plus, added to, or more." Hence the different spellings so common in proper names from ancient Egyptian and Babylonian monuments.

In the letters from southern Palestine, especially those from Jerusalem, a people called the 'Abiri play a most prominent rôle. They are said to have come from Edom, for the king of Jerusalem writes (B. 104), "They have fought against me as far as the land of Seeri [Seir];" and again (B. 103), "They have fought all the lands that have been at peace with me." Still in another letter (B. 109) he sends this plaintive message: "Truly we are leaving the city of Jerusalem; the chiefs of the garrison have left without order." Tablet B. 101, from Keilah, informs us that the 'Abiri had destroyed thirty temples of the Amoritish gods. This shows that the 'Abiri acted precisely as the Hebrews were wont to do. One line in B. 102 is of great value, if Conder's translation is correct. He renders it, "They have prevailed, they have taken the fortress of Jericho." There can be but little doubt that the 'Abiri are the Hebrews of the Bible. The two names are almost identical, and the events described in the tablets and in Joshua have much in common. Some render 'Abiri "allies," meaning the Babylonians. But Egypt and Babylon were at peace at this time, and the Babylonians had refused to join the northern revolt against Egypt. The 'Abiri came from the south; they are not even mentioned in the northern letters. Besides, another word is used for "allies." Finally, the initial sign corresponds to the Hebrew ayin (y), as in my, Gaza, not cheth (1).*

The Egyptian soldiers left Palestine just about the time of the Hebrew invasion. We read (B. 102): "The 'Abiri chiefs plunder all the land. Since the chiefs of the Egyptian soldiers have gone away, quitting the land this year," etc. This confirms the fact, already known, that since the time of Thothmes I there had been Egyptian garrisons all along the coast as far as Beyroot, and thence east to Carchemish on the Euphrates, and that Thothmes III, after the defeat of the Hittites and Phœnicians, had occupied central Palestine. This perhaps explains why the Hebrews selected the desert route. While they were in the wilderness there was a general uprising of the northern nations tributary to Egypt. It is very possible that there may have been civil war in Egypt at this time, occasioned by the king's repudiation of the national religion; for it is not likely that the powerful hierarchy at Thebes would submit without any resistance. If this supposition be true it will be seen that this was a favorable time for the powerful Hittites and other nations, which Thothmes III had subdued, to throw off the Egyptian yoke and drive its soldiers out of their countries. Be that as it may, the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, if we have read them correctly, show that the Hebrew invasion of Palestine took place when the Hebrews were in no danger of resistance from their greatest oppressors, at a time when there was a general uprising all over the Egyptian empire, and when the several tribes who occupied Palestine had been greatly weakened by internal wars among themselves.

* See Conder's Tell Amarna Tablets, p. 141.

MISSIONARY REVIEW.

METHODIST EPISCOPAL MISSION INCOME.

THE differences in the methods of tabulating the incomes of the several missionary societies often makes it very difficult to institute comparisons which are both desirable and us ful. The Presbyterians and Congregationalists include in their receipts the moneys raised by the woman's boards of their denominations. The Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society accounts only for what goes to its own treasurer, each woman's society having a separate treasury and disbursing its own funds. There are, besides these, two societies reporting separately, those of the Building and Transit Fund, originated by Bishop Taylor, and his African Fund, each independent of the other. Now, if we add these incomes together we will have the following result: Regular receipts of the treasurer of the Missionary Society for the year ending October 31, 1893, $1,196,608; receipts for "contingent appropriations" and "special gifts, $35,060; Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, $277,289; the Bishop Taylor African Fund, $39,676; the Transit and Building Fund, $15,000; Woman's Home Missionary Society, in cash, $130,000; the whole making a grand cash total of $1,693,633, exclusive of $77,000 worth of "supplies " (parts of which were cash) of the Woman's Home Missionary Society.

How much of this goes to foreign missions is not precisely determinable except by a little ciphering. The treasurer of the Missionary Society paid out last year $676,107 to the foreign missions directly. But as fiftyfive per cent of the appropriations are given to foreign missions it is fair to charge up that proportion of the office and incidental expenses to this part of the work. This would add for last year fifty-five per cent of $118,714. If, however, we take but fifty per cent, it gives to the foreign account $59,357 more. There is still another small item which is outside of both these accounts, as per the treasurer's books, that of $8,900 for salaries of missionary bishops. But we must add the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society's income, already stated, and the two Taylor funds, which are exclusively foreign in their use; and thus we get for foreign missions $1,076,329, omitting the foreign part of the "contingent" and "special" appropriations of $35,060.

But what of the current year? We hope the depressed condition of the finances of the country will not cause any falling off of the income of these societies. The Missionary Chronicle, of London, is the organ of the London Missionary Society, which proposes to celebrate its centennial anniversary in 1895; and the Chronicle recalls the fact that it was amid the wreck and ruin in the commercial circles attendant on the disasters of the French Revolution that the society was organized. Carey began his foreign missions in the midst of a financial panic. As a matter of fact, there is no more reliable factor in the financial world than the income of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is this

that has made its credit sound enough to borrow, in emergencies, a half million of dollars from the banks, without giving mortgage securities on its property. But the chances are that there will be a good deal of unusual self-denial necessary if the income shall be advanced within this financial year. But the Church has this cause on its conscience and heart as it has no other form of organized benevolence, and will strive to honor the trust of the General Committee as expressed in its appropriations.

AMERICA A MISSION NATION.

THERE is food for thought in the utterance of George Smith, LL.D., of Edinburgh, Scotland, in one of his lectures at New Brunswick, N. J., to the effect that the foreign politics of the United States of America are foreign missions. Dr. Smith is the Convener of the Free Church of Scotland Missionary Society, was once editor of the Friend of India, and for a long time was intimately associated with the Serampore Mission. Dr. Smith's thought was the high vantage ground of American Churches as world-evangelists. "In the whole development of mankind during six thousand years there has been only one people and one land ready-made, as it were, to be itself free and, to all beside, the apostle of liberty in its highest form-the freedom which is in Christ Jesus. . . . The Americans were from the first prepared to become the chief messengers of Christ to the human race."

These is much besides encomium in this statement. It presents a view of our opportunity and responsibility which, there is much reason to suspect, has not been adequately grasped by the Christian public of this country. A map on a Mercator's projection which places the Americas in the center will show at a glance that the United States is on the highway of the world's travel. The shortest route from London to Australia, for instance, is across the United States. Europe is nearer to India by any route than is America; but all of eastern Asia-Japan, China, and Korea-is separated from us but by a Pacific lake, bridged by an easy ferry. European missions enter into the policy of aggrandizement of every European country, and are thus hopelessly entangled with European politics. America seeks no geographical extension, and does not even apprehend that missionary advance is allied with the increase of her commerce. Missions from America have, therefore, the unmixed meaning of unselfish benevolence which none apprehend more quickly than the heathen themselves. Thus America not only represents the evangel of Christian liberty, but her missionaries have a "clearance " for every spot on the globe. The opportunity involves the responsibility.

That a thousand Japanese should be converted on our Pacific slope within a few weeks and admitted to the Methodist communion, that twenty thousand of India's people should ask baptism at our hands in a single year, and that other thousands in China are seeking admission to our altars, is the providential indication that, for us, the hour has struck. It is for such a time we have come to the kingdom.

OUR MISSIONARY METHODS IN THE CHURCHES.

THE Methodist Recorder (London), calling attention to the action of the Wesleyan Conference in reference to some newly instituted measures for inspiring the churches in behalf of missions and advancing the collections for the same, says:

The missionary secretaries have opportunely called the attention of superintendents and circuit Quarterly Meetings to the decision of the last Conference on the subject of Circuit Missionary Committees. In order to bring the affairs of the Foreign Missionary Society into closer relation to the circuit and under more careful supervision, a committee is to be appointed annually in each circuit, by the September Quarterly Meeting, of persons specially interested in the work of foreign missions, and is to have entire management of all matters throughout the circuit which affect the interests of the Missionary Society. A report of its doings, with an audit of the accounts and the amount of remittance made by the treasurer, is to be made to the September Quarterly Meeting. We do not know anything which is more likely to infuse vigor into circuit missionary affairs than this quiet piece of legislation, if only the committees be wisely selected. No pains ought to be spared in this. Especially let there be an energetic lay secretary elected.

In this connection we are constrained to ask for a special reading of Paragraphs 353, 358, and 360 of the Methodist Discipline. It will be seen that we have long since incorporated substantially these same features into our economy. They will be found to be efficient in the exact ratio in which they are exercised. But, to quote Sir William Jones, "Laws are of no avail without manners,” which means that they will be of no beneficial effect unless the people can be brought to the disposition and habit of conforming to them. In our economy it is incumbent on the presiding elders and pastors to bring the people to this disposition and habit.

SUGGESTIVE FIGURES OF THE LAST INDIA CENSUS.

THERE are a good many anomalous facts stated in the last census of the British government in India. Among these is that there are six millions more of the male sex in India than of the female sex. Usually we have to account for the relative disproportion of males to females in the countries where a census is taken with any accuracy. This is attributed to the exposure of men to wars, the perils of the sea, or other dangerous and deadly occupations which fall to men rather than to women. But there is the reverse problem in this case. It is more than suggestive of the thought that the British government is not able to arrest female infanticide in its eastern empire. The census-taking of India was one of the marvels of modern organized action, the census of the whole empire having practically been taken simultaneously at the same hour. Hence there is little reason to suspect its accuracy. But as the zenana is always protected by a species of inviolable privacy it is barely possible that the count may not have been as perfect for women as for men. On the other hand, an ignorant apprehension as to the uses for which the census might be employed would be as likely to lead to falsifying the number of males as well as of females.

Another condition anomalous to Europeans is that the numbers of

married men and women are substantially equal, which shows that, notwithstanding the religious approval of polygamy, the mass of the people are monogamists. Other contrasts are suggestive also. There are over twenty-one million more unmarried men than unmarried women, while there are sixteen million more women who are widowed than men who are of this class. The widowers remarry in many cases; but here are twenty-three millions of widows, old and young, including child-widows, who are debarred from remarriage. The pathetic part of this lies in the destiny of Hindoo widows and the youth of many of them. There are 10,165 widows under four years of age; 51,876 from four to nine years; 140,734 from nine to fourteen; 280,942 from fourteen to nineteen; and 545,465 from nineteen to twenty-four years old. Of those that are more mature now a large proportion were widowed at a much earlier age. The illiteracy of the female population would be a source of alarm in any civilized State. No less than 127,726,768 are returned as illiterate, and only 543,495 as literate; and, still worse, only 197,662 are under instruction. If this mass of women is ever to be elevated there is vast work for somebody, and it will be no afternoon's task.

It may seem discouraging to note that there are sixteen million more non-Christian people in India than there were ten years ago, while there are but 2,284,380 Christians returned for all India, of which the Church of Rome counts 1,315,263, the ancient Syrian Church 200,467-leaving but 768,650 to represent the numerical result of a century of Protestant work. But we must never forget the ratio of increase, which is always an important feature of such estimates. The Protestant Christian figures were, for 1830, 27,000; for 1850, 102,951; for 1870, 318,363; for 1880, 528,590; and for 1890, 768,650. If anything like this ratio of advance can be kept up the gain must be very marked in the next fifty years. Nor must we ever forget that these systems of error are being constantly undermined. If there are more Brahmans there is less Brahmanism. Let us bear in mind, too, that the stream of new births, in this country in particular, adds to missionary opportunity. The progress of Christianity in India has been greater within the century than during the first century in the Roman empire; and there are many more Christians in the world to evangelize India than there were ten years ago.

THE magnanimous offer of the brethren who have in charge the Transit and Building Fund, inaugurated by William Taylor in aid of self-supporting missions in South America, by which they tendered to the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church the work and property that had been accumulated in Chili, subject to conditions which the General Committee felt they could accept, means not only a gain of two hundred thousand dollars' worth of property, more or less, to the Missionary Society, but the other advantage of contributing to the solidarity and unification of missionary administration. Friends of this mission can favor it through the regular Missionary Society.