THE BURDENS OF WAR AND PEACE While even such countries as Great Britain seem appalled by the problem of poverty as one without solution, for the financial year just completed the “burden of

armaments" in Britain alone is near

ly sixty-four million pounds sterling, having increased nearly one-third within ten years! France and Germany have each spent £43,000,000. England's bill for armaments, past and present, exceeds £90,000,000 per annum! If the nations would learn war no more, what immense sums would be set free to further the work of missions at home and abroad!

THE USE OF MONEY Attention is often called to the comparative outlay of money; and perhaps it can not be too often done, if only to remind us how clamorous is self-indulgence, and how easily vast sums slip away in little outlays. For example, while in 1905 Americans gave for foreign missions less than $8,000,000, there were spent here, in the aggregate, over thirty times as much for work in the home

Church, and three hundred and . twenty-five times as much for confectionery and chewing gum, millinery, jewelry and plate, tobacco and liquors. The single article of chewing gum cost Americans eleven mil

lion dollars! For tobacco and drink

they spent over two thousand mil

lions! Even the most ardent devotee of wine and liquors would scarcely hold that they are important factors for the elevation of mankind. What shall we say, then, if they are proved to be forces of degeneration?

A NOVEL MISSIONARY OFFERING

A marvelous meeting is described by Rev. Cyril Ross, of Korea, who tells of a gathering of over 400 native Korean Christians in Pyeng Yang. The leader suggested a new sort of missionary offering for home. work-not in money, but in menin witness for Christ, each one giving from a day to a week or fortnight to voluntary labor, simply telling the Gospel story to their neighbors. That night an equivalent of two years of time was volunteered by those present, and when the tidings

spread in the vicinity 2,200 days of such work were soon cordially volunteered. Men left their farms and merchandise to do mission work in outlying districts and without any pay. That is a kind of home mission offering after the apostolic sort, and it is native Koreans, just out of heathenism, that set us this noble example.

THE WILL AS A FACTOR IN GIVING If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted, according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not (II. Cor. viii: 12).

How far does this law hold? Paul applies it to the giving of money. May it not be equally true of self-giving? When the poor widow cast in the two mites which were all her living, her willing mind was to give all she had, and the Lord so counted it as greater than all other gifts, because no other giver had the willing mind to give all. If God sees that when I give a dollar I would give a thousand if I had it, my dollar is accepted as a thousand!

Now, if the same law holds in selfgiving, how does it magnify the two mites of time and strength actually cast into the treasury of missions! When Mr. John R. Peale, who, with his wife, was massacred at Lienchou, sailed in August last, he expressed as his "willing mind" the one desire for forty years of selfdenying service in China. Instead of forty years, God gave him only four days. But as there was first the willing mind, if the work was accepted according to the will, Mr. Peale has had reckoned to him the forty years he purposed, not the four days which were all he had.

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK IN WALES

Mr. Seth Joshua, one of the pioneers in the Welsh revival, writes us of the present conditions as follows: "There is no great blaze of revival fervor here now, but there is a steady glow in many places. Mr. Evan Roberts is at present in North Wales, but the work is not the same. We spent a day together just before his going to Carnavonshire. We spent much time in prayer, and I found that his burden was my burden. The cry was for the ministers and leaders. The fire has

been partly extinguished among the young converts in many places by officialism suppressing the testimony as to assurance of salvation. This opposition is peculiar to Welsh theology, as also to the Highlands of Scotland. The revival has become a kind of wedge in many churches. There is no open rupture as yet, but many strange scenes and incidents occur. At Llanelly one young minister opposed this truth, and immediately the young converts began to pray the Lord to cast the devil out of him. At another town a minister stood up and publicly opposed me on this same truth, before a crowd of 1,500. Here at Morriston-Swansea, thank God, the people are yielding, and as many as 50 a night have come out to the front to seek the blessings of assurance. I greatly grieve that no proper test was applied in the first glow of the revival. It is of no use in Wales to ask members to stand and others to sit. It only skims the surface. Of what use is it to talk year after year-as we do in our conventions— about a personal pentecost, etc.,

when the bulk of our people are not grounded on the first principles of the new life.

I have no pessimistic fit on me, but write with a solemn sense of a great grief. This revival, steered largely by an ungodly press, has only skimmed the surface. I am waiting for a revived revival-the "latter rain." It is coming. It must come. I hear the sound of it often. The Master of the house is risen up. He will not retire again until the work is done."

THE REVIVAL AMONG THE LAHUS The revival wave seems moving

on.

We have before told (April, 1905) of the wonderful movement among the Musos, or Lahus, of Kengtung, Northern Burma. These people number 50,000 or more, and are three chief tribes: the black, yellow, and akha, the first being the largest and most influential. They are like the Karens, monotheists, and opposed to idolatry. Five years ago they began to be interested in the Gospel, and in 1903 one of them professed faith. The Shan officials sought to discourage them by threats and lies about Christians, and for a time these simple-minded people halted and hesitated. But on October 30, 1904, the first convert was baptized. He then brought two Muso teachers, with fifty followers, to the mission compound, when they heard, with deep interest, of Christ; and the same day a third teacher with thirty followers came also. Like the Karens, they had a tradition that a foreigner would come to bring them heavenly truth; and this prepossessd them in favor of the new message. On November 23,

1904, the three teachers and thirty others were baptized. This was like the breaking up of ice in spring, and before the year closed there were about 360 baptized converts.

An evangelistic spirit was then awakened, and the converts went out by twos, to tell the Gospel story, and as they went the black and yellow Lahus poured into the compound, sometimes a hundred at once, and from distances of from four to fourteen days' journey, making necessary simultaneous meetings two or three times a day. This remarkable movement was only interrupted

by the heavy rains in May, 1905, but in five months (January 1 to May 31) 1,265 persons were baptized.

GOOD NEWS FROM PLEASANT ISLAND

Naura, or Pleasant Island, one of the Marshall group, is a station of the American Board. Mr. Delaporte, the missionary, writes that at last the revival for which they have worked and prayed has been granted, and at one communion service, last July, 362 men, women and children stood out for Christ. This follows six years of much apparently unsuccessful work. The missionary and his wife were tempted to discouragement, but just at the time of man's extremity came God's opportunity, and without special appeals, the natives began to come, asking for baptism, and showed true. signs of conversion. The communion service lasted from 10 A. M. to 4 P.M., and for several Sabbaths the inspiring scene was repeated-over 1,000 natives gathered to worship and hundreds received on confession of faith. The church now numbers about 500 adults and 283