SOME years ago it was the writer's privilege to listen to a discourse by a humble street preacher, and the experience gained on that occasion will never be forgotten.
Walking homeward one Sunday evening from the City Temple, where the writer regularly attended divine service while in the world's great metropolis, his attention was arrested by a crowd gathered a little way down a narrow street that ran off at right angles from the main road. On approaching he found a religious service about to commence.
The speaker was mounted on a small portable platform, and was surrounded by a company of singers. Not being a public thoroughfare, this place was no doubt selected for the meeting on that account, because of its freedom from the noise and disturbance of passing vehicles. After a hymn had been sung, the speaker invited to the service the throngs promenading the pavement at the end of the street, but observing that many persons paused just long enough to see what was in progress, and then, having gratified their curiosity as to the nature of the meeting, were soon lost again in the passing crowd, he tells them they will not hear, perhaps, as fine a discourse as they would like to listen to, but if they would remain, the company would endeavor to do them good. They had a message for them, and the message should not be despised because of the feebleness of the instrument conveying it.
Having introduced the reader to the speaker of the evening, the writer begs leave to withdraw, trusting that the interview will be found to be both interesting and profitable.
Said the speaker: A little captive Jewish maiden in the land of Assyria, moved to sympathy with the sufferings of her master, said, "Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria; for he would recover him of his leprosy." The kind words, though spoken by a little girl, were heeded, and Naaman the Syrian, securing from his sovereign a letter of introduction to the king of Israel, undertook a long journey to find the prophet of God, and was rewarded for his perseverance and faith by being restored to his family sound in body—a happy man, ready to fill again the duties of his exalted position in the service of his king, and blessed also with a clearer view of the Great Physician than he had had before.
A deep-laid plot to assassinate a prisoner was revealed to a Roman officer by a young man. The warning was not disregarded because of the humble source from whence it came; but steps were immediately taken to meet the emergency, and so the purpose of the bloodthirsty enemy was frustrated and the beloved apostle Paul lived on to bless the world with many years of useful labor.
Now that an audience is secured, I will take up my part of the evening's exercises.
You see by my uniform that I am a seaman in Her Majesty's service. I want to tell you something about a comrade. He was an earnest, God-fearing man, and always ready to say a word for the Master. When off duty he might often have been seen among his shipmates endeavoring in an unobtrusive way to interest one or another in their own spiritual welfare.
One day at the officers' mess the conversation turned upon the crew, and the question was asked, Who is the happiest man on board? Various names were mentioned, as there came to mind the droll remarks, or ludicrous grimaces, or hanky-panky tricks of one and another of the crew, that would often set the ship's company in a roar of laughter. But the officer who raised the question was not satisfied with the answers given, and declared it to be his firm conviction that the happiest man on the vessel was the God-fearing sailor to whom I have alluded.
Some time afterward when at sea a circumstance occurred which put this man's profession of religion to a severe test, and proved the value of faith in God in time of danger. The alarm of fire was given—that alarm so much dreaded by the sailor on the deep. In spite of all efforts to subdue the flames, the fire gained the mastery. Step by step the crew were beaten back, and the flames seemed to revel in the victory they had gained. They hissed and roared like demons, and spars and yards and rigging crackled beneath their grip as they climbed heavenward. Sea and sky were soon lighted up with the glare of the burning vessel, which looked like a vast furnace, and then measures were taken to withdraw from the ship as hastily as possible before the powder magazine should explode.
The officers are the last to take to the boats. As they are about to push off, a sailor is seen rapidly descending the ladder. But as he reaches the boat and is about to step in, he is told there is no room for him, and is ordered in a commanding voice to find his comrades on the other side of the vessel.
You can scarcely credit the statement that such heartlessness can exist beneath "the flag that's braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze." However, I will leave the fact with you.
A roaring furnace above and around, the deep sea beneath! What is to be done? Should he even succeed in reaching safely the other side of the ship, in all probability he would find that his comrades and the last boat had gone.
Poor Jack! May the God in whom thou trustest be thy stay in this trying hour. But look! He still stands upon the ladder—he has overcome his surprise and is prepared for713his destiny. With hand outstretched toward the stars he is heard to speak, and the retreating boat just catches the words, "There is room for me over there!"
To all human appearances the last incident in a life history is about to be entered by the recording angel, and then a long, sweet rest until the trump of the Archangel shall shake with clarion notes old ocean's profoundest depths, commanding the sea to restore the precious dead in Christ that lie therein, when thou shalt be brought forth, and the Captain of thy salvation whom thou didst follow so humbly here will place upon thy brow with his own hands an immortal crown, and bring thee to the feast that shall be spread in his Father's kingdom.
Then, then, ye Christian warrior,
The song and feast shall flow
To the fame of His name
When the storm has ceased to blow,
When the battle's strife is heard no more,
And the storm has ceased to blow.
This is the religion that we recommend to you to-night. Is it not a religion worth having? We beg of you, in the name of our Master, in view of the uncertainty of life, the obligation under which you are placed to your Creator and best Friend, the duty you owe yourself—study your highest interests, and close in at once with the offer of pardon and eternal life, and make the best of both worlds. Take your passage with us on the good old gospel ship, which will carry us in safety over the rough ocean of life, and land us on the peaceful shores of the heavenly Canaan.
Death with his arrow may soon lay us low;
Safe in our Saviour we fear not the blow;
Jesus has broken the bars of the tomb;
Joyfully, joyfully, will we go home.
Sounds of sweet music there ravish the ear;
Harps of the blessed your strains we shall hear,
Filling with harmony heaven's high dome;
Joyfully, joyfully, Jesus, we come.
Bright will the morn of eternity dawn;
Death will be conquered, his scepter be gone;
Over the plains of sweet Canaan we'll roam,
Joyfully, joyfully, safely at home.
I CAN TRUST.
I CANNOT see, with my small human sight,
Why God should lead this way or that for me,
I only know he says, “Child follow me,”
But I can trust.
I know not why my path should be at times
So straitly edged, so firmly barred before;
I only know God could keep wide the door,
But I can trust.
I cannot tell why suddenly the storm
Should rage so fiercely round me in its wrath;
I only know God watches all my path.
So I can trust.
—Selected.
BETTER THAN A FAIRY.
By Sydney Dayre
"TIME to set the table, my little girlie."
"In just a minute, mamma."
"Tea will be late for father, dear, unless you do it at once."
"I get so little time for my crochet work," said Susy, laying aside her bright worsteds with a frown. "I wish, mamma, that we could keep a girl to do the housework, as Margaret Hill's mother does."
"Mrs. Hill tells me it is so hard to get good girls that she would far prefer not keeping one if she were stronger herself."
"Well, then, I'd like to do as Mrs. Elder does—board. Then there would be no housework to do."
"And not have a house of your own? Be shut into one room or two, and never dare to laugh and play and tear about as you do here?"
"I don't believe I should like that either," said Susy, smiling in answer to her mother's smile. "How could I fix things so as not to have anything to do? Oh, I know. If I could have my way, mamma, I'd have a fairy to do everything. Just think! All I'd have to do when supper time came would be to call for her, and she'd wave a wand, and up would come a table through the floor, all ready—with plenty of finer things than we ever have. And I'd have the rooms swept, and the beds made, and everything just so."
"And what would there be left for a little girl to do for papa and mamma and brothers?"
"Oh, that wouldn't matter, if they didn't want anything done! I never could see," the fretful look came back to Susy's face, as she had to make one more journey to the cellar than she had expected, "why God makes us have so much to do when he could have fixed things differently just as well as not. For instance, we might have had machines for everything. Or all our clothes and things to eat might grow on trees. Fancy going out to pick a clean apron, and then going on to another tree and picking a roast of meat and some potatoes and pie."
"Even then there would be dishes to wash," said her mother, laughing.
"Well, I see that you won't let me have it anyway," said Susy, her smile coming back as she ran for a handful of flowers for the table, and met papa at the door with a pleased face as she hurried back.
"I wonder how mamma is?"
Susy awoke early one morning, remembering with her first peep at the sunbeams which came in at the window that little Harry had been ill and troublesome the day before, and that mamma had gone to bed with a severe headache. The remembrance of her pale face smote on Susy's heart as she recalled, also, that she had not been as helpful and comforting as a little daughter might have been.
"Nobody up yet? There's the clock striking six. I dare say Harry has kept papa and mamma awake, and they are sleeping later. I believe I'll get up and see. It won't do for papa to have a late breakfast."
But, just ready to open mamma's door, a new thought came to her.
"I do believe I'll get breakfast all alone. When it's ready I'll call them, and what a surprise it will be. It won't be much work. Nobody will expect much when things are disturbed this way. I'll just boil the eggs and do over some potatoes."
She made the fire, and its merry crackle seemed full of suggestion.
"I won't put them off that way. They'll want a good breakfast all the more if they have had a bad night. Papa likes baked potatoes. And I have the greatest mind to make gems."
It was quite a venture, for she had never done it. She had never, indeed, cooked a breakfast all by herself, but had so often helped her mother that she knew exactly how everything was done.
"What a good thing it is that things keep on cooking while we're doing something else. The potatoes bake while I'm making the gems, and the gems will cook while I'm setting the table."
With a face full of interest in what she was doing, the dear little lassie moved swiftly about the light, cheerful kitchen, feeling every moment more pride in the getting of her surprise breakfast, keeping all the while as quiet as possible, for fear of waking anyone too soon.
Just as the gems were browning, she ran to call Ned and Robbie, and then gave a tap at mamma's door.
"Quarter to seven, mamma dear."
"So late!" said mamma in dismay. "Why, how could I have overslept so? Hurry things up, dear. We must have a makeshift breakfast this morning."
"I'm going to poach those eggs," said Susy to herself, as she flew back to the cookstove. "It makes such a beautiful looking dish on the table."
She had found, as so many have found, that with the real earnest performance of a duty, all its irksomeness passes away. Every small act connected with the preparation of the breakfast seemed to make the next thing pleasanter, and she had lost all desire to slight or neglect anything.
"A makeshift breakfast!" Mamma gave a little exclamation as she stopped in the doorway in pleased surprise.714
Susy was just taking up the last of the eggs. They were not, possibly, as daintily poached as if done by a more experienced hand, but quite well enough to make the desired pretty dish with its bits of gold set in the pearl white. The pan of hot gems stood on the back of the stove, the coffee was flavoring the whole house, and just as the noisy boys came in, Susy flung open the oven door and began taking out the crisp-skinned potatoes.
"Baked potatoes!" exclaimed papa.
"Gems!" shouted Ned. "Why, mamma, I was going to beg you to have gems this morning because of that new maple sirup, but I didn't because you had such a headache last night. You made 'em after all, and you're a dear mamma."
"I didn't make them," said mamma.
"Oh! Did papa?"
"No," said papa, "I'm only just up myself."
"Then it must have been a fairy," said Robbie, who had heard the talk about fairies. "Did you see it, Sue? Did it wave a wand, and then did the table come up through the floor as quick as a wink?"
"If it was a fairy, it had two wands instead of one," said papa, taking the hands with which Susy set down the dish of eggs before him. "One wand might do very well for one of your old-time fairies, but when it comes to the everyday home fairies who get up such breakfasts as this, it takes two."
"Yes," said mamma, "just the two dear little wands which are moved by a loving heart and a thoughtful head. Just the kind of a fairy—"
"Get the maple sirup, please, Sue," cried Ned, thinking the talk was getting too serious. "I'm awfully glad you've gone into the fairy business."—Sydney Dayre, in N. Y. Observer.
TAKE MY HAND, PAPA.
In the dead of night I am frequently awakened by a little hand stealing out from the crib by my side, with the pleading cry, "Please take my hand, papa."
Instantly the little boy's hand is grasped, his fears vanish, and, soothed by the consciousness of his father's presence, he falls into sweet sleep again.
We recommend this lesson of simple, filial faith and trust to the anxious, sorrowing ones that are found in almost every household. Stretch forth your hand, stricken mourner, although you may be in the deepest darkness and gloom, and fear and anxious suspense may cloud your weary pathway, and that very act will reveal the presence of a loving, compassionate Father, and give you the peace that passeth all understanding.
The darkness may not pass away at once, night may still enfold you in its embrace, but its terrors will be dissipated, its gloom and sadness flee away, and in the simple grasp of the Father's hand, sweet peace will be given, and you will rest securely, knowing that the "morning cometh."—Congregationalist.
GETHSEMANE.
By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
In golden youth, when seems the earth
A summer land for singing mirth,
When souls are glad and hearts are light,
And not a shadow lurks in sight,
We do not know it, but there lies
Somewhere, veiled under evening skies,
A garden all must sometime see,—
Somewhere lies our Gethsemane.
With joyous steps we go our ways;
Love lends a halo to the days;
Light sorrows pass like clouds afar;
We laugh and say how strong we are;
We hurry on, and, hurrying, go
Close to the border land of woe
That waits for you and waits for me—
Forever waits Gethsemane.
Down shadowy lanes, across strange streams,
Bridged over by our broken dreams,
Behind the misty capes of years,
Close to the great, salt fount of tears
The garden lies; strive as you may
You cannot miss it in your way;
All paths that have been or shall be
Pass somewhere through Gethsemane.
All those who journey, soon or late,
Must pass within the garden's gate,
Must kneel alone in darkness there,
And battle with some fierce despair;
God pity those who cannot say,
"Not mine, but thine," who only pray,
"Let this cup pass," and cannot see
The purpose in Gethsemane.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
KRUPP'S BIG GUN.
ONE of the most interesting exhibits at the Chicago Exposition is a cannon made at the famous Krupp Works in Germany. It is forty-seven feet long, has a sixteen and one-half inch bore, and is five feet through at its largest part, and fires a shell weighing two thousand two hundred pounds. This cannon is a very different affair from the guns with which all the battles the world ever saw were fought. It is intended for forts, and could not be used anywhere else, as the discharge of such a gun would ruin a man of war, and would be about as useless a piece of artillery as ever played havoc with its friends on a battle-field. It is handled by machinery, and the derrick-like shears with which it is moved about like a pistol in the hands of a cowboy, is one hundred feet tall.—N. Y. World.
THE EFFECTS OF BEER.
FOR some years a decided inclination has been apparent all over the country to give up the use of whisky and other strong alcohols, using as a substitute beer and other compounds. This is evidently founded on the idea that beer is not harmful, and contains a large amount of nutriment, also that bitters may have some medicinal quality which will neutralize the alcohol which it conceals. These theories are without confirmation in the observation of physicians and chemists, where either has been used for any length of time.
The constant use of beer is found to produce a species of degeneration of all the organism, profound and deceptive. Fatty deposits, diminished circulation, conditions of congestion and perversion of functional activities, local inflammations of both liver and kidneys, are constantly present. Intellectually, a stupor amounting almost to paralysis arrests the reason, precipitating all the higher faculties into a mere animalism, sensual, selfish, sluggish, varied only with paroxysms of anger that are senseless and brutal; in appearance the beer drinker may be the picture of health, but in reality he is most incapable of resisting disease. A slight injury, severe cold, or a shock to the body or mind, will commonly provoke acute disease, ending fatally.
Compared with inebriates who use different kinds of alcohol he is more incurable and more generally diseased. The constant use of beer every day gives the system no time for recuperation, but steadily lowers the vital forces. It is our observation that beer drinking in this country produces the very lowest kind of inebriety, closely allied to criminal insanity. The most dangerous class of ruffians in large cities are beer drinkers.
It is asserted by competent authority that the evils of heredity are more positive in this than from alcoholics. If these facts are well founded, the recourse to beer as a substitute for alcohol merely increases the danger and fatality following.
In bitters we have a drink which can never become general; but its chief danger will be in strengthening the disordered cravings, which latter develop a positive disease. Public sentiment and legislation should comprehend that all forms of alcohol are more or less dangerous when used steadily; and all persons who use them in this way should come under sanitary and legislative control.—Quarterly Journal of Inebriety.
THE TREATMENT OF DISEASE WITHOUT ALCOHOL.
ONE of the most accomplished, as well as most philosophic and most original, of living physicians is Benjamin Ward Richardson. Any expression of opinion or any announcement of practice from his pen must, therefore, be received with the most respectful consideration. He retired from hospital practice in the year 1867, but in the spring of 1892 he received an invitation to become physician to the London Temperance Hospital, which, in his own language, "was so much to my taste, and the mode in which it came to me was so handsomely conceived, that I could not help availing myself of it."
Left free to prescribe alcohol medicinally in such cases and at such times as he saw fit, he treated two hundred successive cases, of a wide range of formidable disease, affecting various classes of persons, without the use of alcohol in a single case. Glycerine was employed in the preparation of tinctures, and a series of waters (aqua ferri, aqua chloroformi, aqua opii, etc.) was devised to form the menstrua of other active drugs that might be required. So successful have been the results that it is concluded that they could not have been bettered by any aid that could have been derived from alcoholic stimulants.
So says the Philadelphia Medical News. The eighteenth annual report of the hospital shows that 753 patients were treated during the year 1890, of whom 390 were cured, 258 relieved, 60 were unrelieved, and 45, or not quite 6 per cent. (5.93), died. From the opening of the hospital to the end of December 6,896 in-patients have been treated, of whom 3,591 were cured and 428 died, a mortality of 6.2 per cent. The patients were treated in this hospital without the ordinary administration of alcohol.
PIERCING TWELVE-INCH ARMOR.
THE recent tests of the twelve-inch armor-piercing shells at Indian Head have proved very successful. The plate fired at was twelve-inch imported Crusoe steel plate. The first shell was fired at a velocity of 1,300 feet per second, and was intended to go just through the plate. It went about sixteen inches into the backing, rebounding forty feet, and was found to be only slightly upset in body. The second shell was fired at a velocity of 1,325 feet per second, the increase being intended to penetrate the plate and backing. This shell went through both, and fell nine feet in the rear, and was in the same condition as the first. Commodore Sampson says that they have proved so satisfactory that he believes they could have been reloaded in the gun and fired again, as the increase of the body of the shells was only about four-hundredths of an inch. Their points, which were about as sharp as a needle, had not been perceptibly dulled.
THE TELAUTOGRAPH.
By The Altruist
THIS is a writing telegraph. A man sits down at his desk in St. Louis and writes a message to his friend in New York. The latter receives the message in an exact facsimile of the handwriting of the sender. This operation requires no skilled labor. Anyone who can write can send a message, and providing there is an electric wire connecting them and two transmitters and receivers, two persons can carry on a correspondence, though thousands of miles apart, and every stroke of the pen will be exactly and instantaneously reproduced over that distance.
The structure of these instruments seems to be remarkably simple. In the transmitter an ordinary lead pencil is used, near the point of which two silk cords are fastened at right angles to each other. These connect with the instrument, and, following the motions of the pencil, regulate the current impulses which control the receiving pen at the distant station. The writing is done on ordinary paper—five inches wide—conveniently arranged on a roll attached to the machine. A lever at the left is so moved by the hand as to shift the paper forward mechanically at the transmitter, and electrically at the receiver.
The receiving pen is a glass tube placed at the junction of two aluminum arms. This glass pen is supplied with ink, which flows from a reservoir through a small rubber tube placed in one of these arms. The electrical impulses, coming over the wire, move the pen of the receiver simultaneously with the movements of the pencil in the hand of the sender. As the pen passes over the paper, an ink tracing is left, which is always a facsimile of the sender's motions, whether in the formation of letters, words, figures, signs, shorthand writing, drawing, or pictures.—The Altruist.
THE CHURCH ICE CREAM AND OYSTER BUSINESS.
OUR New York Baptist brother, the Examiner, is usually very mild and conservative, but the church ice cream and oyster apostasy inflames his proper and phlegmatic spirit to these utterances: "But there is another use of the ice cream and oyster idea that is objectionable, and that deserves all the reprobation that can be poured upon it, all the shafts of wit and ridicule that can pierce it—that is, the debasement of this useful and innocent social adjunct to the level of a catch-penny, money-making scheme, to save people the effort and deprive them of the luxury of self-denying giving. This attempt to glorify God by filling man's stomach; this pretense of giving something for religion, when one is really only indulging one's own appetite; this substitution of vulgar and worldly methods of raising money for a Christian principle of giving as God has prospered each—what words can be too sharp-pointed to express the detestation and disgust for it that every Christian man ought to feel and cherish? Of all the travesties of religion, ice cream religion is the least worthy of respect and gentle treatment. Away with it from our churches."—Selected.
KOREA.
By Rev. George Heber Jones
BY REV. GEORGE HEBER JONES.
THE Koreans are an ancient people. Their historical period goes back three thousand years; their traditions carry us a millennium further into the mists of long-gone ages. Monuments of a hoar antiquity abound. The missionary works in cities laid out while Abraham was still in the land of the Chaldees; he gazes upon tombs which contained the dust of sages when Saul of Kish founded Jewish royalty. Seoul, the center of missionary operations, was built one hundred years before Columbus discovered America. A fortress erected in the time of Christ has become a missionary sanitarium.
The Korean is proud of his antiquity. His answer to the West, when first an attempt was made to open his rigidly secluded home, indicates full well his temper: "We are satisfied with our civilization of three thousand years, and want nothing you can bring." Age had impaired his eyesight, and he could neither see clearly nor discern properly just what it was the West proposed to give.
Later on, Korea, in the persons of a now famous embassy, visited the West and saw, but their conclusion upon return was thus expressed by the most eminent of that company: "The West is a mighty flame, Korea the moth flitting about it; flame is a dangerous locality for the moth." His infirm vision was dazzled and blinded by what he saw.
From this, however, we are not to infer that there is no spirit of progress among the Koreans. It is a human trait, especially emphasized among the Asiatics, to be eager for any personal benefit, and Korea is certainly desirous of our good things, but she wishes to be convinced of the genuine and beneficial character of what we offer before she accepts.
This very antiquity, however, brings out a great difficulty. That which Christianity would supplant is by long centuries of dominance ingrained into the very nature of the people, while we and our views appear to be but of yesterday.
It is not human for age to fall readily in behind the leadership of youth. The Bible is the only sacred book that ever declared, "A little child shall lead them," and Christ the only teacher who has affirmed, "Out of the mouths of babes hast thou ordained wisdom." But Asia must and will learn the lesson of making a distinction between the gift and the apparent giver, and it will be a happy day when she and the world shall fully appreciate the great truth that "God is no respecter of persons," either in his gifts or his calls to leadership.
In judging of the true condition of affairs in Korea I believe it well to call attention to the tendency in many quarters to confound material evidences of prosperity with progress itself. To many civilization is representative government, railroads, telegraphs, and steamships, tight-fitting garments, and the English language. A heathen nowadays is a man who wears baggy trousers and cannot speak English. Yet a nation may possess all the above things and still be as heathen as a Hottentot, while, on the other hand, there may be as devoted followers of the lowly Nazarene, who never saw a locomotive, voted for a president, or wore a derby hat, as you will find in America.
A nation is only transformed as its individual members themselves become transformed, and while national wealth and prosperity may outstrip the moral elevation of the people, only that which comprises the latter is permanent. The forces which make for the elevation of the Korean people are slowly making headway, but a great and often discouraging battle is being and must be fought with the opposition before material advancement will be noticeable.
Ten years ago Korea was a forbidden land. Even toward her nearest neighbors, China and Japan, her attitude was one of retirement and actual seclusion. Living in a fossilized state, any change could hardly be short of a miracle. To-day fully twenty thousand foreigners, including Chinese and Japanese, dwell within her borders, so we erect one milestone, for the day of isolation has passed, and the door to the country is open. The old stereotype plate of "seclusion," the traditional view for centuries, has been smashed, and instead we have hospitality and welcome.
Again, it was a dreadful thing for a Korean to leave the fatherland for a foreign clime; now we have Koreans in America, Russia, Japan, and elsewhere, and another traditional plate is smashed. Still another stereotype of the ages, namely, that all but Chinese are savages, has been permanently laid by, and we often find traces of humility even in Korea's attitude toward the West.
But it is our aim to speak particularly of the part Christianity is playing in the transformation of the nation.
KOREA IS A MISSION FIELD.
The material monuments which meet the eye are not the only evidences of Korea's antiquity. Of far greater moment than they are the evidences which do not appear to the eye. We are confronted by prejudices and habits which have dominated the people for hundreds of years. The longer certain views are held and certain courses of conduct followed, the harder it is to give them up and reform. This in Korea confronts us as a pertinent, ever-present problem.
The sages of Korea taught the nation that woman is inferior to man. Christianity flatly contradicts this, and there is a clash. The sages taught that some men are better than other men, and again we have a discord, for the church has as warm a welcome for the cooly as for the noble. Polytheism, that dreadful travesty of God's omnipresence, fills earth, air, and sea with gods, demons, and supernatural creatures, and opposes with all its force Christian monotheism. Immoral practices have the sanction of antiquity, and challenge Christianity's right of censure. And not only do these views enjoy the sanction of honored and revered names, but from habit they have become second nature. Divine grace alone can save from them.
These views have been systematized in three great cults—ancestral worship, Buddhism, and the heresies.
Ancestral worship is the State religion, and, emphasizing as it does the beautiful trait of filial piety, presents a hard problem to the missionary. It is associated with the tenderest thoughts and most hallowed memories of the Korean. Its rites are obligatory upon him as the last mark of respect and love to father and mother, and to omit them brings upon him the contempt, the censure, and sometimes the violence of neighbors and friends.
Buddhism is languishing in an effete old age, rotting in immorality. The priests and nuns, while looked upon with great contempt by the higher class, yet possess great influence over the lower classes, the women, and the superstitious of every class. Most of these priests are in the monasteries for the rice and clothing it brings them. This sordid aim prevents that creed loyalty which would develop fanatical opposition to Christianity. Doubtless one of these days the devil will lead the cohorts of Buddhism against us, but the personnel of the priesthood will have to change before he can wake them up to fanaticism.
The heresies embrace all outside the two great cults. They comprise the superstitious notions of the people, the parasitic encumbrances of the two other cults, with the myths of the aboriginal Koreans. These comprise ghosts, demons, monsters, and genii, the inventions and self-deceptions of a sinful and fearful imagination, unmoored from the true God, and adrift in darkness for thirty centuries and more.
At this very point the preciousness and glory of the deliverance in Christ shines out beautifully. The Christian is surrounded on all sides by the omnipresent God and Father, whose character is known, whose love and providence are boundless, and who is one and unchangeable. The unconverted Korean moves amid the myriad creatures of his imagination; they frequent the walls, ceiling, and floor of his room, the gate by which he enters, the brook flowing by, the trees about, the mountains in the distance, and the air above; their characters are of ten thousand varieties; their demands upon his time and resources, unlimited. Nowhere is Christ's declaration, "Whom the Son maketh free is free indeed," better appreciated than in Korea.
These systems have given rise to the customs and modes of life among the Koreans. Filial piety is a marked trait. The power of the parent is absolute, the submission of the child hearty and genuine. The respect paid by youth to age shames the West, America especially. Indeed, the status of age in Korea is a pleasant thing to see.
Loyalty and devotion to the king is another marked trait of the Koreans, who view his majesty as the national father rather than as a despot.
From the same source, however, the State creed, comes the injustice done woman. The dualism which dominates a Korean's every conception has placed her in the same category with darkness, weakness, inferiority, and iniquity. Viewed as inferior to the man, her lot is one of subjection. From the father she passes under the control of the husband, after whose death she is virtually subject to the eldest son. She enters the marriage state during the age of fourteen to seventeen, this being absolutely obligatory if she would retain the respect of her people. Ancestral worship, being based on the possession of male posterity, places its sanction on plurality of wives, and in thus destroying the true home life opens the way for great immorality. The true wife is often deserted for some favorite concubine or mistress, and no stigma of disrepute incurred.
Another custom which we find it hard to explain and harder to encounter is that of caste. Three divisions, of high, middle, and low class exist, well defined and separate, based possibly on the Hindu idea, though far from being so rigid. This, however, has given rise to a code of etiquette, degrading alike to all. It cannot but produce pride and arrogance in12the upper classes, and crush out ambition and self-reliance in the lower classes. The noble meets the cooly in our services as an equal, and when they become members of a church, as a brother. While most awkward at times, nevertheless it often becomes a test of conversion, for those who refuse to show humility at this point soon fall.
The evil of this custom is that it denies the right of every man to freedom, and creates a class standard of blood and ancestry instead of merit. It shuts up the cooly to that development of his faculties which would fit him to fill a higher station in life. It places the low man at the mercy of his superior, who may act toward him in a manner which would put him in prison in the States, and yet the cooly can obtain no redress.
It cheapens human life, for while custom secures the noble the possession of his goods, immunity from torture, and a regard for his person, not so the luckless low man. Guilty of an actual offense, or it may be incurring only the displeasure of an aristocrat, he is liable to be dragged off to prison by the hair of the head, stamped upon with hobnailed shoes if he falls by the roadside on the way, subjected to the most horrible and vile tortures a foul heathen imagination can invent, and finally dispatched by a bloody and painful execution.
This cheapness of human life and disregard of the sacredness of the human body is, after all, not so much a result of the caste idea as a direct effect of heathenism itself, for the same spectacle horrifies the missionary in lands where class privileges do not prevail as they do in Korea. One of the greatest triumphs of Christianity has been its victory over cruelty and torture. A heathen may well sigh for the privilege of being born in a Christian land.—Gospel in All Lands.
STARS.
By Eliza H. Morton
BY ELIZA H. MORTON.
Ye stars of light in heaven,
How brilliantly ye shine,
And, oh, what wondrous glory,
What heights on heights are thine!
And this we know, though mortal,
A lesson we may learn
From those bright lamps above us—
The stars that glow and burn.
The golden gleams of glory
Will ne'er, no, ne'er grow dim—
The stars of our rejoicing,
If we but work for Him.
Aye, work for Christ the Master
With willing heart and hand,
And shine at length forever
In that bright promised land.