The Hall was fairly well filled on Wednesday night, to hear addresses on Mission work in China and other lands, Nearly 200 persons were present; but we cannot refrain from an expression of surprise that 0 comparatively few outside the Missionary circle should have assembled to hear news of the great warfare which for a Chi must of necessity form the must engrossing and moving of all subjects.
General "Kennedy presided; and after the reading of scripture and prayer by the Rov. T. R. Stevenson, and the hearty singing of a hymn, admirably accompanied on the piano by Mr. Crompton who kindly rendered this assistance, the General opened the meeting with afew hearty words expressive of his personal interest in Christian Missions, and of his sincere friendliness towards Missionaries, so far as the duties of his office allow of its exhibition.
He then called on the Rev. W. Muirhead open ce odic Onyiae aha Brass. The sharp limit of time (15 minutes for each speaker) necessitated in most instances a mere skimming of the great subjects entrusted to the speakers. But Mr. Muirhead contrived to keep well within his limit of time, and yet to speak forcibl about the beneficial influence of Britis! Role in the Mission fields under review. He enlarged also on the system of caste and in allusion to the strictures on Missions recently made by Canon Taylor and Mr. Came, he remarked that however mistaken and ill-judged some of these strictures may seem to be, Missionaries wish to recognise the hand of friends and not of foes in auch criticisms; and are glad to know how they may improve their methods of work. The speaker mentioned half a million as tha number of professed Christians in connection with Protestant Missions in India, We believe that he was under the mark there. Sir Charles Aitcheson, the late Lieut.-Governor of the Punjaub, speaks of Protestant Christians amongst the races of India as numbering one million; and he proves that Christisnity is growing five or six times as fast as the natural increase in the population.
FUT, Allen followed on China and Japan, fe presented and enlarged on a point outside the ordinary line of Missionary topics; a point of great interest, but per-ups a litle too abstruse for such' a Meeting. It was this. The extraterritorial clause in the Treaties between China or Japan and Western Powers, implies and asserts the inferiority of these Eastern Powers in civilisation and enlightenment. Western Powers refuse to place their subjects when on Chinese or Japanese soil under the magisterial control of the rulers of those countries. Why? Because they are not yet to be trusted, They are in a process of tutelage; being tested and trained before they are admitted into the comity of _natio Well, Japan and China Fecognise this; and are almost restively preparing themselves to be qualified to be free; and the education and enlightenment necessary for this process are demanded in very large measure from missionaries. The point is an interesting one; but we did not quite follow the learned Doctor when he almost sneered at the treaties as Capitulations, Well, of course any treaty made by a conquered power with the conqueror is a matter of necessity, and not of cheerful friendship, but it is a treaty for all that.
Mr. C.'Thorne followed, much to the pleasure of the audience, with a brief, but interesting narrative of visits paid by himself and other independent laymen to the different schools, chapels, and hospitals in the native city and foreign Settlements, thirty-eight places in all having been visited; and much thankful surprise was elicited' by the spectacle of so much and wide-spread Christian and civilizing influence exerted in this great Shanghai of ours.
'A' second hymn was now sung with for. FI. Hawks Pott read for the writer sat spirit and fervour, and then the
are exceedingly interesting paper by Dr. Perey Mathews describing personal visits to the vast missionary diocese of Moosonee in the great North-west, the very large number of Indian converts, their devout and orderly worship, their constant observance of morning and evening devotion in the wigwam or in the snow-carpeted woods, their value for Christian ordinances, one old man aged 70 having travelled 400 miles to be present at the Easter administration of the Lord's Supper; all these were most graphically described; and the other great dioceses of Saskatchewan, Rupert's Land, Athabasca, and Mackenzie River, were briefly mentioned.
Then came the Rev. G. F. Fitch animated account of Protestant Mission work in Mexico, in many parts of which great territory superstition and idolatry closely resembling Chinese superstition are rampant. The gallant pioneer work of Capt. Allen Gardiner in Patagonia was alluded to; a work apparently annihilated by the death from starvation of Gardiner, faidment, and the whole party; but re-ired and now most vigorously carried on by the South American Mission under the Bishop of the Falkland Islands, Mr. Fitch had lent for the use of the Meeting an admirable map of the world on a large scale, The well-nigh hopeless task of describe mission work in Africa, Madagascar, anc the Islands of the Sea was committed to Archdeacon Moule; and as he avowed himself the author of the self-denying ordinance" by which the speakers had bound themselves to short limits of time, he could expect no mercy from the chairman, and had therefore written down a brief summary of the speech he would have made had time permitted. He briefly alluded to the romantic history of Christianiry in (embodied in one of Ballan-tyne's admirable books for boys; just as der Haggard finds Africa teeming with subjects for his great novels). How from June, 1836 till Aug., 16th, 1861, the Christians in Madagascar were left alone with the Bible buried in the earth, and taken out stealthily and read by moonlight, as their only teacher; exposed to the violence and caprice of Rénavélone; per-secured; pursued; imprisoned, tortured and many of them martyred; and how when the Queen died and the veil lifted, Christianity emerged strong, vigorous, triumphant, from the ordeal, The amazing triumphs of the Cross in Fiji, in New Zealand, in Savage Island, the Carolines, (where Dr. and Mrs. Gi worked so long) in Polynesia, and Mela were mentioned; and the very interesting fact was alluded to, (information for which the speaker was indebted to officers of H.M.S. Swift) that in North Borneo a colony of Christian Hakka Chinese is established; married men with their families; welcomed by the Government; and bringing with then not industrious habits only as market gardeners, but Christian morality and decorum, The Archdeacon then attacked Africa which Livingstone said he would rather walk across again, than write a book about. But the Archdeacon thought it the hardest task of all to talk abut it in 10 minutes, He alluded to its vast area; 5,000 miles isto the Cape of Good Hope; and from Cape Verd to Cay Guardafui; to its vast cones 18,800 feet high, the mighty Kilimanjaro with perpetual snow close to the Equator line (the rumour of which sent to England 40 years ago by the C.M.S. Missionaries Krapf and Reb-mann was treated as an ignorant yarn yet on the very slopes of that mountain now, ® Christian Mission is planted):—to its great Inland Sees (the news of which sent by the same explorers was also ridicriled, by geographers and stilts general yet these lakes have been seen and ex: plored by Spoke and Grant, by Liv and Stanley, and on the Tanganyik Victoria Nyanza, the Nyassa, as well as on the banks of Livingst iver the stun Congo, Missions of various Societies are now established)—The Soudan echoing with Gordon's great name was mentioned and the chivalrous efforts of Wilmot Brooke and Ernest Shaw to reach the Soudan were described. Then with a rapid run round the enornious coast, the no work of Miss Whately in Egypt, the labour of Moflat in the south, the great American colony of Liberia, the Sierra Leone and Lagoa and Niger Missions of the C. M. S, (the, later, under a Black Bishop) were nefly touched upon, and the speaker cloned. with three "specimen" results; (1) The slave trade is dead on the west coast; and in extremis we hope on the east; only the yet worse plague of the introduction of foreign rum is greatly to be dreaded. (2) The Christian communities on the west coast are so developed as to call for special "missions" from clergy and ladies in England to revive and stimulate Christian life. (3) The Uganda Mission—so roman tically into 8 to call for 20,000 copies of its story for the English bool talls—after eleven years of quiet work, h seen Protestant and Roman Catholic Christian martyrs at the same stake; and has produced abody of Christians strong enough to be a power in the revolution now in progress in Uganda, After a few hearty words by the Rev. H.C. Hodges pointing out the wonderful advance in Missions, and the thrilling, interest' of Missionary literature, ani thanking General Kennedy for presiding, the meeting close at 10.25 by singing the Doxology, and the pronouncing of the Benediction by Mr. Hodges.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.