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church should be united and self-supporting, because we not only have a different language on each island, but often two quite distinct languages in one island. The churches of Australia are not able to overtake the work in these islands, and I appeal to the Church in Canada, and to the Free Church of Scotland, to help us. The Free Church has already sent us two missionaries, and we hope the promised third will soon come. Our earnest prayer is that the churches will not withdraw, but rather continue to help us in the future as they have done in the past.

The Rev. JOHN Ross, Manchuria, China, said :-Underlying the question of co-operation and all other subjects connected with missions is what appears to me the most important of all-the character of the missionary agent. If the proper men are sent forth as missionaries, co-operation and every kindred problem will be simplified. There is a very general cry of "more money and more men," in which I do not at present join. The cry is based on what seems to me two fallacies.

To emphasise the cry for more men, a comparison is instituted between the number of missionaries to the heathen and the number of pastors to Christian peoples. Now, the missionary is not a pastor, nor should he ever sink into the mere pastor. He is the modern representative, and the only representative, of the Apostles of the early church. As the " Apostle" was the "sent" of the primitive church to preach Christ where He was unknown, so the "missionary" is the "sent' " of the modern church to do the same work. The missionary is not a pastor, but the founder of churches, and the trainer of pastors whom he is to ordain over these Churches.

Again, the nature of the work of the missionary differs no less from that of the pastor than does the office. The pastor carries on his work among a sympathising people, he lives in and breathes a Christian atmosphere, and provided he preach with earnestness and some degree of intelligence, he is treated with respect if not with honour. The circumstances enveloping the missionary are the antipodes of all this. It is generally acknowledged that the work of the Apostle Paul was more difficult than that of the modern pastor. But the work of the missionary in China is more difficult than was Paul's. Paul did not encounter at the threshold of his work the acquisition of a new and difficult language, which is enough to damp the enthusiasm of the man eager to begin his labours. To understand the mental and moral standpoint of his audience, he was not compelled to wade through a ponderous literature. He never went where his manners and his garments at once proclaimed him an alien.

What I respectfully urge upon this most influential assembly is that every Society should select for such fields as China, not large numbers, but a few of your ablest and best men. Let those who go forth be the pick of the Church. Let them be Pauls in earnestness, and Pauls in ability, then they will inevitably be Pauls in success.

The Rev. Dr. THRANER, of New York-It is difficult for us to understand the obstacles which the division of the Christian Church presents to the heathen mind. We have need to illustrate much more fully than we do the essential unity of our Protestantism over the whole world at home and abroad. There is little common-sense in those so nearly related, and whose hearts long for union and cooperation, remaining in such antagonism. I yield to no one in my love and respect for Presbyterianism, but in the matter of union in the foreign field we need to look a little further, and even outside Presbyterian lines, in view of co-operation. The Christian Church needs to stand before the heathen as one Church. I do not think we need wait for this to begin at home. We must proceed to it at once in the mission-field.

The Rev. M. B. KOLOPOTHAKES of Athens.-Presbyterianism is well adapted to the Greek mind. The Greeks can be nothing but republicans or democrats, and Presbyterianism is adapted to them because it has the republican or democratic principle in itself. We have followed the organisation of the Presbyterian Church, and though other Americans have missions there, so soon as the native churches get independent they adopt the organisation we have. Missionaries ought not to Europeanise the natives, and for that reason I oppose natives going to England or America, and I would not have gone myself but that I wanted to learn English. If you want the native church to be self-governing and self-supporting, you must educate a few natives to take the work from the hands of the missionaries, and then hand the churches and schools over to them, to be carried on at their own expense. They will knock their heads together at first, but at last they will succeed.

The Rev. JOHN M'MURTRIE, Edinburgh, Convener of Foreign Mission Committee of Church of Scotland.-I felt I should like, on the part of the old Church of Scotland, to say we are as hearty as any in the matter, and as desirous that the day may soon come when in our missionfields there will be true and happy union. We need not wait for the union at home first. It has been shown that the influences for good that come to the home churches from the mission-field are quite as strong as those which go out from the home churches. While we are striving for union, there is already a large amount of co-operation in the mission-field. In East Central Africa our missionaries are encompassed

with very serious difficulties, and those difficulties are drawing forth the sympathy of the whole Christian community, and have drawn the missionaries very close together. We, with the Free Church of Scotland and our Church of England brethren in the African field, who are working together most cordially there, appeal with all our hearts, for the sympathies of all the Christian Churches. There is a great problem being solved in Africa.

I would conclude by mentioning, as the latest instance of cooperation, on the part of Scottish missions, that Professor LINDSAY, convener of the Free Church Foreign Mission Committee, has just been asking me to accompany him on a mission tour round the world. I regretted that it would not be in my power to go.

The Rev. G. SMITH, of Swatow.-It is a great mistake for the home churches to support any native minister; they should be entirely supported by the people to whom they minister, and their education and preparation should be such as to fit them for the position such as they would naturally occupy among their own countrymen, and not for a position such as they would occupy as foreign missionaries in relation to their own countrymen. Natives give far more liberally when they have a minister of their own choice, whom they can look upon as one of themselves. The churches at Amoy and Swatow have worked out the problems of the relations between the missionary and home churches, and the missionary and the native church.

PROPOSED RESOLUTION.

The Rev. Professor LINDSAY, Glasgow, Convener of the Free Church Committee on Foreign Missions,-I have been asked to submit a resolution as a kind of summing up of the discussion. We have been working on the question for several years, and two years ago four propositions were submitted to a committee of the Council, and thereafter to the supreme courts of the several churches, and were practically unanimously approved of by them. The Council has come to the conclusion that there should be thoroughgoing cooperation of the home churches, and thoroughgoing incorporation of the native churches. We want one native Presbyterian church in every land in which we are working. We have made practical progress in this in China and in Japan, and India ought to be the third case. We have thirteen or fourteen Presbyterian churches working there, and no less than thirteen or fourteen native Hindu Presbyterian churches. Is not that a mockery of Christian work? The Presbyterian Church in India is practically invisible, but if all those native churches were united in one they would be very visible. There would be then in one church 229 congregations, 11,503 native

Presbyterian communicants, and 53 native pastors. The resolution I have to propose is :-" Whereas previous meetings of this Council have approved of the general principle of the organic union and independence of the Church in the mission-field, and whereas four propositions (see Appendix, pp. 169, 170), embodying this general principle, have been submitted to the supreme courts of the allied churches, and have been approved of by them; resolved that this Council rejoices that this great principle may be considered as unanimously accepted, and that it only remains for the allied churches to carry out the principle in the management of their various missions.

"Further, the Council resolves that while the relation of missionaries to the home churches must be left to the decision of the separate churches, it seems eminently desirable for the good of native churches that the missionaries be, for a time at least, bona fide members of the native Presbytery."

The Rev. Dr. WELCH moved that the resolution be divided into two parts, the first part to be as follows:-"Whereas previous meetings of this Council have approved of the general principle of the organic union and independence of the Church in the mission-field; and whereas four propositions embodying this general principle have been submitted to the supreme courts of the allied churches, and have been approved of by them; resolved, that this Council rejoices that this great principle may be considered as unanimously accepted, and that it only remains for the allied churches to carry out the principle in the management of their various missions."

This motion was agreed to, and the first part of the original resolution was then unanimously adopted.

The Rev. Dr. WELCH remarked:-My call for a division of the resolution was made in order that we might reach a clear and calm conclusion, and, if possible, not by a mere majority, but with unanimity. This unanimity has been declared in favour of the first part of the resolution. In regard to the second part of the resolution, I am well assured that we cannot with unanimity vote in favour of it now. I fear that we cannot support it with even a majority. It seems to me doubtful whether we ought, at this time and in this public manner, to propose a policy in regard to the missionaries themselves. In the "General Missionary Conference" of last month we felt that cooperation in the mission-field was called for, and was indeed a settled question, but even then we hesitated to take formal action. In this Presbyterian Alliance we have just taken formal action in reference to co-operation-action which expresses our unanimous approval of co-operation in the mission-field-action which, we believe, expresses a foregone conclusion, and which, we believe, will be unanimously sus

tained by the churches represented here. Christian prudence would dictate that in regard to another step so far in advance of co-operation, as the second part of this resolution proposes, formal action should not be attempted, especially if it run the hazard of failure, or if it meet with opposition in this Alliance, or if it challenge opposition beyond this Alliance. This is perhaps the supreme moment in our deliberations in this body. In practical co-operation we reach our highest issue and purpose as an Alliance. Our unanimous conclusion just expressed in favour of co-operation will have great moral weight among the churches. It will cheer and strengthen our missionaries everywhere. It will stimulate the missionary work in every direction. It will have great moral significance even with those who have been indifferent or opposed to the cause of missions. It will impress the lesson of co-operation among the churches at home as well as abroad. Having admitted and declared so much in the first part of this resolution, and having done this with complete unanimity, let us hazard nothing by a premature or even uncertain step beyond. Would not the adoption at this time of the second part of this resolution expose us to such hazard? I suggest that it would be better to withhold action on the latter part, and to let the decision of this Council go forth in the great main current which is sure to carry the proper result in regard to the missionaries.

The Rev. Dr. CHAMBERS Seconded the suggestion that action should be withheld on the remaining part of the resolution.

The Rev. Dr. MURRAY MITCHELL.-I am very much disposed to agree with my two brethren who have just spoken. A division is by all means to be avoided. I confess I think we ought to be satisfied with the portion we have agreed to.

This motion also was unanimously adopted.

The Rev. Professor LINDSAY having agreed to withdraw the latter part of his motion, it was by consent of the Council departed from. The first part of his motion became the first resolution.

Dr. MURRAY MITCHELL then proposed seriatim the following additional resolut ons as suggested in the Report of the Committee, and all of them were without discussion unanimously approved of and accepted by the Council:

2. That the Council recommend that an annual season of united prayer on behalf of foreign missions be set apart by the churches represented in the Alliance, and that, if possible, the same date be observed in holding it by all the churches in Europe and America, and by the mission churches all over the world.1

1 The most suitable time for the churches in the United Kingdom would be the last Lord's Day in November.

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