We were rejoiced recently by a call from Miss Caroline E. Bush, returned last autumn from Harpoot. Though far from strong, this veteran MISSIONARY missionary is in fairly good health. She plans to spend the PERSONALS. coming few months with relatives in Newtonville, Mass. Though not sent out by the Woman's Board, the going home of two missionaries will bring to many a sense of loss. Mrs. Charles Hartwell, of Foochow, mother of Miss Emily Hartwell of the W. B. M. I., now working in that city, died December 7, 1908. Many will rise up to call her blessed.

Mrs. Simeon Calhoun, who labored for twenty-eight years in Syrai, spent the last eighteen years of her life with her daughter, Mrs. Ransom, in the Zulu Mission. For sixty years she was a missionary, and in all those years she gave light and blessing in wide circles of influence. She died in early November, 1908.

You will remember that by the law of the post office department we must cut off all subscribers who do not renew within four months after their

TO OUR subscription expires. We do not want to lose you, and we SUBSCRIBERS. hope that you do not want to spare LIFE AND LIGHT. So please renew promptly. Also, please help us to gain new friends. An interested reader is the best agent possible. Our offer to send the magazine free for three months to anyone who will promise to read it still holds good.

The sale of prayer calendars thus far has been very gratifying, and our stock is almost exhausted. Those wishing one for themselves or friends will do well to order promptly. Price, 25 cents; by mail, 30 cents.

A new departure in our Friday meeting is the giving half an hour on the first Friday of each month to the study of successive chapters of The STUDY IN OUR Nearer and Farther East. Able leaders who have FRIDAY MEETING. made special study of the book illuminate its pages, and suggest methods easily adaptable to auxiliary meetings. That this study meets a felt want is proved by the largely increased attendance on

those mornings. Leaders of auxiliaries especially find it helpful to see how a chapter may be well handled even in half an hour, though we always wish for more time.

OUR

Remember that the contributions from the Branches must bring us $120,000, annually, to carry on our present work. The gifts for the regular pledged work in the month ending December 18th amounted to TREASURY. $8,686. 10, making the total for two months $12,798.92. Two months are one sixth of twelve months, but this sum is far short of one sixth of $120,000.

We are very thankful that through earnest effort by our Branch and auxiliary officers, joined with real sacrifice by many givers, we were able to make our usual appropriations for 1909.

CONFERENCE.

A conference of officers and delegates of Woman's Boards of Foreign Missions of the United States and Canada will be held under the auspices INTERDENOMINATIONAL of the Congregational Board, at Park Street Church, Boston, February 24th and 25th. Seven such conferences have already been held: five in New York, one in Toronto, and the seventh, three years ago, in Nashville, Tenn., in connection with the Student Volunteer Convention. The officers and other delegates who attend do not form a legislative body, but improve the opportunity for conference upon various matters of common interest to all the Boards, with free interchange of fact, opinion and suggestion.

A STIRRING AMONG MOSLEMS

It is to be expected, however, that every aggressive work on the part of Christians will be met with fierce opposition from Moslems. Persecution and even martyrdom may follow the faithful preaching of the gospel. Already there is apparently a general movement among Moslems to oppose Christianity and Christian governments. If not promptly checked this may lead to disastrous consequences. In Egypt, Turkey and Morocco the signs. are ominous. Telegrams from Morocco tell of preparations for a holy war, which is announced to begin very soon. The situation is very delicate, and calls for prayer and caution, but no cowardice. Prompt and firm measures taken in time by France and Great Britain may save much ultimate suffering. There have been many threats that any British or American action against the Sultan of Turkey would lead to a general Moslem uprising.Selected.

1909]

Uduvil School To-day

UDUVIL SCHOOL TO-DAY

BY MISS HELEN I. ROOT

(For nine years missionary in Ceylon)

51

the stone-towered church of Uduvil there is a memorial tablet to Eliza Agnew. Across the road in the little cemetery is Miss Agnew's grave. Early in each school year the new girls are taken over there by the older students some Sunday afternoon, and they are told of her and other missionaries now long at rest. The lesson of their life and love for Christ and Ceylon is made plain, and after a hymn the girls kneel about the graves in prayer. This has often seemed the sweetest of memorials, but the best, the truest is the school itself.

The Uduvil Girls' Boarding School, that felt so deep an impress from Miss Agnew's character, was in her day a small home school where every life could be directly

touched and moulded. It has grown, as everything alive must do. Now more than two hundred girls share its home life, and the one plain common sense course of study has grown into three separate ones in accord with the plans of English educational offi

cials. But to-day, no

less than thirty-five

UDUVIL MEMORIAL CHURCH

Everyone

years ago, a wonderful work of character building is going on. who comes really to know this beautiful school feels its power, and longs to have its influence more widely extended.

Can we imagine for a moment what it means to the daughter of a heathen home to come into the Uduvil School? Before she ever reaches the compound she has been well warned by her anxious parents to pay no heed whatever to any religious teaching which she may hear. Precisely so a good Protestant family might trust a daughter to a convent, with some misgivings and many warnings. She has been further fortified by various Hindu rites, certainly the ceremonial bath and the smearing of the sacred ashes in three lines across her forehead.