very few I think from boys' day schools. More, especially the children of Christi. as from the boarding schools. Dr. Legge, after a long experience in schools told me that as a reans of gaining converts he considered them a failure. We may certainly hope for a favorable opinion of Christianity from the pupils and in some cases they may become Christians in after years.

WORK FOR WOMEN.

The work among the women has made great advances, especially during the last fifteen years. The first regular Bible woman was employed in 1863, and public meeting for the women were begun then. The visiting of the women in their homes by the ladies and the Bible women and gathering passers-by into wayside chapels has proved a remunerative form of Chistian effort and not a few have been gathered into the Churches by these means. In our mission much work has been done at the Aged Women's Home, and a number of the women there have pro essed their faith in Christ in their old age.

As few of the women can read, the work of training Bible women to work among their own sex is an important one. Miss Noyes, and on a smaller scale Mrs. Graves have given much time to this work. The Bible Women's Work is an encouraging one, but one that involves much self-denial and bearing of reproach for Christ's sake. Gathering the women passing by into wayside meeting rooms is a practice that should be used more than it is. Bible women's work among the country villages should be laagely extended. This has proved an invaluable adjunct to other labors in Swatow and elsewhere ard should be carried on in connection with all our country stations and in the neighborhood of Canton to a much larger extent than it is.

MEDICAL WORK.

Any notice of Mission work at Canton which would omit an allusion to Medical Work would be very imperfect. Here the Ophthalmic Hospital was opened by Dr. Peter Parker fifty years ago, and her soon afterwards was organized the Medical Missionary Society ich has been the parent of similar societies in Europe and America. Thirty years ago the old Hospital at San Sau Lan, back of the Foreign Factories, was under the care of Dr. Kerr, who also had charge of the Presbyterian Mission Dispensary at Tsing Hoi Mun, while Dr. Hobson had the management of the London Mission Hosy ital, known as the Wai Oi I Kun at Kam Li Fau. The war came on in the autumn of 1856 and all this medical work was broken up. After the war Dr. Kerr reopened his hospital, first at Tsang Sha and then moved it to Kuk Fau, where the

present fine accommodations are found and the noble work is carried on. Nearly a million patients have participated in the benefits of this institution. The Wai Oi Hospital was reopened. after the war under the charge of Dr. Wong Fun and others and in 1865 became a branch of the Medical Missionary Society's Hospital under Dr. Kerr.

My own connection with medical mission work has been in a humbler sphere. Being the son of a physician, and having received some medical training preparatory to my mission work, I have utilized my knowledge by opening dispensaries at new country stations. My first efforts were confined to vaccinating the children on my country tours. When I settled at Tai Sha I began dispensing medicines and performing minor operations. This was con tinued at Shiu Hing for a number of years and afterwards at Wu Chau in Kwang Si province and at Sai Nam and Sz Ui. In my tours also I frequently dispensed medicines. The expenses of this work were defrayed through the liberality of the Medical Missionary Society. I regard Medical Work as the most important adjunct to the direct work of saving souls. It alone has direct Divine sanction in the Scriptures, and experience has proved that it is a most important aid, especially in the work of opening new stations and removing prejudices. I should never be content to employ it, however, apart from direct religious work. All the miracles of healing wrought by Christ and His apostles had a moral object. Though the relief of suffering is a good thing in itself it should never be dissociated by missionaries with religious work. Though it may be the part of wisdom to smooth the way for the gospel we should never be lacking in that faith which teaches the gospel plainly whether men hear or whether men forbear. I would never therefore open a dispensary without a preacher, or unless we had a man. who would combine in himself the skilled doctor and the faithful witness bearer for Christ.

HEALTH.

The health of the missionaries and of their families is far better than it used to be. In former times we all lived in Chinese houses and had very few of the varieties of food we now have. There was no condensed milk no tinned goods. Foreign flour and butter were not easily obtained.-I have gone for years without butter; pork and rice being the substitute for bread and butter. Nearly every summer we had deaths in the mission circle; I have known five or six in one year. In these personal reminiscences I would record with gratitude to God the fact that during these thirty years I have never cost the mission one cent for medical attendance, medicines

or trips for health except the voyage home. This is due to several causes. In the first place I have been gifted with a good constitution, then having been single for much of the time I have had no family to need care; again, being a doctor I have known the importance of keeping well or removing any ailment by dieting rather than by medicine. In the rare instances where medical advice has been called in for my wife or myself it has been rendered gratuitously through the kindness of the physician, or I have paid for it and the medicine out of my own pocket. I have seldom been so ill as to be kept from my usual work. I am speaking only of the past. What may await me in the future I know not, but I am persuaded that as long as the Lord has any work for me to do He will give me strength to do it.

CHARACTER OF CONVERTS.

The character of our converts has been raised to a higher standard than formerly. Though from the first there have been good earnest men connected with our Chinese Churches, there were also many in early days, when native helpers were few, and were much in demand, who attached themselves to Christianity from mercenary motives, or from a love of novelty. Now, as the number of our members has increased men see that to be a Christian is not equivalent to eating the foreigner's rice. Our knowledge of Chinese character has increased by experience and I think that most Churches are more careful about receiving members than they were. Then a generation of the children of Christians, brought up under Christian influences is now coming forward to occupy the important places. Self-help and self-support among the members have developed very much as the Churches have increased in numbers and in a knowledge of Christian duty. We now have Churches supporting their own native pastors and carrying on other forms of Christian activity. Our members subscribed liberally to aid the sufferers from the Shantung famine and from the persecutions and floods in our own province.

PERSECUTION.

The most notable event in the recent history of Canton missions has been the persecution of native Christians and the destruction of our chapels during the insensate Franco-Chinese war. The anti-foreign excitement caused by the killing of an unoffending Chinese by Logan, a drunken Customs' employee, culminated in the riot of September 1883 and the burning of part of the foreign settlement, by a Chinese mob. Before the subsequent excitement had subsided the unjustifiable action of the French in Annam and China raised the Anti-foreign feeling to the boiling point. This

was utilized and encouraged by Commissioner Pang Yü Lin and his coadjutors, and directed against Christianity in general. As a result eighteen or twenty Protestant chapels were injured or destroyed and the native Christians robbed and persecuted. Our girls' schools were broken up, our work interrupted, and we ourselves were in so much danger that we could not venture into the streets of Canton. As I have already described those trying times in the Nov.-Dec., number of tho Chinese Recorder for 1884, pago 445, I will not repeat the account here. Previous to these events, in the autumn of '82 a mob hired by the gentry destroyed our dispensary and preaching place at Wu Chau. Messrs. Simmons and Noyes visited Wu Chau in December, but were stoned and mobbed, tho magistrate being unable to protect them. No apology nor indemnity has been given by the Chinese authorities for these outrages though three and a half-years have elapsed since they were committed. Recently Mr. Fulton and family have been driven out from Kwai Peng in the same province and had all their property taken and their houses burned. The turbulent character of the masses of South China is taken advantage of by the gentry to vent their hatred against Christianity, and the officials, even if they had the will dare not offend the literati. These literary men are the counterpart of the Scribes and Pharisees of Our Saviour's time. We need not despair of them however. An increasing number of them accept our books at the Triennial Examinations, and light will at last break in even upon their dark prejudiced hearts. "A great company of the priests became obedient to the faith" after our Saviour's death and many of the Pharisees were enrolled among the disciples. Let us hope that hereafter some of the bigoted literati may be brought to the truth.

In conclusion I would say that a retrospect of the past leads us to thank God and take courage. There has been progress in all directions, as there should be. I could speak of other points of interest, and in this brief summary have ommitted many things that might have been put on record. The younger missionaries have entered upon the labors of the older, and begin their work from vantage grounds gained in the past. In the future, others and especially we hope, native missionaries will go still further and thirty years hence the cause which we love will be as far in advance of our present attainments as it now is in advance of what it was thirty years ago. For this let us ever labor and pray, and God's blessing will rest upon us, and prosper us.

Correspondence.

DEAR DR. GULICK.

I take the liberty of asking you to serve as Chairman of a committee of four, the three other members being Doctors Reifsnyder and Griffith of Shanghai and Park of Suchow.

You will please receive our votes for election of delegates, there being three names on each paper, sent you; count the same; and publish the result. A simple majority in each case indicating the election. I would suggest that medical missionaries either going home or at the present time in England or America should be our candidates. ** ****. Yours cordially,

W. R. Lambuth,

Peking.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE RECORDER.

Canton, China, October 14th, 1886.

In the October number of the Recorder there have been some names suggested of those who might act as delegates to the international medical association which meets at Washington U.S.A. next May. Allow me to mention the name of Rev. Peter Parker, M.D., who now resides in Washington, as one who might well represent us as medical missionaries. He was for twenty years a medical missionary in China and the founder of the Canton Hospital. He is at present the President of the Canton Medical Missionary Society; His living in Washington would make it convenient for him to attend and his past work certainly recommends him as one most fitting to represent the cause of medical missions.

It is certainly important that the cause be represented and that as strongly as possible. I remain.

CANTON HOSPITAL.

Very Sincerly Yours,

J. M. Swan, M.D,