HAT is the great need of Christian missions? is a question frequently asked and variously answered. Some say, "More money," others, "More men," and some, "More self-support on the part of the native Christians." Our answer is: "The raising up of native evangelists endued with mighty power." There is no lack in the missionary work which may not be overcome by this means. The great successes of Christian missions in the past have nearly all been due to native evangelists filled with the Holy Ghost and power, preaching the gospel to their own people in their own tongues. The early successes of the Karen mission in Burma are chiefly due to Ko Thahbyu and other Karen evangelists of the same spirit. Christianity owes much of its prevalence in Hawaii to the indomitable and heroic Queen Kapiolani; and so with missions everywhere. What is needed today is a Ko Thahbyu among the Burmans, a score of Finneys in India, of Moodys in China, that the mantle of Neesima should fall upon some successor in Japan, and many Pauls in Africa. The disconraging thing about many Christian missions is the want of initial energy and power on the part of the native Christians. Self-support is good, but self-direction and self-propagation are far better. The development of high spiritual leadership in some of the converts in all missionary lands is the pressing, the important need in all Christian missions. The most encouraging element of missions in the Congo Free State in Africa is the frequent reports of evangelistic journeys undertaken by the native Christians, self prompted and self sustaining, often even without the knowledge of the missionary. A mission having this as one of its conspicuous features may be small at present, but is far more promising than one which can number many thousands of converts who are supinely relying upon American or European missionaries, not only for support, but for leadership and that initial energy and enthusiasm which is the essential of all successful evangelistic work. That the Lord will pour out his Holy Spirit upon the native converts and raise up among them everywhere men of power and leadership is the great need of modern missions.

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HE treasurer of the Missionary Union did not close his books for the financial year until April 7, and as several days after that are required to post up the accounts, we are not able to give a full statement of the finances at the close of the year. The deficit, however, amounted to about $56,000. Without doubt this sum was increased by many thousand dollars by the constant succession of stormy Sundays during the months of February and March. In New England every Sunday in March was stormy, and all but one in February; and as many of our churches take their contributions for foreign missions during one or the other of these months it is easily seen that these storms, while, perhaps, not affecting the contributions of single churches to a large degree, yet in the aggregate must have made a very large difference in the receipts of the Missionary Union. The fact is to be noted also that during the larger part of the financial year the commercial depression continued and that the revival of business came so late in the year that it did not very largely affect the receipts. After a long season of business depression and hard times like that which has been experienced in this country during the past four years, it requires many months or a year after business improves before the profits and enlarged receipts begin to flow into the pockets of our people so that they can fully realize returning prosperity, and with this realization only comes their renewed and enlarged giving to benevolent interests.

Whatever may the cause of the situation, the friends and supporters of our foreign missionary interests have this question before them: What is to be done. in the face of the deficit above named still resting upon the Missionary Union? Retrenchments during the past four years, as has been frequently announced, have gone to the very verge of the danger line. The Executive Committee and officers of the Union have striven hard to make the reductions at points where long-established and precious interests in the missions should not be entirely destroyed, although temporarily crippled. Only in the Congo mission, where the expenditures have been cut down one half and two stations have been abandoned or transferred, has the retrenchment gone to the extent of permanent crippling of the work. The other reductions have been made with the expectation and intention that with the revival of business and the increase of receipts the work might be easily and quickly restored to its former footing. At the present time there are actually twenty-one vacancies in the work of the Missionary Union urgently calling for men to fill them. The work is suffering on many fields where missionaries are located for want of funds for evangelistic traveling, for native helpers and other departments of missionary work. With the revival of business, will the churches see to it that the income of the Missionary Union is correspondingly increased, that the vacancies may be filled, that the evangelistic work may be reinforced and re-established, and that great openings for advanced work, like the Phillipines, the pressing demands of the new condition of affairs in China, and the remarkable opportunities of Central Africa may be entered?

T he Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, was founded by Joseph Neesima under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and its history has been followed with special interest by Christians in America. It was established on a positive Christian basis and has been sustained in all its course largely by Christian money, one gentleman from America giving as much as $60,000 for the establishment of a science hall. In all, between two and three hundred thousand dollars have been paid into this school through the treasury of the American Board. A few years ago, as many of our readers remember, the Board of Trustees repudiated the original constitution of the University, which was declared at the time it was founded to be unchangeable, and on the basis of which all the gifts have been received, and the trustees declared that the University had no organic association with Christianity. This action was universally deplored by Christians all over the world as well as in Japan, and it was condemned by many of the non-Christian journals and leaders in Japan itself. So strong has been the public sentiment in Japan that the Board of Trustees has resigned and a new Board has been elected, at least in part, by the alumni of the institution, and the gratifying intelligence is just received from Japan that this new Board of Trustees has voted to readopt the original constitution and bring the Doshisha University again into line with Christianity and with its original purposes. This action is regarded with great joy by Christians in America and Japan and will have a very positive influence on the future of Christianity in the latter country.

A Forward Movement in Missions for China is proposed by Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, Director of the China Inland Mission. He calls for twenty "able, earnest and healthy" young men to form an itinerant evangelistic band, who will devote themselves for five years to preaching the gospel in China without marrying or settling at a fixed station. It is proposed to divide each province into several districts in each of which an experienced missionary and his wife will have charge of a central station to serve as a radiating point for a band of these young evangelists, who are to be accompanied by a similar band of native helpers. After a few months' study these workers will go out, two by two, as the Lord sent his disciples throughout Galilee, to preach the gospel and sell scripture portions and Christian tracts, returning occasionally to the central station for rest and spiritual refreshment. The funds for this work are provided from the bequest of $750,000 by the late J. T. Morton, to be devoted exclusively to advanced evangelistic work in China.

NDIA is the first and the fairest field of Christian missions, and there they have blossomed into fullest flower. As William Carey at Serampore was the first to inaugurate the modern missionary movement, so, although laboring under some disabilities by the restrictions of the East Indian Company for several years, yet on the whole, and especially since the full establishment of the British empire in India in 1858, missionary work has there enjoyed the fullest liberty and the fairest opportunities that have been found in any heathen land. The noble declaration of Queen Victoria on assuming control of India, that Christianity should have free and full opportunity for development, has been the magna charta of Christian missions in that broad, fair land, and today, more than any other land commonly known as heathen, India shows the ripe fruit of Protestant Christian missionary work.

The diverse and manifold peoples of India should be kept more fully in mind than is ordinarily the case. India is one term, but the fields and the peoples which it covers are multitudinous in varieties and characters, as well as in numbers. In ordinary comprehension India means the peninsular of Hindustan, but the British empire in India includes as well Burma and Assam. In Burma alone there are said to be as many as forty-seven different races and peoples represented. Probably Assam furnishes half as many more, and the variations in race, dialect, and characteristics of the peoples of India proper are almost innumerable. But such has been the growth of modern missionary work in the land of its birth that very few of these peoples are still unreached by the gospel. In Burma, for instance, such has been the extent of the American Baptist missionary work that there is not one of its forty-seven races which has not, in some measure at least, received the

message of salvation through Jesus Christ. A few small tribes among the foothills of the Himalayas in North India and Assam may still be beyond the sound of the gospel, but the exceptions to the statement that all the peoples of India are receiving the gospel in their own tongues or dialects are small and unimportant.

The successes, as well as the extent of Christian missionary work in India, also entitles that to the first place in the table of missionary advance. While numerical results do not by any means constitute the whole, and sometimes are really the least important element of missionary progress, yet in India they furnish some results which encourage and cheer the hearts of all those who are looking for the advancement of the kingdom of our Redeemer. Including Burma, Assam and the Telugu mission, the American Baptist Missionary Union is permitted, by the grace of God, to report 95,561 communicants connected with its mission churches. Following this would come the communicants connected with the Church Missionary Society, representing the evangelical element of the Church of England, which is able to report 36,643 communicants. If those in fellowship with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, representing the high-church element of the Church of England should be included, the Church of England would probably stand first in the number of its adherents in India. The remarkable successes of Gossner's Missionary Society of Germany among the Santals of Bengal and the Central Provinces have enabled it to report in the neighborhood of forty thousand converts, and the Leipsic mission, also of Germany, has been greatly prospered in its work, principally among the aboriginal tribes, having about twenty thousand converts on its lists. One of the most remarkable of the recent missionary movements in India is that of the American Methodist Episcopal Church in the northern provinces, where thousands of baptisms have been reported every year for the last few years, and the number of communicants in their missions in India has rapidly grown until it has reached the noble figure of 31,281. The splendid missions of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions among the former warrior tribes of the Marathi and in Madura are doing good work, extending their influence far beyond the numbers reported in their churches, which, however, have reached the gratifying total of 9,791. The fine work of the English Baptist Mission in the northern provinces and of the London Missionary Society are also to be numbered among the most effective and useful of the missions reporting among the people of India. In all there are more than forty different societies and bodies engaged in missionary work in British India and the total number of natives in connection with Christian churches has now risen to above two hundred thousand.

While other and newer fields are attracting the attention of the Christian world and calling loudly for contributions of men and money to enter the providential openings which God is placing before his people, it is well to pause for a moment to remember the abundant blessings which have been granted in India, the oldest field of modern missions. The results briefly outlined above are such as to call forth songs of praise from the hearts of those who love our Lord and are looking for his appearing, and to encourage the followers of Jesus to redoubled efforts and giving for the spread of his gospel throughout all the nations of the earth.