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The report of the Committee on Lands and Legacies was adopted.

The payment of $2,154.50 was authorized to be made as balance of extra expenditure by Secretary C. C. McCabe for the benefit of the Missionary Society for the year closing Oct. 31, 1886.

The secretaries were authorized to employ not more than three additional clerks to assist in the work of the office, their salaries to be estimated by the proper committee.

The following was adopted:

"Learning that Rev. C. Blinn, D.D., a member of the General Committee of the Missionary Society is about to visit Germany and travel extensively in Europe it is Resolved, That the Corresponding Secretaries be authorized to commend him to the pastors and membership of our -churches in Germany and Switzerland, and that Bro. Blinn be requested, without expense to this Society, to make such careful investigations of our interests in these conferences as may enable him to report to the General Committee the result of his observations and to make such recommendations as in his judgment will promote the interests of the Missionary Society."

New England Conference and Missions.

We like the New England Conference. It is appreciative. We have more subscribers for THE GOSPEL IN ALL LANDS in that Conference in proportion to its numbers than in any other Conference. Our largest list of subscribers is also from

that Conference.

We know of no Conference that is more active in its efforts to increase the knowledge and interest of the people in missions. Much of this is due to the Board of Managers of the New England Conference Missionary Society, and especially to the President, Rev. W. R. Clark, D. D., and to the Secretary, Rev. James Mudge.

They arranged for a series of missionary meetings in December, at Springfield, Worcester, Lynn, Lowell, and Boston, all of which were well attended and will doubtless yield good fruit.

NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE.

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6. What increase in the number of these publications taken since one year ago?

7. Will you observe Easter Sunday as Children's Missionary Day?

The circular urges that all join in an effort to secure the general observance of Easter Sunday as the Children's Missionary Day for special missionary exercises and special missionary offerings. It also says:

"Easter Sunday will be the 10th of April, the last Sunday before the next session of our Conference, and hence comes at the most opportune time for rounding up and filling out the Sundayschool missionary offering of the year. This can be done with great enthusiasm and success, if only there be proper preparation. That preparation we earnestly entreat you to begin at once.

"In the first place, organize your Sunday-school into a missionary society, as directed by ¶ 273 of the Discipline. There is no better time to take up the matter than now. By organizing at once the plan will be tested for the remaining three or four months of this year, a good start will be made, and the school will be in fine trim for entering with zeal on the campaign of another Conference year.

"There is wisdom in our disciplinary scheme for the management of the missionary interests. We cannot improve upon it. We are not justified in neglect ing it. Wherever it has been honestly tried it has not failed to result in a great advance. Why should you not do it? Can it be that there is any school in our borders, at this late day, so utterly without interest in the missionary enterprise, that three or four persons cannot be found who will creditably fill the offices of such a society? The pastor may find it necessary to be president, especially at first, but this extra labor he should certainly be willing to undertake, in consideration of the far reaching influence of the work.

"Let the S. S. Board be called together, a simple constitution adopted, officers elected, and a brief programme of special missionary exercises planned to occupy a part of the Sunday-school time on the first Sunday in every month. Then, by the use of mite boxes, collection cards, class competitions, and other 1. Is your Sunday-school regularly or- expedients which will suggest themganized, according to the Discipline Tselves, let the cents, nickels, dimes, and 273, as a missionary society, with constitution and officers?

They have since sent a circular to each preacher, asking that the following questions shall be answered and sent to the Secretary at Whitinsville, Mass:

2. If so, when was it done?

3. If not, what is the method of raising money for missions in your school?

4. How many copies of The Gospel in all Lands" are taken in your church? 5. How many of the S. S. missionary periodicals?

quarters be gathered in. In this way, by Easter Sunday a very considerable, and in some cases startlingly handsome, sum will be ready for reporting.

"Then by the use of special concert exercises on that day (furnished from New York), and a special appeal, an additional thank offering may be obtained, which will put the school far beyond

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Rev. O. W. Willits and wife arrived in

Tientsin, China, Nov. 11, 1886.

On December 2 the following missionaries left New York to reinforce the Bishop Taylor Mission in Angola, Africa: Ten is their number. It includes Mr. Hicks, a carpenter from Massachusetts, his wife and two sons; Ellsworth Brown, carpenter from Miamisburg, O.; William O. White, superintendent of schools, Lacota, Mich.; Henry Wright, miner, of Silver City, New Mexico; Dr. D. Reed, physician, Manson, Ia.; Daniel Williams, physician and farmer, from Irondale, Ontario. Others will join them at Liverpool.

Madame Rollando of Geneva. Rev. Wm. Burt writes from Milan, Italy, Nov. 19:

"When in Geneva, Switzerland, I had the pleasure of meeting, in connection with our Italian work in that city, a most estimable lady, who, it seems to me, is worthy, in herself and because of her remarkable history, to be known by all the friends of missions. Her name is Signora (or, in Geneva) Madame Rollando.

"As this name would indicate she is an Italian. She was born and brought up in a Roman Catholic family, living dur

ing her youth in Tortona and Milan, Italy. While yet in her teens she married a Garibaldian, and with her husband she fled from Italy to Geneva after the clerical reaction of 1849. Here they lived together until 1859 and two sons and a daughter were born to them. In 1859 the heroic husband left her with the three children comfortably provided for in Geneva while he joined Garibaldi in the expedition to Marsala and Sicily.

"He never returned to them, but fell under the power of the Bourbons, shouting as he died, Italy is safe.'

"Since that time Madame Rollando has devoted herself to the Lord and to the bringing up of her children in the knowledge and faith of the Gospel, the power of which she already knew in her own heart. Her daughter, now also a widow, is a teacher in the public schools of Geneva, and also the teacher of the infant class in our prosperous Sundayschool for the Italians of that city. Her two sons are successful business men and earnest Christians, honoring the faith of their noble mother.

"It is said in Geneva that Madame Rollando has been the means of the conversion of scores of Italians who have come to the city, many, perhaps, only for a season to labor and then to return to Italy bearing the new light and life of the Gospel as they had seen it in her and learned it from her. Allowing no opportunity to escape she often accompanies these laborers to the train in order to give them a parting word to strengthen their faith and courage for the new trials and temptations about to be encountered.

"She is in fact to-day our Bible-woman in that city, though without pay and without official recognition. She knows every Italian in Geneva. She goes to their homes, gives them Bibles and tracts, talks with them and prays with them and often helps them from her own purse. By her influence she draws these people to the church and their children to the Sunday-school. She enjoys in her own soul a rich, full and joyful experience."

Bishop Taylor's African Missions. Since the issue of our last number, intelligence has been received from Bishop Taylor's African Missions, noting several changes. Bishop Taylor is in England arranging for the building of a steamer for the Upper Congo, and he will sail from Liverpool in January for Liberia to hold the Liberia Conference.

G. H. Thompson and Andrew Steele have left Africa, the latter returning to the United States.

The wife of J. H. Cooper died in Africa, and Brother Cooper has taken his babe to England, and is expected to return to Africa.

The wife of Dr. Clark Smith died in Angola, Africa, Sept. 10, and Dr. Smith has returned to the United States with his children.

The Bishop announces that the following are the present appointments of the Missions:

At Kimpoko, on the Stanley Pool, Upper Congo, are James C. Teter, Grant Cameron, James A. Harrison, M. D., Hiram W. Elkins and wife, Arthur E. Shoreland, John Newth, L. B. Walker, Bradley L. Burr.

At Kabinda is L. J. Judson.

At Mamba are H. E. Benoit, Ai Sartore, Miss Kildare, and Miss M. E. Kah. A. E. Withey is Superintendent of the Angola District.

At Loanda are C. A. Ratcliffe, Heli Chatelain, Miss L. Fannie Cummings, Miss S. F. Harvey, W. H. Arringdale and wife and Jeremiah Arringdale. At Dondo are C. L. Davenport and wife, A. S. Myers and wife.

Our chain of missions in Angola, extending from Loanda to Malange, 390 miles, was designed by yearly advances to stretch across the continent in a northeast direction, along the route recently opened by Dr. Pogge and Lieut. Weisman; but now that the Kassai and Sankoora rivers have been explored, we can, by the Congo and these great waterways, more directly reach the Tushelanga and the other nations of those high regions, and will, therefore, (D. V.) extend our Angola missions south and east to neglected nations equally needy.

So I have this year opened a receiving and supply station at Kimpoko, on the eastern curve of Stanley Pool, 330 miles from the mouth of the Congo. That distance is divided as follows: From Banana (Congo mouth) to Matadi, by steamer, eighty miles; from Matadi to Leopoldville, at the lower end of Stanley Pool, two hundred and thirty miles by footpath; then by steamer or canoe twenty miles up the rapid current of the Pool to Kimpoko. The situation is beautiful. From the veranda of our "wattle and daub" house, twenty by fifty feet, which stands but thirty yards from the high embankment of the Pool, we have a clear view of its sea-like bosom. and large wooded islands, and the "Dover cliffs" on the north shore. About fifty yards from our door a little river of Bishop Taylor writes from Liverpool, pure clear water, fresh from the mounNovember 17th:

At Nhanguepepo are A. E. Withey and wife, W. P. Dodson, C. W. Gordon, Wm. H. Mead and wife, Miss Nellie Mead, Miss L. H. Hartley, Miss E. H. Brannen.

At Pungo Andongo are Joseph Wilks and wife, Miss Agnes Wilks, Miss M. B. Lindsay, C. M. McLean.

At Malange are S. J. Mead and wife, Miss Bertha Mead, W. R. Summers, M. D., C. G. Rudolph.

For the purpose of founding these missions I took out from the United States in the early part of 1885 forty-four missionary men, women, and children, and this year thirty-five more, making a total of seventy-nine, all shipped from America except two. It was confidently predicted by friends and foes, both in America and England, that more than half of them would die the first year from exposure, starvation, and the fevers of the African jungle. I am happy to say that we have suffered no extra perilous exposure, no lack of food, except a little discipline on the part of some in acquiring a relish for indigenous supplies.

All have had the fever, and three men and two ladies have, from various causes, died and gone to their long-sought rest in Heaven. Their fellow-missionaries have seen in them the worst that can happen to soldiers of Christ, and have gathered increasing strength and courage for their work. Of the seventy-two remaining, nine men, three ladies, and nine children returned to their homes on account of the illness of a very small proportion of them, who drew the rest by kindred ties, and but two or three of these entered upon their work; so that of the total of seventy-seven we have fiftythree at the front, healthful, hopeful, and happy.

tains, dashes into the Pool. The space between the Pool and the mountain ranges of two or three miles-is a vast grassy plain of light sandy loam soil. The mountains and river ravines are densely covered with a variety of moderate size trees and scrub matted and bound together by unbreakable wood rope vines.

We have laid out, at Kimpoko, an industrial-school farm, and besides planting an orchard of the plantain and banana, made a small clearing and are breaking up the soil for a varied crop the coming year. We have also tapped our little river about a mile from its mouth, and let out from it a stream for irrigation Our ditch in length is 1,460 yards and varies in depth of cutting from eight inches to six feet. By increasing the volume of this irrigating stream it will also give us abundant water-power for mill purposes with a fall of twenty feet, suited to a turbine wheel.

There are nine native towns within a few miles of us. We have school daily under the shade trees in three of them with encouraging promise of success. Their languages have never been printed-the Batake and Abarra. We are teaching them English phonetic, and will write their languages as fast as we can master them in phonetic characters. The men and boys of Kimpoko are fishermen and traders. The digging, plant

ing. gathering, and preparation of food by which they subsist are all done by the women-every man's wives are his slaves to do all such work-a hard life, but not without its compensations, as seen in their erect forms with a symmetrical de- | velopment of all their muscles, their strength and power of endurance, and almost exemption from the extreme pains and perils of so many mothers in civilized life. The safe mean between these extremes is of divine appointment.

From Stanley Pool we have in the Congo waterways 5,000 miles of steamboat navigation. With a steamer of our Own we can rapidly plant missions through the vast and populous regions thus accessible; but there are no roads for land travel, so that without a steamer we cannot advance a stage beyond Kimpoko. We have tried in vain to get passage for even one missionary. The few little steamers on the Upper Congo are fully occupied for their owners and can give us no help. The Kassai, we learn, is too crooked and too rapid for sailboat navigation, so that our plan for building a schooner, which will soon be available on the Congo, is of no avail for the upper Kassai region.

So I have just come from Stanley Pool to England to ask our friends in England and America to give us a steamer. It requires to be constructed of the best steel and sent out in man-loads of sixty pounds each. The transport alone from Matadi to Stanley Pool, on the shoulders and heads of men will cost $5,000, and the steamer built, launched, and equipped, at Kimpoko, will cost a total of $20,000. “A large sum." Yes, but not too large for its value in spreading the Gospel among millions of perishing people who have never heard the name of Jesus. Can that amount be raised? Yes, in a single week, without infringing any interest. Let 20,000 men, women, and children send us immediately $1 each, and pray for the speedy evangelization of Africa. The money. will provide the steamer, and the prayers of the 20,000 share-holders in her will give her propelling power far exceeding all mechanical forces.

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Let every dollar also represent one vote for the name which our steamer shall bear the "Lulua," the "Luabu," the Kassai," or the "Sankoora," her rivers; or the "American," or the "Methodist," or the name of any trustee of our "transit fund," or any name you like.

Send the name you vote for plainly written, with the money, and the name receiving the largest number of votes will be the name of our steamer. Remit by Post Office order or other wise to Thomas Critchlow, 181 Hudson street, New York, who will acknowledge receipt and pay it over to the treasurer of

ALL LANDS.

my transit and building fund, who will apply it and account for it.

I must (D. V.) sail from Liverpool for Liberia by Jan. 5, (prox.) and want to learn that the $20,000 shall have been paid in, and get the steamer under contract before I leave, so that I can arrange for new recruits of missionaries for the Congo rivers for the coming year. I purpose to spend a few months in founding self-supporting missions among the neglected native tribes along the Liberian coast till the material for our steamer and our new missionaries for 1987 shall come along, and then proceed with them to the Congo.

All Lands.

The Baptist Church in Copenhagen, Denmark, reports six baptisms and a present membership of 425.

A Roman Catholic Bishop in France in a conversation with the priests of his diocese, is reported as saying: "We need not deceive ourselves, gentlemen; the mass of our people is no longer Catholic except in name. The majority are pure deists, if they are not avowed materialists. The special doctrines of Catholicism are no longer held except by a continually decreasing number of the laity; and amongst these the best are in reality Protestant in doctrine."

It is gratifying to learn that the Russian police have received a rebuff in their attempts to suppress purely religious meetings in private houses. The followers of a sect called "Stundites," which is widely spread in South Russia, having been persecuted by the police of Elizabethgrad for refusing, when summoned, to break up a prayer meeting at the residence of one of the secretaries, were successively acquitted by the local magistrate and the Court of Assize of the district, on the ground that public order had not been disturbed by the assemblage in question. Upon appeal to the Senate the decision of the lower courts has just been confirmed.-Nonconformist.

The forty-eighth report of the Missionary Church of Belgium states that twenty-seven churches and stations have been founded amidst the Roman Catholic population, while the Gospel is regularly preached in eighty-three different places, and this influence is extended to sixty other places by open-air preaching, etc. The society has also nine Bible-readers and five colporteurs, whose visits are well received by Roman Catholics, who, in many cases, are thoroughly disgusted with the priests. One said: "I am tired of their mummeries." During the strikes at the beginning of the year, and amongst the mining population generally, good work was done.

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of the Irish Presbyterian Church, reports Nov. 10, at "Madrid schools, male, female, infant, with evangelistic services frequently held in the school-room; Cordoba, church with 53 communicants, and schools, male and female, with a daily attendance of 100; Puerto Santa Maria, college with seven students, congregation from 60 to 70 regular hearers, schools, male and female, Bible class for women twice a week; Puerto Real, preaching station with attendance of 50.”

A correspondent of the Baptist Missionary Magazine gives the following facts respecting Baptists and Baptist Missions in a part of Europe: "In Hungary are 2 Baptist preachers with 40 preaching places and 528 members; in Bohemia, 40 members; in Galicia, 110 members; in Poland, half a dozen workers; in Russia, two or three in the north and perhaps half a dozen in the south; in Bulgaria, a small church; in Switzerland, 4 churches."

Rev. J. B. Vinton writes from Burma that the insurrection there is purely Buddhist and that Buddhism is in arms against Christianity, the priests leading the men on the battle-field.

The Baptist Mission on the Congo continues to rejoice in the progress of the revival among the natives, and the clear evidence that the work is of God.

Rev. H. Loomis writes that the statistics of the Greek Church in Japan have just been published, and the aggregate membership is nearly the same as that of the Protestant Churches, and it is generally found that the habits and conditions of the Greek Church members are much the same as those of the heathen.

Dr. Jessup writes from Syria that there is a Mohammedan revival in the Turkish empire.

Boys' schools, girls' schools, military schools, civil service schools are being built in almost all the provinces. The Sultan as an individual holds enormous estates in every part of Asiatic Turkey, and has issued orders to have a mosque and a school built in every town and village where he has property. Meanwhile the building of Christian churches and schools has been stopped by the Government.

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The Missionary Herald for January says: Word has just reached us from Dr. Barnum, of Harpoot, Eastern Turkey, that, in obedience to an order from Constantinople, the government officials had recognized the college in all its departments, and that they were then busy in putting the official seal on the textbooks used. This is good news indeed, and apparently puts an end to a contest that has been going on for nearly four years. We trust, moreover, that it indicates a change in the attitude of the Turkish government toward missionary Rev. Wm. Moore, missionary in Spain work within the empire."

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The time has come when we as Methodists must move forward in Christ's name to the saving of the world with more earnestness than in the past. A question is before the church. How can this amount be raised? We all agree it should be raised, but how? is the question.

Our people must feel the importance of the subject. Not the few, but the whole Church must be aroused, as never before, and made to feel that our salvation, to some extent, depends on our conduct and treatment of the people who are in darkness. That question put by the stingy Methodist when asked to contribute to missions, "why cannot the heathen be saved without the Gospel ?" must be changed; and we must ask them plainly, "How do you expect to be saved and get to Heaven with that kind of Christless Spirit in you?"

For I hold that that Christian is Christless who is not in sympathy with the missionary movement of the Church, and I am puzzled to see what engagement they would have in Heaven, going there with no sympathy in Christ's great command.

In order to arouse the Church we must hold missionary meetings at every preaching appointment from Maine to California. Let the preachers join hands and go forth in twos and threes to sound the trumpet.

Let the Presiding Elder, assisted by the preacher in charge, prepare a programme and also prepare good missionary singing. Don't sing about Heaven but sing about taking this world for Christ. Publish the programme in the local papers, tell the people to come, and don't be afraid to tell them the second time to come. See that each speaker has his subject in time to prepare. Red hot shot is needed.

Let this meeting be held the week before the Sabbath, or as near as possible the Sabbath when the collection is to be taken, or take the collection at the meeting if the way is favorable.

And then let the preacher appoint a committee to canvass that appointment to find the last man; and then the Sabbath after the missionary meeting; have it as Missionary Sabbath. By this time the people at that place will be thinking about Christian Missions.

Something must be done to move the people, and if this plan is carried out just as the English Methodists do, the people will be moved and the million raised with a shout.

It can be done. All things are possible to the Methodist Episcopal Church when all the people say Amen.

I would name the months of April and May as good months for the fall conferences to carry out this programme. Let it be done throughout the land and the million is raised. Let every Presiding Elder and every preacher in charge say

it shall be done.

of you who think it a small thing to raise a Million, can raise your Two-Million cry, and lead us on.

It is so easy to raise the dollar-a-member cry, and have it pass for wisdom, before a popular audience; but I verily believe that cry has done the cause almost infinite harm. Many a man able to give twenty-five, fifty, or a hundred dollars, has chloroformed his conscience by responding to that appeal and giving what he called his share.

Let us go on with our great task. A Million for Missions by collections only,

means an increase of nine hundred and fifty dollars per day for every day of the year, beyond what the income from that source was before the Million-dollar cry was raised.

It is no small thing to secure this increase. If it is done, our great Church must be inspired as never before. Bishop,

And it will be done. Success is in one Editors, Presiding Elders, Pastors, Sunword. Organize.

Preachers' Meeting at Stavenger,

Norway.

Rev. J. H. Johnson writes from Bergen, Norway, Dec. 6, 1886: We closed a very interesting preachers' meeting at Stavenger last week, at which the following resolutions by a rising vote were passed.

"Whereas we have learned with great joy of the large increase in the collections for missions during the past fiscal year, and whereas we rejoice to see how the Methodist Episcopal Church in America continues to sympathize with and liberally aid us in the mission work in Norway.

"Therefore Resolved 1, That we hereby express our hearty thanks to the General Committee and the Church for the sympathy shown and the aid granted us as a mission.

"Resolved 2, That we will do our best in collecting money for missions during the year 1897."

Our Norway Conference was organized in 1876, and not as stated in the Missionary Report for 1886, in 1867.

Unwise Methods.

Now that the Million-line by collections only, is fairly in sight, it has become quite common for some speakers and newspaper correspondents to speak of a Million for Missions as a light thing. How easy it is to tell us what ought to be done! How easy to cry out to an audience-We ought to raise two millions! and I have heard it put as high as ten millions per

annum.

Brethren, suffer a word of counsel. Please allow the host we are seeking to inspire, to feel that they are doing a great thing to raise a Million for Missions-at least until they get it done. Then those

day-school Superintendents must form a holy alliance to win this great victory.

Let those who think it is such a little thing to raise a Million, try their power a little and send us in a few thousands.

The Methodists raise nearly nineteen millions a year for the maintenance and spread of the Redeemer's Kingdom in the world-over ten dollars per member. Think of the hundreds of thousands of our communicants who are poor and dependent; think of the whole families that belong to our communion. Ten dollars per member is a great average. I doubt whether even the Roman Catholic Church does so well

Let us all agree that it is a great thing to raise a Million-till it is fairly done. Help us do not hinder us. Study human nature. Do not think the Church can be inspired by telling them that what we are trying so hard to get them to do will seem a little thing when it is done!

O Lord, give us a great baptism of common sense. We never needed it so much as now. C. C. MCCABE.

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Country and People of Abyssinia.

Abyssinia, one of the nations of Africa bordering on the Red Sea, is about the size of France and has a population of from 3,000,000 to 4,000,000. The name Abyssinia, or more properly Habessinia, is derived from the Arabic word Habesch, which signifies mixture of con

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thatch; the richer families occupy houses composed of several detached buildings within one enclosure, the walls constructed of dried mud with wooden beams. They have no arts, manufactures, or trade, being engaged in pastoral and agricultural labor.

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fusion, and was applied to this country by the Arabs on account of the mixed character of the people.

The people are divided into a number of different tribes, the majority being of the Caucasian race, and are generally well formed and frequently handsome. In manners they are rude and barbarous and are often engaged in warfare. "Neither men nor women wear any head-covering except their luxuriant hair. The poorer peasants live in round huts with conical roofs of straw

"Adowa, the capital, with narrow, winding streets, is prettily situated on the edge of a hill at the confluence of two rivers. Some of the houses are surrounded by stone walls ten feet high, but generally they are native hovels. It has a large market where all kinds of country produce are sold, and it has a population of 10,000."

Abyssinia is one of the most ancient monarchies in the world, and its northern portion was included in the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia. According to the Abys

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