vices of the Rev. Wong, who resigned and has set up as a medical man on his own account. He is a true Christian, and will have many oppor tunities of doing good to the cause of Christ in his new profession. I trust he may embrace these opportunities, and be the means of leading many to the Physician of souls. SCHOOLS. I regret that we cannot give a favourable report of the success in this branch of our work. It has always been and still is the most unsatisfactory department of our missionary labour. This is owing entirely to the want of appreciation, on the part of the people, of the blessings and privileges of education; even the Christians have much to learn in this respect. It is difficult to make them feel the great importance of educating their children so as to be able at least to read the Word of God for themselves. The great masses are entirely without education, and our work has been principally among the masses. We have very reluctantly been forced to give up the day-schools at Sang Iong and Lau Ah from want of sufficient scholars. The Christians must brought to feel their responsibility in this matter. It will require much patience and perseverance on the part of their teachers to educate them up to this; but it is a matter of the greatest importance to the future welfare of the Church, and no missionary can properly neglect it. It is an object well worthy of attention, and will well repay all the labour and patience bestowed upon it. We shall hope to be able (D.V.) to give a more favourable report of schoolwork next year. be The boys' boarding-school has been fairly progressing. It is now under the care of Mr. Stewart, who will, no doubt, send you his report. The boarding-school for girls is under the charge of Miss Houston, assisted by Mrs. Wong. It has at present twentythree girls, all the children of Christian parents. Its original design, viz. to provide Christian and well-educated wives for our catechists, has been fully kept in view, and to an encouraging extent realized during the year. Five well educated young women have been married from it to five of our young catechists, and have accompanied their husbands into the distant stations of this mission field. Some of them-we trust all of them-are doing a good work, teaching the poor ignorant Chinese women to read the Word of God, the blessed message of salvation. This school has ever, from its very beginning, been liberally supported by the foreign community at Fuh-Chow, and this year has been no exception to this liberality on their part. Several of the girls at present in the school are betrothed to some of our theological students. We attach the very highest importance to the work and object of this school. It is the most efficient means of raising up a number of educated Chinese women, who will, by the help of God, be the means of evangelizing and civilizing the poor, ignorant, downtrodden women of China. Nobody who feels the importance and the necessity of this can do otherwise than uphold and encourage such an institution as this Church Missionary Boardingschool for Native Christian girls. If we had the room and the money, we could get an unlimited number of Christian girls to educate. The Native Church has now abandoned the barbarous practice of cramping the little girls' feet, and the equally bad custom of early betrothal has been decreed against. This is a great triumph, but it has not been gained without much trial and disappointment and pain to the missionary, and a stern unreasoning opposition from quarters where it was least expected. The importance of these measures to the well-being and peace of the future Native Church cannot, in our opinion, be over estimated, and this is our only justification for the pain and disappointment which have sometimes to be endured, by enforcing a strict discipline with respect to these points. NATIVE CHRISTIANS. There are now, including children, over 2000 Christians connected with this mission all over our different stations. (This number does not include the 800 in Hok Chiang.) All these, as far as we can judge, are influenced by no other motive than a desire for the salvation of their souls. In a worldly point of view they have nothing to gain, but everything to lose. They are bitterly hated, and too often cruelly per secuted, by the governing and most influential classes of their countrymen, while they are despised as fools by the masses, who cannot appreciate their motives nor understand their principles. If these Christians are not sincere in their profession, then indeed are they rightly esteemed fools by their unbelieving neighbours; for they willingly endure all this shame and persecution for a religion in which they do not believe, and from which they derive no apparent worldly advantage. If they are not sincere, then we know not what sincerity means, and we, too, have yet to understand the principle which enables men to suffer and die for that in which they have no faith. We unhesitatingly believe that there are many among these Christians who would willingly lay down their lives rather than renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. At our late Conference, when discussing the persecutions to which many of the Christians were exposed, this high ground was taken by their representatives, "death before denial of Christ," and we believe they were thoroughly sincere in this. It is true, many of them are weak, and need much teaching and shepherdizing, and often give the missionary much anxiety and care. Some have caused us much real sorrow by their inconsistencies and falls, but others have occasioned us great joy by their faithful lives and triumphant death. Thus it is that joy and sorrow, sunshine and clouds, have alternated. we have had evidence that they died Contributions of Native Christians, 1877.-For support of Pastors, &c., $328: 60; repairing churches, $263: 50; helping other churches, $30:50; offertory, $44; church building, $190; total, $856: 60. We have lost twenty-four by death during the year. Almost in every case There is also an interesting Report from the Rev. R. W. Stewart of his work in the city of Fuh-Chow, especially with the Students' Class, which we hope to publish next month; also a journal from the Rev. Llewellyn Lloyd of a tour round the country districts, for which also we shall try and find space. In the meanwhile we rejoice to say that in a letter just received, dated May 14, Mr. Wolfe reports the re-occupation of the great city of Kiong Ning Fu. The cruel treatment of the Native agents there, and their ignominious expulsion from the city, will not have been forgotten (see Intelligencer, July, 1876); and it is truly a matter of deep thankfulness that the Lord has again opened the door. Some villages in the neighbourhood were occupied, and at length a man was found who was willing, openly and boldly, to sell them a large and convenient place in the heart of the city. "I now," writes Mr. Wolfe, "specially ask the prayers of the Committee and other friends of the Society on behalf of Kiong Ning Fu, 1st, that we may be able to retain quiet possession of it, and, 2ndly, that a rich harvest of souls may be the result of our entrance into it." N n THE MONTH. The Society's Wants for the Current Year. STATEMENT has just been issued by the Committee with reference to the funds required to carry on their work during the year ending 31st March next. It has often been represented to them that if the Society's friends knew beforehand the sum actually wanted, it would, with God's blessing, not fail to be forthcoming; and a remarkable instance of this occurred last year. As we explained two months ago (June Intelligencer, p. 378), the paper entitled "Answers to Prayer are Calls to Sacrifice," which was so widely distributed, virtually asked for just 36,9177. more than the preceding year; and (though this is not at first sight apparent) just 36,5477. more than the preceding year was actually contributed. There could not possibly be a more significant result of the plainness with which the Society's position was stated. And accordingly, the circular now put forth "to the Presidents, Treasurers, Committees, and Secretaries of the Associations connected with the C.M.S.," states, in plain terms, the amount required to meet the estimates for the current year, as prepared with the utmost care by the Estimates Committee, viz. 200,1677. As, however, a margin must be kept for emergencies which are certain to arise somewhere, besides which the year began with an adverse balance of 43007., it is clear that this amount would not be sufficient; and the Committee have named, as the sum likely to be wanted, 210,0007. What does this mean? It means, speaking roughly, that 60007. more is required for this year than was received last year; and this means-remembering that nearly 14,000l. specially given to meet the deficit of 1876-7 was included in last year's total-that the ordinary receipts from the Society's friends generally must this year be increased by 20,0001. The Committee, in their statement, endorse the Bishop of Cashel's opinion, expressed in his sermon at St. Bride's, that the Society's income would soon need to be raised to 250,0007.; and to justify this opinion they briefly review the mission-fields throughout the world, dwelling on the inviting openings everywhere seen, and the loud calls everywhere heard. Special reference is made to the direction in which public affairs are moving in the East. The providence of God seems unmistakably pointing to Palestine, and the Turkish Empire generally, as a sphere for extended missionary enterprise. Surely, when we are all thanking the Supreme disposer of events for the continuance to us of the blessings of peace, it is the very time for a fresh consecration of the substance He has given to us to His own most blessed service. Two More Deaths. EVERY one of the seven numbers of this periodical yet published for the present year, and every one of the twelve numbers for last year, has had one or more deaths to report in the ranks of the Society's labourers, either missionaries, Native clergy, or members of the Committee; a circumstance we believe to be unprecedented in C.M.S. history. Truly the Lord has been solemnly reminding us of the shortness of the time in which we can show our love to Him by working for the extension of His kingdom in the hearts of men. Two more names have now to be added to the death-roll. The first is the oldest name on the Society's list, that of Mr. W. G. Puckey, of New Zealand, who joined that Mission in 1823, before there was a single Maori convert. Though only engaged as an artisan, he became a valuable lay missionary, and won the universal regard of the Natives. In a local newspaper, called Te Wananga, we find the following notice of him: He died in his seventy-third year, on the 28th March, 1878, at his residence at Kaitaia, in the Mangonui district. He has spent all his life in preaching the Word of God to the Maori people. A man of undaunted courage, untiring zeal, tender heart, and ever the friend of sorrowing man; he was ever at the beck or bid of those in sorrow. His power of body and determined will carried him into all parts of the Kaitaia, Mangonui, and Whangaroa districts, at all times in cold, storm, or scorching sun, on his mission of mercy, or to alleviate the afflictions or pain of his fellow mortals. Of all men with whom we have been acquainted, we have not seen one in whose countenance the full glow of true Christian love, and manly truth, and Christian determination, shone out with more halo than on the face of our lamented friend. He was firm in determination, gentle in action, and an uncompromising enemy of all that was mean, ambiguous, or disloyal to his God or country. He was a perfect master of the Maori language, manners, customs, and traditions. His word was law with the tribes of the Aupouri and Ngapuhi. He had passed through the most critical times of the New Zealand history since 1825, and had conversed with, and had to deal with, such chiefs as the far-famed cannibal, Hongi Hika, with the furious savage Moka, and the wily old priest Kaiteke. His name is associated in the Maori mind with those of their fathers, and deep and lasting is the sorrow of the Maori people for the death of him to whom all looked for counsel, help, and noble example of what a true Christian is. The oldest living name on the register of C.M.S. missionaries is now that of Samuel Gobat, the venerable Bishop of Jerusalem; and, among those still labouring in direct connexion with the Society, Archdeacon Alfred N. Brown of Tauranga, New Zealand. The second missionary whose removal to his heavenly rest it is our mournful duty to report is the Rev. W. Ellington, of the Telugu Mission. Mr. Ellington entered the College at Islington in 1856. He was ordained at Christmas, 1859, and in the following July sailed for India; and for eighteen years he proved himself a faithful and industrious missionary. On first going out, he was appointed, with the Rev. W. J. Edmonds, to begin the then newly-proposed Mission to the Kois; but Mrs. Ellington's health prevented his going up to Dumagudem, and he was stationed at Bezwara with Mr. Darling. There he remained till 1868, when he took charge of the district work (i.e. as distinct from the town and educational work) around Masulipatam. In our number of May last year appeared a most interesting Report from Mr. Ellington, reviewing eight years' labour in that district. When he undertook it, there were 250 Native Christians in two villages. Now there are 1400 in 28 villages. How, notwithstanding many discouragements, the Gospel has thus steadily made its way, that Report fully details. Last year, Mr. Ellington generously gave up this interesting field of work to go and reside at the remote station of Raghapuram, where the flock of Native Christians were without a shepherd; and it was while upon one of his itinerant journeys in that part of the country that the illness (heat apoplexy) struck him, of which he died at Bezwara on June 13th. He was there with Mr. Alexander, revising the Telugu Prayer-Book. Much sympathy will be felt for Mrs. Ellington, who had but lately left her husband to make arrangements for her children in England, and to whom the sad news has been a distressing blow. We commend her to Him who bindeth up the broken heart. The Telugu Mission, too, needs our sympathy. It has lost the oldest of its staff except one, in the prime of life, and in the midst of his usefulness. "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth more labourers into His harvest." Ceylon Mission. THE following is the Annual Report of the South Ceylon C.M.S. Missionary Conference, drawn up by the Revs. R. Collins, J. Ireland Jones, and W. E. Rowlands, and summarising the work of last year in all the C.M.S. Missions in Ceylon except Jaffna. It should be noted that Anaradhapura, the new station taken up, is the ancient and sacred capital of the island, where is the celebrated Buddhist tree, the Jaya-gri-mahabodinwahawai, "the great, famous, and triumphant fig-tree," said to have been transplanted 2200 years ago from Gaya in Behar: The year now passing under review has been in some respects one of exceptional trial to the Ceylon Mission. During it the Mission has been called on to mourn the loss of two of its members, who for many years were connected with it, and who had laboured with loving earnestness in its work. Mrs. Jones was called to her rest and reward early in July, and in the next month Mrs. Rowlands followed her to the Master's presence. The missionary staff has been further weakened by the absence from the island during the greater part of the year of the Revs. J. Ireland Jones and S. Coles; and by the fact that the Rev. W. Clark has refrained from the performance of clerical duty. On the other hand, there has been an important accession of strength in the arrival of the Rev. H. and Mrs. Newton for the work at Galle Face, Colombo. Messrs. Taylor and Ferris have also been for a time associated with the Tamil Cooly Mission. It is a matter of regret that our ecclesiastical relations still continue unsettled a state of things which has, to a certain extent, had an injurious effect upon the Society's work throughout the island. On the whole, however, the year now under review may be regarded as one affording many grounds for encouragement and thankfulness to God. One of the most interesting features in our work is the increasing number of voluntary helpers at several of the stations. At Baddegama alone fourteen persons have thus come forward, at the head of whom is the Modliar, chief Native officer of the district. At Cotta also several Sunday services are similarly provided for. From exceptional circumstances-for instance, the absence of the Rev. S. Coles from the island-the total number of baptisms reported has been less than in former years; but, in several cases, as at Baddegama, Colombo, and Cotta, where the number of adults baptized have been twenty-six, twenty, and eighteen respectively, we are glad to remark a considerable advance. However, on this and several other subjects, for the reasons assigned above, the information that has been laid before the Sub-Committee is very imperfect. With regard to contributions, there has been a very marked increase of liberality. The funds of the Tamil Cooly Mission, all supplied locally, have exceeded the amount contributed in any former year by about Rs. 1500. In connexion with the English congregation in Colombo, the amount subscribed for various objects has also been unusually large. In addition to liberal subscriptions for objects connected with the mission, they have contributed the sum of Rs. 2305 for the relief of the sufferers in the Madras famine. During the last fifteen months this congregation has contributed in various ways no less a |