in France at the present time, and a most cheering description of the experiences of agents working in connection with the Evangelical Society of that country. Dr. Fisch remarks

"The present moment is certainly one of the most favourable that has ever occurred for the evangelisation of France. A new spirit seems to have taken possession of the people. . . A new school has appeared. Men of thought and feeling are assailing the absurd maxim that it is wrong to change one's religion. They are inviting their countrymen to abandon traditions and practices in which they have ceased to believe, and to choose for themselves and their families that Protestantism, which is as needful for the maintenance of modern society as Catholicism is for the resuscitation of the Middle Ages. This is an absolutely new fact in our history, and it opens up before us an horizon full of promise. And it so happens that just now we enjoy the fullest freedom, at least in practice. We can go where we like, and are sure to be received with hearty sympathy. Two new features characterize the present epoch. First, we see a great many women coming to hear our sermons and lectures. Now, Catholicism in France finds its chief support in the women. The second fact is that in several towns we have been able to reach all classes of the population, and this since 1830 we had never succeeded in doing. It is true that it is the lectures which chiefly attract the bourgeoisie. Well, let us lecture until by this means every town in the land has heard the message of the Gospel."

These general statements are followed in the report by a number of very interesting illustrations, afforded by particular instances, of the very widespread eagerness to hear the lectures in which evangelical truth is set forth. Referring to the town of Guéret, where the authorities granted permission to use the theatre for the delivery of two lectures, and the building was so crowded that many were unable to get in, Dr. Fisch exclaims, "How the times are altered! Fifteen years ago I passed through Guéret, and could not gather more than ten people, in a cobbler's back shop." The Lord of the Harvest is evidently granting the fruit of long years of patient toil and steadfast sowing of labour and of prayer "by all waters." The encouragement received by Dr. Fisch in his work in the provinces affords a companion record to that of Mr. McAll's Mission in Paris.

MISS FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE'S PLEA FOR INDIA. Few voices speak with more intense and passionate earnestness in any cause of justice or humanity than that of Miss Florence Nightingale, and there are few indeed, if any, to which Englishmen generally are prepared to listen with greater attention and respect. It is to be hoped therefore that Miss Nightingale's powerful appeal for "the People of India," which has lately appeared in the pages of an influential Review, will produce some good practical result. It is a standing reproach that Indian subjects are regarded with such profound apathy by the generality of Englishmen, and Miss Nightingale herself repeats the charge with something almost like mournful despair," We do not care for the people of India." Miss Nightingale describes the intention and indicates the scope of her paper as follows:

"The chief object of this attempt is to ask, as well as I can in so brief a space, where only a few questions can be asked or even glanced at, and only in the fewest words-for India is large and time is small-how it is that whole peoples among the most industrious in the world, on perhaps the most fertile soil in the world, are the poorest in the world-how it is that whole peoples, always in a state of semistarvation, are from time to time on the brink of famine? And if not actually swept away by famine, it is by their rulers giving food, not water, wholesale. Is there any fatal necessity for this? Is it not due to two or three causes not only preventible but which we, their rulers, having ourselves induced, either by doing or by not doing, can ourselves gradually remove? And to come at once to the questions: "1. The great question of money-lending, which overshadows all.

"2. Water. If we had given them water, should we now have to be giving them bread? Water; including (a) irrigation, (b) cheap canal communications, (c) improved methods of agriculture, (d) forest plantations.

"3. Systems of representation, by which the people may virtually rate themselves according to the surveys of what is wanted, and spend the money locally under the elected district committee's orders, including (a) municipalities, (b) publicity, or some method of giving the people a voice."

Miss Nightingale proceeds to unfold the condition of things arising out of the matter alluded to under the first head-money-lending-a question which, as she truly says, overshadows all. She shows that the ryots, especially of Southern India, are becoming more and more helpless in the hands of moneylenders, so that they become in some cases "literally and legally the money-lender's slave," and that the state of British law is such as to make it impossible for the ryot to escape from the intolerable injustice and thraldom to which he is thus systematically subjected. The statements are confirmed by quotations from the official reports, and disclose a condition of things which is a scandal and reproach to our administration. We trust that a remedy will be found-we were about to write "speedily," but that would perhaps be too much to hope with a Parliament that makes "British interest " rather than great human interests the watchword of its policy. And yet the British Parliament has in both Houses noble men who have proved their true devotion to the interests of men, and we are sure that Miss Nightingale's voice will awaken a response from them.

THE CIVILISATION OF THE TURK.

Two aspects of the state of Turkish civilisation in this nineteenth century are presented to us by the Committee of the Anti-Slavery Society and the correspondence of Mr. Archibald Forbes, which will be read with special interest since our near and close relationship with the Turkish Government. The committee of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society have drawn attention to the fact that there is no Slave Treaty in existence between England and ! Turkey, and that consequently a large slave traffic is carried on in the Red Sea under the Turkish flag with impunity. Mr. Forbes's description of a Turkish

prison with six hundred inmates shall speak for itself:

"The ancient part of the building (the royal palace of the Lusignans) is now one of the foulest prisons in the world. . . . . I have seen not a few horrible sights. I have seen a whole field full of famine-stricken miserables. I have ridden across a

battle-field on which lay five-and-thirty thousand dead and dying soldiers. I have frequented the pesthouses of Metz after the siege, where lay neglected the wretched victims of black small-pox and spotted typhus. I have trodden the corridors of the Grand Hotel of Paris, heartsick because of the foetid effluvium from pyemia, sloughing wounds, and hospital gangrene. I have seen the bodies of men who had been roasted alive. I have been in a cholera hospital.

But never have I witnessed a more noisome spectacle than that which these foul dungeons in the Nikosia Konak afford. There is no concealment of the cursed shame of the thing. The official rooms of the governor overhang the courtyard of the prison, and the Pacha as he smoked his hookah had but little other view than the putrid courtyard in which the prisoners, who have a measure of liberty, swarm in their clanking chains. I wonder the very stench of the place did not sicken him. I read that the night before we left England questions had been put in Parliament on the subject of slavery in Cyprus. What slavery exists in Cyprus is domestic servitude of the generic Eastern character-perhaps rather a theoretic than a practical evil. But here in this prison there is an institution which puts the slavery of Louisiana into the shade, and which puts humanity to the blush. Yet the Turks seem to accept it as a simple matter of course."

THE FAMINE IN CHINA.

It is impossible to forbear once again alluding to the awful news which continues to reach us from the districts which have been desolated and overwhelmed by famine in the north of China. It is to be feared that the deaths which have occurred must be num

bered by millions, and the story of dreadful sufferings

which have been endured is one which can never be told or even faintly realised by those whose lot is cast in a country like our own. A painful feature of the case is that the Chinese Government appears to have been completely baffled by the crisis, and months passed away during which almost complete apathy prevailed in Chinese official circles on the subject. Now, however, strenuous, although sadly ineffective efforts are being made to cope with the calamity.

From China itself a curious and at the same time most affecting plea has come to us in the shape of a series of quaint "Illustrations by a Native Artist" of famine-scenes and incidents in China, with brief explanatory statements by a Chinese writer. This work has been reproduced as a pamphlet, which probably may have come into the hands of many of our readers. The descriptive letter-press has been translated by Dr. Legge, Professor of Chinese at Oxford; and the little work has been issued under the direction of the London Committee of the China Famine Relief Fund, the Hon. Secretary of which is the Rev. A. Foster, 35, Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, E.C.

III.-MISSION JOTTINGS.

AMERICAN MISSIONS IN TURKEY.

Two charmingly written and deeply interesting volumes have lately been published (by Mr. John Murray) on "The People of Turkey." The writer is a lady who has lived for twenty years in the Turkish Empire, and who is evidently gifted with great intelligence and capacity of observation, as well as with a facile pen. Some of her remarks upon the work which is being done on behalf of the subjects of the Porte by American missionaries strike us as affording a testimony to good Christian service, which will be of interest to the readers of these notes. first quotation has special reference to the Armenians :

Our

"The Armenians have advanced but a very little way on the road of education. The most enlightened are certainly those in British India, whilst those of them who are Russian subjects have of late considerably improved. Hitherto the nation has never had a fair chance, but that it has the possibility of progress in it is shown by the fact, that no sooner are the Armenians placed under a firm and wise government than they at once begin to go forward, in every respect. The progress of the inhabitants of Russian Armenia has begun to work a political revival among their brethren under Turkish rule. A wish for instruction is everywhere beginning to be shown, and it has received a strong and most salutary impulse from the numerous American missionaries now established throughout Armenia. The untiring efforts of these praiseworthy and accomplished workers in the cause of civilisation and humanity are beginning to bear fruit, especially since education has become one of their principal objects. They are working wonders among the uncultivated inhabitants of the hitherto unhappy country, where mission schools, founded in all directions, are doing the double service of instructing the people by their stimulating among the wealthy a spirit of rivalry, enlightened, moral, and religious teaching, and of which leads them to see their own ignorance and superstitious debasement, and raises a desire to do for themselves, by the establishment of Armenian schools, what American philanthropy has so nobly begun to do for them.

"The moral influence that America is now exercising in the east through the quiet but dignified and determined policy of its Legation at Constantinople, curiously free from political intrigues and rivalry, is daily increasing, and has the most salutary effect on the country. It watches with a jealous care over the safety of the missionaries, who are loved and respected wherever they settle, and make their influence felt in the remotest corners of Turkey. Next to Greece, whose educational efforts are naturally greater throughout the country, it is America that will be entitled to the gratitude of the Christians for her ready aid in elevating the ignorant masses to the dignity of civilised beings."

In another part of the same work the writer touches upon the influence of Christian missions-Protestant and Roman Catholic-in Turkey generally. After describing the attitude of the Mohammedan towards the Christian, be he European or Asiatic, as invariably one of disdain, she goes on to remark:

"The religious freedom enjoyed by the members of the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches is far more extensive than that enjoyed by the Eastern. Both, upheld by the powerful support of European powers, enjoy a liberty of action and license of speech rarely found in other countries. Both are aliens, and owe their origin to the proselytising efforts of the missionaries. The Church of Rome, being the older and more enterprising, naturally commands a much vaster field than the Protestant; she is supported by France and other Roman Catholic countries, who jealously watch over her rights and privileges. The Protestants are protected by England and America; their missionaries entered Turkey at a later date, and gradually established themselves over the country. At first the extremely reserved attitude of the missionaries, their conscientious method of making converts, and the extreme severity of their regulations, gave them but a poor chance of success. Gradually, however, the esteem and regard of the people for them increased; stringent opposition, promoted by sectarian dissensions, died out, and mission stations, with numerous churches, some of them of considerable importance and promise, were established, especially in Armenia. The principal cause of the encouragement they met with was the wise policy, lately adopted, of promoting missionary work by education."

To the need of such Christian agencies and influences as those referred to, the copious pages of this valuable work bear, incidentally and inferentially, emphatic and terrible witness.

BIBLE DISTRIBUTION IN SPAIN.

About two years ago, as many of our readers will remember, a new "Constitution was promulgated in Spain, one article of which excited uneasiness and remonstrance on the part of English and other friends of Protestant work and of religious freedom. The article alluded to prohibited " public manifestations" against the religion of the State, and this was held to apply to "all preaching of doctrines, and sale of books, contrary to the Catholic dogma, outside the rooms set apart for that purpose," and also to the exhibition of placards and other notices of public services on walls, in shop windows, and elsewhere. The Government, however, has shown a great deal of hesitation and vacillation in applying this rule, and local authorities seem to have been left very much to themselves in deciding whether to enforce it or not. As a matter of fact, the work of the Bible colporteurs, of both English and American societies, seems to go on very much as it did before. Now and then mayors exhibit a spirit of opposition, but their interposition is generally courteous and cautious; priests everywhere show a strong spirit of antagonism, disputing with the colporteurs, sometimes tearing to pieces or burning the books offered for sale, and warning the people not to buy them. In some parts of the country this clerical opposition has the effect of stopping the sales, but very often it only excites curiosity, and induces larger numbers of people to buy. Upon the whole, the work of distributing the Bible in Spain seems to be progressing in a way calculated to inspire hope for the future. A Bible Society agent writing

lately from Santander closes his report with the words, "It is surely the occasion for great thankfulness that, in spite of all obstacles, the Word of God is daily becoming more widely known to this people.”

In order

A JAPANESE VERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES. The translation of the Bible into Japanese appears to be a task beset with special difficulties, one of these being that everything regarding the language of Japan may be said to be in a mutable condition. to meet the requirements of different classes-the educated and the comparatively illiterate-it seems to be necessary to produce two distinct editions; one in the Chinese character, with certain Japanese modifications, the other, in what is called the "standard style " in Japanese. The New Testament, in the firstmentioned of these styles, is, we believe, now in the press; while in the "standard style," the four Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles to the Romans, Galatians, Hebrews, and the Epistles of John, have been issued in a very acceptable translation. The important work of bringing out these versions is under the direction of agents of the American Board, one of whom reports that during the year 1877 they printed 24,050 "portions" in the Japanese language, besides 14,000 printed for the British and Scotch Bible Societies. The circulation through the American agency during 1877 was 13,600 "portions," about double the number which had been circulated in 1876.

On the 10th of May last, a meeting of delegates of the Protestant Missions in Japan assembled at Yokohama, with a view to consider plans for translating the Old Testament into Japanese. The total number in attendance was forty-two. The conference lasted two days, and was conducted in the most fraternal and earnest spirit; valuable conclusions, it is believed, being arrived at. The Rev. R. S. Maclay, D.D., of the American Methodist Mission, was elected moderator by acclamation. On taking the chair he gave an interesting address, calling attention to the advances already made, and to the need for more of the Bible in a language the common people can read. The Rev. D. C. Greene, of the American Board's Mission, was elected secretary of the conference. A permanent committee was arranged for, to consist of one member for each mission, to be elected by the mission itself, who are to assign the work of translating the different portions of the Old Testament to various sub-committees; and the results of their labours are to be submitted to a general revising committee, to be appointed by the permanent committee. The permanent committee is to arrange with the Bible societies for the publication of a first edition under their own supervision, after which each Bible society is to print as it may desire. The committee organized by the conference of missionaries in 1872, and which is so satisfactorily engaged upon the New Testament, is to go on with its work, but it is recommended that the New Testament committee come into harmony with the arrangements for the translation of the Old Testament.