WANTED WITHOUT DELAY.

THIRTY-TWO MISSIONARY FAMILIES AND TWENTY-NINE WOMEN, AS FOLLOWS:

For the Japan Mission: Five Men and Ten Women. Of these one should be a missionary teacher in the theological department of the Training School at Kyōto, to instruct in church history or in the New Testament. The department has now So students, and instruction must be given in English and in Japanese. A thoroughly qualified man, apt to teach, is urgently needed to help in this work, to be on the ground as soon as possible. He can begin his instruction in English at once. Still more urgent, if possible, is the call for another missionary family at Ösaka, where the entire responsibility for evangelical work in a large and prosperous station formerly shared by four men, now rests on one; and for two experienced women to become teachers there in large schools wholly sustained by the Japanese, save the salaries of their foreign teachers.

Dr. Davis pleads earnestly for the reinforcement expected by this mission last year of at least five men and twice as many women, and stops short at one half the number needed to gather in the ripened harvest.

Let it be remembered that the number received into the Christian household on profession of faith last year in Japan exceeded the aggregate number from all

the other missions of the Board. Now is the time for work in Japan.

For the Madura Mission: Six New Missionary Families. Five of these families are needed to take possession of five stations soon to be left vacant, and one to aid Mr. Washburn in the care of Pasumalai College and Seminary, with their three hundred students. The time is ripe for larger effort in India.

For the West African Mission: Three Women. One of these is to be associated with Miss Bell, already in the mission, in charge of the school at Bihé; the other two are to take charge of the school and work for women at Bailundu.

For the Hawaiian Islands: Four Men. The local Committee at Honolulu represents the need of at least four new men as urgent, and are prepared to name a definite place of work for them as soon as they arrive. Some experience in work is desirable.

For Micronesia: One Man and Two Women. Mr. Walkup's place in the Gilbert Island Training School at Kusaie must be supplied at once. Another teacher for the Girls' School on Kusaie must be ready to sail on the next voyage of the Star in July. Miss Fletcher's place in the Girls' School on Ponape' must be supplied this year.

are

For China: Ten Men and Four Women. - Four men and two women needed at once in the North China Mission to fully man existing stations. The mission has sent a most urgent call for three times this number, with a specific designation for each one. Two missionary families are needed to reinforce Mr. Hager, in South China; one of the men should be qualified for taking charge of a training school. Two women are needed in the Shansi Mission for a mission school and work for women at Taiku; and two missionary families to strengthen the existing work. Two missionary families are needed in the Foo

chow Mission, one for the promising interior station at Shao-wu, the other for evangelistic work around Foochow.

For the Turkish Missions: Two Men and Eight Women. - One of the missionary families is for Van, Eastern Turkey, to be associated with Dr. Raynolds; the other family is for Adana, to be associated with Mr. Mead in place of Mr. Montgomery, who has recently died. The women are needed, one in each of the following posts: the Constantinople Home; the Girls' College at Marash ; the Hadjin Home; the Cesarea Girls' School; the Smyrna Home; touring with Miss Pratt at Mardin. Two teachers are needed in the Girls' Department of Euphrates College, Harpoot.

For the Zulu Mission: Four New Missionary Families. Two of these men are needed at Adams as teachers, one in the Theological School of the mission, the other in the Boys' Training and Normal School. At least two new families are needed to take direction of important stations, now without a missionary in charge.

For All. As these new missionaries will need to be sent out and sustained at expense additional to what is already appropriated, not less than $50,000 additional offerings in money are needed beyond the amount hitherto given.

THE INJUSTICE DONE TO MISSIONARIES.

FEW who read these pages can realize the injustice done our missionaries by withholding from them the means of efficient service. It ought to be enough for them to give their lives, their years of patient preparation, their acquisitions of knowledge, their home comforts, and other privileges of their native land, enough to make such sacrifices without being called to the further trial of disappointed hopes and plans, and of crippled efforts and scanty returns where great results seem just within reach; and all this for the want of a few hundred dollars more to secure these results. Yet who contribute most to this cause? Is it those who give themselves, or those who give of their wealth? Is it the parents who spend money on the education of their children and then send them forth with their blessing to build up Christian institutions in other lands, or those who give of their abundance to supply them with needed food and clothing, and with such help as is indispensable for buildings and schools, and possibly to meet wholly or in part, for a little time, the small salaries of native teachers and preachers? It is through these native agents that the missionary extends his work, multiplies his influence, and follows up openings for the gospel. To limit him in these regards below his most careful estimate of what is necessary, is to cut off and cut back the new growth of his work, to lose opportunities won, it may be, at the hardest, and to see a blight falling upon the work. This is the burden that weighs on the heart, the discouragement that pales the cheek, the injustice that too many in the Church at home are doing to loved and honored missionaries in the foreign field. Oh, for a union of sympathy and effort in the common cause as fellow-believers unto the kingdom of God!

1889.]

Topes.

TOPES.

53

BY REV. JOHN S. CHANDLER, PERIAKULAM, MADURA MISSION.

In northern and central India the word tope is applied to monuments constructed like mounds, either to preserve the numerous relics of Buddha, such as his water-dipper, bathing-garment, eight hairs from his head, some hairs that grew out of a mole on his cheek, his thorax-bone, a handful of his locks, his left canine tooth, etc., or to commemorate some event in connection with Buddha's life.

These topes are generally in groups, and of these the largest group is that known as the Bhilsa Topes, from the adjacent town of Bhilsa, a part of the kingdom of Bhopal, in central India.

This group is scattered over a district extending ten miles east and west, and six north and south, and is divided into five or six minor groups, all together containing more than twenty-five topes. Sanchi is the name of the place where the greatest of these topes, called the Sanchi Tope, is situated.

It has been described as "a dome somewhat less than a hemisphere, 106 feet in diameter and 42 feet in height." This dome "rests on a sloping base 14 feet in space about 34 "On the top of the tope is a flat height by 120 feet in diameter." "The centre of this feet in diameter, formerly surrounded by a stone railing." great mound is quite solid, being composed of bricks laid in mud; but the exterior is faced with dressed stones." The base on which the dome has been built has an offset six feet wide, which is supposed to have been used for processions The elephants carved upon the capitals of the gateways around the monument. are not idols, but a frequent ornamentation of buildings. This great tope contains no relics, but a smaller one, contained those of ten Buddhist teachers, who took part in the third great convocation held under Asoka, and some of whom were sent on missions to foreign countries to disseminate the doctrines then settled."

"called No. 2 Tope,

The Sarnath Tope is another fine one, in Sarnath near Benares in Bengal. It is much higher than the Sanchi Tope, being 128 feet above the plain. It is situated in the Deer Park, where Buddha took up his residence with his five disciples when he first removed from Gaya on attaining Buddhahood, and commencing his mission as a teacher. We do not know what particular act of his it The Sanchi Topes were probably built commemorates, but it contains no relics.

before the Christian era, the Sarnath five hundred years later. Recently a tope has been discovered buried up in Bezvada in south India. But generally through south India the word tope is applied to a planted grove of trees. The country contains no forests and almost no trees, except those that are planted, and in the interior the planted trees are along the avenues or in the topes.

Wherever the land is watered by streams or by irrigation channels, there are these delightful topes of cocoanut, or palmyra, or areca palms, or of tamarind, or banyan, or mango, or other leafy trees; and after a hot and dusty journey with bare, grassless stretches of jungle radiating the heat, there is nothing more

delightful than to rest in the quiet shade of a fine tope. The herds and flocks and multitudinous birds also appreciate the coolness and protection of a tope. Many an itineracy is conducted by pitching one's tent in a tope and working among the surrounding villages.

When we flee to the mountains to escape the scorching, wilting heat of April and May, we make our rendezvous at a magnificent tope in which the bearers are waiting with their dholies, or chairs, to carry the ladies and children up seven thousand feet. This tope was planted by one of the kings of Madura, who is said to have come to the foot of the mountains to escape from the heat of the city Madura, and to have made this tope a summer residence for himself and wife.

So while the Buddhist topes are memorials of the dead past, the fresh and verdant topes of the south are a blessing to the men of the living present.

THE REPORT OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY CONFERENCE. THESE two volumes,1 the title of which we give below, and which have been anxiously waited for, have now been given to the world. We have been both surprised and delighted with them. If any one has thought that they would be like some volumes of dry reports, or of stately speeches printed after the occasion of their delivery had passed, he is greatly mistaken. Those who have an intelligent interest in the religious condition of the various races of mankind throughout the world will find in these volumes an array of facts, a discussion of principles, an illustration of methods, and a summary of results such as will gratify and surprise them.

It is to be remembered that the Conference was the most nearly ecumenical of any that has ever been held. It is affirmed that every branch of the Evangelical Church in the whole world, engaged in missionary work, was represented. Eminent statesmen and scholars, the most prominent conductors of missionary affairs, together with missionaries from almost every field, were present and contributed to the value and interest of the occasion. But we need not dwell upon the composition of the Conference. What concerns us now is that these two volumes, making together 1,184 pages, present the work of the Conference in an admirable way. The papers and the discussions are given not in a chronological, but a topical, order. A large proportion of them are given. verbatim, and where abbreviation was rendered necessary on account of length, it seems to have been well made, and in almost all cases these condensations have been approved by the authors of the respective papers. Volume I contains the reports of the " meetings for open conference" on such topics as Islam, Buddhism, Roman Catholic Missions, Home and Foreign Missions, Commerce and Missions, the State of the World One Hundred Years Ago, together with a survey of the great mission fields of the world. Volume II gives the report of the meetings of members in section, held in smaller rooms while the open meetings were in progress.

1 Report of the Centenary Conference on the Protestant Missions of the World, held in Exeter Hall (June 9−19), London, 1888. Edited by the Rev. James Johnston, F.S.S., Secretary of the Conference, author of "A Century of Christian Progress." New York and Chicago: F. H. Revell.