increased. With prayer and hope we wait for the time when the leaven of the gospel, cast into the Oriental mass, shall quicken it to new life.

Animated by the spirit of the times and the example of the Protestants, all

CONSTANTINOPLE. THE GALATA BRIDGE ACROSS THE GOLDEN HORN TO PERA.

Pera,

the other communities have made rapid progress in education. the European quarter of Constantinople, boasts a single school-building for Greek girls, which cost $176,000. In the same quarter the Jesuits have great

educational establishments, with several thousand pupils, many of them nonCatholic. The government has also done much to advance the cause of education, especially among the Mohammedans. In short, in Constantinople and the chief cities of the empire, very much more attention has been given to education than to religion.

American Christianity has three grand institutions in Constantinople, namely, the Bible House in Stamboul, which is the centre of literary work for the empire; the Female College, called the "Home," on the heights of Scutari on the Asiatic shore, and Robert College, on the bluff of the Bosphorus, six miles above the city. There are three native evangelical churches, namely, two Armenian and one Greek, with a total membership of over two hundred, and eleven religious services in eight different quarters of the city and in three different languages are held every Sabbath, with a total attendance of about one thousand. In the quarters of Haskeuy and Scutari and in the rear of the Bible House, there are commodious chapels, but for more than forty years the evangelical Armenian churches in the great quarters of Pera and Stamboul have suffered severely in their growth and influence for the lack of church homes of their own. The brethren of the Pera and Stamboul churches are now about to make fresh efforts to secure houses of worship, and we bespeak for them the sympathy and aid of American Christians. The preachers of the gospel have never been so numerous and strong as at present, and the spirit of love and union among the brethren has sensibly increased. By means of our station conference, genuine coöperation in carrying forward the evangelical work has been secured, and the differences of former years have quite disappeared.

The place of most encouraging aggressive work is in the quarter of Stamboul called Gedik Pasha, overlooking the Marmora. Here is the splendid site purchased some years ago for the meeting-house of the Stamboul church, and here many members of that church reside. Here Mrs. Newell and Miss Twitchell, succeeding Mrs. Schneider and Miss Gleason, have gathered a Sabbath-school which not infrequently numbers 250. Many of the pupils are non-Protestant, who come from Turkish-speaking Armenian and Greek families. Weekday schools for Armenians and Greeks, largely self-supporting, are maintained at the same place. On seven evenings of the recent Week of Prayer very earnest meetings were held at the house of the missionary ladies, with an attendance of 150 at almost every meeting. Persons, long alienated, came to these meetings, and such union and fervency of prayer have not been witnessed for years. On the evening of Tuesday, January 15, the Young Men's Christian Association of Constantinople held their annual festival at the same place, and a fine assembly. of some three hundred young men and women, many of them non-Protestant, met to listen to half a dozen stirring addresses and to excellent vocal and instrumental music. Looking at the house, the illumination, the decorations, the Christmas-tree, or the assembly itself, save in the matter of the red fez caps, a stranger present might well have thought himself in Europe or America. The company, on leaving, left some $27 on the plates, to testify their gratitude for the instruction and entertainment received.

Again, on Saturday, January 19, the indefatigable ladies at Gedik Pasha

opened their house to welcome the children of the Sabbath-school to a Christmas-tree festival. Such a crowd of eager faces, such excellent singing, such rapt attention to the story of Christ's birth, were most gratifying proofs of the powerful influence of this school. Gifts were bestowed according to the fidelity of the pupils in attendance on the school during the year.

In short, we seem to see the time approaching, when in rearing its spiritual temple the living Church of God, the final aim and crown of all our workConstantinople shall no longer lag behind Marsovan, Cesarea, Harpoot, Aintab, Marash, and several smaller cities of the empire.

THE STORY OF THE PANG-CHUANG CHAPEL.

BY REV. H. D. PORTER, M.D.

THE picture given on this page represents the beautiful little chapel at PangChuang, in the province of Shantung, China. How many precious memories

THE CHAPEL AT PANG-CHUANG, SHANTUNG, CHINA.

gather about it! In the autumn of 1878, just after the terrible famine, the people flocked upon the Sabbath days to hear the "new doctrine." The little low room where meetings had been held was exchanged for one given for that purpose by a brother of good Helper Hou. A quaint and dismal hovel it was, enlarged after a few months by taking in the kitchen with a k'ang. And when the donor died, his bedroom was absorbed into the chapel, and made a place for the women and girls. These three low and grimy rooms, renovated by

whited walls and equipped with seats four inches wide, was our place of meeting for eight years; memorable years of toil and service and expectation.

When our brick residences were built in 1881 and our families moved down in 1882, the people looked at the comely homes of the pastors, and asked, "Where is the room for the chapel?" We had to tell them that none had been arranged. Even Helper Hou was disappointed, and he said afterward: "I was vexed when the pastor said, 'The chapel you must build yourselves.' How could such poverty-stricken, famine-begirt people build a chapel? They however made a contribution box with a slit in the top, into which the Sunday offering was dropped, and they slowly went to work. "I can see more in that box than you can," said the once annoyed helper. "I can see a church in that box." He lived to subscribe for, to plan, and to build the ideal chapel for which he labored and prayed for eight long years.

At the grand reception given the pastors on the arrival of their families in 1882, there was a little surplus of funds contributed, amounting to about five dollars. This was a nest-egg. The story of how it was added to by annual contributions and by a few gifts of friends until it amounted to about eighty dollars is too long to tell. At length the little hovel was too continuously crowded to be endurable. The chapel must be built. On the Sabbath of the Week of Prayer, 1886, Helper Hou made an eloquent appeal and invited every one, man, woman, and child, to put down his name. Only fifty dollars were subscribed that day, but it was as much as $10,000 in America. It set the tide of a movement toward self-support that may bear fruit forever. After that every member of the six little churches in Shantung was invited to add gifts were small, but they meant much to donor and to receivers. Smith were in America at that time, and through them many friends, hearing the story, were pleased to give for our little chapel. Thus in one way and another funds came in, and we were able to build twice as large a building as we planned at first. How delighted our dear Helper Hou was! So the chapel was built, costing a thousand dollars in gold, and not one cent of it came from the funds of the Board. Not quite half of this amount came from the happy native Christians who gave so gladly for it. The largest contribution by a native was about twenty dollars.

his mite. The

Mr. and Mrs.

The picture shows you the pretty plan, a combination of the fine Chinese temple roof with western church tower. It is far prettier in reality than the picture shows. What a laugh was raised by Helper Hou when objecting to a plan for a corner tower ! In very dramatic style he showed how opposed to Chinese ideas it would be to have a tower anywhere else than "in the centre." And he danced around on one leg with one eye blindfolded to show the intrinsic absurdity. The chapel was built entirely by the local masons and carpenters, many of the church members working out their subscriptions by days' work. The gateway of the enclosure stands midway between the chapel and the Williams Hospital, the western ward of which is seen in the picture. The ceaseless interest and energy required to build such a house were furnished by our Helper Hou. He built his zeal into it, and when it was finished he named his only little grandson Grace Chapel, in his joy that God's grace had

enabled him to see it completed. He had, of course, the constant advice of the pastors, but all accorded to him the leadership in this special work. And so we look upon the chapel as a monument to an earnest and noble life. He was permitted to preach in it for several months. And when he died we gathered there to mourn for the life that had built its own memorial.

The chapel within is more pleasing, perhaps, than without. Four great wooden pillars support the roof, which shows its painted crossbeams and rafters twentythree feet about the neatly tiled floor. The pillars are painted in bright vermilion, adding freshness to the interior. A partition now necessarily divides the seats for women from the rest of the audience, a feature that may change for something better in the coming years. Perhaps the coming railway may erelong take this rail away. A rose window on the western side will be filled in with colored glass. Upon the high walls and gables, and between the windows, hang in splendid Chinese script inscriptions to the Deity, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer. The kindness of American friends enables us to seat the church with chapel seats. A bell in the little tower will ring out a Sabbath welcome to the neighboring villages. It is inscribed in memory of a blessed saint who waits to welcome "these from the land of Sinim" in the realms of light and day. The chapel furnishes about three hundred sittings.

Perhaps no more hopeful sight can be seen in China than this little chapel, crowded, as it often is, with devout worshipers, coming from three or even four score villages to meet and partake of the holy communion. multitudes, as it has already led scores, to the blessed source of all hope and love!

May it lead

REV. ISAAC G. BLISS, D.D., OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

BY REV. HERMAN N. BARNUM, D.D.

A PARAGRAPH in a recent number of the Missionary Herald made especial acknowledgment of the indebtedness of American missions in the Orient to the American Bible Society and to Rev. Isaac G. Bliss, the Agent of that society for the Levant. The death of Dr. Bliss is now to be chronicled, the sad event occurring at Asyoot, Egypt, February 16. Dr. Bliss was born in Springfield, Mass., July 5, 1822. He graduated at Amherst College in 1844, and three years later at the Theological Seminary at Andover. In 1847, May 4, he was ordained at West Springfield, and a few days later, May 8, he married Miss Eunice Bliss Day, and together they sailed for Turkey, June 23, as missionaries of the American Board. They were located at Erzroom, which, at that time, was a new field, and Mr. Bliss entered upon his work with an ardor and impetuosity which soon exhausted his strength, so that in 1851 he was obliged to return to the United States with broken health. He performed pastoral labor in Massachusetts for about five years, but in 1856 he accepted an appointment from the American Bible Society as its agent for the Levant, with Constantinople as his residence.

The Bible had been translated and published in Constantinople before Dr. Bliss assumed the agency, but the work had not been systematized, and business