Why there are single men, and that too within the pale of the Christian Church, who could carry that load for one year and not seriously trench upon their capital. Now turn to the Church Year-Book and the Year-Books of the several Christian bodies and find the number of additions- not from heathens, mark, but from Christian homes to the Christian churches, and find the average cost! Is Christianity then a failure? Are churches and the Christian ministry a failure? Is education a failure? Is philanthropy a failure? I am no pessimist. Our day is not worse, it is better than those that have gone before. But the problem of sin is dark enough. We need no jeremiads: we need buglecalls and cheer answering to cheer along the ranks.

The first part of my testimony relates to the life of the missionary. All sense and experience and Holy Scripture are opposed to the recommendation to the missionary of an ascetic life. Conformity on the part of the missionary to native modes of life is of no practical utility whatsoever. Men who make such a recommendation confound two things that differ toto cœlo; namely, conforming to external native customs, and habitual manifestation of love and sympathy. The one is the missionary's duty and privilege, and his habit; the other course is stark folly. For (1) an ascetic life is mere spectacular Christianity, and a travesty at that, and cannot lead men to Christ. (2) On such a plan of life in an oriental country nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand missionaries would die in the raw immaturity of their youth, before they had acquired the language in which to preach. (3) An occidental ascetic will be left far behind in the religious race with an oriental ascetic, who has an infinite facility in the assumption and expression of devoutness. (4) Asceticism is plainly in opposition to the teachings of the New Testament and to the lessons of church history. If it were useful for the missionary to live as an ascetic, is there any conceivable reason why it should not be equally useful for the minister at home? A missionary must not live apart from men, must not beg, must have his home, his well-ordered domestic life, in order that he may reach and mould the social life, the whole life of the people to whom he goes.

Canon Taylor's pet aversion seems to be a missionary with a wife and a ponycarriage. Quite unconsciously, it would seem, in quoting native Indian judgment of the missionary, he has drawn to the eye of one experienced at once in oriental and missionary life a charming picture: "A charitable Englishman, who keeps an excellent cheap school, speaks the language well, preaches a European form of their old incarnations and triads, and drives out his wife and his little ones in a pony-carriage." Noting that the judgment is hostile and critical, that of one whose mind is unconvinced and whose heart is unimpressed by Christian truth, could the missionary himself wish higher commendation? The native sees in him kindness and benevolence: he is winning in his bearing; his school is excellent, well organized, thorough in instruction, has a high moral purpose, is fitted to develop character, is one that will set its mark indelibly and for good upon the coming generation. And this school is cheap; it is therefore within the reach of the poor of an Eastern land. The missionary speaks the language well; he is no bungler; he has a powerful engine of influence always ready, and he preaches the great doctrines of the Christian faith, the atone

ment of the incarnate Son of God and the Trinity, with the related doctrines of saving truth. And then as the labors of the day end, and the cool air of evening comes on, the missionary brings his pony-carriage-mark-! a ponycarriage, a simple affair, no costly or pretentious equipage, but a little ponycarriage to the door, and assists into it the lady who for his sake and the work's sake has come from a home of refinement and culture in the fatherland to the debilitating climate of India, where special care in the matter of daily change. and rest and exercise in the open air is necessary, but where she and her children cannot walk out freely and alone as ladies and children do in the sweet air and over the fresh green swards of England. Note that it is the missionary's wife, who, by years of endurance and acquired experience in the foreign field, has made it possible in these later years the years of women's missionary societies for unmarried ladies to go abroad and live and work among the people of Eastern lands.

Surely it is not knowledge, it is profound ignorance of the whole practical missionary problem that can sneer at the missionary wife, and at the little ponycarriage by means of which life is prolonged for years of labor in a foreign land. I never yet saw a missionary wife whose companiorship did not double her husband's usefulness. I have known more than one whose face, as the years of life increased, took on that charm, that wondrous beauty that youthful features never wear, the beauty of a character disciplined by suffering, of a life unselfishly devoted to the highest ends. One of the choicest things of missionary work is the unwritten heroism of missionary homes.

The work of American missionaries in Turkey proper, not including Syria, was begun in 1832. At that time it was the midnight of hope for all races, especially for the three subject Christian races, the Bulgarian, the Greek, and the Armenian, numbering all together a little more than ten million souls.

Education among all these races hardly existed. The priests were wellnigh as ignorant as the masses of the people. Schools were few and poor. Under four hundred years of oppression, aspiration had died out. Not alone as a saving influence but in elevating and educating power, the free Bible in the living tongue of men is beyond all comparison to be placed first. The first great work, therefore, undertaken by American missionaries in Turkey was to give to all races the whole Bible in their living speech. This was to be done for Christian as well as Moslem, for Moslem as well as Christian. It was well understood that there could be no successful work among Moslems except through a reform and evangelizing of the oriental churches. The corruption of early Christianity gave Islam opportunity and scope when it rose. The corruption of Christianity, both east and west, in the Middle Ages, that ugly excrescence of Christianity in the twelfth century, the Crusades, thrust with such baleful moral effect upon the attention of the Moslem world, had steeled the heart against all Christian influence. Therefore American missionaries, understanding the magnitude of the task they had undertaken, began with the translation of the Bible, and with the creation of a Christian literature about that centre; and began with the Christian races. The great Bible societies joined hands with the missionary society. The Bible has been translated into all

languages, published in many editions, sold by the ten thousand, now by the hundred thousand, copies a year, and goes everywhere; and with it go the religious books and the schoolbooks for all grades of school, published in editions of three thousand or five thousand copies.

Until recently, in the interior of the country, almost all that was read by the people of all races, of periodical or permanent literature, was that which issued from our presses. While these Bibles and other books have gone most widely among the Armenian and Greek races, other races have also been influenced. Twenty-five years years ago, when the Bulgarians, who are now most influential in the affairs of a nation which is surprising Europe with its intelligent appreciation of civil and religious liberty, and with its patient and heroic purpose to secure its rights against mighty odds, were conning their lessons at school, and while there was scarcely a Protestant or "evangelical" Bulgarian in the country, the first editions of the New Testament in Bulgarian were issued and were put into the newly established schools as reading-books. There is found the solution of a problem that baffles the diplomatist.

TURKEY FIFTY YEARS AGO AND NOW.

BY REV. CYRUS HAMLIN, D.D.

[On the evening of December 2, a special service with a large audience was held in Park-street Church, Boston, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the meeting held December 2, 1838, in the same church, when Rev. Cyrus Hamlin and wife, who were to sail for Turkey on the next day, received their “instructions" as missionaries of the American Board. This commemorative service was of deep interest, and it was an occasion for surprise and gratitude that after such a protracted period, the venerable missionary could be present in such vigor to speak of what God had wrought in Turkey. We give here as much of Dr. Hamlin's address as our space will permit.] FIFTY years ago to-night, about this very hour, I stood with my chosen partner in the third pew from the front to receive my instructions as your missionary to Turkey, from your great Secretary, Dr. Anderson. He was careful beyond most men to have everything done decently and in order, and he came with me to the church before the service, pointed out our places, wished us to rise when he should begin his address, and resume our seats when he should motion us to do so. The Rev. Dr. Dwight, of Constantinople, to be my associate for many years, was with him in the pulpit, and followed with an address.

At almost fourscore years an old man's memory becomes treacherous, but there are scenes that never fade. Just half a century has passed, but that evening with the Secretaries, the Prudential Committee, and other friends still presents itself as a fresh reality. The pulpit, the platform, and other appointments of the house are changed; probably not one of that vast audience is here to-night. The Secretaries of that day and the Prudential Committee have all passed away from earth, but the vision remains unchanged. I was appointed to Constantinople February 1, 1837, to my inexpressible surprise. My first love was Africa, as an explorer into the interior; my second was China; my destiny was Turkey. I had no hand in it whatever. . .

I wish to give you, Christian friends, some conception of the mission field in Turkey as it then was, and to point out certain changes which have occurred during the lapse of half a century.

The revolt and destruction of the janizaries in 1826, the revolution in Greece which culminated at Navarino in 1827, and the war with Russia, 1829-30, had shaken the old empire, and made the government only more watchful against foreign propagandism. The Greek and Armenian churches were organized by the conquering Sultan, 1453, on the plan of an imperium in imperio. The Patriarchs had supreme power in all religious and educational affairs over their own flocks. They could inflict very heavy penalties, but they could not send into exile without the sanction of the government, very readily given for a backshish. The Armenian, whether merchant, citizen, or peasant, was under a double despotism, and the two kept the people in darkness and subjection.

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But there was the old established law of the empire, precisely as in Russia, that every one must be enrolled in some religious organization, and a copy of the enrolment given to the government. No man was allowed to belong to no religion." He would be an outlaw, a heathen, and might be sold as a slave. There was only one change allowed, as in Russia, and that to the national Church; in this case to Islam. All private meetings or associations, however small, were stringently interdicted. Had not the Greek Revolution originated in that way? The first evangelical association of about twenty young men was formed to labor for the spread of evangelical sentiments with the deliberate determination to risk the consequences of discovery, whether bastinado, imprisonment, or exile. Twice I rescued the archives of this association from the clutches of the Patriarch's officers, by the most energetic and immediate action. The seizure, completed, would have sent hundreds into exile, for there were confidential letters from nearly all the enlightened and liberal-minded men of the empire.

There was also such jealousy of the printing-press that the missionaries, fleeing from Beirût for safety, established the press at Malta. And when at length it was removed to Smyrna it was ordered back at once by the Turkish government. But the American Consul, with true American spirit, took all the boxes into the consulate, and said, "This is American property and on American territory, and while it remains here you cannot touch it." They waited till the Turks were embroiled in something else, and then went quietly to work under consular protection.

It will easily be seen that your early missionaries in Turkey, Goodell, Dwight, Schauffler, Homes, Adger, Schneider, Powers, had to work within very narrow limits and with great prudence, patience, and perseverance. It was devoutly hoped that the plague, cholera, or fatal cup, piously given, would take them off. Occasionally they had to show that Yankees, unencumbered, could run faster than Orientals encumbered with brickbats, but generally they dwelt in safety and their average of life was beyond threescore and ten. Their work was by necessity chiefly with individuals, not with masses, and this work they did skilfully, wisely, and well.

But there was one other sphere left widely and strangely open, that of common school education. This your missionaries entered into with almost alarming success; and that era had culminated in the High School, to which I was appointed in 1837. Then the clergy and primates took the alarm. The doors

were closed, and that part of my instructions to aid existing institutions, rather than establish new ones, became impossible.

In 1842, after due deliberation, the mission came to the conclusion that our work was with the common people, through the press and the schools, and by personal interviews, and not through the clergy. We were often petitioned by evangelical men to form a pure evangelical church. It was just what our opponents wanted us to do. We should thus have become guilty before the law, and been ordered out of the country, a plan already once attempted, and always watched for. But little praying circles were formed, which continually increased. They were careful always to pray for the Sultan and his government, and the Turks always acknowledged the right to do that. If Christians should be exiled from their homes for that, it would be a case that would claim the attention of Europe.

But relief came unexpectedly from a quarter which astounded both friend and foe, for its boldness, madness, and folly. The Armenian Patriarch, urged on by bishops and primates, hurled the great anathema at all the recognized evangelicals. They were thrust out of their homes and places of business, and subjected to great indignities, privations, and sufferings. They were outlaws. According to a law of the empire, they must belong to some religious organization, and there was none to which they could belong. Through the able interference of the great English ambassador, Sir Stratford Canning, the Moslem autocrat, the Sultan, by his imperial and infallible authority, announced the Protestant Church as one of the legal religions of the empire, with equal rights. The first individual church was formed in Pera of Constantinople, July, 1846.

A marvelous change, not contemplated as possible when I received my instructions in this house fifty years ago, had transformed our whole work in less than eight years from that date. You have now, in consequence, more than one hundred churches in this empire; every one a centre from which the gospel is preached in two, three, or four neighborhoods, some four hundred points of light on the broad fields of darkness. All this has been possible because the absolute, despotic power of the Armenian Patriarch over his people was broken in 1846, in that memorable persecution. This fact has attracted but little attention, but it is the greatest, in its far-reaching and ever-widening results, of anything that has been achieved by your missions in Turkey. The Greek Patriarch had to tread the same path; and the Bulgarians are free. He hurled anathemas at them, and they laughed him to scorn. Through much tribulation Bulgaria is triumphant; and the Patriarch has lost half his subjects, and more than half his revenues; and both the Patriarchs have to exercise their functions in connection with a council of the people.

This change has affected the whole religious constitution of the empire. The bishops have less fear of the Patriarch, the priests less fear of the bishop, and the people less fear of the priest. The old Armenian Church, or the Gregorian Church, as it is called, is abandoning its errors, and approaching an evangelical form. In the interior Protestant pastors are invited to preach in Gregorian churches. The reformation which Dr. Anderson, in my instructions, hoped would begin from the ecclesiastics and work downward has begun from the people,