Kûrds, which may well be studied and imi- | done chiefly by foreign missionaries, and, in tated by native churches in all lands. the first instance, at the expense of foreign societies.

Yet nothing but the Spirit of God can bring those once members of the various Oriental Churches to feel themselves called to labor for the salvation of Mohammedans, Kûrds, Druzes, and Bedouin Arabs.

The ecclesiastical training of centuries has taught the people not only to anathematize other Christian sects, but to hate all Moslems, Kûrds, and Druzes with the most sanguinary animosity.

8. Again, in order to secure and retain the control of the popular mind for Christianity, and prevent the spread of infidelity among cultivated minds, Christian colleges and female seminaries of a high order should be established in the various controlling centres, to give a sound Christian education to the best youth of the land. These higher institutions should be endowed and furnish

The people often manifest unfeigned sur-ed with permanent buildings and complete prise on hearing the prayers offered in evan- apparatus, and native instructors be raised gelical churches on behalf of Pagans and up as soon as practicable. Mohammedans.

Oriental society has crystallized into spheres, hard and hollow as the geodes of Lebanon quartz. Each sect is exclusive, self-satisfied, and indifferent to the welfare of all others.

The matter of higher education can not be left to the Imperial universities of Egypt, Turkey, and Persia, whose controlling influence will be either in the narrow spirit of Mohammedan exclusivism, or, if Europeanized at all, in the lax morality of European infidelity. The course of study should be thorough and the discipline severe. where is a little learning more dangerous than among a semi-civilized people.

No

The missionary spirit, which had its birth on these shores, returns after its long absence of centuries, an unrecognized and unwelcome stranger. If the new Evangelical Oriental Church receive it not, and be not baptized with its power, its own candlestick must ere long be removed from its place. The work of evangelization among the non-ogy, history, ethnology, physical geography, Christian sects must be done by the native churches, or not at all.

6. Another step in the general preparation is the establishment of a system of common schools, to teach the people to read. Protestant Christianity is a religion of light. It must train its children to read the Bible. A translated and printed Bible, without readers, is a sealed book. With the exception of the Mohammedan boys' schools attached to the mosques, the whole of Western Asia was, until after the advent of foreign missionaries, almost entirely destitute of schools. The Levant, in this respect, is utterly unlike the Chinese Empire, where the majority of the people read.

The Bible must be the very foundation of these institutions. A course of instruction, not in a controversial spirit, in the chronol

poetry, prophecies, and Christology of the Bible, if properly conducted, will fix the attention and enkindle the enthusiasm of the youth of all sects and religions in every Oriental land. And Orientals will hold such a school in far higher esteem than they will a purely secular institution without religion of any character.

Again, if such colleges and seminaries be not founded, the entire higher education of the East will fall into the hands of the Jesuits and other narrow sectaries.

The Lazarists, Jesuits, and Dominican monks, with numerous orders of nuns, are founding educational institutions throughout the whole of Western Asia. Abundantly In the first instance, it will often be neces-supplied with men and means, and under the sary to support these schools entirely by foreign aid; but this branch of the work, too, should be thrown upon the people as soon as possible.

The common school is to be regarded as an entering wedge, as a means to an end, but not the end itself. The Bible should be taught in these schools-thoroughly taught so that the pupils may learn to see Christ in every book in both the Old and New Testaments. The teachers should therefore be trained in normal training schools, in which the Bible should have the first place. Education without the Bible, in any land, is dangerous and incomplete. In unevangelized lands it will only forge and polish weapons against the truth.

7. A Christian literature must also be prepared in the languages of the people. From the necessity of the case, this work must be

ablest strategic leadership, they are carrying on a campaign whose object is the absorption of all the Churches of the East.

Special Preparation.-We have now mentioned eight points in the general preparation, and it remains to consider briefly the special preparations with reference to the Mohammedan world.

I. The first step is the translation and printing of the Bible in the Arabic language the sacred language of the Koran. The Koran can not be lawfully translated; and all Moslems must read it in Arabic.

III. The native pastors should be encouraged to familiarize themselves with Moham-mittee on this version, consisting of the Rev. medan literature and doctrine, so as to be ready to meet the Moslem 'Ulema in both oral and written controversy.

IV. Every thing in ritual, worship, and Church architecture associated in the Mohammedan mind with idolatry and creature worship should be studiously avoided. As already stated, the idolatrous practices of the Oriental Churches form one of the chief obstacles to the conversion of the Moslems, who, on the other hand, are attracted by the unadorned simplicity of Protestant places 5. The Armenian: The New Testament reof worship, so similar to what they are ac-vised by Dr. Riggs, and the Old Testament customed to in their own mosques.

Such is the theory of missions to the Oriental Churches. Such are the immediate and ultimate objects of labor among them, and such was the work to be done when mission- 7. The Modern Greek: Translated by Leeves aries entered the Turkish Empire more than and Bambas. Printed by the British and Forforty years ago. What has been the RESULT? eign Bible Society, and the New Testament Does the theory stand the test of actual ex-introduced into the schools of Greece. perience?

A complete view of the results already attained would be impossible in the limits assigned us. We must, therefore, content ourselves with a mere outline.

I. The oral preaching of the Gospel has been carried on for many years, and is still being carried on by not less than eighty American and European missionaries, and three hundred and fifty native preachers and helpers, in Turkey, Persia, and Egypt.

10. The Hebrew Spanish: By Dr. Schauffler, | dred, with about fifteen thousand pupils; and at the expense of the American Bible Society.

such an impulse has been given to commonschool education that many of the various native sects are establishing schools at their

11. The Græco-Turkish: By Leeves, at the expense of the British and Foreign Bible So-own expense, using the text-books printed ciety.

We have thus eleven different versions of the Scriptures ready for the peoples of the East. They have already been sent to nine different empires in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe. They have found their way into palaces and hovels, into barracks and khans, into monasteries and schools, among Moslems, Druzes, Nusairiyeh, Arabs, and nominal Christians.

at the mission presses. In Beirut alone there are six thousand five hundred children in schools of all sects, of whom two thousand five hundred are girls.

VII. In Syria there are six evangelical fe male seminaries of a high order, with three hundred and fifty pupils; in Asia Minor and Eastern Turkey four, with one hundred and twenty pupils; and in Egypt one-making eleven in all, with about five hundred pupils.

The colleges are two in number. The "Robert College," in Constantinople, has about two hundred and thirty students, old and young, of nearly a dozen nationalities and languages, so that the English language is used as the medium of instruction.

The "Syrian Protestant College," in Beirut, is a purely Arabic institution, teaching the English, French, Latin, and Turkish lan

III. An Oriental Evangelical Church has been formed. With the exception of the churches connected with the English missions in Palestine proper, the great part of all the churches in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and Persia follow the polity of the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches of the United States and Great Britain, on the doctrinal basis of the Westminster Confession of Faith. It is the policy of the missionaries to in-guages as classics. Its course of study is sist upon the assumption by the native pas- similar to that in the colleges of New Entors of all ecclesiastical responsibility at as gland. The number of students in the acaearly a date as possible. The native pastors demic department is fifty-eight, and in the in the three sections of the empire occupied medical department twenty-eight, making by the Eastern, Western, and Central Turkey eighty-six in all. There is also connected | Missions have formed Evangelical Unions or with it a dispensary and a hospital. Synods, for the transaction of ecclesiastical and evangelistic business; and the Synod of Central Turkey has demonstrated its ability to manage its own ecclesiastical affairs, by its recent independent action in declining, after protracted examination, to ordain a theological candidate holding what it re-ings, apparatus, and corps of instructors garded as unsound theological views.

The Churches so organized are ninety-five in number, of which twenty are self-supporting, and nearly fifty bave native pastors. The number of Church members is about four thousand eight hundred, while the number of enrolled Protestants is nearly twenty thousand; and to these should be added thousands of men still connected with the old sects, who are Protestant in sentiment. The communion table of the Evangelical Church is the only place in the East where Moslem and Christian, Druze and Jew forget their old feuds, and exhibit the unity of a common faith in Christ.

IV. For the training of a native pastorate there are six theological seminaries; viz., at Osiout, in Egypt at Beirut, in Syria; at Marsovan, Marash, and Harpoot, in Turkey; and at Urûmîyah, in Persia. The number of theological students is about seventy-five.

These colleges, theological schools, and female seminaries should be sustained by the contributions of the Churches at home. They are to prepare an educational and scientific literature, and will do much to control the intellectual future of the East. Their build

should be complete. Their success hitherto has already led the Mohammedans, Druzes, Armenians, Greeks, and Romanists to found academies and seminaries, until the Sultan himself has directed the opening of a female seminary in Constantinople.

VIII. In religious literature, hundreds of books have been translated, and not less than four hundred millions of pages printed, and many of the standard English religious classics are already household treasures in Eastern homes. And year by year the colleges, theological seminaries, individual missionaries, and educated natives are adding to the number.

What, then, remains to be done?

I. The Evangelical Alliance, as the only common organ of the United Protestant Christianity of the world, should, in a firm and judicious manner, make its voice heard, and its influence felt, in securing complete liberty of conscience in all Pagan and Mo

V. The contributions of these churches and congregations amount to thousands of dollars annually, and there is a growing spirit of lib-hammedan empires. This work has been erality. Missionary societies have been organ- begun. ized in many of the evangelical communities.

The public utterances of the Sultan of

VI. The number of common schools connect- Turkey on this point are liberal and widely ed with the missions is not far from four hun-known, as are the recent assurances of the

Shah of Persia; and this growing spirit of terference. The Churches at home should liberality should be recognized and encour- not be over-anxious to have this or that aged, until even a Turkish Pasha may open-party name, however honorable or beloved, ly embrace Christianity without loss of life, emblazoned on the standard of the Church of Christ in the East. Let us aid our native property, or office. Christian brethren by wise counsel and affectionate co-operation, but hasten as soon as possible their own national ecclesiastical autonomy.

The right must also be secured to publish temperate replies to Mohammedan, Pagan, and infidel attacks upon Christianity. At present, Christian presses are not allowed even to mention the Mohammedan religion in disapprobation, upon pain of suppression. II. The different Churches and Societies of Europe and America would do well to aid and strengthen the agencies already in operation on the ground, instead of establishing

new ones.

The existing missions can readily do the work in the entire field, if properly maintained, though it should be remembered that it is not desirable nor possible that every interior town should be occupied by expensive foreign agencies. These missions will need reinforcing from year to year, in order to maintain the press, the theological and higher education, and a certain proportion of the preaching work.

*

Never was the call so loud for Christian women to labor as teachers and Bible women in schools, families, and harems.

The colleges and female seminaries will need endowments, buildings, and apparatus, for their work must be continued long after the pastoral work has passed entirely into native hands. The press will need pecuniary aid to print the growing Christian literature.

IV. Let us, as Protestants, learn to work together in the cause of our common Master and Lord. Let us not imitate the unseemly strifes by which Jesuit and Lazarist, Dominican and Capuchin, Sisters of Charity and Sisters of Nazareth are characterized throughout the East.

May this age of union and co-operation. at home be also the age of a more liberal, broad, and hearty co-operation in the work of evangelization throughout the world.

V. And, lastly, let us offer earnest and united prayer. The foundations are already laid. The Bible is ready. Institutions of learning are established. Living, spiritual Churches are springing up like fountains in the desert. It is a time for prayer-for strong faith. Let us cry unto God for a baptism of the Spirit-that these Churches be living missionary Churches - that these institutions be nurseries of piety and true wisdom -and that Kûrd and Armenian, Druze and Maronite, Arab and Greek, Moslem and Christian accept of Jesus as their only Prophet, Priest, and King.

These ninety-five Oriental Evangelical Churches, standing like sentinels on the distant watch-towers of Zion, are this day entitled to the recognition and fellowship of all true believers. By their allegiance to Christ they have already become our brethren.

Infolded within them is the germ of the future living Christianity of the East. Before them lie momentous conflicts and On victories-purchased, it may be, with their

Let the Churches, then, of all branches of the great Protestant family, operate through the existing societies and agencies. Let us not repeat, on the territory of the Oriental Churches, the needless sectarian diversities of the Churches at home, or embarrass the work dear to us all by the unintentional complications of seemingly rival societies. the contrary, let the new Oriental Evangelical Church be left free to work out the problems of its own future, unembarrassed by the minor differences of Evangelical Christendom.

III. And with equal force we may ask that these Churches be allowed to control their own ecclesiastical affairs without foreign in

blood.

By all that is sacred and precious in the religious legacy bequeathed us by the East, let us this day pledge to our brethren of the Oriental Evangelical Church the worthiest laborers, the heartiest sympathies, and the most fervent prayers of the Evangelical Christendom of the West.

THE EVANGELICAL HOME MISSION OF FRANCE.

BY THE REV. MATTHIEU LELIÈVRE, FROM NÎMES, FRANCE,
Editor of L'Évangeliste.

France; whose members should be Christians from every denomination, laymen and clergymen, adopting its statutes; and whose means should be the various ways thought fit by that association to attain that end." This proposition was voted with enthu

FOR the first time the French Evangelical | a "new Home Mission, a vast association, Home Mission, which I have the privilege of whose aim should be the evangelization of representing among you, has its place in one of the œcumenical meetings of the Evangelical Alliance. Issuing, as it were, from our recent national calamitics, our society takes the first opportunity of affirming its relationship with the Alliance, whose principles it adheres to, and which it proposes to real-siasm, and a committee, named on the spot, ize practically. Its extreme youth, its small beginnings, ought perhaps to keep us from bringing it forth; but we have two good reasons for pleading its cause: the want it has of the sympathy, counsels, and prayers of God's people; and our conviction that the principles which it represents may become the source of great spiritual riches to the Church in France and elsewhere. Although we wish, for many good reasons, to be very modest as concerns us personally, we have not the right to be timid when speaking of our principles.

I shall address you successively on the origin of our society, the principles upon which it is grounded, and the way in which we have tried to realize these principles.

I. The Protestant Church in France-so great by the heroism of the past, but so small in number and in faith-seems to have understood better than the remainder of the nation the solemn teachings of God in the calamities of the last years. The evangelical Protestants have been conscious that the first cause of the sudden shaking of military and political power in France was its intellectual inferiority, and, above all, its moral declension. Their preachers and the editors of their religious papers have all echoed the general feeling, and have cried out incessantly France must be born again!

was intrusted with the beginning of the work. Verily that was a solemn time; the Holy Spirit breathed upon us, and we all resolved to devote ourselves more entirely to the service of our God and Saviour, and to the raising up again of our beloved country.

All were unanimous in voting the statutes of the association, in which the general features of its organization, and the principles upon which it was grounded, were concisely indicated. We shall now state briefly what those principles are.

II. The primary purpose of this "Mission intérieure" is to bring into full play all the lively forces of the Church. We are an insignificant minority scattered in the midst of a great nation-partly papist, partly infidel-and we have not taken hitherto a firm hold on our people, inasmuch as we have labored to evangelize the country by proxy only, i. e., through the instrumentality of pastors and evangelists. What are eight hundred or a thousand ministers, which our various churches employ, in a work of such magnitude, in presence of thirty-seven millions of souls? Often have we exclaimed, "But what are they among so many?" The only way of compensating for this numerical inferiority will be in a realization of the wish of Moses, "That all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them." Besides the committees which send laborers and provide for their maintenance, besides the ministers who preach the Gospel, there ought to be a general levée en masse of Christians to wage war against infidelity and superstition. The

This was the conviction so eloquently expressed by Pastor Recolin in a report on the evangelization of France read at the Evangelical Conference held at Nîmes, in October, 1871, at which one hundred and thirty ministers and laymen took part. After show-idea is itself as old as Christianity, but our ing the manifest weakness of Romanism and philosophy, he laid it on the conscience of evangelical Protestants to bring the Gospel to our population. He wished existing societies to be supported, but, acknowledging that to meet unlimited wants new means were necessary, he proposed the creation of

Home Mission has succeeded in giving it a precise and practical form, and in bringing it out at the time that it was most wanted. The special aim of the undertaking, and which has been so far successful, has been to endeavor to organize what it is most difficult to organize-individual initiative.