A Word with Workers

It is comparatively easy to develop an interest in missions among the members of our Sunday schools. Even were it difficult it would pay, for it is essential to the maintenance of the great work conducted by The American Baptist Missionary Union.

Our Chief Reliance

For securing the continual increase of income which the rapid growth of the work requires, is in gaining the cooperation of this branch of the Church to a much larger extent than hitherto. It is the need of this generation and the next.

A Stimulating Example

Last year the Methodist Episcopal Sunday schools in the United States gave for missions $400,000; the Episcopalians $117,916.52. The Baptist Sunday schools gave through the Missionary Union $12,000. We can do as well as they; shall we, for Christ's sake?

A Contribution from Every School

Would put thousands of dollars into our treasury; certainly it would more than quadruple the small $12,000 received from this source last year. Best of all, it brings rich blessings on the school and trains givers for the future.

How to Get It

Must be decided for each school for itself. We would not insist on any particular scheme for raising money, though we have suggestions which we will gladly give to any who may desire them. We simply urge definite and regular offerings by

each school.

Stereopticon Lectures

Three lectures prepared especially for the Sunday school are now ready: Boys and Girls in India"; "Ten Little Dimes"; "How a Missionary Lives and Works.” These are bright and entertaining. Sent to any school contributing to the Union, upon the payment of express charges each way. Address all inquiries as to this or other ways of interesting your school in missions to

THE

LITERATURE

AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSIONARY

UNION

DEPARTMENT

Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass.

(1 and 2) Carrying a stone weighing half a ton; (3) Tomb of a General (ancestral worship); (4) Caring for the Babies; (5) Idol Worship.

John Hay's service in securing the "open door" in the East will not soon be forgotten either by America or China. It saved our commerce and saved a nation.

What of the doors that He who is greater than earth's statesmen has swung open to the Church? Read for a witness the pages of this MAGAZINE and the daily press. Not only China but all the far East is opening to Western thought and life. Reactions will come; mob riots may break loose, as business boycotts may occur; but the doors will not be closed.

"NOW IS THE ACCEPTED TIME." After probably less than twenty-five years, $100,000 and 1,000 missionaries will not be able to do for the saving of men and nations what a tithe of that can do today in China and the Philippine Islands, the Kengtung field and the Assamese Hills. God is leading. Let us follow his star in the East.

WHAT IS TREASON? What is patriotism? See Dr. Van Dyke's definition on page one. Delay is criminal. The lesson is clear. Last May the denomination at St. Louis read it. How much clearer have subsequent events made it! The plan for advance is not that of the Executive Committee or of the Board of Managers only. The great denomination as a missionary society spoke unanimously, saying that we cannot do less than make the increase of fifty per cent. It is all too small. We believe that the Baptists of the North will say "yes" in their enlarged gifts.

THE GREAT INVESTMENT. How American capital is seeking the East! Exploring is followed by exploiting. Compared with commercial investment our fifty per cent. increase would indeed be small. Compared with the millions spent in war or in building the Panama Canal, our investment seems insignificant. But when these loved gifts of the thousands of Christians are planted with prayer, God will bless, that they may grow and bear quicker, surer, larger harvests than in the business. world. Unnumbered new-born souls will rise up, joyful in their gratitude to us, but better yet, joyful in their songs of thanksgiving to our Lord and Saviour for whose sake we pray and give.

"Christ for the world we sing,

The world to Christ we bring."

3

THE MAKING

T

(SPECIAL TOPIC FOR JANUARY)

of NEW CHINA

HE West, like the East, has been asleep.

Astonished

out of measure by the sudden advance of Japan to its position of commanding influence upon the affairs of the world, the West is wondering even now if it is not dreaming. Residence in the East has made the missionary more open-eyed. He predicted the triumph of Japan: he forecasts now the swift advance of a vaster empire of the East to a vaster influence upon the destinies of the world. Will the West listen incredulously to his appeal? The facts he adduces are patent. A people counting one in four of the world's population; an immense territory of unlimited resources; national characteristics of an extraordinary type-sobriety, patience, industry, cheerfulness, resourcefulness: a national feeling powerful, though in the past unorganized. Childish superstitions, crude arts and a cramping educational system have dwarfed its life. But their spell is broken. Industrial changes are lifting the land to a new level of material civilization. And the mind is unleashed. An intellectual revolution is on. Old educational standards are abolished; national universities in each provincial capital are supported by tributary colleges in prefectures and districts; a national press gives expression and powerful stimulus to the new life. An expanding horizon makes of China a new intellectual world. What lies beyond? A force that shall be felt far as the movements of the tides of the sea. An immeasurable influence for good or for evil upon the future of the East and West whose destiny is inseparably one. "When China moves," said Napoleon, "it will change the face of the globe." What wonder that the Christian ambassador, open-eyed to the present and the future in China, covets for that great empire the swift working of those divine forces which can transform and renew its life and assure to it a future of beneficent service for mankind! THOMAS S. BARBOUR, Foreign Secretary.

[A new eight-page leaflet on "The Making of New China," by Rev. J. T. Proctor, of Huchow, should be sent for by all seeking help for the January program. Sample copy free. - EDITOR.]