Canada and in the United States, was elected dean. Dr. Wier at the time of his election was Presiding Elder of the Hakodate District.

When we consider the large amount of class work inevitable in Asiatic schools, the literary work accomplished by the teachers mentioned above is by no means inconsiderable, but space does not admit of more than a reference to this matter.

In April, 1893, Dr. Norton resigned and returned to America. He accomplished much while with us, especially in a literary way.

As successor to Dr. Norton the Board of Managers have elected Mr. E. Asada.

Mr. Asada,

a native of Japan, is a graduate in theology of Northwestern University, U. S. A., and has recently completed a post-graduate course in the new Chicago University. Mr. Asada has taken very high rank as a specialist in the Semitic languages.

Over a hundred students have received instruction under our care during the fourteen years of the existence of the school, and while some have fallen by the way, and some have "fallen asleep," a goodly number are earnest and successful ministers of the Church in these "Isles of the Sea."

Profoundly grateful to God for the success that has attended us in the past, especially during the first decade of school work in Tokio, we humbly look for greater things in the future, and to this end we bespeak the prayers of God's people in our behalf.

Tarsus and Peking.

BY REV. MARCUS L. TAFT, D.D.

TARSUS, the ancient capital of Cilicia and the birthplace of Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, has to-day a self-supporting Christian church and the beginnings of a Christian college.

On January 28 of this year the Evangelical Church, started thirty years ago by missionaries of the American Board, wrote a letter to that successful, praiseworthy missionary society expressing hearty thanks for their previous assistance, and at the same time asserting their ability and determination in the future to care for themselves.

Chiefly through the efforts of the late Colonel Elliot F. Shepard, Editor of the Mail and Express, of New York, a Christian institute of learning, named in honor of St. Paul, was started a few years ago at Tarsus, in Asia Minor. Last spring, by the munificent legacy of one hundred thousand dollars left by Colonel Shepard, this young St. Paul's Institute began a new era of progress in spreading abroad Christian learning throughout the Levant.

This St. Paul's Institute at Tarsus, along with the well-equipped Robert College, the emancipator of Bulgaria, at the west, and the Beyroot College, the enlightener of the Levant, at the south-not to mention the Christian educational establishments at

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Harpoot, Aintab, Marsovan, and other Turkish towns will all afford ample facilities to acquire Western learning under Christian auspices for the straggling, scanty population of Turkey. May St. Paul's Institute at Tarsus, like a lighthouse, ever shine with increasing radiancy, guiding many a Moslem and pagan safely into the haven of eternal life!

Peking University was organized at Peking, China, in 1888, and was incorporated according to the laws of the State of New York in 1890, with a Board of Trustees in New York and a Board of Managers in China. The first class was graduated from its collegi ate department on June 7, 1892. The hearty readiness to cooperate in establishing this important Christian university was manifested two years ago, when various members of the diplomatic, commercial, literary, and missionary bodies united in accepting the invitation to serve on the Board of Managers in China.

Already the accommodations provided by the erection of Durbin Hall, which Bishop Mallalieu after personal inspection last September pronounced "the best built and most satisfactory edifice in all educational work in China," are insufficient. More class room is demanded now. Toward endowing two professorships costing $60,000, $2,250 has already been subscribed by missionaries on the field.

The financial resources of your representatives in China's capital are limited. "America is another word for opportunity," says Emerson. American Christians, in order to improve this opportunity, even if it costs a little self-denial, will have to donate promptly and liberally, for only in this way will Peking University be firmly established.

Munificent gifts to Peking University, like the $100,000 which Colonel Shepard has just bequeathed to St. Paul's Institute at Tarsus, and also donations of $50,000, $30,000, $10,000, $1,000, as well as larger and smaller sums, will probably accomplish at Peking University, Peking, China-when we consider the hundreds of millions of China's inhabitants-more good for the greatest number than anywhere else on the surface of the globe.

St. Paul's Institute, at the provincial town of Tarsus, will doubtless prove a useful agency in the regeneration of the comparatively sparse population of Turkey in Asia. Anyone, however, by a few moments' reflection, may consider how incomparably greater good will be conferred upon China's densely crowded beehive, with its many millions of busy workers, by powerfully strengthening Peking University, at the capital of China, the center of its political, social, and literary life.

Only unstinted contributions, like that of Colonel Shepard's, will render Peking University a modern Pharos in ancient China, flashing far and wide amid the dangerous rocks of heathenism the enlightening rays of a true Christian civilization. Peking University, well equipped, will ever continue to disperse the dense darkness enveloping the multitudinous pop

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ulation of China. Peking University, amply endowed, will bestow unmeasured blessings upon China's millions, unspeakably far exceeding the highest imaginable good, however great, which will ever possibly be accomplished by St. Paul's Institute at Tarsus amid the scattered, sparsely settled regions of effete Turkey. Five years ago Bishop Fowler, standing upon the high, massive city wall of Peking-wide enough on top for six carriages to drive abreast--and looking down upon the governmental examination hall, where were gathered picked scholars from the eighteen provinces of China, was deeply moved by the sight. His heart eagerly yearning for these bright Chinese youth, gave vent to his intense longing in these words, "We must have a chance among these young scholars. Let the Church pray mightily for the capture of these souls, that we may have Pauls in every province of China!"

Peking, July 28, 1893.

A Foreigner's Experience in China.

BY REV. G. W. VERITY.

ONE day, on the south side of Nanking, I was pelted with old shoes and stones by a crowd of hoodlum boys; another day my hat was knocked off; and the same afternoon I came in contact with a crazy woman who made considerable sport for the crowd at my expense. I finally got rid of her by complying with her request and giving her a Gospel.

Talking one day in the northern part of the city to some carpenters who were at work on a large public building, one of them asked as to the contents of the books that I was selling. I replied: "They exhort men to be good, to repent of their sins, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; not to worship idols, but to worship the true God." At this he laughed and said, "O, you on that side [foreigners] have come over here to exhort us on this side [Chinese]!" Only those who know the Chinese could appreciate his remark. It might be translated thus: "What! you from one of those small outside kingdoms come here to exhort us of the great 'middle kingdom'? [Presumption.]"

In a tea shop near the Han Si Men I asked a man if he would not buy a Gospel. Looking at his feet he replied, "See, I have straw shoes-men who wear straw shoes don't read." Another replied, "I am a farmer-farmers don't know characters [don't read]." A common saying among the unlearned is, "They [the characters] know me, but I don't know them."

A stonecutter in a small town asked one day, when I was showing him the books and explaining the doctrine, "What profit is there to be derived from worshiping this God?"

I replied: "If you worship the true God, and serve him, he will protect you and bless you, and give you food [rice] to eat and clothing to wear; and he will forgive your sins."

"Umph!" said he; "I trust in my hammer and chisel for my rice."

"But," I asked, "whence comes the strength to wield your hammer? Is it not derived from the rice you eat? And whence comes the rice? Is it not grown in the field? If your clay idol falls into the water, it dissolves and is gone. Your wooden one burns up, and the wind scatters the ashes. Your idols are gone. They have no power. They are worthless. It is the true and living God who made the soil and the seed. He sends the rain and the sunshine, and makes the rice grow."

Just then he was called to dinner; so I passed on. Coming one morning to a tea shop and finding it full of people, I entered, and without saying anything began to show our Scriptures. A portly old lady, evidently from the country, sat with her husband at one of the tables near the door. Nudging him, and not supposing that I understood her, she said, "Isn't that a foreign devil?" I replied, "No, old lady, but a foreign gentleman." "O, foreign gentleman, foreign gentleman!" she responded. She had evidently never seen an "outside kingdom" man before.

In another city, across the lake, just as I was coming around a corner, I met a man who paused as though he wanted to look at the books. I asked him if he did not want to buy some of them. He made no reply for some time, and staring at me, said, “Are -are-a-you not a foreigner?"

In the spring I made journeys to several cities lying adjacent to Nanking. Luh-Ho lies about thirty miles north of the river. It is the cleanest city I have seen in China, and the sparkling blue waters of the river on which it is situated form a pleasing contrast to the muddy waters of the Yang-tse.

A wheelbarrow cooly whom we met on the street became much interested in the Gospel. He was one of a party of four who had driven their barrows, loaded with produce, all the way from Lai Cheo Fuh, in the northern part of Shang-Tung Province, a distance of three hundred and thirty miles, and were taking them back laden with white sugar. This will seem incredible to our friends at home, but things are done in the most primitive way in China, and this is not an uncommon mode of transportation in the "middle kingdom." As these men were too poor to stay at an inn, they had made a shelter of reeds and grass outside of the city to protect them from the fierce rays of the sun. But notwithstanding his poverty, one of these bought several Calendars, one copy of the Psalms, two New Testaments, and twenty. four Gospels, saying that he wanted to take them to his native village, as they had never heard the Gospel there. May he learn through these of Him who said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!" Thus will the way be prepared for the living voice of the evangelist who shall " explain the way more perfectly."-Bible Society Record.

Methodist Episcopal Church.

BY REV. CHAS. W. MILLER.

ALL the South America republics are founded on constitutions modeled more or less after the Constitution of the United States, but, excepting Brazil, they all sustain the Roman Catholic Church as the Church of the state. Peru has no provision for liberty of worship, and oue of our workers was imprisoned in Callao for ten months for preaching the Gospel and distributing Bibles, and Protestant religious services must be held with shut doors. In Brazil the Church was separated from the state in the organization of the republic, but a strange law was made that no denomination should condemn any other, and Romanism has lately used it in prosecuting and imprisoning a missionary for writing an article against the worship of the Virgin Mary.

There is at present in the river Plata countries all the religious liberty needed, and the educational and other civil laws promulgated in these last years favor the evangelical propaganda. Open persecution is generally unknown. These countries, however, are yet almost wholly under the control of a corrupt and idolatrous priesthood. When I say a corrupt priesthood I do not desire to insult anyone, but after several years of experience in those countries I will say that it is doubtful if there be a pagan religion in the world that can show a more completely debased set of men intrusted with religious affairs than the Roman Catholic priesthood of South America.

This condition of things drives multitudes of the most intelligent classes into infidelity and atheism. The skepticism and deism of France is fast becoming the belief or the no-belief of the intelligent South Americans. They put it in this way, Romanism is the true representative of the Christian religion; Romanism is nothing more than a system of superstition and religious fraud for worldly rule and gain; therefore Christianity is unworthy of the credence and support of intelligent, thinking men.

Turning now to a phase of the religious life in those countries, we will speak of some of their festivals. Before the civil authorities took up the matter there were so many feast days that the poor and working classes did not really have time to gain a living. Sunday is of little importance as a religious feast day, the forenoon being dedicated to toil and business the same as any other day of the week. At present carnival, Corpus Christi, and Easter are the festivals that receive universal attention, and that give a good insight into their superstitious practices.

The carnival is celebrated once in the year, generally in the month of February. A month before the feast the great preparations begin. The men and

drums and banners, dress themselves in very fantastic suits, and drill in preparation for the great day when they will vie with each other and compete for ugliness and foolishness.

The day comes; they go forth dressed in frightful masks, grotesque suits, beating drums, dancing, shouting. All business is closed, the churches in silence; the city seems to be invaded by hordes of mysterious and terrible savages. They throw water and flour and rice on each other, and squirt perfume on the girls and drench a passer-by with a whole bucket of water from an upper story. Everything is mock and fun and foolishness. In the theaters the mask balls are in full blast, and the drinking saloons do a fine business. Human passion and folly go unbridled, and all kinds of wickedness are done with impunity.

On the Sunday following they repeat this display and call it the burial of carnival. A shrouded hog, carried on a litter and followed in mock funeral train, serves to end this week of license and sin. You ask what all this means, and not one will be able to tell you. The object of this feast seems to be to permit the people to indulge to their full satisfaction their baser passions and propensities before they enter on the solemn fast of forty days preceding Easter.

Corpus Christi is a feast celebrated in the month of June. A procession starts from the principal church or cathedral. Men carrying great candles, and these burning at midday, lead the way. Then comes the bishop and his train. He is shaded with a satin canopy borne by four men, and holds before his nose a silver case which contains the consecrated wafer or Corpus Christi-the body of Christ. They proceed around the public square, the bishop murmuring no one knows what, and the band playing.

Everybody must bow or at least take off their hat when the bishop passes, because he is carrying the body of Christ-the wafer which they say has been converted by the act of consecration into the real Christ, which is now worthy to be adored as God.

Both sides of the street are lined with national soldiers with bristling bayonets. The soldiers must kneel on the ground. In Montevideo I saw them kneel in the mud. The object of this feast is to induce the people to worship the consecrated bread that is used in the communion as the real, divine Christ.

Easter, the anniversary of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the great festival of the Roman Church. The people put on mourning, the church bells are muffled, and the images and other decoration of the churches are draped. All is sadness, darkness, and gloom. When the day arrives on which Jesus died, they say, "God is dead to-day,"