"CIVILIZATION" IN EGYPT.

Very much has been written of late in regard to the disastrous influence of the AngloSaxon civilization, whenever and wherever it is unattended by Christian influence. It is becoming a serious question whether the extension of commerce and science, with the evils that attend them, is not in its result a positive blight and curse. Mr. W. S. Caine, M.P., who spent some time in Egypt a few months since, has said in a letter to the London Pall Mall Gazette:

When we went to Egypt we were going to establish civil, moral and Christian influences of our country on the banks of the Nile. What we have done has been to establish an immense number of grog-shops and houses of ill-fame. That is the most conspicuous sign of our civilizing mission in the land of the Pharaohs. There are at the present moment some four hundred grog-shops in Cairo, most of them with English signs, which have sprung up as the direct consequence of the presence of the English garrisons in the capital of Egypt. A great number of these drinking dens are also houses of ill-fame, and there is no attempt made to conceal their character from the passerby. Anything more loathsome and humiliating to a decent-minded Englishman than to go through certain quarters in Cairo, and read the English inscriptions on these dens, cannot be imagined. The better class of Egyptians are angry; but what can they do? The khedive complained to me about it, and expressed the indignation and despair with which he saw the

demoralization of his subjects going on under his eyes without his being able to do anything whatever to check the spreading plague.

Alas that the evil is not confined to Egypt!

STUDY THE ENEMY.

"I hear that you are going to speak at the anniversary of the Church Missionary Society; mind you urge upon the missionaries the importance of studying the nonChristian religious systems." Such was the counsel given last spring to Professor Monier Williams, of Oxford, by a missionary, Rev. James Long, who has since died. It is quite in keeping with the desire expressed by Rev. K. C. Chatterjee at our last General Assembly at Omaha, when he emphasized the importance of sending to India well-furnished men and some who had studied or should study the Sanscrit. Professor Williams in his address gave full force to the suggestion of Mr. Long, illustrating the point thus:

How could an army of invaders have any chance of success in an enemy's country without a knowledge of the position and strength of its fortresses, and without knowing how to turn the batteries they may capture against the camp of the foe?

He then proceeded to set forth the dangers which lurk beneath a partial knowledge-which is a virtual misconceptionof the ancient systems.

He showed from his own experience the folly of underrating the religions of the East, of merely considering them "inventions of the devil," or puerile follies wholly unworthy of thought or notice. For such misconception is likely to be followed by a perilous reaction when some skillful hand like that of Edwin Arnold or Bosworth Smith presents the "Light of Asia" or the glories of Islam.

VALUABLE TESTIMONY. Rev. James Johnson, whose articles on missionary subjects have attracted much attention, has given in the September number of the Chronicle of the London Missionary Society a brief compend of the testimony accorded to the missionary work by government officials and other prominent persons, who have had most abundant opportunity to know whereof they affirm. We have selected a few, which we give as follows:

The good effected by missionaries of all nationalities and of all sects in China is by no means to be measured by the list of conversions. They are the true pioneers of civilization.-Times correspondent.

No organization has equalled missions in preserving the stability of the English government in India and in the advancement of the native races.-Sir Herbert Edwards.

The reliable information given by missionaries upon history, geology and science would alone redeem the work of missionaries of the stigma of failure.-London Times.

Few are aware how much we owe to missionaries for their intelligent observation of facts and their collecting of specimens.-Professor Agassiz.

Your missionaries have not been long enough established there to make it worth while for me to go at present.-A merchant who was asked to establish a trading station in New Zealand.

I feel sure that nothing that has been conferred upon India gives greater promise for the peace and prosperity of the country than the gospel you have sent them.-Sir Bartle Frere.

The success of the Terra del Fuego mission is most wonderful, and charms me, as I always prophesied utter failure. It is a grand success. I shall feel honored if your committee think fit to elect me an honorary member of your society. I have often said that the progress of Japan was the greatest wonder in the world, but I declare that the progress of Fuegia is almost equally wonderful.-Charles Darwin.

While Sir George Gray (governor of Australia) has done more for the Polynesians than almost any other man, the missionaries nevertheless stand in the very front rank among the benefactors of these races, with their unwearied self-sacrificing activity.-Prof. Rolleston at the meeting of the British Association, 1875.

The progress which the Polynesians have made was really set on foot by the mission

aries. They have had the greatest influence upon the civilization of the natives. They have taken their part and protected them when they could. They have further given them the fast foothold, the new, fresh object, motive and meaning for their whole existence, of which they stood so much in need.-Russell's Polynesia, 1840.

The moral reformation of the Pacific islanders is pre-eminently due to the exertions of the London Missionary Society.-Admiral Wilkes.

I have no hesitation in giving my deliberate opinion that in the selection of men for various posts on the mission field the London Missionary Society has been most careful and successful.-Sir Arthur Gordon (governor of Fiji), 1883.

for knowledge, a desire which can in no degree be satisfied with elementary schools or a narrow circle of the sciences.

The first pressure of this desire led to the establishment of Robert College at Constantinople and the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut. Both of these institutions have proved a most powerful stimulus of the thirst for knowledge in which they originated

At the time when the Syrian Protestant College was founded in Beirut, in 1865, there was no other collegiate institution in Syria. A Jesuit academy existed at Ghazêr, a town about fifteen miles from Beirut, in the heart of Lebanon, but its curriculum was mainly in the French and Arabic languages and the lower mathematics. One foreign Roman Catholic missionary academy of a lower grade existed in Lebanon. As soon as the Syrian Protestant College, with its preparatory, collegiate and medical departments, was an achieved success, the Jesuits founded a college at Beirut, to which they gave the sounding title of the University of St. Joseph. They erected very costly buildings and established a medical department, with the French language as its basis of instruction. About the same time the Patriarchal Greek Catholic school of Beirut was elevated to the rank of an academy, and high schools were established respectively by the Greeks, the Maronites, the Jews and the Moslems, all called by the name of colleges, but in reality academies.

Notwithstanding this multiplication of the schools of other sects, the Syrian Protestant College grew steadily in numbers and maintained the lead in scholarship. Its graduates are employed as preachers, teachers, medical missionaries, translators, physicians of hospitals and municipalities, merchants, and government officials in all parts of Turkey, in Egypt, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Aden and Zanzibar. They have infused into the body politic of these important strategic regions, wider apart than Alaska and Maine, the germs of a new intellectual and political life.

Two of the graduates of the college, Messrs. Sarruf and Nusir, conduct the Mugtataf, an Arabic scientific journal of a high order, which has a circulation over the whole eastern world,

and is without question the leader of scientific thought in all those wide regions. These two gentlemen are men of rare intellect and sound and extensive learning, and have done a grand work in diffusing the science which they have taken pains in many editorials to attribute to their Alma Mater, and their journal has a constantly-increasing circulation, and is growing in value with the added learning and experience of its editors.

Another graduate of the college, Dr. Shibly Schmeil, of Cairo, publishes the leading medical journal of the Arabic-speaking world. It is carried on in the highest scientific spirit, and is an immense stimulus to the large number of medical men who are being educated in Arabic-speaking lands.

Our medical school was organized on the graded system of Edinburgh, not on the faulty American model. Its course of instruction extends through four years, and is eminently practical. Students entering this department must pass a satisfactory examination in arithmetic, algebra, geometry, physics and English, which is the basis of instruction. During their medical course they study elementary Latin, mineralogy, geology, botany and zoology. This most thorough course has reacted on the whole system of medical education in the land, and is steadily advancing the standard of medical learning.

The success of the Syrian Protestant College in all its departments has led to the establishment of a missionary college at Osiout, in Egypt, with a department of arts and another of theology; of a college at Aintab, with a preparatory, a collegiate and a medical depart ment; of a college at Kharpoot, in Armenia, besides numerous native high schools in various parts of the Turkish empire.

Furthermore, the thirst for learning has passed over to the female sex, and. Syria and Egypt are now well supplied with girls' high schools. Many of their graduates are authoresses, and contribute to the scientific, literary and religious journals of the East.

Of the influence of such an institution on the missionary work it is superfluous to speak. The missionaries select our students from their own graded schools with reference to capacity