intellectual condition of the lands dominated by the Moslem. The Turkish Empire, Persia, the North African countries, and Arabia are samples of lands where pride rules with blighting sway.

The African, as a rule, may be said to be vain and conceited in proportion to the density of his ignorance. If we take the Matabele as a sample, we can hardly find his equal for overweening pride and self-importance.1 The result has been manifest in thirty years of stagnation even under the influence of faithful missionary effort.2 The conquest of the nation by British arms, when permanently accomplished, will be a blessing, and no doubt beat down those hitherto impenetrable barriers which pride has erected. The pitiable condition of the proud savages of the earth is owing in some measure to their intense satisfaction with their own fancied superiority, and is a telling lesson of the social perils of pride. A religion which would teach to these nations the true exaltation of humility-its beauty, its nobility, and its gentle charm-would be a helpful blessing to the soul itself and to all its social environment.

9. MORAL DELINQUENCIES.-A terrible and pitiable count must be made under this head against the entire non-Christian world. The very foundations of social integrity and prosperity are

untruthfulness and dishonesty.

shaken by such vices as untruthfulness and dis- The blighting effects of honesty. Truthfulness is a prime essential to mutual confidence, and honesty is a fundamental condition of just and fair intercourse. Where society is permeated with a spirit of deceit and knavery, where a lie is a commonplace and cheating is resorted to without compunction, all moral health and stability seem to have been destroyed. A lie will be met by a lie. Deceit will overreach deceit. Cheating will be matched by cheating; and all the arts of dishonesty will be excelled by some fresh ingenuity in fraud.

As the status of non-Christian nations in respect to these moral qualities is studied, one is tempted to say, not in haste, but with calm deliberation, "All men are liars." That there are individual exceptions is happily true, but as a rule the world of heathenism lieth in the wickedness of deceit and dishonesty. Little can be said of any one nation in favorable contrast with others. Each in turn seems to pose as an expert in the guilty arts of deception.

Among the Japanese lying is a sadly common fault of daily life. 1 Carnegie, "Among the Matabele,” pp. 18, 68.

The Chronicle, December, 1893, p. 307.

This is acknowledged by themselves, and such is the testimony of those who know the country well.1 To their credit, however, it may be said that their patriotism and exceptional loyalty to public responsibilities save them to a notable extent from the official dishonesty and corruption which characterize the Chinese.

The Rev.

China is preeminently "an empire of make-believe." Amid highsounding pretensions "a universal dishonesty of mind poisons the sap of the nation and produces all the cancers and evils which have made China a byword for deceit and corruption."2 True honor and uprightness seem to be lightly esteemed by all classes of society. Arthur Smith, in "Chinese Characteristics," has an entire chapter on "The Absence of Sincerity." The testimony of Dr. S. Wells Williams, in summing up his estimate of the Chinese character, includes "the universal practice of lying and dishonest dealings."4 The Chinese seem to share with the Persians the melancholy distinction of being "a nation of liars." A flagrant exhibition of the Chinese capacity for misrepresentation has recently attracted the attention of the world in the anti-foreign publications which are so full of monstrous falsehoods. A Chinaman will steal almost as easily as he will lie, and will cheat with a facility and deftness which make him proverbial for "ways that are dark and tricks that are vain.”

In Siam, Burma, and Assam the rule of untruthfulness still holds. A fresh illustration of the ready application of the inveterate habit was discovered by Dr. McKean of Laos, who has recently introduced vaccination among the people. As soon as its beneficial effects were manifest, unprincipled charlatans were going about the country vaccinating the people with some worthless compound of their own, boldly asserting that they had obtained vaccine virus from the foreigner in Chieng Mai. Dr. Marston at Ambala has detected the same exhibi

1 "Can you tell me in a sentence what the characteristics of the Japanese are?' asked a puzzled visitor of one of the foreign instructors in government employ. The reply is said to have been, 'It don't need a sentence; two words are sufficient. They are conceit and deceit.' 'They are the greatest liars on the face of the earth,' wrote Mr. Harris, whose diary Dr. Griffis has just published.”—Japan Evangelist, April, 1896, p. 215.

Yet

These statements may be too severe and sweeping, but it seems fairly clear that untruthfulness and dishonesty are very prevalent in trade and in ordinary intercourse. If a lie is politic and convenient not many will respect truth for its own sake. the sense of honor and the instinct of fidelity to trust are keen and are redeeming traits in the Japanese character.

2 Douglas, "Society in China," p. 84.

"

8 Ball, "Things Chinese,” p. 97.

4 Williams, The Middle Kingdom," vol. i., p. 836. The Church at Home and Abroad, May, 1894, p. 392.

tion of unscrupulous dishonesty in sly medicine-selling behind her back.1 The Assamese have hardly a proper word in their language to indicate honesty. "Trade does not go on without falsehood," is a proverb among them.2

India is a realm where untruthfulness, dishonesty, and perjury are all characteristic of the people. We mean characteristic in the sense that they are notoriously common.3 Advancing through Central Asia, Tibet and the lands that lie in our pathway towards Persia present the same monotonous traits of unscrupulousness in word and dealing, while in Persia "every one walks warily and suspiciously through a maze of fraud and falsehood."4 According to the testimony of a Persian nobleman in conversation with Mrs. Bishop, "Lying is rotting this country. Persians tell lies before they can speak." The land is said to be “a hotbed of lies and intrigue. Nothing can be done without stratagem. The thing that strikes them about an Englishman is that he does not lie." 5 To be called a liar in Persia is considered a very mild insult.6 Curzon, in his book on Persia, remarks, "I am convinced that the true son of Iran would sooner lie than tell the truth, and that he feels twinges of desperate remorse when upon occasions he has thoughtlessly strayed into veracity."

The Turkish Empire is full of dissimulation. The arts of lying are not by any means monopolized by the Moslem population, but the subject Christian races, incited by fear in the presence of their unscrupulous rulers, have long practised in self-defense habits of falsehood and deceit, for which they are still noted. The whole routine of life is fairly riddled with a running fire of deception and dishonest dealing.

Poor Africa may be said to be a continent of lies and a paradise of thievery. The native savage is trained in the arts of plunder, and lives by crafty wiles. Here, above all places on the face of the earth, a lie seems to be loved for its own sake, and a man must be taken for a thief and a rogue until he is proved to be the contrary.7

The barbarous races of the Pacific Islands present no exception to this sombre catalogue of nations who love a lie. Thievery and cheat

1 Woman's Work for Woman, November, 1894, p. 301.

2 The Baptist Missionary Review, Madras, India, April, 1895, p. 128.

3 Wilkins, "Modern Hinduism," pp. 399-403.

4 Bishop, "Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan," vol. ii., p. 174.

5 Regions Beyond, May, 1894, p. 191.

6 The Church Missionary Intelligencer, April, 1894, p. 242.

7 Ingham, "Sierra Leone after a Hundred Years,” p. 293; Johnston, "Missionary Landscapes in the Dark Continent," p. 138; Carnegie, Among the Matabele," p. 68.