THE CHURCH'S MISSIONS. A large congregatien assembled in St. Paul's Cathedral, when addresses were given on the subject of the Church's missions. BISHOP KINSOLVING (Southern Brazil) dealt with "The Church's Missions in Christendom." He said that among the Church's missions in Christendom there stood out a duty towards the one continent which was more barren of the Anglican Communion and the Anglican episcopate than any other in the world-he referred to South America, from which only three Bishops were attending that great Congress. It was generally thought that South America was a quasi-Christian land, and many held it to be quite a Christian land. The American branch of the Anglican Communion had recognized her duty to the Latin American lands, and had five missionary Bishops there. While nominally members of the Roman branch of the great Catholic Church, the great body of the people were alienated from the historic faith. The American Church was trying to meet the need. She sent her episcopate, her open Bible, and her sacraments to nourish the spiritual life of the South American peoples. While the great Anglican Communion was bringing her culture to bear upon the Mongol and the African, she ought to recognize that she had a duty to those European races that had peopled South America. But the question came to them-What would be the effect in regard to their longings for reunion or inter-communion with the Roman Church here in England. He could not see how logically a hierarchy which had extended itself in Christian, reformed, Bible loving England, could ever complain of the Anglican Communion planting her flag among the neglected ignorant peoples of South America, where in the streets of the Archiepiscopal diocese of Pernambuco three years ago there was a holocaust of Bibles by order of the officials of the Roman Church. Surely a Bible-burning people needed to know something of the Christian liberty which the Anglican Communion held forth to the peoples of all the world. At the same time, their advance must be statesmanlike, and must conserve their sense, if not of practical brotherhood with the Roman Church, at least of the vision of that day when the great Anglican Communion should be united in fraternal relationship with the great Roman Communion. He believed that the best way to secure that state of affairs was by the simple plan of planting the Anglican Communion everywhere, and making it a world-wide communion, unfurling her standard to the peoples of all the world. That would bring closer the day when Rome and Canterbury could stand side by side. They were the nearer here in Christian England, as they knew, and in America, as he knew, because they modified each other by their contact. Let them send the Anglo-Saxon episcopate and Church and culture and liturgy and Bible and Biblical literatures, and compel the modification of the Roman Church in those parts of the world where ignorance was densest and superstition was strongest. The BISHOP of ST. ALBANS delivered an address on "The Church's Missions in Non-Christian Lands." MISSIONS IN NON-CHRISTIAN LANDS. In the evening a meeting in connexion with Section D was held in the Church House, and there was again a crowded attendance. Bishop Scott (North China) presided. The subject set down for discussion was "Missions in non-Christian Lands." The CHAIRMAN, in his opening address, said that their programme for the evening certainly had an acumenical aspect. They were to hear from those who had taken a chief part in the work of the Church in almost every quarter of the globe, but they were reminded by the notice of their meeting MISSIONS IN NON-CHRISTIAN LANDS. 73 Such were that there were still many lands which were non-Christian. Korea, Tibet, and Burma, but in most of them he was glad to say that a good beginning had been made. The BISHOP of UGANDA said that the Congress marked a new era in the history of the Church in its relation to the great heathen world. The time had come when the Church must take a step forward if they were properly to interpret the duty of the Christian Church to the non-Christian world. The cry of the heathen was ringing in their ears as never before, and they could not turn a deaf ear to it. The unrest in India was only a symptom of the throbbing desire of great masses of people, a longing and a craving for that rest which could only be found in the Saviour. The welfare of the Church depended on the answer that they gave to this pressing request which came from the heathen world. It was just in proportion that the Church gave herself to missionary work that she would continue to live. The duty of the Church to heathen nations was to advance; first because of the ripeness of the harvest, secondly because of the danger of delay, and thirdly the welfare of the Church inexorably demanded it and Christ himself was pleading for it. BISHOP MCKIM dealt with the question of missionary enterprise in Japan. He said that those who had watched the material progress of the country during the past few years had been astonished and filled with respect at the intelligent discrimination with which the Japanese had selected the best the world had to offer, and by adaptation and assimilation had made it their own. He regretted, however, to say that there had not been a corresponding advance in morals or religion. They were not attempting to plant a Church of England or of America in Japan. Their work was to develop the self-sustaining and self-propagating Japanese Church. The BISHOP of EQUATORIAL AFRICA said that his diocese was almost equal to the area of Europe, but he would on that occasion deal only with the Houssa country in Northern Nigeria. He described the early attempts of missionaries to enter that country and their result. It was in 1900 that the first party was allowed to go in, but at the present time there was but one missionary at work in the Mahomedan portion of that great land. It was very mysterious how their efforts to make an effective footing there had been thwarted, but he intended to use every effort for that country in the future. There was a call from this land, and he hoped the Church would make an adequate response and send men and women out to claim for Christ this great country which was ready to receive Him. The BISHOP of MELANESIA said that his diocese had many claims upon the Anglican communion. Not the least of them was that it was in the British Empire, although in the uttermost parts of the earth. The people of these islands had been somewhat cruelly treated 30 years ago, and some reparation was due to them. They were all standing now at a tension and were eager for the increase of Christian Anglican teaching among them. Other religious organizations were doing much to spread their teaching among the people, and unless the Melanesian Mission of the Anglican Community was better supported and more men sent out the success of the work would fall to others. The REV. E. HOLLAND (Allahabad) and BISHOP ROOTS (Han-kau) also spoke. THE PRIMATE AND THE METHODIST CONFERENCE. The following reply from the Archbishop of Canterbury to a message of greeting to the Pan-Anglican Congress from the United Methodist Conference was laid before the meeting of the Conference in Sheffield: Lambeth Palace, June 17, 1908. My Dear Sir,-Your kind telegram from the Conference of the United Methodist Church, assembled in Hanover Chapel, Sheffield, was duly read last night to the meeting of the Pan-Anglican Church Congress in the Church House, Westminster, and I write to assure you of the cordiality and respect with which your message was received by the great meeting and of its desire to reciprocate the spirit of Christian friendliness which inspired your words. We value your prayers which you kindly tell us that you are offering for the guidance and blessing of the Congress. I remain, yours very sincerely, RANDALL CANTUAR: The president (the Rev. Dr. Townsend), said that he knew the heart of the Archbishop in regard to Christian union and his burning desire for increasing Christian fellowship among all denominations perfectly well. He hoped they would see in the letter evidence of this. THE FREE CHURCH COUNCIL. The following telegram has been sent to the Congress by the National Council of the Evangelical Free Churches : Heartiest welcome to Anglicans from all parts of the world assembled in Congress from the National Free Church denominations of England and Wales. We are one in faith and service. DAVID BROOK, President. Preaching at the City Temple, the Rev. R. J. Campbell referred to the Pan-Anglican Congress, and described it as an impressive spectacle and one that was calculated to do much good. The English-speaking world would realize that the Church, as by law established in this country but nowhere else in the British Empire, was a mighty spiritual force, not because of her privileged position, but because of the self-devotion of her sons and daughters in her outlying posts. He loved the Church of England, and who did not who realized how closely the fabric of her life was interwoven with that of the nation? It was not true to say that a complete break with her past took place at the Reformation. It was a drastic change, but the Church whose metropolitan see was Canterbury was in a true sense the descendant of the Church founded by Augustine and his monks under the favour of Rome. The Church of England was not the creation of the State; the State was the creation of the Church, and if she were disestablished to-morrow she would lose nothing that she ever had, while spiritually she would probably be the gainer. There was a sense in which every man and woman of English birth was a member of the Church of THE FREE CHURCHES. 75 England and a sharer in her larger life. He never felt in Westminster Abbey that he was a stranger on strange ground, but he felt that it all belonged to him and he to it. The real Church of England symbolized in its churches was larger than her formularies or her episcopal organization. She did not need to look forward to including the Free Churches at some far distant day she included them already. Nevertheless, when he thought of these great meetings in London, he was oppressed by the thought that neither the Church of England nor the Free Churches had yet realized the measure of their opportunities in relation to the needs of the time. The great days of Anglican and Puritan alike lay in the past, not in the present. A Reuter telegram from Melbourne says that a special intercession and thanksgiving service was held in St. Paul's Cathedral in connexion with the Pan-Anglican Congress. THURSDAY, JUNE 18. The sittings were resumed, and again the attendance was very large, especially in Section F, which met in the great hall of the Church House, and which was engaged in discussing "The Possibilities of Reunion." Other interesting discussions were those on "The Drink Traffic and Gambling in Section A at the Albert-hall, and on "Opium and Liquor Traffic" in Section D I. at Caxton-hall. SECTION A. THE CHURCH AND HUMAN SOCIETY. 66 This section resumed its sittings, in the Albert-hall, and again the attendance was large, the subjects of the day--" The Drink Traffic " and Gambling and Speculation "offering the prospect of a lively discussion. At the morning session the chair was occupied by the Bishop of Columbia. The Archbishop of York was among those on the platform. THE DRINK TRAFFIC. The EARL of LYTTON, in opening the discussion on this subject, said that he must assume several things-first, the consumption of alcohol was not in itself immoral, and that total abstinence only became a moral duty when the individual was subject to excess or when the practice of abstinence was helpful to others. Then it was impossible to prevent people from drinking alcohol if the desire to drink existed in them. To make the sale of liquor illegal was quite another matter. But it was possible, by raising the standard of a person's self-respect, so to educate public opinion as to reduce materially the desire for drinking. That process had been going on for a long time in all classes, and it might be enormously accelerated if it were only given the impulse of a conscious and deliberate effort. If those interested in temperance in every locality would band together, they might, by the influence of a sympathetic association with the life of their neighbourhoods, change the character of the country beyond recognition. But he was mostly concerned for the moment with the action of the State in its administrative and executive capacity. He placed very little hope in legislative action except as giving the necessary powers and funds to other bodies. He relied on magisterial action and local experiment. A comprehensive temperance policy ought to have two objects-to prevent the peoples' desire for drink, and, where it remained, to prevent its abuse. As to the first, the action of the State could only be indirect, by providing the people elsewhere than in the publichouse the opportunities for satisfying perfectly legitimate and even laudable desires-those for company, social intercourse, recreation, warmth, and refreshment. Because those desires could at present only be satisfied in the publichouse, it was unfair to blame some persons for spending so much of their time there. To prevent abuse, the State must diminish as far as possible temptations to drink, prevent contamination by bad example, and provide treatment for inebriates. The State should be guided by one governing principle-the |