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but appeals come to us from all portions of our foreign missionary field. With us, as with the Foreign Board, the field is the world.

The following letters, received from all portions of the world, will serve to indicate the extent and importance of our work:

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL, April 13, 1887.

DR. J. W. DULLES.

DEAR BROTHER:-The box containing the five thousand copies of the tract "Evangelical Religion" has arrived in good order. I thank you in the name of the Brazil mission for the Board's liberal grant. Scarcely another tract has been so useful to the Protestant cause as this one, and we cannot be too grateful to the Board for publishing it in such an attractive style. The author told me that he had not been able to discover a single typographical error, a compliment you cannot fully appreciate until you examine some of the books and papers published in Brazil. The tract, containing as it does a manly exposition of Protestant doctrines in clear and concise language, should be scattered broadcast through this land. Would that we had a half a million copies for gratuitous distribution!

I hope that our Presbyterian Church may soon come to understand that her Board of Publication is a foreign as well as a home missionary agency, and furnish you abundant means with which to publish and scatter Portuguese and Spanish books and tracts in large quantities. No other church is doing so much for the evangelization of Mexico and South America as our own. The work of the Foreign Board needs the help of the Board of Publication. It would be an incalculable advantage to this large and growing work to have an increased supply of such tracts as "Evangelical Religion" to aid in strictly evangelistic work; and we have reached a stage when our churchmembership in these countries need a larger number of sound and instructive religious books if they are to grow in intelligence and influence. The American and Religious Tract Societies are doing all they can in this direction, but there are many important books which these societies for various reasons cannot publish. The books which come to South America in largest numbers are French romances and infidel publications. If Protestantism is to gain and maintain a permanent footing in these South American states, she must counteract the influence of this poisonous stream by starting a counter-current of

pure religious literature. Let the Presbyterian Church be aroused to make her Board of Publication a fountain which shall do much to swell this new stream of life-giving influences. All that is necessary is to get the church to see the need as we see it.

I am faithfully yours,

JOHN M. KYLE.

LAHORE, NORTH INDIA, June 4, 1887. TO THE CORRESPONDING SECRETARY, PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. DEAR BROTHER:-About a year ago I wrote a letter to Dr. Dulles, then secretary of the Board, on the subject of our English work among Europeans and Eurasians in Lahore. I spoke of our Sunday-school, and expressed a wish to introduce some of the periodical pub lications of the Board, if I could get them at cheaper than the usual rates. Dr. Dulles, in reply, sent me a very kind and encouraging letter, expressing his deep sympathy with our English work. He had been in India, and knew something of the destitute condition of the lower classes of Europeans and Eurasians. He therefore offered to supply us with lesson leaves and Sunday-school papers at half price. I hope that this arrangement will be continued.

You know, perhaps, that a Christian college has been established at Lahore in connection with our Lodiana mission. It is the only Christian college our church has in India. We are very much in need of a good library. There are several libraries in Lahore, and they are full of infidel and skeptical books, such as J. S. Mill's writings, Draper's, Huxley's, Spencer's works. In order to counteract the bad influence such books must exert over the minds of native students, we should have our college library well supplied with good, readable, standard Christian books. I should feel greatly obliged if you could make us a grant of suitable books from among the publications of the Board. Of course you know what books would be suitable. Our students, for whom the library is chiefly intended, are not boys, but young men, studying for the F.A. and B.A. degrees. They are about as far advanced as boys in our academies at home. I hope both these requests may receive a favorable

answer.

Believe me yours sincerely,

H. C. VELTE, Mission College, Lahore, North India.

The grant asked for in the first part of this letter has been made. The condition of our funds, however, will hardly justify

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REV. JOHN W. DULLES, D.D.

DEAR SIR:-More than a year ago, at the request of the Presbytery of the City of Mexico, I commenced, and subsequently finished, a Spanish translation of the Rev. Samuel J. Baird's manual or catechism of church government, called "The Church of Christ, its Constitution and Order." It is a work which all our missionaries and native preachers feel the need of in the homes and especially in the Sabbath-schools and churches under our care, in order to teach our people by simple question and answer what our communion is, its principles and methods.

The annual conference, composed of all our missionaries, in its last reunion, held at Saltillo the past February, knowing what had been done, without solicitation on my part took the following action:

"That Messrs. Brown and Haymaker be appointed a committee to correspond with the Presbyterian Board of Publication with reference to the publication of Mr. Brown's translation of 'Baird's Catechism of Church Government,' and, in case the Board agree to publish it, to present it in good form for the press."

At Mr. Haymaker's written request I have written this letter in the name of us both. wish only to add that the translation has received one revision from Prof. Aguirre, Spanish editor of El Faro, some of whose translations have been already published. If the Board receive this application favorably, he will make another and searching correction, after which the whole will be copied off in its corrected form.

It is utterly impossible to print the book on the mission press, for two reasons-the amount of work on hand already and the imperative necessity of keeping within our appropriations received for the press. And is it asking too much that our Board should help in this, since the book can doubtless be of service in all Spanish countries now open to our church? I ask in the name of all our missionaries, as well as in response to the appeal of our native brethren, that the Board give this request, which we most respectfully make, a careful and thoughtful and, if possible, a favorable consideration.

The same committee was requested to correspond with the Board in reference to the reprinting of our Form of Government and Confession of Faith in Spanish. The old edition, printed under the care of Rev. H. C. Thomson, will soon be exhausted, and now seems the time to thoroughly revise its translation and incorporate the new book of discipline. We all hold ourselves in readiness to do this work if the Board so direct, and wish in this way to bring the question before you for thoughtful consideration.

Assured that you will appreciate the motives that prompt this letter, and that, as far as within your power, our application will be promptly and favorably dealt with, I shall not take more of your valuable time, but sign myself at once,

Yours most sincerely,

HUBERT W. BROWN.

In a subsequent letter Mr. Brown writes: I have talked the matter over with Dr. Greene, and he thinks we could promise to take five hundred copies of each of the works mentioned. Beyond this we are not in a condition to help. But could not both be used in other Spanish countries where Protestant missions are established?

I sincerely hope the Board may be able to accede to the joint request of our Missionary Conference and Presbytery. I know that you will if at all possible.

The publication of these works is of great importance, and properly belongs to the benevolent work of the Board. To some it may seem that it belongs to the Business Department, and so in a sense it does. It would involve, however, so large an expense for which no remuneration could be received, that as a business operation it could hardly be undertaken. Money contributed for publication would be well invested.

WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE

TO BRING INTO SABBATH-SCHOOLS THE MILLIONS OF NEGLECTED AND PERISHING YOUTH?

Idle Christians ought to be aroused. We may as well say it first as last, for we shall be forced to its utterance. There is no answer to be found to the question asked above, except before the heart and conscience of the individual Christian.

There are 700,000 members of the Presbyterian Church. Not one-third of these are engaged in Sabbath-school work in any form. A large portion of these, not now enlisted, are by knowledge and experience, in a measure, fitted to become workers. Amos says to them, "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion. . . . Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall; that sing idle songs to the sound of the viol; that devise for themselves instruments of music, like David; that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph." (Amos 6:1, 3-6, Rev. Ver.)

HOW CAN THIS BE DONE?

There are, assuredly, means at the command of the pastor, the Sunday-school superintendent, the session and other workers, to gradually awaken the latent Christian enthusiasm of these idlers in the church. These means include prayer; scriptural instruction as to the privilege and duty of every believer to be a co-worker with God, and as to the need for Sabbath-school mission work everywhere in this land; the sympathizing interpretation of the cry of the ignorant, the outcast, the perishing children and youth; reports of work done by other churches and missions. Can men call themselves Christians and have none of the mind of Christ, "who went about doing good"? call themselves Christians and yet live on unmoved by the need of the perishing millions of this land, the least of whom Christ calls his brethren? Can Christians dream on of heaven, and no cry of lost souls disturb their selfish, guilty sleep? "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin."

THE CRITICAL HOUR.

In addition to the needs for this work set forth in the August number, there is another startling fact to be noted. It is that the battle of the ages comes to a crisis in this latter part of the nineteenth century and in this country. The word is Now and HERE. The issue is, Who shall have the children of America? The world or Christ? Materialism or Christ? Infidelity or Christ?

The very activity of our enemy is a stimulus. It must be confessed that our foes are making a persistent fight. They are surrounding our children with all the enticements of evil. Never in the history of mankind were boys and girls encompassed with such snares and pitfalls as to-day. Temptations assail them which we, in youth, never knew. The beer-garden and the gilded saloon allure their senses. Flaunting advertisements of hurtful indulgences stare at them daily. Nightly theatres arouse and stimulate their lower passions. Every year the holy guards of the Sabbath day are being weakened. Society has manners and habits which undermine manly and womanly vir tue. It is, alas! true that even in so-called Christian homes, youth are tempted by the dance, the wine-glass and the card-table. There are two sources of evil which demand particular mention: one is the night miseducation of the streets; the other is bad reading. An abominable literature is defiling the land, like the Egyptian plague of frogs. Everywhere, on the street and in the house, are papers and books covertly or openly glorifying vice, and making heroes of boy criminals, boy pick pockets, boy burglars, boy murderers, boy incendiaries. These and other perils are besetting our children. There is not a truly Christian parent who does not dread the dangers around his beloved. What then must be the power of these temptations over the ten millions of boys and girls who have no Christian home nor church nor Sabbath-school?

CHURCH ERECTION.

A MISAPPREHENSION. The great majority of the applications to this Board for aid in building are in behalf of small churches whose present needs and desires are satisfied with small, inexpensive edifices, costing from one thousand to three thousand dollars. This is in accordance with the original intention of the General Assembly, which in the plan adopted, under which the Board works, stated emphatically, "This fund having been committed to the General Assembly as a special trust, no part of it as now established, nor any additions which may hereafter be made to it, shall ever be used for any other than that of aiding feeble congregations," etc. More than one Assembly has called attention to this, the obvious and proper sphere of the Board, and at different times distinct instruction has been given fixing "the maximum of any grant to any church at $1000, and directing the Board in making grants to give special consideration and preference to the weaker churches and less costly buildings, when other things are equal.”

purpose

This is as it should be, and, as we have already said, is generally understood. But there are two misapprehensions which not infrequently cause perplexity to the Board, and doubtless disappointment to the churches concerned. One of these is that the Board should extend aid to all churches that feel that it is difficult to pay for a church that meets their full expectations. For example, a church having a membership perhaps of from sixty to eighty, and a congregation of forty or fifty families, are able to raise four or five thousand dollars in addition to their lot. The sum thus secured will complete a building abundantly large and quite adequate to all their needs, but a thousand dollars more will of course add to the beauty of the edifice, and the question arises, Why should they not receive it from the Board? They reason, the Board was established to aid feeble churches in build

ing, and surely this church is feeble in comparison with one able to pay $100,000 for an edifice. Thus it comes to pass that every now and then an application reaches us from a church that is building at an expense of $8000 or $9000, and which has expended more than $1000 in heavy hard-wood pews, soft cushions, handsome carpets, marbletopped tables and elaborate stained-glass windows. These things are in themselves excellent; but after all it must be admitted that they are luxuries, and for them the church could afford to wait rather than apply for a contribution from a fund intended for such churches as that described in one of this month's letters by the Rev. M. Ellis, of Grantsdale, Montana, or another in Nebraska of which the missionary says, "Our people feel that they would like a church of their own. I have rather dissuaded them from it for the present, but our ladies there feel that they could do more good if they had a church of their own. They request me to ask you if they should raise $500 on the ground, how much you would give them."

The other misapprehension is that the Assembly's rule in regard to aid to the extent of one-third of the cost means that that proportion will always be given. The expression is sometimes used, "This is less than we are entitled to under your rules." It is obvious that no thoughtful consideration of the object of the Board would suggest that aid is to be given in any case beyond the actual need. The rule is, "The sum appropriated to any congregation shall never be more than one-third of the amount contributed and secured by them for the house and lot." The question should not come first, "How much will the Board give?" as preparatory to a calculation how little the church will have to raise; but first, "How much can we raise upon the ground, and how little need we apply for to the Board?"

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