The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-11-28 00:00:00

THE CONGREGATIONALIST MISSION ART

SOCIETY.
The annual meeting of the above society was
held in the British School-room, Lower High.
street, on Monday evening last. The chair was
taken by Mr. James Allsop. There were also pre- I
sent the Rev. J. Richards, the Rev. W. M. Blake
(India), Messrs. li. Billingham, W. Flavell, J.
Taylor, Ice.
The Chairman briefly addressed those present
on the beneficial effects resulting from missionary
work, and said that if they only took case to dis-
tribute the bible sufficiently amongst those who
had no knowledge of it, it would soon do its own
work. In Spain much ;.11.11.4 was being done by the
bible. It was also now sent to Roate, and all over
Italy. It w...ts also said that in Rome they were
building places of worship,and they were subscrib-
ing £30,000 or 1.30,000, and the writer of the
article from whiel he was quoting said there was
no doubt .£lOO,OOO were now spent in
providing places of worship for Protestants in
Rome--(applause). The work of the missionary
was a most useful and necessary one. Before
Christ left the world he gave command unto his
apostles to go out and preach the gospel to all na-
tions, and they were quite sure the work wouldgo
on and prosper--(cheers)
The Rev. James Richards, in his opening re-
marks, informed those present that their mission-
ary society was addressed entirely to the heathen,
or to those inhabitants of different parts of the
world who worshipped idols; and did not send
missionaries to any European country. The Queen
of England reigns over a larger number of heath-
ens, than any other monarch in the world, except
the Emperor of China and also over a larger num-
ber of Mahommedans ; and, therefore, he thought
it was an imperative duty upon us to do all in our
power to convey to them the truths of the gospel.
A statement was made in one of the papers a short
tittle ago disparaging the portion of money raised

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by the churches in London for foreign missions,
compared with what was raised for other purposes.
Their church had done more for foreign missions
than any other church he knew. Something like
one-third or one-fourth of what had been raised
by the ministers had gone to the heathen. The
Sunday Schools there had done right nobly. They
had raised somewhere about one-half of the whole
of the money which had been subscribed for the
Missionary Society, and he hoped they would be
led by what they would hear that night from Mr.
Blake, to take an increased interest in bringing to
Christ our heathen subjects in India and other
places. There were no less than a quarter of a
million converts to Christianity due to the labours
of the whole Christian Church. He referred
the West Indian Islands, in the largest of which
the great majority of the inhabitants belonged to
the Church of England or to the Moravians, and
if he took the whole province, there was a still
larger number of the whole population giving
evidence of being Christians. The South Sea
Islands alone were a wonderful example of the
power of the gospel, where through its influencs
cannabalism and a hundred other crimes had alto-
gether ceased to exist. Madagascar was also a
powerful example of the same subject. He would
not say much to them about this latter country, as
there had been so much in the papers recently res-
pecting it. He saw that a few philanthropic men
were making strenuous efforts to put down the
slave traffic on the south-eastern coast of Africa,
and he wished them every success; but there was
a trade carried on by the authority of our Govern-
ment, whioh was worse than any slave traffic, and
that was the trade in opium. Our Government
receives an income of seven millions a year by the
sale of opium in China, quite contrary to the
express wishes of the Emperor and the poor opium
esters themselves. We have forced the Chinese
to take our opium, and made war upon them be-
cause they refused to do so. It would be more easy
to abolish that traffic than it would to abolish the
Slave trade. This trade was a disgrace to the times
in which we live.

Mr. J. Taylor read letters of apology for non-
attendance from the Revs. J. N. Rootham (Baptist
minister), and —Jackson (Wesleyan minister). He
then read the list of subscriptions for the past
year, which showed that the latter had amounted
during that time to the handsome sum of £37 is
90. Ile remaiked that the amount of money
subscribed by the girls was not as much as that
given by the boys. But this was not owing to any
want of zeal on their part, but rather to the fact
some of the boys went to work, and had more
pocket money than the girls.
The Rev. W. M. Blake said he was glad to see
so many young persons present, as the future of
missions would depend upon them; and he was
sorry that the girls had not done se well as the
boys. There was an Irish saying that "If you
wanted anything done well, the girls were the
boys to do it "—(laughter). He did not wish to
stand before them in the very unfavourable posi-
tion of a missionary showman ;but he did wish them
to go home thinking of what he should say to
them. He should speak to them of India. It was
a large country, speaking many different languages.
The Bible Society had translated the bible into the
eleven languages of India. Then they had parts
of the bible translated into twenty-two more
languages or dialects. That would give them some
idea of the work that had to be done by the
churchs of this land when they sent out ministers
to preach Christ to the Heathens. There were
several distinct sects in India, but the the two
predominating ones were Hindooism and Mahom-
' 'hedonism. Hindooism was pantheistic and poly-
theistic;• some of the Hindoos believing that every-
thing is God, and others that thereare many Gods.
The former worshipped snakes, trees, and every
description of thing; and then besides they have
330,000,000 of Gods. These belonged to the Hin-
doos alone. Every man, woman' and child could
have one, and then there would be a few millions
to spare. The history of some of the Gods was
so filthy that one dared not speak of them in any
decent society. At first the deities were only
three—Brahma, Vishnu and Kharnee. /3rahum
was the creator, but, strange to say, there was not
hardly a single temple devoted to him through the
whole of Southern India, In Benares there were
more idols than there were human beings, and yet
he had only seen one picture of Brahma all the
while he was there; and that was kept in a cellar.
The story ran that he was guilty of a most abom-
inable offence, and he was cursed by one of his
fellow-gods, and his head fell away; and the con-
sequence was that he was not at present wor-
shipped in India. He exhibited a picture of
Vishnu, and said some people objected to those
things, on the ground that they were too sensa-
tional; but withoutSsuch aids it would be impos-
sible to fix those things upon the memory of his
audience. The lecturer then exhibited a large
number of pictures illustrative of the different
deities, the temples, religious fairs, and manner of
worship. He also referred to the horrible tortures
which some Hindoos inflicted upon themselves with
the view of pleasing their gods. It was a common
thing to see some of these deluded creatures going
about the country, maimed for life through their
own fanatacism. lie also referred to the question
of caste, as it existed in India, and said Europeans
could have no conception of the extent to which
that was carried out in India. In this country it
was a common thing for those of a higher station
to intermarry with those a step or two lower in the
social scale. Onlya short time ago one of our own
Royal Princesses had done this, with the approval
of the entire nation. But such a thing would
have been impossible in India. If one of the
Brahmin class were only to eat or drink out of a
vessel that had been previously used by one of an
inferior caste he would be looked upon as degraded
and defiled, and those of his own caste would re-
fuse to have any intescouse with them.

After a collection had been made, the meeting
closed with the usual formularies.