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LEARNING "TFUDDULU.”

One beautiful May afternoon, twenty-six boys and girls just from school, and as full of frolic as boys and girls usually are at that hour of the day, met in the chapel for the regular meeting of our Glad Tidings Mission Band. After the devotional exercises, and when the map of Siam had been drawn on the blackboard and studied, and the "Missionary Search Story" explained, with other items of the programme, we were asked to listen to Dr. Nelson's article "Tfud

dulu." After listening to his entertaining definitions of the word, we thought we would learn it ourselves; so we said it in concert over and over again, and I think if the kind editor of THE CHURCH AT HOME AND ABROAD should ever visit us, we could give him "Tfuddulu" with an emphasis that would show that we "really mean it."

We hope to have "Yangi doonya dan di" learned before next Fourth of July. ONE OF THE Band.

LITTLE FALLS, N. Y.

ABBA, ABU, AB.

In one of my tours in Mount Lebanon, with one of the missionaries, we stopped in the house of a teacher. The teacher had been educated in the mission-schools; had learned and believed the gospel; had become an evangelical Christian, and was teaching one of the schools aided and superintended by the missionaries. He received us kindly and courteously in his humble. mountain home, and his wife was doing what she could for our refreshment. As I sat with the teacher, his little child, just beginning to walk and to talk, came toddling up to him, saying very sweetly, "Abba, abba, abba." That is what the little Syrian children call their father.

Do the children who read THE CHURCH AT HOME AND ABROAD remember that word in the Bible? In how many places in the Bible is it used? Please to find them all, and read them with your mother or teacher, or in your Sabbath-school class or mission band. See if thinking of the little Syrian child speaking to its father does not make those Bible verses plainer to you and more beautiful. I do not believe that I can ever again read or hear one of them and not seem to see that little one running to its father, or to hear its baby voice saying "Abba, abba, abba."

The people whom I visited in Sidon and Beirut and the villages around knew my daughter, who had been teaching for three years in the Sidon Female Seminary. When I went into any of their houses with either of the missionaries, he would introduce me to them by telling them that I was "Abu Miss Nelson." That meant that I was the father of Miss Nelson. Then, if they could speak a little English, they would talk with me; or if they could only speak Arabic, they would say some kind and pleasant thing in that language, and the missionary would translate it into English for me.

I found that among that people it is more common for a father to take the name of his son than for the son to take the name of his father. A man who names his son Yosef (Joseph) is afterwards called AbuYosef. This is, perhaps, because they think it such a blessing and honor to have sons. They used not to care so much for daugh ters; but under Christian teaching they are learning to hold them in honor as well as their sons. You may be sure that I was glad to be called "Abu Miss Nelson," and to find that they held my daughter and other lady missionaries in respect and honor. They find their own girls much improved by being taught by these ladies.

It makes them brighter and sweeter and more helpful in their homes-better daughters and wives and mothers. I should not wonder if by and by they should be as willing to be called "Abu Sara" or "Abu Layah," for their daughters, as to be called "Abu Yosef" or "Abu Yacob" for their

sons.

Perhaps what I have told you about this word will make some other Bible names more interesting to you-I mean names that begin with Ab. Abigail means "a father's joy"; Abitub, "father of good ness"; Abishalom, "father of peace"; Abiezer, "father of help." If you look out other such names in a Bible dictionary, you

will find that many of them have such pleasant meanings. I hope that every boy who reads this will try to be such a boy that his father need not be ashamed, but would be glad, to be named for him. "A wise son maketh a glad father." The father of a good son is glad to be known as his father; but oh, to be the father of " a son that causeth shame"-that is dreadful.

If you see how a son can be an honor to his father, does not that help you to see how a child of God can be an honor to him? That is to "glorify God"; and those who thus glorify him will "enjoy him forever." Yes, and God will enjoy them forever.

H. A. N.

CIGARETTES.

I hope that all the boy readers of THE CHURCH AT HOME AND ABROAD read the interesting letter of Dr. Jessup in the July number, page 94. If any one who reads this does not remember it, please find that number and read it now. He tells how he preached to a crowd of Syrians, many of whom were children, in the village of Jûn. That is the very village, a little way up Mt. Lebanon, to which I rode with my daughter on our way to visit the ruins of Lady Stanhope's castle. It was in Jûn that we called on a Syrian family, as I told you in the May number, where they served us refreshments of nuts and fruits and cakes on a low table, while we sat upon cushions placed beside it upon the floor; and where my daughter had to say "Tfuddulu! tfuddulu! tfuddulu!" a number of times before the modest women who were entertaining us would sit down and eat with us.

I wish you particularly to notice what Dr. Jessup said to the boys in Jûn about smoking cigarettes. Do you think that it is any worse for Syrian boys than for Amer

"a

icans? He says that he gave them “a plain talk on the evil effects of using tobacco." He told them of the injury it does to "the nerves, the stomach and the brains, the whole body and the mind." Was not that talk as true as it was plain?

Dr. Jessup is not a foolish man nor a fanatical man. He knows a good deal. Perhaps some of you will say that there are other men as good and as wise as Dr. Jessup who smoke. I shall not deny this; but a good many such men have told me that they were sorry they ever formed a habit which it is so hard to break off, which is so disagreeable to many ladies and gentlemen, and which costs a good deal of money that might be better used.

Dr. Jessup told the Syrian boys, "Whenever men smoke, their money gradually rises from their pockets, and flies off in smoke. If you would watch closely, you would see bishliks, buticks, zahrawehs, mejedies and even gold liras flying off and vanishing in the air."

Those Syrian boys would not be apt to

misunderstand him, as two little American boys misunderstood when they heard of an intemperate man who had "drunk up all his wife's property." I heard them talking it over afterwards, and their way of telling it was that the man "pounded up his wife's money into powder, and mixed it in water, and then drank it up." They were very little boys, but I rather think that little Syrian boys would be less likely to make such a mistake than Americans, because all eastern people are more apt to speak in that figurative or picturing way than we are. We are a more matter-of-fact people than they.

But I do not think that any of my young readers will misunderstand me when I say that, if you smoke, nickels and dimes and dollars and eagles will be puffed away from your mouths, just as piastres and mejedies and liras are from the lips of Syrian smokers.

Dr. Jessup's plain talk set them thinking -the boys and the men too. "The next morning," he says, "the native preacher came in beaming, and said, 'Four of us have sworn off from tobacco forever. We sat up last night until we agreed to be slaves no longer.'" You see, it was not easy for them. They sat up at night to think about it and to talk together about it, and I doubt not that they prayed about it. When they had sought God's help and had made up their minds and had "sworn off from tobacco forever," you see how happy they were. They felt as if their chains were broken. They "agreed to be slaves no longer."

But what I wish the young readers of THE CHURCH AT HOME AND ABROAD

just now to think about is the better use that can be made of money than smoking it away in cigarettes or cigars.

Ask your father, or any other gentleman, which he thinks costs the most-the cigars that are smoked in your town, or the bread that is eaten in your town. Ask him whether as much money is given from your congregation for missions as is spent for cigars.

Now it would not be right to take the money that is needed for bread and give it for missions; but would it be wrong to save what is smoked away and send that away in gospel and teaching?

Your gentlemen friends who have long been in the habit of smoking must be left to judge for themselves whether they ought to give it up. Some of them think that it would injure their health to leave off smoking. We must respect their opinion. But you boys need not begin, if you have not begun ; and if you have begun and can leave off now, you will save a good deal of money by it. Will it not do more good to put that money into the mission jugs than to smoke it into the air? I do not think that any of your parents or friends will advise any boy to use cigarettes, or any girl. In Russia I have seen genteel ladies smoking cigarettes, and they handled them just as gracefully as any gentleman.

Would you like to see your sisters do that? Why not? Then ask them if they like to see you do it.

And do not forget the money that the smoking habit costs. Even if you think it a harmless indulgence, is it not one of which you can deny yourself to save the money for Christ? H. A. N.

Our readers are desired to give particular attention to what is printed on the third and fourth pages of the cover. Among other

important things to be found there every month are the full corporate names of the church's boards and of their officers.,

THE DEAD PAST AND THE REVIVING PRESENT IN SYRIA.

The missionary whose interesting account of recent discoveries near Sidon is published elsewhere in this number, in a more recent letter tells of continued exploration, and adds:

What marvellous biblical researches could be conducted in the cave of Machpelah! The hill of Zion may yet yield a thousand sacred secrets to Christian investigation. Fresh skepticism can be met by new proofs of Bible truth, and the aid which the church in England and America has received from the "Land and the Book" and kindred works can be greatly increased.

...

The proposed school of biblical study and archæology in Beirut may yet turn out some competent Oriental scholars. Still,

with a keen interest for historical study, I feel that a live Christian worker is worth more to Syria to-day than any number of ornamented sepulchres. Syria itself is a tomb of the past, and almost every good principle and former living truth is now enwrapped in the cerements of ignorance and superstition. Spiritual life would result in intellectual life and every form of social activity.

In the sequel of his letter he shows how the very opposition to the schools and work of our mission is giving evidence that their effects are feared, making the more impressive the eager desire of many to receive the

forbidden instruction. There is audible rustling among the dry bones.

We learn that Dr. Heckman, corresponding secretary of the committee on the Centennial Assembly, has delivered addresses in Omaha, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Covington, Louisville, New Albany, Jeffersonville, Hanover and Madison. Over twenty-two congregations were reached by these seventeen addresses, five union meetings being held, and at four other meetings a large number of ministers and elders were gathered.

Everywhere Dr. Heckman has met a warm welcome, and his address has been highly commended. Everywhere the cen

tennial spirit was aroused, and the proposal of the General Assembly to raise a million. dollars for the permanent fund of ministerial relief met hearty, even enthusiastic, endorsement. The response elicited thus from the six states which he has visited shows that only a proper presentation of this cause before the churches is needed to secure hearty and liberal subscriptions from all classes and ages.

We trust that Dr. Heckman's efforts will be heartily seconded by pastors, elders, Sabbath-school superintendents and editors.

The careful and faithful treasurer of one of the boards of the church lately wrote to us to correct an error in his report of receipts which we had in type. He had credited fifty dollars to a church in a certain presbytery, and afterward learned that it had been given by a church of the same name in another presbytery. The person who forwarded it had not named the presbytery. He adds:

It is a very common thing for treasurers, clerks of sessions and pastors to omit naming the presbytery, and you can imagine the frequent hunts we have to avoid errors; and in always succeed. spite of labor and loss of time, we do not There are innumerable Bethels, Lebanons, Olivets, Westminsters, etc., etc., and a little care would save much valuable time in the offices of the different boards.

HOME MISSIONS.

$800,000.

Not less than $800,000 will be needed to meet the most urgent demands of this work for the coming year. We repeat, therefore, our urgent admonition to pastors and ministers generally, as those charged by the Head of the church with submitting his claims to the people, to do their share to secure this increase of funds and to meet

new church in some large city, especially if it has 100 members, in some favored part of the city, while 20,000, 50,000 or 100,000 have come into the city since our last church was formed there. Instead of folding our arms and going to sleep over the subject, as though we had done our whole duty, we think our churches are not half awake to the importance of immediate and far greater efforts for the evangelization of our cities

these golden opportunities.—The Assembly and our foreign population. of 1887.

'MEN WANTED.

Men of enthusiasm ; men of consecration; men of grit and grace and gumption; men of patience and endurance; men to dare and do. Such men are wanted in the ministry. They are wanted by this Board, and they are wanted now. There is room for them in the West. Montana is waiting for them. There is room for them in Dakota. Fields white to the harvest are ready for them in Minnesota and Iowa and Nebraska. Trophies for Christ may be won by them in Texas, Colorado and Kansas. Let such men come forward, and the church will witness triumphs of grace and glory. The church waits for them, and will see them through.

Our annual report groups city evangelization and our foreign population in one paragraph. The former topic is entitled to a leading place in this number, whose leading thought is about our immigrant or foreign population. For the masses of our population in some of our largest cities are foreigners. The topic is a popular one. Our preachers and platform speakers at our great religious meetings have wearied the people with the discussion. But neither the speakers nor the hearers have yet begun to comprehend the magnitude of the interests involved in it or the dangers that threaten us in our neglect. We congratulate ourselves when we hear that we have started a

The New York Observer of June 16, 1887, pays a loving tribute to Rev. Samuel A. Stoddard, recently deceased, who labored for us so effectually in Kansas and the Indian Territory. The sketch covers the eventful period in his life as "student, patriot, missionary." We thank the Observer for its kind words.

We hope none of our readers will fail to notice the kindly and appreciative sketch of the life and labors of Rev. Timothy Hill, D.D., in these columns, taken from the Interior, by the graceful pen of Rev. Charles L. Thompson, D.D., of Kansas City, his successor and pastor.

We cannot too soon begin to accustom the minds of our readers to the idea that we are soon to go into new and permanent quarters in the buildings of the late James and Miss Henrietta Lenox, corner of Fifth Avenue and Twelfth Street, New York. Then this Board, the Boards of Foreign Missions and Church Erection will be housed again under the same roof, with congenial surroundings and where larger and more efficient service may be expected from us than ever before. Due notice will be given before the change of location takes place, which will be as soon as the necessary repairs and changes can be made adapting the buildings to our own use.

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