THE CALL FOR 1889.

Ar the beginning of 1888 the Prudential Committee authorized the missions to make their estimates for 1889 upon the basis of a total expenditure by the Board of about $575,000. So urgent are the necessities of the missions that the imperative call now is for not less than $650,000. And yet another $100,000 beyond this is sorely needed. What shall the Prudential Committee do as to the amount of their appropriations for the year? They have considered the subject and looked over the problem carefully and prayerfully.

Taking into account the hopeful advance in contributions during the last financial year, and the hearty assurances from a considerable number of friends and churches that they propose to make a still further advance during the present year, the Committee has determined to stretch its faith to the utmost, and to confide in the friends and supporters of the Board for special advanced gifts during the coming year. They have therefore already appropriated for the year 1889 the sum total of $620,000, with the expectation that friends will add to their ordinary regular contributions thank-offerings sufficient to meet the additional $45,000 beyond what might be considered the most conservative basis of expenditures for the year. Of this amount $5,000 has been appropriated as additional for the most pressing needs of our missions in India, $4,000 for the Pacific Islands, $6,000 for Japan, $10,000 for Asiatic Turkey, and the remainder to other missions, all supplementary to the regular appropriations; this additional sum to be met, it is hoped, by special contributions. The call for Turkey has been emphasized by the impoverishment, in some sections, which has attended and followed the continuance of famine.

We ask therefore at the beginning of the new year that pastors and churches will form their plans for the largest possible contributions to the work of the Board by some efficient systematic method, and also that in some way a special additional offering may be secured. This may be for some particular mission or missions, or for some particular department of the broad work, educational, evangelistic, church-building, publication, or other.

Particularly would we request special memorial gifts from individual donors, which call for special self-sacrifice, and which are accompanied with special prayer. We shall be glad to hear from many personal friends, who are bearing the interests of their beloved and trusted Board with unusual tenderness before the throne of grace at the beginning of the new year. May the Lord move many to respond with glad thank-offerings !

WORK IN INDIA: SPECIAL OBJECTS.

BY SECRETARY N. G. CLARK.

Ir is often a matter of interest to know what work is carried on at a mission station, and what is spent for particular objects. Take, for example, the Madura Mission. This embraces a territory about as large as the State of Massachusetts, divided into a dozen districts called stations, each of which is intended to be in

charge of one missionary family. As the population of the mission is not far from 2,000,000, each district embraces from 150,000 to 180,000 souls under the immediate charge of the missionary family. The people live for the most part in villages of from one hundred to five hundred or more inhabitants. The only cities of considerable size are Madura and Dindigul.

These conditions determine the methods of missionary labor. The villages are so near together that when congregations are first gathered and churches are organized, the members are often from several neighboring villages, while the schools are of necessity largely limited to single villages. The missionary in charge of the station must depend largely on his native helpers-pastors, preachers, teachers, and Bible-women — for the success of his labors. These he brings together, usually every month, to hear reports and to receive special instruction. For example, Rev. J. S. Chandler, of Periakulam, has four pastors in charge of churches, sixteen catechists, so called, most of whom teach during the week in the village schools, and preach to such congregations as they can gather on the Sabbath. The village school is often the beginning of Christian work. It is in some sense a Sunday-school all the week. Besides the simple elements of an education, the children learn to read the Scriptures in their native language, daily engage in religious services of song and prayer, and, as a rule, there is soon awakened an interest in the minds and hearts of parents and friends to assemble in congregations; and in due time churches are organized, and the work becomes established and known in groups of villages.

The salaries of the pastors are paid by the churches, but the village catechists, who are thus laying foundations, must be paid from the mission treasury. The sum asked for the support of 144 catechists during the coming year is $4,724, or an average of $32.80 to each. In this way the work is carried on at other stations. Dr. Chester, at Dindigul, has three pastors and eighteen catechists. The latter require for next year $447, or $24.86 each. So Mr. Hazen, of Palani, has one pastor and eleven catechists, at an expense, for the catechists, of $323.40, or $29.40 each; Mr. Perkins, of Mandapasalai, has four pastors and eighteen catechists at an expense of $797, or $44.45 each.

Other details as to teachers and Bible-women must be omitted in this paper. Here is opportunity for individuals, churches, or Sabbath-schools to take some specific mission work in the support of these catechists, who are preachers and teachers of the gospel in the midst of large heathen communities. We have recently proposed to a Sabbath-school in Brooklyn to take all the catechists of one of the above-named stations. Should they thus be taken, in the expectation of knowing the name and the village occupied by each, there are plenty more ready for an assignment, whether singly or in a group.

We earnestly bespeak the attention of Sabbath-schools and Young People's Societies of Christian Endeavor to take at least one such catechist for the coming year, and to report at an early day the money, or a pledge to this effect, to L. S. Ward, Treasurer, Congregational House, Boston. If any prefer a preacher, teacher, or Bible reader in the Marathi Mission, such preference will be regarded. The method in that mission is much the same, and the need equally urgent. Where can money be spent more wisely and with such promise of good results?

SOFIA, THE CAPITAL OF BULGARIA.

BY REV. J. H. HOUSE, D.D., OF SAMOKOV.

THE picture which accompanies this article gives a view of Sofia taken from the north, when the country belonged to Turkey. The road in the foreground, upon which are the horsemen, is the important government road leading from Sofia to the Danube, reaching the latter at Lom Palanka. Until the recent opening of the railway through Servia, this was the main route to northeastern Europe, and one of the most important thoroughfares in the country. This road, in its passage of the Balkans, exhibits some of the finest engineering that I have ever seen, and it was done during the rule of Prince Alexander.

The connected line of circles in the foreground, to the right, are the old ruins of extensive Roman fortifications. The new and beautiful Sofia railway-station is situated on this road, some little distance to the north of these ruins. The bridge at the left is an ancient structure of solid stone and excellent workmanship. In shape, style, and age it resembles many of the bridges which are found in Bulgaria, some of which are very large and fine. They date back, probably, to the reign of Solomon the Magnificent; some, it may be, to Roman times.

The mountains seen in the background lie to the south of the city, between Sofia and Samokov, and are called the Vitosha (vee'-to-sha) Mountains. They form a spur of the high Rhodope range which lies to the south of Samokov.

The palace of the Prince of Bulgaria is situated on the opposite side of the city from that which you enter by the road described above. It is a large, fine building which cost 4,000,000 francs, and is surrounded by beautiful grounds. The new European part of the city, which is growing rapidly and contains many fine buildings, is built about the palace as a centre. The old city, with its crooked, narrow streets, remains much as it was in Turkish times.

Sofia is the ancient Sardica, in which, in 343 A.D., there assembled a church council. The ruin of the Sofia Mosque, which is one of the most prominent objects near the palace, is doubtless the ruin of the Sophia Church, erected, it is supposed, by a Byzantine princess, of the name of Sophia. The building is solid and completely arched overhead, but now, however, cracked and partially ruined by an earthquake.

The city contains hot springs, the water of which, as it comes from the ground, has a temperature of 117°. Sofia is beautifully situated in the midst of a largeplain and on a little river (over which the bridge in the picture passes) called Bogdana. The Emperor Constantine, before he made Byzantium his capital, is said to have remarked, "Sardica is my Rome." It failed of becoming his Rome, but it is now fast becoming an important centre, and is evidently destined to become a large and flourishing city. It was selected by the Russians as the capital of Bulgaria, with reference to its becoming a centre for a much larger state than now goes by the name of Bulgaria.

Sofia was one of the early missionary stations of European Turkey. It was first occupied by Rev. Mr. Morse in 1862, but in 1867 it was abandoned as a station, Samokov, some thirty miles distant, being occupied on account of its better climate. At the advent of the Russians in 1878, the city became an im

portant governmental and commercial centre, and many from all quarters were attracted to it, among whom were several Protestant families. The work has gradually grown in importance, but not without many hindrances. The need of a house of worship was deeply felt, and through the earnest efforts of the friends in Sofia and elsewhere in this country, with liberal assistance from friends in Boston, a large and convenient brick church has been erected. It is located in the southwestern part of the city, and is a plain but attractive building. The congregations range from 150 to 200.

This important centre of work is now under the immediate care of the Bulgarian Evangelical Society, a sort of Home Missionary and Tract Society which works in harmony with the mission of the American Board.

CANON TAYLOR ON MISSIONARY METHODS.

BY REV. GEORGE F. HERRICK, D.D., OF MARSOVAN, TURKEY.

[Dr. Herrick, during a recent visit to England, prepared an article for an English review, which was not intended as a reply to Canon Taylor's criticism upon Christian missions, but as "the testimony of experience touching some very practical principles of missionary work and procedure, and presenting a few statements of facts on the side of results." The readers of the Missionary Herald are more or less familiar with the results of missionary labor in Turkey, and as our space will allow us to give but a portion of Dr. Herrick's article, we select that part of it which deals with Canon Taylor's criticism upon missionary methods.]

THEORIZING on missionary procedure is heavily discounted, in our day, by practical men. Experimenting there has no doubt been, but the most important questions are now settled; principles are adopted, and the men in the field work on definite and well-understood lines for clearly defined ends, with harmony and courage. As a preliminary to facts to be presently stated, through which the form and significance of the principles will clearly appear, I may be allowed to offer Canon Taylor and others who may be fond of figures another arithmetical problem. He speaks of the "lavish" expenditure of missions and their meagre result. Note that the missionary work has four departments: (1) The evangelistic, which develops into churches. (2) The department of Publication. (3) Education. (4) Philanthropy, including free medical service, hospitals, famine relief, and the like.

cent.

The problem I propose is this: find the total value of all church property of the Church of England, and set down the interest of the same at three per Then set down the entire annual expense of the Establishment. Do the same with the Established Church of Scotland. Make the same computation in the case of all the Nonconformist bodies. Now pass to schools: set down the interest on the original cost of all educational property from Oxford and Cambridge and Edinburgh and Glasgow universities to the common schools; write the total of annual expenditure; go through with a similar computation in the case of all hospitals, asylums, and eleemosynary institutions; and then calculate the expenditure of all Bible and other societies publishing either Christian or school literature, and the work of all famine and relief boards: and when you have added up the column, you will find a total of something quite different from the paltry £5,000,000 that is called "lavish" expenditure for the conversion of the world, with its 1,400,000,000 souls.