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one village a man was so interested that he begged us to come over to another village to which he really belonged and preach the good tidings there; we of course went gladly, and he with us; and as we preached he seemed so anxious lest his fellow-villagers should not understand us that he kept putting in his word, at one time explaining and at another emphasizing the truths which he seemed so quickly and eagerly to grasp. Over and over again our auditors have with one voice protested that Prabhu Isa Masih shall be their God, and that they will give up their idols. Looking over my diary I come across entries such as the following in large numbers :-Ruse. About thirtyfive assembled. Very pleased to see us, listened most attentively, and afterwards followed us out of the village en masse for nearly half a mile.-Kareli. Twenty-five present, all Gonds. Bought a small idol shrine containing three images from a pandah (evangelizing Hindu priest) and used it as a text to preach from. Shrine cost me six pice! People very attentive indeed.-Barkhoa. Forty assembled, all Gonds, most interested. Bhoi, or headman, an intelligent man, listened attentively. I might multiply examples indefinitely to show how interested and friendly the people are the only thing, humanly speaking, which stands in our way is the impossibility with our present staff of workers of visiting the same village more than once a year: and what can poor ignorant villagers, never accustomed to think or to hear anything new whatever, be expected to remember of what we tell them, if our visits are to be so few and far between? The European staff consists of Mr. Champion, who was obliged to be in England all this last year, and myself, each of us with one catechist. We do not ask for or expect more European labourers, but surely some three or four catechists might be given us to assist in this extensive and promising work. Two or three millions of Gonds, scattered over hundreds of miles of country! here is scope for earnest, faithful labour.

My catechist and faithful fellowworker, Pundit Dial Masih, accompanies me in all my tours, and is invaluable;

fortunately he does not mind roughing it, a sine quâ non in this work. In February and March he and I made an experiment which if possible shall be repeated every year; we went, that is, out into the district minus tents and the usual encumbrances attached to camp life, taking three baggage ponies, a man to cook (a Christian), and a pony boy. In this way, putting up in any empty hut which the village contained, we spent six weeks of the pleasantest time I have ever enjoyed in India. We got among the people as one never can do with tents, we had every advantage in hearing and picking up their language, we avoided the bullying of the villages (to some extent the unavoidable result of having Hindu and Mussulman servants with one), and lastly we gained the people's confidence by living amongst them, an incalculable advantage to the work for which we have come out, the preaching of the glorious Gospel of Christ. It is unnecessary to say that this way of travelling is infinitely cheaper to the Society.

One word as to the language. As far as Hindi is concerned, I am thankful to say that my tongue seems somewhat loosed at last; but learning Gondi is slow work; the language is difficult, and no one competent to teach can be found, so that it comes in in driblets, a drop in one village and a drop in another. We are forming vocabularies, picking up short sentences, and attacking the grammar; but speaking in Gondi seems some way off yet.

Our schools are placed in Mangalpur, Chiriedongri, Kondra, and Samnapur; and in the last-named place we have during the year, for the small sum of fifteen rupees, built a school-house, in one room of which the missionary puts up when he comes: it has, let me mention, only two rooms in all.

As evangelistic and school work are the only developments so far of the Gond Mission, nothing remains for me in closing this letter but to thank God and to take courage, for He has done and will do much for us. Our comfort at all times is that we" know that of the Lord we shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for we serve the Lord Christ."

M

THE MONTH.

ONDAY and Tuesday, May 2nd and 3rd, will be the days of the C.M.S. Anniversary. Dr. Boultbee, as already announced, is to preach the Sermon on Monday evening. The Rev. Canon Fenn will address the clergy at the breakfast on Tuesday morning. The Earl of Chichester, President, takes the chair at the Annual Meeting. The list of speakers is still incomplete while we write; but among them, it is hoped, will be the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Bishops of Norwich and Moosonee, the Rev. Canon Money; the Rev. E. H. Bickersteth, who will give an account of his visit to India and Palestine; and the Rev. J. B. Whiting, who will speak, as a member of the recent Deputation to Madeira, on West Africa and the Niger. At the evening meeting Bishop Ryan will preside, and the Rev. W. Boyd Carpenter and three or four missionaries will speak, including the Revs. J. R. Wolfe and A. H. Lash.

TUESDAY, May 24th, the Tuesday before Ascension Day, will be the annual Day of Intercession for Foreign Missions. The Society is issuing a paper on the subject, which can be had, with others, on application. Our own readers will have no lack of subjects of special prayer: almost every page of every number has supplied them. And assuredly there is no lack of encouragement to pray! God has signally honoured past Days of Intercession; and only by our own want of faith and earnestness can we miss a blessing this time. Naturally the special gift to ask for is the means to send out the men who have been the gifts to previous prayers. The Church Missionary Society has always refused to regard the Day of Intercession as a time for appeals for money; but though we appeal not to man, we may appeal to God, that He will pour out upon His people a spirit of spontaneous and self-denying liberality.

The Committee will observe the day, as usual, by a prayer-meeting at the Society's House, and a Communion Service at St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street.

THE REV. C. C. Fenn is in Switzerland, and, we are thankful to say, in somewhat improved health. As we stated two months ago that he was engaged as usual upon the Annual Report, it is right now to say that he found himself unable to continue that task, which has accordingly fallen into other hands.

BISHOP SARGENT has been very seriously ill; but we rejoice to hear of his being decidedly better. May it please God speedily to restore him to his most important work!

THE Archbishop of Canterbury has conferred the degree of B.D. upon the Rev. R. H. Maddox, late C.M.S. missionary in Travancore, in acknowledgment of the important services rendered by him to the Church there.

On Feb. 2nd, the Bishop of Colombo admitted to deacons' orders four Native candidates presented by the Church Missionary Society, viz. three Singhalese and one Tamil. Their names, and the stations to which they are appointed, are as follows:-the Rev. Abraham Suriârachchi Amarase

kara, to Dodanduwa in the Baddegama district; the Rev. Garagoda Arachchige Bastian Perera, to Balipiti Modera, also in the Baddegama district; the Rev. Johannes Perera Kalpagê, to Kaigalla; and the Rev. Aralanâthen Gnânamuttu (Tamil), to Dikoya, in connexion with the Tamil Cooly

Mission.

ON February 25th, Bishop Burdon ordained at Hong Kong another Chinese clergyman for the Fuh-Kien Mission. The Rev. Ngoi Kaik-ki is a literary graduate, converted through the gift of a Chinese Bible to him by an unknown missionary twenty years ago, and has literally suffered the loss of all things for Christ, father, mother, brethren, wife, child, and the much coveted "button" emblematic of his degree. He has been the chief tutor in Mr. Stewart's Training College. At the same time the Rev. Sia Seu-Ong was admitted to priest's orders.

THE Waganda Envoys, with Mr. O'Flaherty, Mr. Stokes, and Mr. Litchfield, reached Kagei, at the south end of the Victoria Nyanza, on January 8th.

THE case of Dr. Koelle and Ahmed Tewfik Effendi will not have been forgotten. It was on New Year's Day, 1880, that all Europe was startled by the news that Sir Henry Layard had presented an ultimatum to the Sultan. The history of the matter was detailed in the Intelligencer of February 1880, and we need only remind our readers that Ahmed Tewfik, a Mohammedan Ulema of the highest rank and consideration, was thrown into prison for the crime of assisting Dr. Koelle with his translations of Christian books into the Turkish language; that he was sentenced to death; that his life was saved by Sir H. Layard's interposition; and that he was "removed for safety to an island in the Egean. In the isle of Chio he remained, strictly guarded by Turkish troops, for about a year. Then he contrived to escape, and got on board a vessel bound for England; and within a few weeks Chio was a scene of desolation and death through the recent terrible earthquake. He is now in this country with Dr. Koelle; and on March 22nd they were received by the C.M.S. Committee with deep interest.

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Ahmed Tewfik is fully convinced of the truth of Christianity; and, though not yet baptized, desires to employ his learning and intimate knowledge of the Moslem faith in the vindication of Christian truth by his pen, until such time as it shall please God to open a way for him to bear personal and public testimony to the truth of the Gospel in Turkey or elsewhere. His high reputation in the Mohammedan world-which we may illustrate by mentioning that had he clung to his old creed he might have looked forward to the highest office an Ulema can fill-would make his witness peculiarly important. We earnestly commend his case to the prayers of our friends.

For reasons explained at the time, the Society in 1877 closed its Constantinople Mission. As Dr. Koelle pertinently puts it, God seems to be giving the Mission, as it were, a posthumous child, and moreover, has twice delivered him from the very jaws of death. Is this a gracious rebuke to our lack of faith and patience?

On the occasion of the inaugural meeting of the Western India C.M.S. Native Church Council, held at Nasik in December last, Major G. A. Jacob, Inspector of Army Schools, delivered a public lecture in the Marathi language on " Krishna and Christ," which was presided over by a (heathen)

Brahmin Government official, and was listened to with deep interest, and applauded with enthusiasm, by a crowded audience of educated (heathen) Brahmins, although Major Jacob earnestly set forth the claims of Christ, and gave his own personal experience of the peace and comfort gained by receiving Him as a Saviour.

We observe from the Annual Letter of our veteran missionary brother at Bhagalpur, the Rev. E. Droese, that he was at Naini Tal at the time of the calamitous landslip by which so many valuable lives were lost, and that he himself had a narrow escape. He was there recruiting his health after what the medical man called a miraculous recovery from brain fever. "Thus twice in the year," to use his own words, "he has been to the very gates of death; but the Lord has spared the life of His unworthy servant, and his prayer now is that the remainder of his days may be spent in more entire devotion to the Lord and His blessed service."

It is from Bhagalpur that the Paharis of the Rajmahal Hills have generally been reached; and Mr. Droese has been occupied some time in preparing books in their language, which he is one of the few who have studied. He has translated St. Luke's Gospel and portions of the Prayer Book, and prepared a Vocabulary and Grammar. These will be very useful to future missionaries.

THE REV. A. H. Arden writes as follows concerning the supply of teachers from Tinnevelly to other Missions in South India. The letter makes further mention of the Rev. Samuel Vores, the Tamil clergyman in the Telugu country to whom we referred last month :

It is interesting to mark how Tinnevelly is beginning to send forth agents into other parts of India. Mr. Lash has told us in his Reports of girls from the Sarah Tucker Institution going to Madras, Ootacamund, and other places. It is hoped that soon a good trained teacher from the same institution will be sent to commence a Normal School for girls in the Telugu country at Masulipatam. Besides these female teachers, many schools in Madras belonging to the C.M.S. are supplied with male teachers from Tinnevelly, and Tinnevelly men, who have come up to Madras and passed their F.A. or B.A., are teaching in some of the higher schools and colleges in Madras, and other parts of the Presidency. A few months ago two Christian teachers from Tinnevelly, who had passed their B.A, and F.Ä.

respectively, proceeded to Masulipatam, and are now masters in the Noble High School. Last year also Mr. Samuel Vores, an inspector of schools in Tinnevelly, was ordained by Bishop Sargent for Mission work in the Telugu country. He at once proceeded to Ellore, and after gaining a considerable knowledge of Telugu in a few months he is now regularly helping Mr. Alexander in his extensive work in the Ellore district.

It is most encouraging thus to see Christian influence spreading out from our older Missions, and to observe how the Native Church is beginning to evolve from itself a Mission agency to other parts of India. We trust that if reductions have to be made in the expenditure on Our Indian Missions, Native Agency will be the very last part of the work to suffer.

THE Reports this year from the Fuh-Kien Province are again full of interest. A remarkable statistical table has been sent, giving particulars of no less than 110 stations and out-stations. The number of Native Christian adherents has advanced to 3556, of whom 2007 have been baptized, and 1251 are communicants. The baptisms in the year were, adults 259, children 102. There are 100 paid and 100 unpaid Christian

teachers. The contributions of the Christians to religious objects have amounted to $1700, about 3501. In the western districts of Ku-Cheng and Ang-Iong a great many inquirers have fallen back-a consequence of the bad moral effect of the practical expulsion of the Mission from Fuh-chow city; but in the northern and southern districts the advance has been very marked. Many deeply interesting facts are mentioned; but as we hope shortly to present the full Reports, we need not refer further to them here. Dr. Van Someren Taylor seems to have found an open door as a medical missionary. He has travelled from town to town and from village to village-in one district seeing 1600 patients in three weeks-and even in places where the Gospel message of itself has failed to attract hearers, his medicines have been successful in bringing together an attentive audience. The least satisfactory matter in Mr. Stewart's Report is the unavoidable stoppage of the very important work of training his forty-five students, owing to the failure so far to obtain accommodation for them at Fuh-chow. We earnestly trust that by God's good providence the obstacles in the way of providing the necessary buildings may speedily be overcome.

THE Annual Letters from Peshawar dwell on the great change which has come over the Afghans of that district since the early days of the Mission. Mr. Hughes dates his letter from the house of an influential Afghan chieftain, where he was on a visit. "I am always welcome here," he writes. "There is a large and handsome bungalow in the centre of the village, which the Khan assures me he has built for my special use; and it would cheer the hearts of our Christian friends at home to see the copies of the Scriptures in Pushtu, Persian, Urdu, and Arabic, which have been reverently placed by Muslim hands upon the shelves in the room in which I am now sitting." At a dinner in this chief's house twelve sat down on the floor, among whom was not only the missionary, but also a Christian Afghan who resides in the village. "I could not help thinking," says Mr. Hughes, "of the marvellous change since I came to Peshawar sixteen years ago, when it was not safe to travel in this district." Among the converts baptized at Peshawar during the year have been the wife and daughters of an Afghan who was baptized in 1865, and who had been absent in the recesses of his own country ever since, but now brought his nearest and dearest to be received into the Church. 66 May I beg of you," says Mr. Hughes, "to press home the fact that both Peshawar and Bannu are in Afghanistan, and in the midst of Afghan people." Mr. Jukes writes that in the mosques the mullahs talk freely with the missionary who comes to them in the Afghan dress. "Seated on the ground," he says, "I give the maulvie an Arabic Bible. To show his learning he will at once read some portion of it aloud, and to show that he is a greater scholar still, he will prove that he understands it by translating it into Pushtu. Thus put into a good temper, he willingly carries on conversation on the subject, and invariably comes to visit me afterwards in my tent."

A REALLY remarkable portrait of Dr. Moffat, etched by M. Léon Richeton, has been sent us by the publisher, Mr. Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row. It is most vigorous as a work of art, and an admirable likeness. The number of copies, we are informed, is limited, and they should be applied for at once.

ERRATUM.-In the Intelligencer for April, p. 215, foot-note, for "Iris " read

"Isis."

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