and tact.

when success is assured. In all such cases the arrangements lie between the Missionary and the persons he employs. The books are sold to the Missionary at a considerable discount, and this large discount covers the expenses of distribution. There is no limit to the possible development of this method of circulating vernacular literature. The value of voluntary effort cannot be overrated, especially if the desire to do good is the incentive, Need of push rather than the hope of pecuniary gain. A native Missionary in Bangalore sold in one year over 25,000 tracts, besides a large number of school books. With respect to his sales in another year, he writes::- "It would be too much to say that all these books were purchased voluntarily in each case. In some cases strong persuasion was used. On another occasion discussions led to purchases. One person purchases because he cannot avoid doing so,' another to please you,' a third because it is cheap,' while a fourth buys for his boy.' However, they are purchased, and are not thrown away without being read." This extract well illustrates the pressure, tact and push which a man in earnest will exert when he sets himself to gain his point; and the success of the work depends on efforts put forth in this spirit. The distribution of vernacular literature demands pertinacity and determination of this character, and the stimulus of a desire to save souls is the desideratum. Of the distribution of literature by Missionaries when itinerating, I have no space to say anything. This is a method universally and successfully adopted in South India, as it doubtless is elsewhere.

Colportage.

6

6

Where voluntary agents are not to be had, and even when they are to be had, we have to make use of a special agency for the dissemination of Christian literature. The one kind of means supplements and stimulates the other. In many instances, the possession of a fixed salary, apart from the sales to be effected, renders a man languid and apathetic in individual cases, where persistent determination might be successful-the colporteur here succeeds where a voluntary agent often fails. On the other hand, the fact that a certain number of books must be got rid of in order to secure the month's income has a tendency to make colporteurs cultivate the sales of books likely to sell, whether school-books or others, rather than to spend their strength on purely religious publications whose sale is more difficult, more tedious,

and less remunerative-here a voluntary agent of the right stamp has more chance of success than the paid agent.

agency.

Colportage, so far at least as general Christian litera- Comparativeture is concerned, is comparatively recent in the south. ly recent In connection with the Bangalore Tract Society, the agency is not yet ten years old. Statistics are available for eight full years only. Still the advance made in that period is very noteworthy. From a total of less than 10,000 publications disposed of in this way in 1874, the number rose to nearly 35,000 in 1881; and in 1879 nearly 40,000 were sold. A grand total of some 204,000 has been distributed by colporteurs in eight years. In connection with the C. V. E. S., complete figures for twelve years are available. The employment of colporteurs on any large scale began towards the end of 1871-only one had been at work earlier. Beginning with 1871 and ending with 1882, a total of 742,611 separate publications have been sold by colporteurs; an average of about 62,000 per year. The increase is from 22,000, in 1871, to about 75,000 now. Colporteurs are also employed at Mangalore in connection with the Basel Mission, but I am not in possession of the figures for any term of years. This is, I believe, the most recent of the three Societies employing colporteurs, but is doing very good work, circulating some 24,000 per year.

With these figures before us, we cannot say that colportage is a failure, or that it should not be widely extended. These men are prohibited from selling anything not strictly Christian in its character. Whether they sell school-books, general literature, or tracts, they are compelled to see that the tone of the books is Christian. I have not heard of any case where this rule has been violated. The seed sown is all pure, whatever be its outward form. I have, however, remarked above that the agent paid to distribute this literature is tempted to push those sales which will prove most remunerative to himself, since his own livelihood is affected by it. This is a matter Supervision which needs constant watching, lest our colporteurs while needed. still remaining Christian pedlars should cease to be aggressive Christian workers. The paramount importance Press the sale of disseminating literature directly evangelistic must be rather than insisted on, and the necessity of efforts being directed school-books. into this channel must be distinctly emphasized. It is a matter for thankfulness that thus far this point appears

of tracts

to have been well kept in view. In Bangalore, the sale of school-books is to the sale of tracts &c. as one to nine -nine tracts are sold for every single school-book. In Madras, at first, the proportion of tracts to school-books was as three to one, but this has gradually decreased until now it is only as four to three. The sale of school-books threatens to equal, if not overlap, the sale of tracts &e. This is a serious menace to the distribution of vernacular Christian literature. School-books are necessities, and the sale requires no such pushing as is required with tracts. Not that this portion of the work is to be less carefully done for it is essential that at the present time the young of the nation should have Christian text books in their hands-but rather that the other portion should be more carefully attended to. The expenses of colportage will of course be just as fairly met by sales in the one case as in the other, but the aspect and bearing of the work are very different. And the dynamic effect of the work on the heathen community is also very different.

I am not able to say whether any general improvement has taken place of late in the standard of the books sold -whether the stamp of literature now freely purchased is higher than formerly. When the C. V. E. S. began its Increase in work, the average price of each publication sold by colporteurs was four pies-it is now about 84 pies.

number and cost of tracts.

In one exceptional year, the average price rose to over an anna; but this was due to an unusual sale of schoolbooks that year. Taking the present average rate of 8 pies, as contrasted with the early rate of 4 pies, I am inclined to think that the taste for literature has grown, and that higher-priced publications, containing more elaborate statements of Christian truth, are now purchased. The number of tracts sold is greater, and the price is higher than formerly. This speaks well for the success of our efforts to circulate vernacular literature. The public interest is aroused, and a decided demand has been created by the labours of the past. And just because there is more demand now than formerly, there is danger that the efforts put forth to effect distribution will slacken, and that far less aggressiveness will be shown. Just in proportion as the work grows easier by the increased demand, it must be pushed more energetically where at present there is little or no demand. And the production of higher class literature will be correspondingly necessary. Side by side with this growth in the demand for a

better class of literature, there is an increase in the sale of cheap, very cheap, publications. In Kanarese there are little books sold at half a pie each, and these go off marvellously. The one pie little books in all the languages of South India sell remarkably well. One who is well experienced in these matters has remarked that these books are rarely brought back home unsold. Price has certainly a great deal to do with the sale of books, but is not the whole of the matter. For it has been noticed that, not unfrequently, a cheaper, more attractive looking tract is passed over in favour of a higher-priced plainer one. All kinds and classes of publications find. their place in the general community.

Yet special demand for

very cheap

ones.

and high commission for colpor

teurs.

On the question of salaries and allowances to those who sell tracts, I have nothing new to say. Dr. Murdoch has said well all that seems to me to be necessary on this point. It has been accepted, both in theory and in Low salaries practice, that paid agents for the sale of books must have very low fixed salaries and liberal discount or high commission. No other plan succeeds in getting books distributed. Grumbling at the low salaries on the part of the agents, there will of course be, and expostulation on the part of the Missionaries who superintend them. "The man is a good man and is worth more" is a very common remark. But "worth" in this connection consists chiefly in ability to get rid of books, and this worth is self-remunerative. Low salaries and high commissions is the motto of the agencies of South India, and experience confirms the wisdom and necessity of this principle. Colporteurs who fail to sell a certain quantity for two or three months in succession, or who effect smaller sales in tracts and religious books than in other literature, are liable to dismissal. This department of Christian effort is not worked as a means of livelihood for a few respectable men who need respectable employment, but as an agency for taking the truth of God where no other means succeeds, and for sowing the seed of the kingdom more widely than any other means can sow it. This aim must ever be kept in view, and the best means for securing this end must be adopted.

See p. 404, Vol. I of the Report of the South Indian Missionary Conference in 1879.

Greatness of our work.

press.

FOURTH PAPER BY THE REV. DR. JOHNSON, A. P. M.,
Allahabad.

The work which Christianity is called to face in this land is no slight one. To say nothing of the need of sustaining its own character, purifying its own life, and honouring its Founder and Lord, by a vigorous internal development; it stands face to face with two of the most powerful religions of the world-religions hoary with antiquity, fast-rooted in some of the deepest longings of the unregenerate human heart, and strong in the strength of the evil that is within us; and still it shrinks not from the encounter. It "bates no jot of heart or hope." Its motto is, "India for Christ." It dares to hope for success, because it has faith in its Leader, and the promised presence of that Leader cheers the brave and heartens the faint-hearted in His Church.

But more than a leader is needed. He himself has bid us bind on the whole armour of God. If then there be weapons tried and true, proved in many a conflict, bearing the scars of many a fray, adorned with the gems of many a victory; it is folly not to use them. And just Power of the such a weapon the providence of God has in these latter days put into our hands, and that weapon is that power of the Press, of which we are hearing so much and so justly in these days. If it is the tritest of truisms to say that the Press is an agency, whose power for good or for ill, no tongue can tell, ought it not also to be so to say that, our business as Christians is to wield this weapon for Christ in India. No stupidity can be greater, no mistake more fatal than the failure to make effective use of such a force as this. It is a peculiar excellence of Christianity, it is its proud boast to be able, yea and willing to make use of every advance in civilization. It can make music and painting and sculpture its handmaids. When the re-awakened intelligence of Europe turned towards art, Christianity furnished subjects for the most skilful sculptors, and its holy themes were illustrated on canvas by the most gifted painters. When men sought to leave their mark on their times by means of architecture, then the soaring arches of the Gothic cathedral came to be more than any other form, the full expression of their art. When the science of medicine