Like many another country, Ceylon is turning the tables on America, and is sending missionaries here, in exchange for the ones. which have been sent to the lands of the Orient for some years. But the gospel to be preached here by the Singhalese, the gospel of carved ivory and ebony, of tea and spices. They sing the praises of palmetto and plantain, tell the virtues of cinchona, and point out to the seeker after' truth, sermons in shell sand precious stones.
They are teaching implicit confidence in Bishop Heber's missionary hymn, to the effect that "'spicy breezes blow soft. o'er Ceylon's isle," and we are entirely willing to believe that in that far land "every prospect pleases" and are learning to doubt the line in reference to the Sinhalese, that "'only man is vile." We don't believe that at all. From the temple of Buddha on the lake front, from the pavilions in the Agriculture, Manufactures and Woman's buildings, are spread the glad tidings which they have come to teach. The first and most important article in the creed of the Singhalese visitors is tea. More than anything else, they wish t impress on the minds of Americans thei assertion that the Island of Ceylon'produces a hetter variety of tea and in greater quantities, than any other portion of the universe. " They demonstrate this, not only by exhibiting samples of ten, packages done. up in queer little papers, tables of statistics showing the relative consumption in England of Chinese, Indian and Ceylon ten, but by a more' popular method, that of giving it to people to drink. The samples includes all the fancy grades, that. retail at $15 or $20 a pound, as well as the commoner ones. The statistics show the growth of the use in England of Ceylon and Indian tea, and_the corresponding des crease of the use of Chinese tea,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.