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HEART OF CHINA

BY THE REVEREND L. B. RIDGELY

T six o'clock on a Friday morning a party of us started off from Wuchang to Hankow to attend the consecration of the new Church of Our Saviour, at Hanch'uan. Our baggage looked rather extensive, as we had to take with us bedding and provisions for the two days.

There must have been about 150 passengers on the little steamer; and they were a varied lot. They were principally farmers, merchants, and such like, going or returning to farms and business. The captain and crew were of the more sophisticated and modern sort that we now see so often here in business circles; not that they have any foreign education or culture, but they do have more or less business intercourse with foreigners, handle foreign machinery

and apparatus, and know more or less of our ways. Their very dress shows the effect. They wear foreign shoes and hats, and sometimes foreign coats or trousers.

It was about eight o'clock when the boat started. We had the "saloon" on the upper deck almost to ourselves. The Chinese part of our party preferred to stay together on the lower deck, where there was another cabin. The weather was so delightful that we all really stayed outside, and the captain permitted it, though we had to crowd even around the wheel-house. There were few seats, so we spread rugs and lay on the deck. At about noon our "boys" spread luncheon for us in the saloon. We were quite ready for it, and enjoyed it to the full.

The afternoon started out as peace

fully as the morning, when strange coppery clouds began to gather, and a chill wind to rise. The wind grew stronger and stronger. We saw the storm sweeping down on us from across the level plain, bringing great clouds of dust and looking quite alarming and typhonic. Presently it broke upon us. Passengers took refuge in the cabin. The deck hands ran about and reefed in the awnings. But for all that the top-heavy little boat careened over to one side suggestively. The Haa River being narrow was not much roughened by the storm. The Yang-tse would have been impossible in such a wind. Our course, too, following the tortuous stream, was now across and now before the wind, so that we managed to negotiate it, and finally landed at Hanch'uan at about three o'clock.

From the boat to the mission compound is but a few steps. We arrived shortly and were shown our different quarters for the night. Then we started out for a walk, intending to go over to the nearest country station, about five miles away, but the wind was so high and the air seemed so like rain that we gave that plan up, and called on the English Wesleyan missionary.

The church is one of the most satisfactory pieces of work that we have done yet. The interior effect is really quite fine, dignified and artistic, architecturally considered. The chancel is separated from the nave by a roodscreen built of brick, three Gothic arches supported by pillars and surmounted by a plain cross of wood, sufficiently large to be effective. Unfortunately, the Chinese Christians thought to show their interest and devotion by having this gilded, and did so without first consulting Mr. Wood, "as a surprise to him." The effect is far less dignified and massive than the plain dark wood had afforded, but the effect of the Gothic screen on the chancel, as viewed from outside, is fine, seeming to give a perspective much longer than the real length. A simple but large and solid

altar of granite, with retable, gradines, dossal, and really handsome brasses (all Wuchang work), completes the effect and gives the whole an inevitable and blessed impression of being in a "House of Prayer," and a "House of God."

Dr. McCook, who was visiting his daughter, Mrs. Roots, could not get over the surprise of finding that all this had been accomplished through the expenditure of about $2,500. And it is a fact worth considering. If friends at home want to put their money where it will do most work, China is a good place to try! This money was the gift of one woman, of New York. I think she must be happy to think she has accomplished so much.

At eight o'clock, or as near that hour as one usually approaches holding any service in China, we gathered in the church for evensong. It was now raining, yet a goodly number came. Dr. McCook made an address, and one of the divinity students translated for him. Then there was the usual talk in the guest room, where Dr. McCook was introduced to various people.

On Saturday, at 7:30 A.M., the bishop celebrated the Holy Communion. Nearly all who were likely to receive were present at that service. It was a pleasant sight to see so many, men and women, old and young, Chinese and foreign, gathered at the altar at that early hour, in spite of the threatening day and the actual rain.

Breakfast followed, and then, at nine o'clock, the service of consecration. The church was crowded. What it would have been like if the weather had been clear I do not know, but probably there would have been an uncomfortably numerous rabble. As it was, many stood outside in the wet and peeped in through the windows.

After Morning Prayer, the bishop administered confirmation to a class of about twenty. The service of Holy Communion then followed, as provided in the Prayer Book office for the consecration of churches. The choir had been

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THE OLD CHURCH AT HANCH'UAN AND SOME OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE

trained partly by the foreign clergy, who go up from time to time, and partly by the catechist, who understands a little music. They really sang very well, and were remarkably different from the choir I heard there nine years ago when I went up with the Rev. Mr. Ingle, afterwards bishop. At that time, I remember, the eight or ten boys of the choir each sang the tunes through on his own key, vigorously and unfalteringly, though the pitch of each differed from that of his neighbor by anywhere from a quarter of a tone to an octave.

One picture I shall always carry in my mind of this day's service. The little daughter of the catechist was kneeling all alone in front of the front pew, at the very steps of the choir. She is a child of perhaps four or five, and was dressed in a gown of rose pink, with a large but delicately outlined figure of bamboo in gold woven or printed on it. On her head a boy's hat of the elaborate "dress" pattern. The crown was of crimson velvet, the upright band, standing up from the forehead (for the hat is of the turban shape, as seen in the ordinary sealskin hat at home), the band

around the forehead was of deep purple, embroidered with bright green leaves in a conventionalized pattern, so that altogether it looked like a wreath of grapes and grape-leaves. On the top of all was a scarlet button. Startling as the color scheme sounds, it was not inartistic. The bright colors were in such small proportions, and the contrasts sharp without being positively at war. The little figure, with its reverent face, a spot of magnificent color, in the foreground, knelt unweariedly and unflinchingly through the whole office, and seemed a lesson to many older folks.

The service was over just before noon, and soon after we were on our way back to Hankow.

I could not but notice, all the way down and up, the contrast between Hankow as it is to-day and as it was nine years ago when I went up with Bishop Ingle. Then the city ended where we got on the boat, at Chiao-keo, and from that point on we saw little but fields and farms and marshes till we got to Hanch'uan. To-day there are miles of buildings above that point. Flour mills have been built, a large water-works

plant is in process of construction, the London Mission has built an extensive college, and it was long before we really got out into the country.

Arrived at Hankow, we separated. The Wuchang contingent boarded two small boats and rowed down to the south of the Han. The wind was still so high and the river so rough that we could not go over in small boats, but all got into an official "lifeboat" and sailed quickly over. But we saw on the way evidences of the fury of the preceding day's storm, and we heard still more. In our very course we sailed over the wreck of a big junk, which had put out from shore for safety, been overturned, and caught in a shoal in the middle stream. Down the river front we saw that the big steamers were unable to come up to their moorings, and we

learned that the landing stages had been swept away.

Arrived at home, we heard still more. The cross had been blown from the front gable of the church and the smaller one from the rear gable of the divinityschool. Several pieces of wall had been blown down, and the roof of almost every building damaged. Numerous buildings in the city had been blown down or unroofed; among them, one of the Viceroy's colleges. Many people had been hurt. But most of all we were startled to learn that the top story of the building out of which Dr. Glenton had only a few days before moved the women's hospital had blown down, falling into the very room where she and Miss Higgins would most probably have. been sitting. We thanked God for their deliverance.

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ALTHOUGH NOT CONSECRATED UNTIL LAST MARCH, ST. JAMES'S CHURCH, HANCH'UAN, WAS USED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MARCH, 1907, WHEN DR. LLOYD

VISITED THE CONGREGATION

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cal Club will be twenty-one years old. It is to celebrate this anniversary by a large public meeting in the auditorium of the Young Women's Christian Association Building, 7 East 15th Street, at 3 P.M. Prominent speakers are expected to review the work of the Club since its organization.

It is unnecessary to tell readers of THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS what the Church Periodical Club is beyond saying that it is an organization of Church

jail. It is truly a catholic-minded club, reaching every year fully 50,000 people.

All this work was done at a cost for central expenses of less than $5,000. Economy of a very trying kind is always the order of the day in the Church Periodical Club office. Some day its endowment fund of $15,000 will be complete and then no little anxiety will be ended. At present the endowment fund stands at $3,401.75.

BISHOP KNIGHT CARRIED
OFF BY REVOLUTIONISTS

ISHOP KNIGHT, of Cuba, who

women for the purpose of supplying BIS

periodicals and books to those of the clergy and laity of the Church unable to procure good literature in any other way. Besides arranging for the regular forwarding of periodicals, it receives at its office in the Church Missions House, New York, supplies of magazines, books, calendars, Christmas cards and Easter cards for general distribution. The club has reduced methods of using printed matter of all kinds not needed by its original owners to a fine art. There are no waste products in its work.

Last year over 14,000 periodicals were sent regularly each week or month, either by diocesan branches or from the central office; more than 30,000 books, 152,000 old magazines and papers, and 70,000 cards and calendars were distributed. This work involved the shipping of 1,600 freight and express packages and more than 7,000 mail packages.

These supplies of literature have gone to all sorts and conditions of men and to all parts of the world. From Alaska and New Guinea, from Panama and the Bahamas, from Mexico and China, no less than from various parts of the United States, come letters of thanks. Some of the Club's correspondents, we regret to say, are even to be found in

is in charge of the Church's work in the Panama Canal Zone, visited the Isthmus the last week in November. Nearly one hundred persons were confirmed during the visitation at a number of the missions along the canal route. He was accompanied by the Rev. W. H. Decker, recently of the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, who has been added to the Panama staff.

Bishop Knight expected to go directly from the Isthmus to eastern Cuba, where he had arranged a series of visitations, beginning at Santiago. Leaving Colon on the steamer Oteri, presumably bound for Santiago, he learned after putting to sea that the steamer had aboard a large number of the Haitien revolutionists, among them the future president, and that her real destination was Port au Prince. Here he was obliged to spend some days in the harbor without even an opportunity of a visit to shore to get acquainted with the work of the Haitien Church under Bishop Holly.

Missionary bishops are prepared for all sorts of experiences, but it is supposed that this is the first time in the history of the American Church when one of her bishops has been carried off by revolutionists.

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