PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Evening Star, Issue 19024, 20 August 1925, Page 6

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

fcsEir.ii Missions committee The Presbyterian Foreign Missions Committee met on Tuesday evening, Rev. G. H. Jupp (convener) presiding over a largo attendance of members._ Miss Ogilvie and Rev. I l '. H; Wilkinson, missionaries recently returned on furlough from Canton, China, were welcomed by the convener, and briefly addressed the committee. Miss Ogilvie referred particularly to the importance of the Union Normal School for training Chinese women teachers, in which Miss Hancock is New Zealand’s representative on the staff. The educational work of the mission, so far as the girls were concerned, is bound up closely with the success of the Union Normal School. She referred to the fine calibre of the teachers already trained by the school. Of three girls who have just completed their course of study in the Kongchuen Girls’ Boarding School (of which Miss Ogilvie is principal) two are going into the Union Normal School. As the mission could not undertake to support them through their five years’ course, in each case brothers of these girls had undertaken to see them through. Miss Ogilyie thanked the church tor the life of joy and satisfaction that her five years on the mission field had given her. THE PRESENT TROUBLE IN CHINA. Rev. F. H. Wilkinson said that in a flash the whole situation had changed. What the future was to be they simply did not know. He detailed the arrangements that were made prior to the trouble at Shameen on June 23, in view of the boycott of foreigners by the Kwangtung Government, for the carrying on of the hospital at Kongchuen. Hr Kirk had been empowered ny the executive to hand over the hospital to the charge of the Chinese workers for a limited period, and to make such financial arrangements as were necessary within the limits of the next quarter’s budget, A special guard of four soldiers was granted by the Poanfue magistrate to reside in the premises and to ensure the protection of the hospital property. The reports of the Shameen affair, which were to the effect that the blame lay~”entirely upon the British, who were said to have shot down hundreds of unarmed and unoffending students as the procession {Massed Shameon, naturally created great excitement, and on June 24 the Chinese members of the hospital staff, having become anxious for the safety of the missionaries, the management of the hospital was formally handed over to a committee of the Chinese staff. The hospital is a recently-com-pleted building of 100 heels. Mr Wilkinson expressed the opinion that if the local people were left to themselves their cordial feeling towards the hospital could be depended on. In regard to the evangelistic side of the mission, a meeting of the Presbytery of the Chinese Church of onr district had been held, and the Chinese manifested a fine spirit of Christian sympathy and friendliness and helpfulness, even on occasion at great risk to themselves. Messrs Miller, Kirk, and Wilkinson wore present at this gathering. The arrangement made was to hand over the work in the meantime to the Chinese Church authorities, and to endeavor to secure for them the usual quarterly grant from the mission. Owing to the summer vacation educational work was in any case at a standstill, and arrangements were left to'an Educational Committee appointed by the Presbytery. The new school year begins in September. All responsibility was meanwhile left in the hands of the Presbytery, and strong and representative committees were appointed by that body to attend to various departments. The feeling of the Presbytery was that to attempt to carry on the whole work and raise the whole budget themselves was impossible. What was going to happen it was quite impossible to forecast. Conferences of missionaries were to be held in Hongkong to discuss the future of the work. Probably in the course of a few months it would ho known what that future would be. At present it was absolutely impossible for the missionaries to return to the field, and perhaps would be while. Bolshevist control continued at Canton. The escape of the missionaries from the fiojd ' was characterised by some providential happenings, and their safe deliverance was due to the Chinese Christians. The committee passed a resolution expressing hearty appreciation of the prompt and vigorous measures taken by the missionaries concerned for the carrying on of the work in the very difficult situation created by tho outburst of violent anti-foreign feeling in Kwangtung; rejoicing that under these trying and dangerous circumstances the missionaries escaped scathless; and in tho loyal helpfulness of tho Christian community in mir mission district; and praying that by tho Divine help the Chinese church might ho so strengthened, protected, and inspired as to enable them to carry on the work of God in their midst in the enforced absence of flic missionaries. PUNJAB MISSION.

Rev. J. L. Gray wrote thanking tlio folk of tlio home church for generous gifts for work in India recently received. The money for the cars was a great missionary investment, ami meant more for the direct work of evangelising than one could say. “I feel that my work for the oast year has been in many ways doubled, and even trebled.” The Rev. T. E. Riddle, who has 200 villages in which Christians reside in his district, wrote that his motor ear “will widen my range of influence and enable me to keep in touch with more distant villages than at present.” Miss Henderson wrote: “Interest in Christianity is reviving again. . . . I have a call from seventy chnbras (sweepers, an outcast community) beyond .Tatiana and from a community of more than 200 chamars (leather workers, also an outcast community) in one self-contained village, while there are twos and threes (inquirers re Christianity) scattered all over the place. . . . Once again dry bones are moving. . . . Just to bo pushed bade into the grave again? God forbid! Politically the country is very quiet. I do not know what has happened to them all. The Mohurram (Mohammedan festval) is only a month distant, and that is usually a time of lively rows between Mohammedans and Hindus. At present everybody’s chief concern is to gather mangoes and eat them. I verily believe that if there was a had row’ in progress they would call a_ halt till mangoes W'ere over and done with!” NEW HEBRIDES. Several letters from the New Hebrides refer with regret to the passing of Mr Massey, who was recognised as a good friend to the islanders. Arrangements had been made for the Mission Synod to meet in July, but reports were not yet to hand. The little church being erected_at Ranou, 6n the island of Ambrim, is to be a memorial church for the late Rev. Charles Murray, who had been a missionary there many years ago. Letters were received from chiefs of (Rev. 0. Michelsen’s station) urging the need for a mssionary or teacher “that the work of Jesus may go forward.” GENERAL. Mr 0. Barnett, newly-appointed representative of the young men’s Bible classes, was welcomed by the convener. Sympathy was expressed with Mrs Miller, of the Canton Villages in the death of her sister, Miss Olive Wright (of Invercargill). The Secretary of the Board of Managers of the Hawera Presbyterian Church, wrote advising the commttee that at a congregational meeting it had been decided to adopt Miss A. N. Jansen, of the Canton Villages Mission,

as “ own ” missionary. This was received with thanks, and the allocation made accordingly. It was reported that arrangements .were being made for the ordination of Dr A. Hamilton Harvie, probably m the first week in September. Dr Harvie is-to be “own ” missionary of Knox Church, Dunedin, and is to sail for India early in October. Donations were received totalling £254 17s, the principal amounts being anonymous, for foreign mission fund £IOO, Knox Church (Dunedin), and for Dr ahd Mrs Harvie’s outfit, £BO. Accounts were passed for payment totalling £lO3 19s sd.