travelling season is just commencing, and it was a hard task for me to leave it all; but I am convinced it was the wise and right thing to do, with the idea of regaining strength for future work. My intentions are to return as soon as I am in a condition so to do, which I hope will be in the course of a few weeks. Meanwhile, I rejoice in the fact that Mr. Cross was free to go up and carry the work right on. I know of no field where the work is in a more interesting condition; nor, with the exceptions of Siam or Bhamo, would I exchange fields with any one. REV. W. BUSHell, Nov. 16,

1884.

of the brightest and happiest of my life. I have sometimes felt a little discouraged over the language; but I feel that I am gradually gaining possession of it, and do not despair of mastering it in time. Our school is closed at present for the short vacation, but will open again next week. Excellent work has been done in the school during the past year, and there is much to encourage the workers. I have learned to love the Karens more than I at first thought possible. My interest constantly increases as I come to know and understand them. MISS L. L. HARDIN, Oct. 18, 1884.

RED-KAREN WOR - To give the native preachers less than we are giving them, will necessitate their leaving their fields, and engaging in secular business, in order to obtain a living, as three have done during the past rains. One of the three is a very worthy young man, who, not having enough to eat, has left his church, and gone to work as a cooly on the government cinchona plantation. If I could help him twenty dollars a year, he would gladly go back to his church and work. A young man from the seminary, who has been doing a good work during the year in a Weewah village, said to me this morning, that his church had helped him only ten rupees during the year. When I told him that I would see that he had five rupees per month, he seemed

very happy, and said that with that he would be able to give his whole time to his missionwork. There is another seminary man up there, who has a wife; he has to largely support himself, which gives him only a little time for mission-work. If he could have forty dollars a year, he could give his whole time to the work of the mission. The people beyond the frontier are very poor, and cannot do much for their pastors if they wished to. If the native preachers up beyond the British frontier give their time to teaching and preaching, we must give them their food. — Rev. A. V. B. CRUMB, Toungoo, Nov. 7, 1884.

BANGKOK. The work in the mission is moving on prosperously. We have preachers at each out-station. There is a good feeling among the disciples. A number of persons in the out-stations are waiting baptism. I have just returned from Lin-Kia-Chu. One of our members there, who, during the eight months that we had no teacher there, conducted the worship, and who was one of our most reliable men, died recently of cholera. I am kept very busy in the work of the mission. There is a great work to be done for the Chinese in Siam. I trust you will send a family here. — REV. L. A. EATON, Oct. 6, 1884.

EVANGELIZING THE WORLD.-If about 2,400 years ago two separate messages from Ahasuerus, King of the Medes and Persians, could be translated into various languages, written and delivered, at different times, in 127 provinces, and both messages delivered in less than one year (see the Book of Esther), how long ought it to take Christians now to obey the command of their King, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, to translate, print, and deliver to every creature in all the world his one message? The Christian.

gelization, and they contribute for this and the support of their churches more liberally than Christians in Europe or America. The difficulties in the way of evangelization are less than in many other countries. There is only one language. They are to a great extent an educated, reading people. They have not caste, that great curse of India. Shintoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, the three religions of Japan, are none of them strong. The Government is tolerant, and quite possibly may soon declare itself Christian. If so, the heathen systems will quickly disappear. Many things seem to show that the fulness of time has come to the Land of the Rising Sun. The Japanese Christians are praying and working that their country may be wholly Christian by the year 1900. The Friend of Missions.

RELIGION OF AFRICA. The Africans are steeped in idolatry, and are most wonderfully superstitious. Under their system of idolatry, the greatest sufferer is woman. Most wretched is woman's condition in Africa. Napoleon was once asked, "What does France most need?" He answered, “France needs mothers most of all other things." So we say of Africa. Most of all, Africa needs Christian mothers to go and teach them the way of life. What is it that has exalted woman in this country? Teachers and preachers. In Africa we have no written language, or none worthy of the name; some progress in this direction, but none they can understand. They must be taught by our teachers and Bible-readers. A grand work in this line is needed in Africa. Mothers who can train the young are needed in Africa. "Send us a teacher," they say. "We want a teacher; we will give you rice. Can you not help us?" are the pleas coming up from the "Dark Continent."- REV. W. J. DAVID.

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE CONGO is probably second only to that of the Nile. We say "probably," because its upper course and head-waters still remain unexplored. When first seen by Stanley as the Lualaba, more than one thousand five hundred miles from the sea, it impressed him with its aspect of a great continental stream. There are affluents, too, extending on both sides far into the interior, and probably capable of at least partial naviga

have been caught of them, scarcely inferior in size to the main river. Untold wealth lies hidden in the primeval forests which come down on either hand to the brink, and in the game countries which in other parts stretch along its course. It must not, however, be supposed that, like the Mississppi or the St. Lawrence, it is open for vessels from the sea along any considerable portion of its course. About one hundred and twenty miles from its mouth are the Yellala Falls, its earliest and greatest rapids. Between these and Stanley Pool, above which there is open water for many hundreds of miles, are numerous rapids, cataracts, or falls, all impeding progress, most of them rendering it impossible. In this intervening region, and, indeed, occasionally elsewhere, the path of the great river is most varied. Not only is it tortuous, but sometimes it expands for miles, and seems to be, not a river, but a vast island-strewn lagoon, in which it is difficult to decide which shore is actually the bank of the stream itself. In other places it is narrow and impetuous, as at Vivi, just below the Yellala Falls, where is situated Stanley's first riverine station. There the current, but five hundred yards wide, is with good reason supposed to be ninety fathoms deep, and attains, during the rainy season, a speed of nine miles an hour, a greater depth than the world-famed rapids of Niagara, with an almost equal velocity. It is these physical difficulties which constitute the great hinderance to a rapid and wide-spread development of trade.

ACROSS AFRICA. The African International Association have sent out Lieutenant Becker to unite the work done by Mr. Stanley from West Africa with that accomplished by the Free Church of Scotland and London Missionary Society from East Africa, by connecting the station of Karema on Lake Tanganyika with Mr. Stanley's farthest up the Congo. The great missionary highway will then be traced out from the mouth of the Zambesi, up Lake Nyassa, the Stevenson road, and Tanganyika, and right across Africa to the point where the Congo falls into the Atlantic. God's providence is marching with a rapidity which should quicken our prayer of faith, and increase a hundred-fold the self-sacrifice of every Christian and church. - The Free

ENGLISH GENERAL BAPTISTS. The principal mission of this body is in Orissa, India, where there are 16 missionaries, 23 native ministers, 16 stations, 14 chapels, 9 churches, and 1,222 members. In the last year 80 were baptized. There is also a mission in Rome, with one missionary, one Italian evangelist, and twenty churchmembers. Three were baptized last year. The income of the society for the year was £7,403. 10s. (about $37,000), of which £3,189. 35. 6d. was received in India. The fact that nearly one-half the income of the society came from the mission field must be considered as the most remarkable feature

in the work of this society, and shows that the mission-work, while not large, is soundly and thoroughly organized.

CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.— Rev. P. O'Flaherty, the leading missionary at Rubaga, Mtesa's capital, writes, April 1, 1884, to "The Church Missionary Intelligencer:" "I am now here three years on the 18th of March: number of baptized, sixty-eight; number of communicants, forty. There are two very handsome and exceedingly intelligent princesses, whose grasp of divine truth is great, enrolled among the members. The Princess Elmasi was the first, and the Princess Rebeka Mugali the second. The Prin cess Nakabia was taken away. Mugali taught her favorite maid, and stood godmother for her. Sev. eral important officers of Cæsar's household are intelligent Christians, and hold prayers and classes in their own homes. The interesting young chief Sebwato has manfully discarded all his wives save one, and was baptized last Sunday. His priest is not, because in his examination he failed to satisfy me. There are several willing to be baptized; but it is the fiery ordeal of sending off their wives, — a disgrace and an insult of the first magnitude here, that keeps them back." A press has been received from England, and printing in Luganda begun. The country has been afflicted with plague and famine, and the people decimated by the small-pox. Mr. O'Flaherty has defeated the Arabs in a public disputation about Mohammedanism, and has acquired influence with the king, so that he was able to prevent war in one instance. The king has ordered his royal flag hoisted on Sunday, to show that it is to be observed.

-

EUROPE. France.-M. Dardier of Gene

Baptist evangelist in Brittany, M. Lecoat; and the

gospel almanac in the Breton language. Germany. - The church in Berlin, built by the contributions of evangelical Christians to commemorate the escape of the emperor from two attempts on his life, has fallen into the hands of the "Liberals.". Russia. The work of tract distribution, which has been carried on for nine years with great success, with the sanction of the emperor, has now been prohibited; and Col. Paschkoff and Count Korff, who have been closely associated with the work, are banished from the empire.

INDIA. - The railroads of India have zenana cars for the use of the native women. Lady missionaries have keys to the cars, and travel in them, improving the opportunities for preaching the gospel.—The Maharajah of Indore, a native principality in Central India, has forbidden the missionaries to do any aggressive Christian work in his territory. This is the only part of India where missionary work is restricted by the government. CHINA. A complete list of the Christian missions in China gives 387 men and 420 women missionaries, 1,311 native helpers, and 24,607 communicants. They are connected with 16 British, 4 Continental, and 13 American societies. · Mr. Chapin, missionary of the American Board at Kalgan, North China, reports that the war troubles have not affected mission-work in his district to any extent. More than twenty Protestant chapels have been destroyed in the Quang Tung Province, in which Canton is situated. No chapels in Canton are open, and mission-work is about at a standstill.

JAPAN. — There are thirty-four thousand physicians in Japan, of whom less than five hundred are trained in Western methods. Hereafter, no physician is to be licensed to practise who cannot pass an examination in Western medical science. In view of the great influence which the Japanese physicians trained in the next few years must have on the country, it is proposed to establish a Christian medical school in Kioto, under the patronage of different missionary societies. — A two days' preaching service in the largest theatre in Tokio

was attended by audiences of from forty-five hundred to six thousand, and many who desired were unable to get in. At Kioto certain priests have organized a “National Religion Society," for the express purpose of opposing the spread of Christianity.

COREA, which has but lately come under the influence of civilization, is to have the Edison electric lights in the palace-grounds and buildings at the capital, Seoul.-H. N. Allen, M.D., of the American Presbyterian Mission (Northern), was the first missionary to become established in Corea. His first letter from Seoul is dated Oct. 1, 1884; and he had then been there two weeks. has procured a fine property for his work as a medical missionary, and has been appointed physician to the United-States legation, a position which will be of advantage to him in his missionary work.

He

of the Argentine Republic has decreed that all the Scriptures published by the American Bible Society shall be admitted free of custom duties. This is done on the ground that the circulation of the Scriptures is beneficial to the people.

ISLANDS. The mission of the Free Church of Scotland in the New Hebrides is in a prosperous condition. Numerous converts have been received. The number of native teachers is increasing. The native women are adopting European clothing, and the native Christians are contributing liberally for the building and support of their churches. - At a recent large meeting in the capital of Madagascar, the queen exhorted her soldiers to defend the integrity of the kingdom, and then said, "Yet, O people, whatever be our strength, or however great our numbers, all will be in vain without the aid of God: so let each one of us ask him to help and save us in this our just cause."

MAINE, $96.75.

Woolwich, Miss F. A. Barnes, 5; Jefferson, 1st ch., 7: Castine, J. R. Potter, 2; Livermore Falls, ch.,