A NEW PROGRAMME OF MISSIONS.

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HE Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, editor of the Missionary Review of the World, takes as the text for the opening article in the September number of that periodical the suggestion offered as a solution of the missionary problem by Mr. Luther B. Wishard in his book, A New Programme of Missions," recently published.

FAILURE OF THE STATISTICAL" SOLUTION. The old "statistical" solution of the missionary problem has been tried and found wanting. Says Dr. Pierson: "No doubt the combined churches of Protestant Christendom could, from 40,000,000 communicants, supply 500,000 missionaries, or one for every 2,000 of the unevangelized, and could furnish sinews of war in the shape of $600,000,000 a year for the support of this army of missionaries. But in view of the fact that, with all the tremendous facts of human need before the Church of Christ, and all the inspiring history of missionary labor and triumph to incite to zeal and sacrifice, we have as yet less than ten thousand foreign missionaries, and less than $14,000,000 a year to apply to the whole work, and even now are hampered by immense debts which threaten the whole work with collapse; we are compelled to abandon the hope of bringing up the Church to the point of supplying fifty times the present working force and forty-three times the present money basis for the work." Dr. Pierson therefore welcomes a solution from one who has for years been closely associated with the practical workings of international missions, and is qualified to speak with authority on the subject.

CONVERT THE COLLEGES OF FOREIGN MISSION LANDS.

Mr. Wishard's proposition, as he himself states it in his book, is: "Convert the colleges of foreign mission lands into strongholds and distributing centres of Christianity; make them academies of the Church militant, to train leaders for the present crusade of evangelization." Commenting upon this proposition, Dr. Pierson says: "This solution is not a new one, for it has already had practical trial both at home and abroad, as the Oxford Holy Club, the Haystack meeting at Williams College, the Yale revival under President Dwight, and the intercollegiate Y. M. C. A. have proven. But the scale on which Mr. Wishard proposes to have this method put into operation is new.

"It is now nearly twenty years ago that, on the Day of Prayer for Colleges in 1876, a rain of spiritual refreshing came down on Princeton College, which became the source of a new river of spiritual energy, which was parted into two streams; one was thorough organization of the Christian element

"Careful research reveals already results at once surprising and stimulating. Not only is it found that the Bible has never before been so diligently studied, but over 25,000 students have been turned unto the Lord since 1876, and fully three times that number have been enrolled in the association. Thirtytwo hundred have been led into the ministry; and within nine years, since 1886, when the Student Volunteer Movement began at Mt. Hermon, Mass., over 700 have gone forth to mission lands.

"These student volunteers have adopted as their motto the cry of the new crusade which the writer of this article was strongly led to suggest: The evangelization of the world in this generation.' Five hundred institutions, with over 30,000 students, are already embraced in the intercollegiate system, which now reaches out like a banyan tree, and bends down to take root in new soil. Ten years since it reached the University of Berlin, and has started a new Reformation in Germany.

"Six years ago God gave signs that so-called heathen nations were to take part in the new crusade. In the summer of 1889 the students, meeting at Northfield, Mass., were startled by a cablegram from the Sunrise Kingdom, in which the Christian students of Japan conveyed this sublime message : 'MAKE JESUS KING.' Great enthusiasm was kindled, and that message finding its way to Sweden, where it constrained Scandinavian diciples to call a conference of students in 1890, representing Norway, Sweden and Denmark, became another war cry of the new crusade.

Orient, as in Japan, naturally suggests a new plan for missions. To students in mission lands the work is one of home evangelization. Why not, then, organize in the colleges of lands, yet to us foreign missionary fields, a student volunteer movement for home missions! And so, while in the Occident we are raising a foreign contingent, rely on converted young men in the Orient to supply a home contingent, and together push the work of a world's redemption."

WORK ALREADY DONE BY CONVERTS.

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But has any actual work done by such converted young men in heathen lands justified the hope that they will undertake such home evangelization? This question Dr. Pierson answers as follows: "Mr. Wishard has collated a few very convincing illustrations. For example, the Sapporo Band. President Clark, of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, taught for one year, and through an interpreter, a class for Bible study in the island of Hokkaido, thirty-two students openly confessed Christ and formed a society of believers in Jesus.' Six years since one-fourth of the students in the Hokkaido Agricultural College were professed disciples, and the city of Sapporo was permeated by their Christian influence. It was a letter from this body of students to their fellow students in the Massachusetts college, upon whose model the Japanese was formed, which first prompted the embracing of students in mission lands in the new movement or crusade started in America.

"The Kumamoto Band, in the Southern part of the Island Empire, furnishes another illustration of God's leading in the same direction. In 1871 an American teacher was put in charge of an institution which Dr. Davis, in his 'Life of Neesima,' states was founded and supported by professed opponents of Christianity. When the new instructor was hired on a five years contract it was not known that he was a Christian believer, and at first he had to proceed cautiously. But eventually the students, in order to be furnished with weapons against Christianity, consented to study the Bible, as did Gilbert West and Lord Lytton, for a like purpose, and with similar results. The opposition of unbelief and disbelief was slowly but surely broken down; and it was found by a few of the young men that they and others with them were secretly cherishing belief in Christ, until the avowed believers reached the number of forty! Their avowal brought a baptism of fire. But they endured it. In January, 1876, while the new revival in Princeton was starting the fire in America, they, on Flowery Hill, covenanted with each other and Jesus to be as a city set on a hill, which cannot be hid. Persecution ensued, and the school was disbanded; but thirty of these converts entered Joseph Neesima's school at Kyoto, and half of them completed in the Doshisha their theological course, and to-day the record of their character and work is written large over the Christianity of Japan.

"The Doshisha revival is a still further illustration of the possibilities of student work in the East. Some twelve years since a skeptical spirit prevailed in this college of the Single Aim, as to the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit, and there was a demand among the students for some adequate proof of His claims to being more than a vague Divine influence or effluence. Of course, such doubts do not go alone; the inspiration of the Word of God and the vitality of spiritual life were alike in peril.

"Now, our Lord teaches us in that significant word of His in the Gospel of John (3:8) that the Spirit breathes where He will, and, like the wind, can be known only by the sound of his going. Being invisible, He can be traced only by His effects."

Tungchow College, China, and Pasumalai College, Madura, South India, are other illustrations of the

plan for the evangelization of Oriental lands by con verted and educated young men. The former institution, presided over for a quarter century by Dr. Mateer, has sent out over fifty graduates, not one unconverted; and the latter have, during a half century, given over 500 Christian workers to the field.

Mr. Wishard in his book tells us that Christianity is now firmly intrenched in nearly all Christian colleges in Japan, China, Burmah, Ceylon, Persia, Turkey, Egypt, as well as some of those in India. Outside of India the majority of such students are Christian communicants. He further states that Christianity has made some progress in Government institutions not openly under distinctive Christian control. For instance, in 1889 one-fourteenth of the three thousand students in the seven leading Government colleges of Japan were Christians.

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Does this movement give promise of permanence, or is it an evanescent awakening of enthusiasm ? 'Only time," says Dr. Pierson, can certainly answer this question. But meanwhile signs of permanence must be acknowledged. For instance, the aggressive spirit of evangelism pervading these Oriental student bands, as alike exemplified in Japan, China, among Armenians and Tamils. Witness also the persistency and energy of the Japanese and Chinese; the intensity of conviction, which leads to such tenacious holding fast the faith in the face of ostracism, caste prejudice and open persecution.”

The Church in Japan.

The Reverend George William Knox, D.D., contributes to the Missionary Review of the World a short article on "The Year 1895 in Japan," in which he says that the church in that country has never had fairer prospects.

"It has had official recognition, and that counts for much. It is representative of that spirit of Christ which all the nation has honored in the work of the Society of the Red Cross. Confucianism in its stronghold has been shown unable to make citizens patriotic or officials honest. The influence of Christendom has been proved more effective in practical humanitarianism in a generation than was the influence of Budd

hism in a millenium. The hostility excited by the old treaties against foreigners has been removed by the revision. Missionaries can reside and travel without restrictions. The Church responds to its new conditions and undertakes with zeal work at home and abroad.

'As the Church thus finds its opportunity, so does it find its difficulties increased. With Japan unevangelized, it must begin work abroad; as it comes on to self-support a minority deny the essential faith; with its increased self-consciousness and strength, it finds the greater difficulty in co-operating with foreign missionaries, and the foreign missionaries may well question whether their increased facilities are not too late for the most efficient service.

"Our prayer is that the Church may accomplish the work whereunto it is called. Our sympathies are all with it. Its triumph will be the vindication of foreign missions. Its success will mean hope and salvation to the lands beyond."

The material advantages of war are against the Cubans. All the harbors of the island and the roads within the theatre of war are held by Spain. She can, therefore, pour in the whole resources of the nation, men, supplies or munitions, without a moment's interruption or a shadow of danger. These resources are a peninsular population of 17,000,000 to draw from, and a standing army, which on a peace basis carries over 100,000, and reaches in nominal war resource something more than 1,000,000. The financial advantage is also wholly with Spain.

Cuba on the other hand has a population of about 16,000,000, of which more than half are in the garrison cities, and regions so overawed by the power of Spain that they cannot successfully rise. All told, the available fighting force is probably not more than 100,000. Impoverished by centuries of financial oppression, the Cuban patriots are poor. Their slender resources are the sum of innumerable small contributions. But though few in number and empty of purse they are undaunted. They are the same men who with the same slender resources for ten years held the arms and pride of Spain at bay, and then capitulated to promises, which were made only to be broken. "Of Spain the insurgents have no fear; but if the United States rigorously prevents the shipment of arms

and munitions from our shore we can discourage, we can delay the triumph of patriotism, but in the end we cannot prevent it. In this war, or the next, or the next, Cuba will be free. Although these men are our near neighbors, although we are to them the chosen people who have won independence and grown great in freedom, yet they have never made the slightest appeal to us for active aid in their struggle. They expect no good Samaritan offices. They look for no gallant American Lafayette to draw sword for them and share the penury and hardships of their camps. They ask nothing. But I happen to know that they are at a loss to comprehend how a great people to whom Heaven has granted the victorious liberty for which they are fighting and dying, should let months pass in cold, half silence, without one ringing 'God speed!' to cheer them on into battle.

THE REAL CUBAN QUESTION.

"It is doubtless explicable enough that a people whose own business is so essentially materialistic as ours, and who mind it so absorbedly, should remain carelessly ignorant of the real Cuban question and the moral attitude of the island people; but is it fair, is it generous, is it worthy of the real blood of freedom that still flows from the big American heart? Already a change is coming, and isolated expressions of genuine sympathy are becoming frequent. The time will come, and that not long hence, when the voice of America will ring out clear and true.

"The Cuban war hangs before us an issue which we cannot evade. Either we must stand as the friend of Spain, and, by our thorough prevention of the shipment of war supplies to the insurgents, aid and countenance the Spanish efforts to conquer Cuba into continued sorrow, or we must befriend Cuba in her heroic battle to throw off a mediæval yoke. Let us not deceive ourselves! Spain alone cannot conquer Cuba; she proved that in ten years of miserable failure. If we prevent the sending of munitions to Cuba, and continue to allow Spain to buy ships and arms and ammunition here, it is we who will conquer Cuba, not Spain. It is we who will crush liberty!

RECOGNITION OF CUBA'S BELLIGERENCY NECESSARY. "To secure victory for Cuba it is necessary for us, in my opinion, to take but a single step; that is to recognize her belligerency; she will do all the rest. That step the government will doubtless hesitate to take at the present state of the struggle, because as yet the insurgents have neither instituted a government nor established a capitol. In the last insurrection they did both, besides maintaining a state of war for ten years. That a state of war exists today is virtually admitted by the proclamation of Governor-General Campos, who in addition to the army under his command, consisting of about 60,000 regulars and 40,000 militia, calls for heavy reinforcements, and the Spanish war office has been obliged to order out the first class of reserves. Moreover, a

commander-in-chief routed in battle and fleeing, his rear-guard fighting bravely all the way into Bayamo,' to use his own words, connotes nothing less than war.

"When the Cuban government is set up, as it soon will be, we shall have equally as good international authority and precedent to recognize a state of war in the island as Spain did for our own Confederate insurgents forty days after the shot on Fort Sumter. We can return to her in the interests of liberty, the compliment she then paid us in behalf of slavery. The justice will be poetic. With all possible decorum, with a politeness above criticism, with a firmness wholly irresistible, we should assist Spain out of Cuba and out of the hemisphere as effectually as Lincoln and Seward did the French invaders of Mexico in the 'sixties. Moreover, according to American precedent, neither a state of hostilities nor the setting up of a civil or military organization is positively necessary to entitle a people to belligerent rights; for before either of these conditions were established in 1838, we went so far as to issue a proclamation for 'prevention of unlawful interference in the civil war in Canada.'

"Our record toward Spain is clear. We heartily approved when George Canning invoked the Holy Alliance to prevent her from recovering her American provinces, and in 1825 we refused to guarantee her perpetual possession of Cuba in exchange for commercial concessions to ourselves. Our obligations to her are measured by an easily terminable treaty, which, however, while in force, in no way prevents us from recognizing Cuba's belligerency. Is it difficult for us to decide between free Cuba and tyrant Spain? Why not fling overboard Spain and give Cuba the aid which she needs, and which our treaty with Spain cannot prevent? Which cause is morally right ?—which is manly ?—which is American?"

From the Spanish Point of View.

The Cuban situation from another point of view is presented by Senor Don Segundo Alvarez, exMayor of Havana, in the North American Review. He declares that the insurrectionary movement makes no progress and that as soon as the rainy season is over the government will increase its efforts to bring it to a speedy termination; that the country at large is fully resolved to withhold support from a movement which must lead to ruin; and that whatever strength the movement has shown has been derived more than anything else from external aid, assisted by the involved financial situation of the country at present. But for these causes, says Senor Alvarez, the movement would have ended almost as soon as it begun. He admits that independence would be very grateful to the majority of the native born Cubans, but this, he declares, experience in the previous outbreak proved to be futile. Annexation in his opinion is absolutely impossible. The greater majority of the Cubans do not wish it, because they realize that should it be put into effect their individuality would disappear in a short

time. The most thoughtful men of the island see no other solution than to continue belonging to Spain to live tranquilly under the national flag, and to endeavor to bring about all the reforms which may be necessary for the well-being of the country..

REGISTERING THE NEGRO IN RECONSTRUCTION DAYS.

HE United Service reprints from old series Cap

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tion," which, setting forth the difficulties attendant upon the registration of the newly enfranchised negro, and, by inference, his unfitness at that time to exercise intelligently the rights and privileges that had been accorded him, has an element of timeliness in view of the movement on foot in South Carolina to disqualify the negro from ever holding office in that State.

DIFFICULTIES AND METHODS PURSUED.

The following paragraphs give a fair idea of the difficulties encountered and methods pursued in reg. istering the negroes in reconstruction days :

"Imagine a registration board in session. Crowds of negroes,-men, women and children,- -a few mules, and any quantity of cur dogs surround the place. Registration is going on through an open window inside of which the members of the board are seated. The recorder, at a table provided with writing materials, is biting the butt end of his pen, and has an impatient look. The other two members are seated near the window, one on each side, prepared to do the questioning. The prospective voters have been gotten in line, and are instructed to keep their places and wait their turns. The women are interested, and, as it turns out, useful spectators. They ar range themselves in a dense mass as a background to the picture.

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"Everything being ready, the first man is called up, and a bullet headed negro presents himself at the window. Nothing of him is visible to the board but his head. The chairman constitutes himself examiner, and, assuming what he considers a legal air, asks the applicant his name. George Washington,' the darky replies, in some trepidation, as he plucks nervously at an old felt hat which he holds in his hand, and listens to his own heart-beats, plainly audible in the death like stillness of the crowd. And what is your age?' continues the chair man, in a persuasive tone, as he glances at the recorder, who has now put his pen to its legitimate use. 'Don't know, boss,' says the elector expectant; "spect I's forty.' This is manifestly an untruth, for the head has a decidedly youthful appearance. The chairman deems it his duty to cross-examine. 'How do you know you are forty? When were you born?' These are stumpers. The applicant becomes confused and exhibits some inclination to bolt, but, being hemmed in by the crowd, finds that impossible. He therefore takes refuge in silence. Nothing will induce him to venture any further opinion as to his age. The chaiman becomes em

barrassed, and the recorder resumes operations on the wrong end of his pen. Silence reigns for about a minute. Then a rather corpulent negress on the outskirts of the crowd, with her head done up in a yellow bandana, testifies as follows: 'I knows dat nigger eber since he was a pickaninny. He was borned on Mar's Pope's plantation de y'ar de sorrel colt bruk his leg.' This important piece of information was considered by the crowd conclusive as to age, but the chairman still seemed unsatisfied. This looked like obstinacy, and murmurs were heard. At last the chairman, driven to desperation, and determined not to have a failure in the first case, turned to the recorder and said, 'Put him down forty, Mr. Simons; put him down forty.' The recorder's pen having again done its legitimate duty, the recorder reads in a rather loud voice, 'George Washington, aged forty,' by way of information that to that extent the applicant has been registered. The chairman, then, anxious to get rid of George, puts the question as to residence very suggestively : 'Residence, Pope's plantation?' To which George gives his assent, and is hustled from the window just as the old auntie who settled the question of his age is beginning to take him to task for lying.

"The first registered voter no sooner left the window, than another, his exact counterpart, took his place. He also claimed George Washington as his name. His age, however, was only twenty-five. This was an improvement, and manifestly fifteen years nearer the truth than number one. The chairman was pleased. It might be possible to get down to hard facts in course of time. He was on the point of complimenting number two on his modest estimate, but gave up the idea. The possibilty of inducing further reference to the era of the accident to the sorrel colt stopped his mouth. George Washington number two was got on record, his place of residence being kindly suggested to him by the chairman.

"The board now began to brighten up. The business was fairly started. The chairman was particularly happy, and disposed to get facetious about the two G. W.'s. When the third bullet head presented itself at the window he straightened himself up in his chair, and, looking the applicant straight in the eye, said, in a tone of some severity. 'Perhaps you claim to be called George Washington, too?' The darkey promptly answered, Yes sah,' and the chairman wilted. His brain was fairly in a whirl. Perhaps they were all George Washingtons. The routine questions were asked mechanically and several voters registered before the chairman recovered complete consciousness. At last an old gray headed darky gave the name of Julius Cæsar, and the chairman was himself again. The next, however, created more trouble. His name was Hannibal. He had no other name. He had never heard his father's name mentioned. His mother's name was Dinah. She had no other name. His old master's name was Johnson. Here a bright idea occurred to the chairman.

The darkey's name should be Hannibal Johnson. He was so registered and so informed. Then the list was revised. George Washington number one became G. W. Pope; number two, G. W. Smith; number three, G. W. Calhoun, and so on. The same principle was followed throughout. It was a capital idea, and made the registration lists look respectable, whatever the voters did. I have no means of knowing if the names thus given adhered to the in dividuals, but I presume they did. I noticed that all the Julius Cæsars, Hannibals and Pompey's were old men, and that the George Washingtons were young. A horrible suspicion has haunted me ever since that the younger negroes never gave their right names. They had heard, perhaps, that George Washington was the father of the country of which they were to become adopted sons, and they may have thought it the right thing to mention the old gentleman's name on the occasion."

CAN WHITE MEN COLONIZE THE TROPICS?

MR. FREDERICK BOYLE writes in the New

Review for September an interesting paper, in which he maintains, contrary to the almost universal opinion, that white men can colonize and cultivate tropical countries. Indeed, he expresses a strong opinion that it is precisely by peopling the tropics with white races that we are going to bring about the millennium. He admits that such colonies as those established in Ceylon and other hot countries where white men go out to employ colored labor have no future before them. He says: "It is not such a colony that I propose, but one of the earlier pattern, in which men settle to make a home by the labor of their hands-each in his plot of soil which he cultivates."

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Mr. Boyle quotes a remarkable passage from Mr. Bates' book, The Naturalist on the Amazon," to the following effect: "I hold to the opinion that, though humanity can reach an advanced degree of culture only by battling with the inclemencies of nature in high latitudes, it is under the equator alone that the race of the future will attain to complete fruition of man's beautiful heritage, the earth."

MAN ATTAINS HIGHEST DEVELOPMENT IN THE TROPICS.

But Mr. Boyle is not satisfied with Mr. Bates' declaration; he goes one step further than Mr. Bates and says: "In brief, it is my conviction that man the animal, like all other living things, attains his highest development in the tropics. And I am well assured that Mr. Bates is exact in foretelling that the perfected race of the future will appear in those latitudes."

Speaking of his proposed colony and its site he says: "Shortly it would be-at the beginning--a wooded upland, sparsely peopled, of which the inhabitants could be bought out mostly; they might return when things were settled. There are hun