sixty chapels, a hospital, and schools and a college, in which the Formosan youth learn the Shorter Catechism. There are excellent but too brief chapters on the geography, history, botany, zoology, and ethnology of North Formosa, accompanied by notes and full accounts of Chinese and aboriginal industries and customs, helped out by many good illustrations from photographs.

We naturally expect notices of missions and their fruits in religious papers and periodicals. But it is pleasant to see how in so far the secular press has during recent years changed and elevated its tone in regard to all missionary work. If it cannot always, though this it sometimes does, take the highest view of that work, it can at least appreciate its wholesome results in the civilisation of the peoples among whom it is carried on. No doubt it may sometimes say rough things about it, and hold some of its methods. up to ridicule. But even this may not be without its

uses.

For if it be the duty of the Church of Christ by the grace of God and by all Christian appliances to discipline the world, it is also in some measure the work of the world by its common-sense, and even by its wicked ways, to discipline the Church. The race of man is one and it is complex, and you cannot definitely separate the one from the other, giving each scientific frontier," as some extremists would like to do for the advantage of neither. Yet the attempt

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should be made with all earnestness to keep them in their proper relationship. "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil one."

During the last five-and-twenty years the progress of Christianity and of its attendant civilisation has been rapid in Japan.

The influence of Christianity [says Signor Weitzecker in 'L'Italia Evangelica'] goes on increasing. A great many of the 100,000 Christians belong to the higher classes of society. Three Ministers of State, the Chief Justice, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, and some of the deputies themselves, are all Christian. Throughout the nation there is a restlessness which seems to announce new things and new times. It is not improbable that the leaven will by-and-by leaven the whole mass. Then we shall see great things in the far East.

It is to be hoped that the progress of Christianity may not be superficial and merely external, a hasty growth as of an annual, and not strong as of an oak; not sufficiently “rooted and grounded in love, the love of Christ which passeth knowledge," and in all the knowledge and solidity which love gives. Japan hurries on to be a nation fully equipped like other nations with all the appliances and resources of civilisation. And there may be danger in the hurry, at least for its Christianity. "O tarry thou the Lord's leisure: be strong, and He shall comfort thine heart: and put thou thy trust in the Lord.”

"Glory to Him who from the mire,

In patient length of days,

Elaborated into life

A people to His praise!"

Although it was only in 1872 that the statute prohibiting "the vile Jesus doctrine" on pain of death was repealed, "it is a happy omen," says Dr Robson, "that some of the Japanese statesmen are beginning to recognise Protestant Christianity as one of the most healthy civilising agencies." And Dr George Smith says in his handbook :

Some anticipate that all Japan will be nominally Christian by the close of the century. There is prospect and need of rapid growth, if the secular progress of the people under foreign influences is to be pure and elevating. The Buddhist priests are fighting for their faith, studying even the Bible for controversial purposes; but the struggle there, as in Christendom itself, will more and more be with secularism, sensualism, and philosophical scepticism.

Against these the preaching and teaching of the Gospel of Christ is the only sure and certain defence, aided by Christian literature, which, in addition to what is imported, is being already supplied by educated natives. If the Gospel of the grace of God be not proclaimed in all its power to save and bless, if the nation is only led to cast away Buddhism and other forms of paganism, or even if abstract essays on Christian doctrine, leading to no conviction of sin and no conversion to God, be read or given to the people, then "their last state becometh worse than their first."

Whether at home or abroad, our witness for Christ is neither so strong nor so decided as it ought to be. It is sad to think that the commissioners who were sent to England in search of a religion for Japan reported "that, having a regard to the conditions of life in London, they were unable to recommend the adoption of Christianity in their country." Such a report might cause us to hide our faces in shame before the great God, whom we have as a nation professed to worship for many generations. Were we to turn to Him in deep repentance, to enthrone and enshrine the crucified Lord of glory in our hearts, then our testimony should gather strength and should

tell among all the nations of the world. And the Japanese might give Him the same place in their hearts, and it might be truly said of them, when vouchsafed all temporal and spiritual blessings, "Happy is the people that is in such a case: yea, happy is the people whose God is the Lord!"

"Thy kingdom come, O God;

Thy rule, O Christ, begin;
Break with Thine iron rod
The tyrannies of sin.

O'er heathen lands afar

Thick darkness broodeth yet;

Arise, O Morning Star,—

Arise, and never set."

II. OCEANIA.

1. SOUTH SEA ISLANDS.

WE turn now to the South Sea Islands, which were among the first fields for the establishment of missions. To this the narrative of Captain Cook's voyages led very soon. Dr Robson sums up in a few words: "The London Missionary Society worked from Tahiti, the American Mission from Hawaii, the Wesleyans from Tonga. Subsequently two missions have been established in the most westerly groupsthe Presbyterian Mission in the New Hebrides, and the Melanesian Episcopal Mission to the same field." By these more than half of the islands have been occupied, and many have been the triumphs of the Cross. It is to be hoped that the whole may soon be overtaken, for "the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of violence."

There, as in many other places, the Romish Church. has been active, and it has done much to hinder the more Christian efforts of other Churches-especially in Tahiti and the Loyalty group. The French Republic is constantly endeavouring to get possession of the New Hebrides, which it would probably

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