VOL. XXIX. No. 6

Old Series

SIGNAL SAYINGS

I.

"ABANDON EVERY KNOWN SIN; SURRENDER EVERY DOUBTFUL INDULGENCE; OBEY PROMPTLY EVERY VOICE OF THE SPIRIT; OPENLY CONFESS THE LORD JESUS CHRIST."

II.

"WHATEVER ELSE YOU DO OR FAIL TO DO, FORCE YOURSELF TO FORM THE HABIT OF BEING ALONE WITH GOD; FOR THE FIRST OF ALL SECRETS OF HOLY LIVING AND SERVING IS CLOSET PRAYER."

III.

"RIGHT GIVING IS A PART OF RIGHT LIVING. THE LIVING IS NOT RIGHT WHEN THE GIVING IS WRONG, THE GIVING IS WRONG WHEN WE STEAL GOD'S PORTION' OF OUR INCOME TO HOARD, OR SPEND ON OURSELVES."

These three brief paragraphs deserve to be "capitalized," not only in a literal sense, but in a moral senseconverted into the working capital of life. They can not be invested with undue emphasis. The first is the message of Evan Roberts to the Welsh churches, and, wherever, inside or outside the principality, this message has been heeded, special blessing has followed. The second saying is the sagacious counsel of one of the most devout of modern saints to the young disciples of to-day. The third is the sententious, epigrammatic substance of Dr. Lansdell's testimony after years of study of the Tithe system and God's teaching about giving.

VOL. XIX. No. 6 New Series

Among all present "Voices of God," that have special significance to His people, there are three which are accompanied with trumpet tongue and clarion peal: "Yield Fully," "Pray Always," "Give Largely.' We may well lift into prominence the words of God's spiritual seers, who feel pressed in spirit to testify concerning present-day dangers and duties. Wherever, at home or abroad, blessing is withheld, one or more of these obstacles is in the way; there is a lack of self surrender to God's will, or of believing, prevailing prayer, or of systematic, self-denying gifts, most likely of all, for these three are generally found keeping close company; in fact they cannot long exist alone, one seems to bring the others.

As to giving, it seems to be often the last to be quickened into true. life and action. "Rabbi Duncan," the famous Scotchman, used to say very sagaciously, "True conversion most frequently consists of four stages: first, the head; secondly, the heart; thirdly, the mouth; and fourthly, the pocket; but, from the third to the fourth, there is a long passage, with cataracts to impede progress worse than those in the Nile."

It is refreshing therefore to find occasionally noble examples of con

secrated giving, especially on the part of the poor, as when a little assembly of Scottish saints, numbering scarce forty in all, and all workingmen with no wealthy members, contributed in 1905, for the Lord's work abroad, thirty-four pounds, fifteen shillings, an average of about four dollars and a quarter each. And the secret of such high average is the practise of systematic giving. Do we realize that, if the 166,000,000 Protestants in the world rose to that average the total sum given to missions abroad would aggregate over $700,000,000, or if but one-third of the whole number would give like those poor Scotchmen, it would reach a sum twelve times as great as is now given to the work of the world's evangelization? Westminster Chapel, London, under the leadership of Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, devotes a full tenth of all church funds to foreign missionary work, over and above all private contributions to the missionary society by the members. It is not strange if God is pouring out blessing after an unusual fashion on all parts of the church work, and that even that great auditorium is becoming too strait for the throngs even on a week night.

A ZULU PRINCE WINS A PRIZE

Perhaps Africa's compensations for her long night of darkness and oppression are to come in unexpected forms. Is it no sign of the times that in the late oratorical contest at Columbia University, N. Y., he who by the unanimous award of the judges bore off, over all competitors, the "Curtis Gold Medal," for "excellence in substance, form and delivery" of his oration, was Pka Isaka Seme, a fullblooded Zulu Prince?

no little

Seme is a senior, and is to pursue law at Oxford, to fit himself for his future attorney-generalship in Zululand, where he is to represent his darkskinned people before the British governor. In his masterly oration he said, substantially, that his people are constantly rising to a higher level of civilization, and owe to the British a debt of gratitude for opening up the country, and pointing them toward higher ideals. There is, however, still between the native authorities and the British governor misunderstanding and friction, and his mission will be to bring about closer and more harmonious relations. Seme is himself a loyal British subject and refuses to say a word derogatory to the present governor. He also believes that a bright future is before the Zulu, through intellectual culture. At first equality among races, as among individuals, is impossible, but all depends upon the race or the man, whether there shall be ascent to a loftier plane. There is in races, as in individuals, a genius of progress, and, looking far back into history, the Zulus have, as he maintains, given proof of capacity, and at present are, in many fields, attaining distinction. Africa feels the inspiration of this advancing era, and is bound to follow in the footsteps of other and leading nations. The negro race will yet regain their ancestral glory and give to the world a new and great civilization. Such is the prophecy of this Zulu prince. Has it no significance?

THE EXALTATION OF ETHICAL

VIRTUES

Before a brilliant assembly of members of both houses of Congress, President Roosevelt, with the diplomatic

corps and a great concourse of the people before him, gave an address on "The Man with the Muck Rake," at the laying of the corner-stone of the new office building for the use of the House of Representatives.

His speech, already famous, was a manly protest against the mania of certain journals for creating a sensation by exposing and magnifying individual and social corruption, so as to impress the public that both in Church and State there is rottenness to the core.

"My plea is not," said the President, "for immunity to, but for the most unsparing exposure of, the politician who betrays his trust, of the big business man who makes or spends his fortune in illegitimate or corrupt ways. There should be a resolute effort to hunt every such man out of the position he has disgraced. Expose the crime and hunt down the criminal; but remember that even in the case of crime, if attacked in sensational, lurid and untruthful fashion, the attack may do more harm to the public mind than the crime itself."

THE EDUCATION CONTROVERSY

More than one complicated problem confronts the new government in Britain, and perhaps none more difficult of solution than the adjustment of the offensive Education Bill, so as to reconcile Anglicans and NonConformists. But such a result is devoutly and prayerfully to be desired. No controversy, of its sort, has engendered more bitterness since the Act of Unifomity in 1662, when two thousand clergymen left the Church of England rather than yield un

qualified assent to all the contents of the Book of Common Prayer.

The Established Churchmen insist on denomimational teaching in the schools, and are loath to surrender them to public control, while yet unable to command sufficient funds to provide schools of their own. On the other side, Free Churchmen, who are in a rapidly increasing majority, demand schools free of all sectarian teaching and influence. If the existing government can harmonize these conflicting elements, it will be a noble and notable victory in the interests of peace, but thus far a permanent basis for such adjustment is not in sight. But it is worth while for both parties to concede everything but conscience, for it is more than a pity when so many good Christians stand apart, and waste power and powder firing into each other's ranks, when a united and desperate army of foes confronts the whole Church with the artillery of Hell. A world's ignorance, idolatry and superstition can never be met except by the harmonious cooperation of the soldiers of the Cross. May God help us to get out of the way all minor issues that divide our ranks at home that we may make the enemy tremble before us by a combined assault upon their battallions.

NEW MOVEMENTS TOWARD UNION The Presbyterian and Methodist missionaries of Korea have recently decided to undertake:

1. Union, for one year, as an experiment, of the two boys' schools of the M. E. Mission and Northern Presbyterian Mission in Seoul.

2. Of the two Korean church papers of the two denominations. 3. A Union hymn-book.

4. Union of the two English Missionary periodicals of the denominations, the one paper to be known as The Korean Mission Field.

5. The combination of the two native Sabbath-school lesson quarterlies.

6. A Union prayer calendar, published by a joint committee of all the Protestant missions, with the names. of missionaries in alphabetical order without respect to denominational connection.

7. Union classes for Bible study have been inaugurated, and Union revival services were planned, and were held during the month of February.

One of the signs of the times, however interpreted, is this remarkable and general drift and trend in the direction of so-called "Christian union." Both at home and abroad, almost every month, some new scheme for combination or consideration is suggested. The proposal for union among Presbyterians, Methodists and Congregationalists in Canada was presently matched by another between Congregationalists, Methodists, Protestants and United Brethren in the United States, etc, under the title "The United Church of America." The new creed proposed consists of six short articles, and is rather conspicuOus for its omissions. It banishes all metaphysics and technicalities of theology. There are no definitions of the Trinity, Election, Atonement, Regeneration, etc., and no reference. to future awards. Evidently the echo of Mr. Joseph Rotherham's tract, "Creeds-Shall they be mended or ended?" is being heard in America. We believe in all unity based on the "Spirit," but it is worth while to ask

whether there is not some risk of so shortening our doctrinal statements as to leave little on which to unite.

UNOCCUPIED FIELDS

There remain perhaps twenty territories, some of them vast, and most of them yet untouched by Protestant missionary effort.

Abyssinia, where the government will not permit missionaries to reside; Somaliland, where the fierce inhabitants would let none live if they could compass their destruction; the Ivory Coast, Portuguese Guinea, Rio De Oro, the Sahara region, Senegambia, French Guinea, and Afghanistan. Russia, though nominally Christian, tolerates no missionaries from abroad. Swedish missions exist in Tiflis, in the Caucasus, and in St. Petersburg, but only as being concerned with Protestants living in the neighborhood.

There are eight or ten other fields, practically unoccupied, of which Tibet is the foremost, The Sudan is scarcely touched as yet; Tripoli has but one station; Guatemala has but seven; Columbia but four; French Guiana, none; Annam, one; Arabia can be scarcely said to have

any, tho two noble efforts have been made to break through Islam's barriers, the Keith-Falconer Mission at Aden, and the Reformed Church mission operating from Turkish and independent territory on the Persian Gulf. How vast the fields yet untilled, and how few the laborers. And yet we are now in the twentieth century of the Christian era.

Hence the call for a thousand new missionaries each year. "In order

to

arouse the churches to a sense