CHINA. INTERESTING ORDINATION OF MR. RITCHIE writes, that on the 16th of last July, at Pithau, five men were received into fellowship with the church there; and on the same day the brethren elected another elder, in the room of the one elected last year, who has disgraced his profession by becoming an opium-eater, and consequently has been suspended from office. The old man chosen in his place was with difficulty prevailed upon to enter the eldership, and during the day, when called upon at the mid-day meeting to engage in prayer, sobbed like a child as he sorrowed before God over the apostasy of several members from the faith, and expressed his own inability to bear office in God's house. In the afternoon, when Mr. Ritchie asked him in the presence of the church if he were willing to accept the office, he again spoke of his helplessness, and then turning round to the assembled brethren, besought them to choose some fitter person. One of the deacons rose and said, "No other fitter person could be chosen ;" and in return begged the new elder not to think only of his own helplessness, but also to consider the weakness and necessities of the infant church, and that for all there was an abundance of strength in the Divine Head. With this the old man consented. It was a touching scene, for in the whole proceeding this humble old disciple manifested quite a different spirit from his self-confident predecessor, who came forward last year rather boldly to declare his willingness to bear the office; and now, as his conduct testifies, he has become a striking illustration of how "fools rush in where angels fear to tread." CHINESE HATRED OF THE GOSPEL. ON September 4th, a preacher, while going to his station, was attacked by ruffians, at a place sixty miles from Foochow, and barely escaped with his life. They pounded him with stones till life seemed extinct. They then stripped off all his clothes, save one garment, and left him. Some persons saw him, and supposing him to be dead, proposed to dig a hole and conceal the body. By this time the preacher's strength returned, so that he was able to crawl, and gradually he succeeded in walking erect. He had gone only a short distance when the cry, "Poisoner! Foreigner's poisoner!" was again raised, and he was surrounded and beaten. The mob, however, seeing his exhausted condition, suddenly became alarmed lest he should die in their hands, and all ran away. He staggered on a little distance farther, when he saw another company running towards him, shouting, "Poisoner!" "Kill him!" Rallying all his remaining strength, the preacher started to run, but, unacquainted with the country, he suddenly found himself on the verge of a rocky precipice, some twenty feet high. "Finding myself going over the precipice" (and here I quote his own touching language), "I thought of Stephen, the first Christian martyr; and as he when stoned died praying for his persecutors, I commended my soul to God, and prayed for the salvation of those who seemed to thirst for my blood." Strange to say, the fall did not kill him. Though unconscious for a time, he gradually rallied, and found that no one was near him. It is probable the people thought he was dead, and fearing lest they might be charged with having killed him, they withdrew. He was now only a short distance from one of our stations, and after many painful efforts he finally reached the place, where he was cared for by kind Christian friends. A BARBER EVANGELIST. SIX miles from Alikang stands a large village, the inhabitants of which have repeatedly had the gospel preached to them. Here a cripple, unfit for out-door manual labour, gained a livelihood as a barber. The truth found a lodgment in his heart, and with hymn-book in hand, and with the help of his staff, he traversed the village much like the Samaritan woman, saying, "Come, see a man who told me all things that ever I did; is not this the Christ?" He even aroused the indignation of his idolatrous neighbours; and though he lost all his customers, still, week after week, he mounts the bullock-cart to repair to Alikang to observe the Lord's day. His testimony has not fallen to the ground, for on examining candidates during the interval of worship, I found about one-third of the forty names on my list belonged to this man's village! CRUELTY OF THE SAVAGES. A SHORT time ago the people of one of the quiet villages near Alikang had retired to red to evening rest, when at midnight they were surprised by a band of savages from the adjacent mountains, who carried off the heads of five Chinamen on the points of their spears. The visits of these lawless assassins are not generally associated with any desire to lift cattle or plunder property, but simply to obtain the human head, as it has been a habit from time immemorial, in some parts of the Eastern Archipelago, for the Malayan bride to demand, in proof of her future husband's manliness, the skull of a conquered enemy. "The dark places of he earth are full of the habitations of cruelty." IN a mission tour, Chin Ting went to the Island of Lamyit, and preached the gospel to the inhabitants. Some of the people said to him, "We know about these doctrines; they are nothing strange to us; come up to our houses and we will show you. "They showed him two Gospels and other Christian books. And what was the result? In Foochow the missionaries had to labour ten years before there was a single convert; but in this island the seed sown by Dr. Medhurst, in one of his missionary tours thirty years before, now bore fruit, and in six months after Ching Ting went there, sixty members joined the church; and since, the number has increased, until now there are one hundred and thirty on the island. Ching Ting is one of the native missionaries of the Methodist Church. THE MISSIONARY'S WATCH. BY THE REV. ROBERT COWAN, ST. LEONARD'S, PERTH. HAVE lately seen a watch some account of which I think will interest the young readers of the Children's Record. In itself there was nothing wonderful about it more than about other watches. It was a common silver Geneva watch; the only thing peculiar about it being that it was a little scarred and battered in the face and on the back, as if it had seen good service. So it had-in more senses than one. It was a watch that had belonged to two China missionaries, David Sandenian and William Burns. David Sandeman's mother had given him a gold watch, as her gift to him on the day of his ordination to be a minister and missionary. The gold watch, however, he left at home, not only because it was gold, but because it was a precious family heir-loom; and he took the little silver one in its place. It was like the man, and a fit emblem of what he did otherwise; for he left home and riches for Christ-and also, when leaving home, and again at his death, appointed that all that belonged to him should be given for Christ's work, one-eighth at home, and seven-eighths in China. People spoke to him of the beautiful house and estate he might enjoy if he remained in Scotland; but, like Paul, what things were gain to him, those he counted loss for Christ. Well, this little watch went with him to China, and measured out all the hours and days of his service to Christ there, from his landing at Hongkong till his death at Amoy. It measured out morning hours spent in prayer and in the reading of the Bible, and hours of the day spent in the diligent study of the difficult Chinese language. It measured out seasons of visits to the villages and mission stations, when he began to be able to speak for Jesus -and his brief half days of recreation. So the little watch measured out all the time of David Sandeman's service to Christ in China. It was but a short period altogether, for it was the Lord's good pleasure to call His faithful servant early from his work on earth to his rest and reward in heaven. His last illness was of brief duration (only twenty hours), and was very severe; yet in the midst of it heaven seemed to have come down to him already. "It was only last night," he said on the morning of the day on which he died, and bade them tell his friends, "that the love of Jesus came rushing into my soul like the waves of the sea-as if it would rend me-so that I had to cry, Stop, Lord, it is enough! O the height, and depth, and length, and breadth, of the love of Jesus!" He also said, "Tell my mother I thought of her, because she taught me the way to Jesus." And so he passed from earth, on the last day of July, 1858, at the age of thirty-two, and after less than two years in the mission field. voyages of love along China's branching rivers; at Peking, the great capital of the empire, when seeking more liberty for the Chinese Christians, and when translating the " Pilgrim's Progress for the people, and the "Peep of Day" for the little boys and girls of China;until, at Nieu-chwang, on 4th April 1868, he too, after a noble life of apostolic labours, entered into his rest, with the words almost on his lips, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory." After William Burns's death, the watch was brought home, and given into the hands of David Sandeman's mother, where it now remains, ticking out the moments, and measuring out the minutes and hours, as it has done for the last fifteen years. Do you know what that watch said to me when I held it to my ear? Well, with its wonderful history, it seemed to me to have a wonderful virtue now belonging to it, and in its tiny ticking I heard it say, with a voice loud as though it had spoken in thunder, He thunder, "Redeem the time, Redeem the time!" At David Sandeman's death the watch was given to William Burns, as being the missionary who had the highest claim to this honour. And he wore it, and wound it up, and it measured out his time in all his missionary journeyings thereafter;-at Amoy; at Pechuia; in the Gospel Boat as it sailed on its I hope that you, dear young friends, will all hear the watch say this to you likewise, whether you ever see it or not. "Redeem the time" does not merely mean, Improve the time, though that is good, but, Make it the time of a redeemed life. It is when you are converted, born again, that you truly begin to redeem the time. Get redeemed souls, and then in "love and liberty" (the last two words David Sandeman wrote) you will give holy and devoted service. |