Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

beloved Indians. a true father in God, and his name will be surrounded with fragrant memories.

To them he has been

Bishop Bickersteth, of London

The loss which the English Church Missionary Society sustained on May 16, when the saintly Bishop Bickersteth passed away, can best be appreciated by those who know how long and intimately he was asociated with its work. Born in 1825, when his father had been 10 years on the Society's secretarial staff, he was made a life governor at his birth, and developed into one of the Society's most ardent supporters, rendering service not only by suggestions and powerful appeals, but by acts of generosity which called forth sympathy and support. Among the outstanding features of Bishop Bickersteth's connection with the C. M. S., was his successful appeal for the gifts by which the new wing of the C. M. House was erected in 1885, and the raising of the Society's income by "half as much again." Not only did he visit India, Japan, and Palestine, but had the joy of seeing a sister, niece, and three nephews on the roll of C. M. S. missionaries laboring in India. and Uganda, while his son, Edward Bickersteth, was the second English Bishop in Japan.

Rev. Thomas Smith, of Edinburgh Dr. Thomas Smith, who died recently, was, at his death, nearly 90 years of age. He is "the last of the Disruption Worthies" of Scotland. He joined the Calcutta mission of the Church of Scotland in 1839, and was associated with Dr. Duff in the Mission College there, until 1843, when they sided with the Free Church and established another college. For 10 years he edited The Calcutta Review. He retired from India in 1858, and was for 20 years minister of a mission church in the Cowgate, Edinburgh. He succeeded Dr. Duff as Professor of Evangelistic Theology in the New College, Edinburgh, in 1880.

Sauberzweig Schmidt, of Berlin

The Berlin Missionary Society has suffered a great loss in the death of its Mission Inspector, Sauberzweig Schmidt. Himself the son of a missionary, and born in Amalienstein, Cape Colony, in the year 1859, Mr. Schmidt received his theological education in Germany and, after a 13 years' pastorate, entered the service of the Berlin Missionary Society in 1897. After 6 years of great usefulness as teacher in the Missionary Institute, he was sent out to visit the stations of the

Society in. South and German East Africa. His reports and letters from the journey were wonderfully interesting and strengthened the missionary zeal at home, while his Christian love and patience cheered the lone workers among the black heathen. After a short rest at home, he started upon a tour of inspection of the work of the Berlin Society in China. The hardships of the trip were great, and he succumbed to them on May 15, just as he was ready to return to Germany

after the completion of his task. He was a highly-talented, most industrious and experienced worker, whose Christian character commanded the respect of all, Christians and heathen, with whom he came in contact.

Budgett Meakin, of London

J. Edward Budgett Meakin's recent death, in his fortieth year, takes away another warm friend and advocate of missions. He traveled extensively in mission lands, and lived 10 years as a journalist in Tangier, and afterward, by many visits to North Africa, he acquired a good knowledge of Moorish life, and has written and lectured very effectively on such subjects. Latterly he has given a great deal of attention to the betterment of the poor in England, and acted as special correspondent of the Tribune. His home has been a tarrying-place of many friends of missions, and his loss is widely felt.

[graphic][merged small]

These two Kurdish leaders are seated in front surrounded by their bodyguard. They live on the Persian frontier and live by depredations

[graphic]

ARMENIAN WIDOW AND ORPHAN GIRLS-ONE RESULT OF THE KURDISH MASSACRES

[blocks in formation]

FROM DOUBT TO FAITH

Dr. James Orr, of Glasgow, whose remarkable work on the "Old Testament and Modern Criticism" took the Bross prize of six thousand dollars and is thought to be the greatest contribution to the subject ever made by any one, has delivered several times a powerful address in which he maintains that on the part of leading scientists there has been for thirty years past a tremendous reaction from skepticism toward faith. He instances such men as Virchow, Haeckel, Romanes, Sayce, and others, as examples. No man perhaps commands a wider horizon than Dr. Orr, and he is peculiarly calm and judicial. He sees a very decided trend in the direction of faith. The blankness and blackness of despairing doubt, materialism, and virtually, atheism, appeal to many who have been drifting away from all spiritual verities and certainties. If Dr. Orr is right, this is among the brightest indications of our day in the religious and intellectual sphere, a sign of the times, for which the whole Church has profound occasion to be grateful.

LARGE GIFTS

It is a marked sign of the times that there appears to be just now a unique fashion prevalent of giving large sums for benevolent work. For instance, the late John Crowle, of London, has left a fortune of about one and a quarter million dollars to be applied to temperance reform. This Wesleyan Methodist merchant gave his life, outside of business, almost exclusively to the advocacy and promotion of total abstinence, and he has left this sum for the perpetuation of this work, contingent only upon the raising of a similar sum by the Wesleyans during the next five years. He provides for ministers and other workers for the promotion of the cause in the pulpit, on the platform, in private and public, and for the organization of opposition to the granting of licenses. We hope to see the day when similar sums of money will be consecrated by the wealthy to the direct proclamation of the Gospel at home and abroad.

Referring to such donations on the part of the rich, we can not refrain from adding that if wealthy men and

women only knew the joy that comes to themselves from investing their money during their lifetime for God's work, they would make such donations if only for purely selfish reasons. As an illustration of this, note the following:

was at

When Andrew Carnegie's car the station in Richmond recently, the railroad employees who have been working for a railroad Y. M. C. A. building for the past year, thought this too good an opportunity to let slip. They called on Mr. Carnegie with the mayor and told him that the railroad companies had appropriated $30,000 for this building, they had raised $12,ooo among themselves and they needed $10,000 more to complete their assembly and educational equipment. Mr. Carnegie readily consented to give it. The committee's thanks he turned off with "You don't need to thank me, gentlemen. I have gotten more satisfaction out of this than you have. I am having the pleasure of my life in giving my money away while I live, as I can place it where it will do the most good to the most men."

ANARCHY IN THE ANGLICAN CHURCH

There is at the present an important struggle in the Anglican Church. The long-waited Blue Book, with the report of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline, is published. The anarchy in the Anglican Church was so obvious and notorious that two years ago the Government was constrained to appoint a committee to "inquire into the alleged prevalence of breaches or neglect of the law relating to the conduct of divine service in the Church of England, and to the ornaments and fittings of the churches, and to consider the existing powers and procedure applicable to such irregularities, and to make such recommendations as may be deemed requisite for dealing with the aforesaid mat

ters." The personnel of the Commission commended itself to all English people. It consisted of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Marquis of Northampton, the Bishop of Oxford, the Lord Chancellor, Rt. Hon. Sir John KenSir naway, Samuel Hoare, Sir Edward Clarke, Sir L. T. Dibdin, the Bishop of Gloucester, Dr. Drury, Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge, Dr. Prothero, of the Quarterly Review, and Mr. George Harwood, M.P. Perhaps at no time in English history has there been gathered together a commission containing greater ecclesiastical and legal light, and for two years the Commission has been acting. There have been one hundred and eighteen sessions and one hundred and sixty-four witnesses. The evidence has been drawn from six hundred and eighty-seven services in five hundred and fiftynine churches. After such painstaking investigation and careful consideration of the evidence, the Commission concludes that uniformity is impossible, that "throughout the PostReformation history of the Church of England there has been a looseness of practise on the part of the Church which covers a far wider area. From the sixteenth century down to the present time there has existed a contrast between the theory of the law clearly expressed in the Acts of Uniformity, and the practise of the clergy in the conduct of public worship."

The irregularities discovered are under two heads: Illegal practises not significant of doctrine, and illegal practises which appear to have a significance beyond that which they themselves possess. It is with the

« ForrigeFortsett »