A VETERAN MISSIONARY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 29, 4 February 1907, Page 7

A VETERAN MISSIONARY.

THE REV. GRATTAN GUINNESS, D.D. THREE AND A HALF YEARS TOURING THE WORLD. For three years and a half the Rev. Grattan Guinness, D.D., director of the Regions Beyond Mission, has been tray ersmg the globe, accompanied by Mrs. Guinness. They are spending a few days in Wellington as tho guests of Captain Blackburne. Dr. G_uinness is a well known writer, lecturer, preacher. For very many years he and his family have been closely associated with mission work in foreign countries. His son, the Rev. Dr. Harry Guinness, who visited New Zealand about five years ago, is now conducting an industrial mission among the Inc&s, the original inhabitants of Peru, descendants of those peoplo whom the Spaniards crushed so cruelly. This missionary is assisted by his eldest daughter. Dr. Grattan G'uinners's daughter, who is married to the Rev. Dr. Howard Taylor, son of a noted missionary, Hudson Taylor, is stationed in China, where there aro about 850 Protestant missionaries. During his present tour Dr. Guinness has visited vaiious parts of America, Japan, China, tha Philippines, New Guinea, Australia. He h3S been in Nelson for the last couple of months, and hopes to visit Christchurch, Dunedin. and Auckland. He is very much interested in missions to natives in various parts of the world, and is therefore anxious to go among tho Maoris to see how they are faring. "As to our missions," hs remarked, reviewing tho whole field, "we personally sustain about sixty missionaries in India, Africa, Sonth America (Peru and the Argentine). In addition to that we haye 1 two colleges in London for the training of missionaries, men and women Just now we have more than seventy in training, and altogether more than a thousand have been sent to fifty different countries. "In Japan there is perfect freedom now for preaching the gospel in every place, and while scepticism is making advances, especially among the educated classes, the Gospel is also gaining ground. There are about fifty thousand Christians in Japan in connection with the Protestant missions. _ "In China — it 13 hard to 6peak about China^-it is a world. The prospects of j missions there ere bright. The Chinese I make ve;y strong Christians; they have borne terrible persecutions without flinching. What is more— they propagate the Gospel ; they are good evangelists, flic native converts are able and willing to spread tho knowledge o* Christian truth. The mission schools in Japan, China, and India are a very important feature of the work. "In Africa the progress has been wonderful. The missions aro making rapid adrance3 there, notably in Egypt, Uganda, on the Congo, and in Cape Colony and Natal. Uganda is perhaps Iho brightest mission spot in Africa, a record achieved in a few years. My wife's, sister, Mrs. Fisher, is out there. She has written a book, "On the Borders of Pygmy Land," giving a sketch of Ine country end its missions. "I am greatly interested," concluded Vf. GuinnC33, "to find that in New 55c»land there aro men and women devoted to the fevangelisatior of the hca-♦-hen. It rejoices one's heart in a country, where thero is so much to attract people to other fields of enterprise, to ccc young men and women with tho missionary spirit to lead them to launch cnt into tho great heathen world for Christ's sako and the Gospel's. I have seen little of Now Zealand so far, but I have been very favourably impressed with what I have seen in this land of canshine and Christian privileges." To-night Dr. Guinness will give a lecture, "The Gospel for To-day," in the Kent-terraco Presbyterian Church.