in 1870, the old Board was left entirely to the support of the Congregationalists. The Presbyterian Board constitutes one of the chief Foreign Mission agencies of the United States. The Baptists formed a society in 1814, of which the American Baptist Missionary Union is the direct successor. Two other societies were organized in the first quarter of the present century, the Methodist Episcopal (1819) and the Protestant Episcopal (1820).

Of

There are now not less than eighty-five missionary societies, where there were only nine or ten eighty years ago. these societies thirty-five are American, twenty-five British, and twenty-five Continental. More than fifty of them have been organized in the last fifty years. Their aggregate income is nearly, if not quite, $7,000,000 (£1,400,000) a year, as against about $250,000 (£50,000) eighty years ago. The British societies raise more than half of the whole amount.,

The

It was a task of appalling magnitude which the missionary societies had before them at the beginning of the present century. The vast majority of the population of the world lay in the thick darkness of heathenism and unbelief. The pagans, with the Mohammedans, occupied substantially three whole continents, were scattered in great numbers over the other two, and were supreme in the islands of the sea. The societies thus had the world for their field; but they had only a few labourers to send into it. The most they could do was to make a feeble beginning, and occupy a few outposts, with the hope that God and the Churches would co-operate in strengthening their hands. first missionaries were widely distributed. Those of the English Baptist Society went to India; those of the London Society to the South Seas; the first Mission of the Church Society was begun in Africa; the Wesleyan Society planted its first mission in Ceylon; the American Board chose India for its first field; and the first missionaries of the American Baptist Union began their work in Burmah. The Moravians already had Missions in Greenland, the West Indies, Africa, and elsewhere; and the Dutch and Danish missionaries had made beginnings in the East. The societies entered into new fields as rapidly as possible; and some, like the Church Missionary Society, are represented in every quarter of the globe.

The greatest of the enterprises undertaken, was, perhaps, the conversion of India. This great country, including Ceylon, contains 240,000,000 of people, or more than one-sixth of the population of the world. The people are attached chiefly to the Hindu and Mohammedan religions, the former counting, perhaps, 170,000,000 adherents. The obstacles to Missions have been almost overwhelming. "Where in all the world," exclaims Dean Schlier, "is there such a Satansburgh as India?? Hinduism, as the religion of the people for twenty or thirty centuries, has become so strongly entrenched in the thought and habits of the Hindus that to convert them to Christianity is to revolutionize completely Hindu thought, Hindu society, and Hindu customs. There are among them a body of men, regarded as divine, who have assiduously cultivated Hindu philosophy. The poor Hindu has the utmost confidence in them. He is happy if one of them will but condescend to dip his foot into a vessel of water, which is thereby consecrated, and is drunk reverently. The most minute system of caste known to man separates the people into classes, and builds up an impassable barrier between them. Even the shadow of a low-caste man may not fall on those of the higher castes without polluting them. Formerly, those who ventured too near the sacred person of a Brahmin could be put to death without question. The Mohammedans, numbering about forty million souls, have been even less accessible than the Hindus. They hear the missionaries advance and defend the idea of one God before the polytheistic Hindus, with approval. O yes! there is but one God, Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet. They will not hear of Jesus.

As if the difficulties growing out of diversity of race and language, old religions thoroughly established, and a Satanic system of caste, were not enough to discourage the missionary, his own countrymen have added to them. Every European resident in India represents, to the native mind, the Christian faith which the missionaries preach. Many of these foreigners lead immoral lives, and the Hindus say that the religion which produces such men cannot be worth much. Thus India has been a field of great difficulties.

When Carey and his colleagues of the English Baptist Society entered India in 1793, the Danish missionaries, who had been at work on the Coromandel coast nearly a century, had won many thousands from heathenism; but the Mission was declining, and the death of Schwartz, the apostle of India, virtually closed the first period of Indian Missions. The second period was begun by the Baptist missionaries, who worked until 1813, in the face of the prohibition of the Government, which endeavoured to conciliate the natives by protecting their religions. After the restrictions were removed, sixty-seven years ago, missionaries from Europe and America began to pour into India. The forty societies now at work have abundant reason for hopeful

ness.

The conversion of China seemed to be a hopeless task when Dr. Morrison, the first missionary, was sent to Canton by the London Society. The population is much larger than that of India, embracing, perhaps, 850,000,000, The people are peculiar in dress, language, religion, and customs, and are decidedly averse to communication with foreigners. When Dr. Morrison arrived in Canton, which was the only port open to trade, in 1807, he found himself surrounded with difficulties. The East India Company, which had refused him passage in their ships, were hostile to his purpose, and he was obliged to sail from New York; the Portuguese governor and the Catholics of Macao were bitterly opposed to his Mission; and he was denied access to the Chinese. He taught, however, as he could make opportunity, and baptized his first convert in 1814. He also translated and printed the Scriptures, against the strenuous opposition of the Company, who feared that mischief would come of it; in other words, that trade would be injured. In 1812 five ports were open to foreigners; but it is only since 1861 that missionaries have been permitted to go to every part of the empire. Thirty societies now have missionaries in China, and Missions are being rapidly extended from the coast cities and villages to the towns and hamlets of the interior provinces. The prevailing religion of China is Confucianism. It is not uncommon, however, for a Chinaman to hold three religions at the same time-Confucianism, Taouism, and Buddhism. Ancestral worship, and distrust of foreigners, are the chief obstacles met by the missionaries; but the fact that a Christian nation forced the dreadfal opium trade on China is not a recommendation of the Christian religion to the Chinese, nor is it suited to remove their prejudices against foreigners.

Japan, with its 35,000,000 of population, is an easier and more fruitful, as well as a smaller, field than China. The people are intelligent, respectful, and progressive, and adopt Western ideas and customs with an unexpected facility. The popular religion is Buddhism, which has largely superseded Shintoism, the State religion. Japan opened two of its ports to foreign trade in 1854. Since then the restrictions against foreigners have been gradually removed, and the whole empire is now practically free to the missionaries, the first of whom were sent out in 1859 by the Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Reformed Boards of the United States. Twenty societies are now at work in Japan, against few serious obstacles, and with great encouragement.

In the large territory lying between India and China, known as the Indo-China Peninsula, with its mixed populations, influenced on the one side by China, and on the other by India,

but little missionary work has been done, except in Burmah and Siam. In Burmah the American Baptists have laboured since 1813, with marvellous success. In Siam three societies are represented. In the Indian Archipelago, with upwards of 25,000,000 population, Mohammedanism is the prevailing religion in most of the islands. The Dutch societies, with one exception, have been the sole occupants of this field, and they have had some notable successes. But there is an urgent need of many more missionaries in both the Archipelago and the Peninsula.

Next in importance, after India and China, as missionary ground, stands Africa, with its 200,000,000 souls. Three-fourths of the population belong to the Negro race, who are heathens of the heathen. We find man in Africa in his lowest estate. His religion is a system of charms and sacrifices to propitiate his gods of wood and stone; his occupation is war and rapine. He sells his captives into slavery, or reserves them to appease evil spirits by their blood. The Dutch settlers of South Africa regarded the Bushmen and Hottentots as scarcely human, and never attempted to Christianise them. On the contrary, they used to exclude them from their churches, by a notice over their church doors, that "Dogs and Hottentots" were not admitted. Mohammedanism is making great headway in Africa; but it does not greatly improve the condition of those who accept it, nor does it prepare the way for the introduction of Christianity.

Most of the work of Protestant Missions has been done on the West Coast, from the Senegal to the Equator, and in South Africa. The Moravians were the pioneers in both fields, in 1787. Near the close of last century the London Society sent Dr. Vanderkemp to labour among the Kafirs, in South Africa, where other English, American, and Continental societies have since established important and successful Missions. The peculiar difficulty on the West Coast has been an unhealthy climate. Many missionaries have fallen under it. In the first twelve years of the Sierra Leone Mission of the Church Society, begun in 1804, thirty Euro

pean missionaries were buried in the country of the "white man's grave." The Basel Society lost ten missionaries in one year, and the Wesleyans buried forty of their missionaries in that "land of death." In Abyssinia, Swedish missionaries labour under discouraging circumstances. From South Africa the mission outposts are being advanced toward the Zambesi; from the West Coast missionaries are pushing up the Niger and the Congo; and from the East Coast the Missions on the great Lakes have been planted. These Lake Missions open a new chapter in the history of missionary enterprise.

EGYPTIAN WOMAN AND CHILD.

Missions were never undertaken before on so grand a scale of cost and of difficulty. The Mission in Uganda, on the northern shore of the Victoria Nyanza, is eight hundred miles from the coast. It is, in fact, a European colony, and the vast quantity of stores required for its use, together with a small vessel for the lake, had to be carried that distance under a burning African sun, through a wild and almost unknown country, and among savages who had to be conciliated with bribes. The journey required six months for the first caravan, and the expedition cost £10,000. Sir Samuel Baker, the eminent African traveller,

said, when he heard of this project, that any society would be crazy to think of sending missionaries to Uganda. The Mission, however, has been firmly established, and the society means to stay in Uganda, though Arab, Jesuit, and savage combine against it. The London Society has planted a Mission in Ujiji, in the face of similar obstacles; and the Scotch Churches have important Mission Colonies on and near Lake Nyassa. There are no difficulties so serious, no sacrifices so heavy, no outlays so large, no lives so precious, in the sight of the Church of Christ, as to induce it to entertain for a moment the thought of halting in the great work of evangelising Africa.

One of the most aggressive of the false religions which confront Christianity in mission lands is that of Islam. There is a mighty battle yet to be fought between them, perhaps in the near future. As yet, Christian Missions have made but few converts among the masses of Mohammedans in Turkey, in Asia, or in Africa. The Turkish Empire, including Egypt, has a population of about forty millions, of whom twelve millions are reckoned as belonging to the Oriental Christian Churches. These are hardly worthy, however, to be called Christians. Their Christianity is of a Their Christianity is of a very corrupt character, and their morals are no better than those of the Turks, who regard them with contempt. The societies have been working among these nominal Christians, partly because they stand in the way of success among the Moslems. The Church Missionary Society was the first to attempt a reformation of the Oriental Churches. It began Missions among them in 1815; but it soon became convinced that the cause was a hopeless one. The American Board, which has been almost half a century in this field, was for several years opposed both by Christians and Turks; but the edict of toleration, issued in 1839, gave its Missions a firm footing to work upon, and its efforts have been crowned with success. The Board of the United Presbyterian Church of America has an important Mission among the Copts of Egypt, and there are many societies at work among the Nestorians of Syria and of Persia. Although few of the followers of the false prophet have been reached by any of these Missions, the influence of a vital Christianity has had an effect upon them.

The most wonderful successes of Protestant Missions have been won among isolated peoples-those of Polynesia and Madagascar. As if in compensation for some of the hardest and most discouraging fields, and to show how quickly men can be brought out of the grossest moral and spiritual darkness into the light, the life, and the peace of the Gospel, the islands of the sea have been given to Christianity. The people of Polynesia, who are believed to be chiefly of Malay origin, were sunk, when Christian Missions found them, into the lowest depths of heathenism and social degradation. They worshipped hideous idols and natural objects; they offered human sacrifices; they feasted on human flesh; they gashed and mutilated themselves to appease the anger of their gods; they treated woman as a polluted creature. The first Mission among the Polynesians was begun by the London Society, in the Society Islands, in 1797, and the first convert was baptized in 1812. The American Board began a Mission in the Sandwich Islands in 1819; the Wesleyan Society sent missionaries to the Friendly Islands in 1826, and to the Fiji group in 1835; the Church Society entered New Zealand in 1814; the Presbyterians of Scotland and Canada are working together in the New Hebrides; and the London Society, aided chiefly by the Friends, has wrought great results in Madagascar since 1816.

There are many fields yet undescribed; but we may not do more than mention them. The aboriginal races of the American continent have received more or less attention for nearly two centuries and a half. Many of the Churches of the United States have Missions and schools among the Indians of their own country; while the Moravians, some of the Canadian

Churches, and the two Anglican Societies are labouring in the vast territory north of the United States. In Central and South America the Moravians and some English societies have small Missions among the native races. Missions among the Jews are carried on, chiefly by British societies, in nearly all the countries where any considerable number of that race are found. Lastly, there are the Missions of various American and British societies in the Catholic States of Europe and America.

The

Having noticed the societies and the Mission fields, it is next in order to speak of the agents and agencies doing the work. societies select the fields, appoint the missionaries, and gather and appropriate the funds; but the actual work of propagating the Gospel is done by the missionaries. These must be picked men, having peculiar qualifications. They must be men of high Christian character; they must have brains, culture, patience, perseverance, zeal, discretion, and the spirit of love and selfsacrifice. They must study the people to whom they are sent, their character, history, language, customs-and how to attract and influence them. Preaching, lectures, conversation, schools, religious literature, medical service, and other methods must be used; but the example of a devoted Christian life is of the utmost importance. While not all the missionaries have measured up to this standard, the fields are filled with noble men, and noble women too. The value of women missionaries is much better appreciated now than it used to be. They are able to do work among their own sex, which men, whom they equal in courage, devotion, and determination, cannot do. Scattered over the various fields of the world are about 2,600 ord ined missionaries, of whom the American societies furnish nearly 700, the British societies about 1,300, and the Continental societies 600. But the ordained missionaries constitute only a small part of the great force at work. Besides the numerous lay missionaries and teachers, male and female, there are thousands of native helpers, ordained and unordained. Perhaps, including both foreign and native agents, there is in all an army of 25,000 or 30,000 workers, where at the beginning of the century, there were less than 200 missionaries and few native assistants.

The educational, the literary, and the medical arms of the mission service have proved to be of great importance and efficiency. In countries like China and India, and in Jewish Missions, schools are indispensable if the children are to be reached; while in Africa and in the South Seas, where ignorance is dense, education is equally necessary to produce intelligent and useful Christians. Higher schools for training natives for pastors and teachers are found in most of the fields; and sometimes instruction is given in the industrial arts also, as at the Lovedale Institution, in South Africa. The number of schools has been estimated by Dr. Christlieb at 12,000, with perhaps more than 400,000 scholars, all of whom receive careful instruction in the doctrines of the Bible. In this training of the youth lies the great promise of the future to heathen lands. The press has been from the first a powerful agency in Mission work. Books and tracts and periodicals are circulated easily and widely, and multiply tenfold the power and influence of the missionary. Numerous agents of the Bible societies are scattering the Scriptures (which have been printed in 226 languages) like autumn leaves in many a land, and benighted souls have obtained light from the blessed pages before they heard the voice of the missionary. The medical art has been the key to unlock doors which otherwise would have remained closed. The medical missionary's skill in curing physical ailments begets a confidence in him which gives effect to his religious teachings. Twenty years ago there were but twenty medical missionaries in the field. Now there are nearly a hundred.

It remains now to consider the results. Missionaries have been at work many years, and millions of pounds have been expended. The results, ought, therefore, to be large, even after

due allowance has been made for the preparatory stages of Missions and for special difficulties. But what shall be included in the term "results"? The "results" which the Churches look for are spiritual in their nature, but many desire to know the monetary value of Missions. Some people cannot grasp the idea of success except in the form of dollars and cents. So much money, they reason, has been invested in Missions. How much have we received in return? There is little difficulty in answering this question, because there is no doubt that Missions have a value to commerce, as well as a spiritual value. They have conferred great benefits on mankind in commerce, morals, politics, society, science, and education, and it is proper to include these benefits in estimating "results." Missions exert an unmeasured influence on man in all his relations in life. They have gone to the savage and degraded people of the South Seas and Africa, and wrought a revolution among them. Then they were engaged in wars of plunder, devastation, and slavery, without peace or security, society or industry; now they form peaceful communities, with society and government, and follow industrial pursuits, thus contributing to, and receiving from, the markets of the world. Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton says that most of the trade of Lagos, which amounts to £800,000 a year, is due to the industry of the natives of Sierra Leone, trained under missionary auspices. A hundred years ago Captain Cook was murdered by the savages of the Sandwich Islands; now Honolulu is an important commercial port, with a trade of over £600,000 a year. Other islands, which used to be the terror of shipwrecked sailors, are now valued for their commerce, and it is estimated that every additional missionary sent to the South Seas is worth £10,000 a year to British commerce. Commercial enterprise follows closely after the Central African Missions, to which thrifty merchants of Scotland and England gave liberally, believing that the money was well invested. merchant urged the missionaries in New Guinea to push forward as rapidly as possible, in order, he said, to develop trade. The Missions in India have been repeatedly recognized by Indian statesmen as of the utmost value to the government. Lord Lawrence, who was Governor-General of India, said that the missionaries had done more than all other agencies combined to bencfit India. Lord Napier said Missions "go hand in hand with the government in raising the intellectual standard of the Indian people, and in forming for the service of the State a body of public servants of intelligence and morality." The same is true of other Mission fields. The Gospel every where makes moral, intelligent, industrious, and useful citizens.

A

There is another class of results-the advantages which science

has received from the labours and observations of the missionaries. If Sydney Smith were alive to-day, he would see the men of whom he spoke contemptuously as "consecrated cobblers" receiving high honours. He would find in nearly every issue of the two leading English literary weeklies (the Athenæum and the Academy) notices of missionary travels and exploration. He would observe how frequently missionaries appear in the proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, as authors of papers or as recipients of honours. The contributions of the missionaries to geographical knowledge have been numerous and important; and they have also furnished copious and valuable materials for the students of philology and ethnography. They have reduced many unwritten languages to writing, and compiled numerous dictionaries and grammars.

All these and other material results, which alone would justify the existence of Missions, the Church of Christ looks upon as incidental. The single aim of Missions is the conversion of souls, the value of which no man can estimate. They were bought with a price which would not have been paid for all the universe besides; and all the money which has been spent on Missions is as nothing in the sight of God compared with the

worth of the soul of the most degraded heathen of the wilds of Africa, the jungles of India, or the icy solitudes of Greenland. If Missions have brought one soul to the knowledge, love, and worship of the one true God, they have done that over which the angels in heaven rejoice. But the fruits of Missions are not few or hard to find. Every Mission and every Mission station that has been planted bears them. In India, which has been, perhaps, the hardest field of all, there are about 95,000 native Christian communicants; in Africa, 80,000; in Polynesia and Australasia, 73,000; in Madagascar, 68,000; in China and Japan, 18,000; in Burmah, 20,000. In these fields alone there are upwards of 350,000 communicants. The total in all fields is, perhaps, over half a million, besides the adherents (those who have renounced heathenism or other untrue religions and accepted Christianity), who are three or four times as numerous. There must be fully 2,000,000 souls who, as members and adherents, own and glorify the name of Christ. But these are not all the fruits. Thousands, having lived the life of the righteous, have gone to receive the reward of the righteous.

And what shall I say more? For the time would fail me to tell of Madagascar, and of Fiji, and of Hawaii, and of Burmah. As the constraining love of Christ shall run from heart to heart, like celestial fire, melting away the masses of pagans and unbelievers, the time of the fulfilment of the prophecy of John will be near at hand, when it shall be said: "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever."

THE STORY OF THE LIFE OF DR. KRAPF, The Pioneer-Missionary of East Africa.

TOLD BY HIMSELF.

VII-IN EUROPE-PLANS FOR ADVANCE. ARTLY for the improvement of my health, and partly for the welfare of the East African Mission, I decided in the spring of 1850 on returning to Europe, which I had not seen since 1837. I was unwilling, however, to leave Africa without executing a project which I had cherished for years, which was to inspect the whole coast southward from Zanzibar as far as Cape Delgado, where the possessions of the Sultan of Zanzibar cease and those of the Portuguese commence; and in the company of my fellow

labourer, J. Erhardt, the voyage was performed in the February and

March of 1850. After my return from this exploration I began, in April of the same year, my homeward journey by way of Aden and Egypt, reaching Europe in June.

After a short stay in Basel and Würtemberg, I proceeded to London, to advocate in person with the Committee of the Church Missionary Society, my scheme of an African chain of Missions to be established through the whole breadth of the land, from east to west, in the direction of the Equator, and to obtain their consent to the printing of my Suabili Grammar, and a Comparative Vocabulary of six East-African languages. This latter was assented to with the utmost readiness, and the Committee entered so far into the scheme of the chain of Missions, as to resolve on founding without delay two new stations one in the kingdom of Usambara, and the other in Ukambani, or in Jagga. With that object, two missionaries, Pfefferle and Dihlmann, were to be despatched with myself to Eastern Africa, accompanied by three lay brothers, Hagemann, Kaiser, and Metzler, of whom the first was a carpenter, the second an agriculturist, and the third a smith, so that with the Gospel the Africans might be offered the blessings of Christian civilisation.

[Here we interrupt Krapf's narrative to notice some incidents of his sojourn in Europe.

The reports brought home by him excited the keenest interest in missionary circles in England, and the impression was deepened by personal intercourse with the man, who n the Committee and their friends now saw face to face for the first time, and whose ardent enthusiasm and single-eyed devotion to the Lord's service kindled all hearts