The record-union., 1897-12-14

BOSTON. Dec 13-The American
Board of Foreign Missions made public
to-day its eighty-seventh annual re-
port. The receipts from all sources
amounted to S642, ISL. California gave
S10.393, Washington $395, Montana
SIS. Idaho $27, Wyoming $122, Utah
SI4, Arizona S204.
The report deals at length with Turk
ish massacres, and says:
While many Christians were killed or
fled, the number of professed Christians
exceeds that previous to the outrages.
The wounds left by massacreS and rob-
berry have been slowly healing. although
in some places the suffering has been
quite as great as in the previous year.
Generous gifts that have come from
nearly every European State for the
sufferers by massacre, and for the care
of orphans, are gratefully acknowl-
edged, and have revealed the essential
unity of the civilized world in a most
impressive way.
The demand for indemnity for losses
incurred at Harpoot and Manasch
amounting in all to 100000 was press
ed as yet without result. The changed
conditions at Constantinople and the
arrival of DR.. Angel, the new United
States Minister to the Porte, may reas-
onably be expected to secure early and
satisfactory action in regard to this
claim and all other material questions
at issue between our Government and
Turkey.
The distribution of funds from all
countries for the relief of suffering and
the care of orphans involves this year
the handling of SS51 ,29S.
The massacres, in which at least g.
600 ArmenianS were slaughtered in
Constantinople, We're the result osten-
sibly of an attack on the Ottoman Bank
of the city by band of revolutionists,
but in reality of the same fanaticism
and race hatred which deluged the
whole empire with blood the previous
year. When.the sovereigns spoke the
word on the third day bloodshed ceased
instantly throughout the whole coun-
try. Criminals have received little or
no punishment. Armenians were sys-
tematiCally imprisoned, employment de-
MED them, and threats held over them
until more than 10000 of them fed
the city.
During the famine in India food rose
to abnormal prices. AS a large num-
Der of poor in India, nearly third
of all her population, live constantly on
the verge of starvation when prices are
normal, it is easy to imagine the re-
suit OF such times as these. Riots oc-
CURED in many places, starvation
stared millions in the face, and almost
at once became an awful reality.
The plague or bubonic fever first
came to public notice in Bombay. ~
panic seized the 500 900 inhabitants.
Trains and steamers from the city
became crowded with people fleeing to
the country. The mortality of the city
rose from 800 week to 1000.
The Christians in the city have been
marvelously preserved. Among them
only a few cases have occurred. No
death from plague has taken place in
Bombay Church. DR.. Won Allen is
building the finest hospital structures
in Southern India. Native women have
less and less fear of attending an Eu-
ropean dispensary, and are almost as
we'll reported as here.
This is by far the most fruitful year
in the history of the South China Mis-
sion. In the Foo Choo, China Mission,
within the last two years there has
been an expansion of field and growth
in churches, schools and hospital work
unparalleled in the history of our mis-
sions in China. There are but five un-
ordained missionaries in a field, which
incluies 100000 souls for which this
mission is considered responsible. The
North China Mission, located near the
political center of the empire, giving
access to more than 20,0O0,000 souls.
ably manned and well established in
seven wisely chosen centers, is one of
the most important and promising un-
der the care of the board.
The problems which face the mis-
sionaries in Japan to-day are entirely
different from those of twenty-five
years ago. The educated Japanese are
carefully studying the social and re-
ligious questions in which the scholars
of the west are interested, and always
the beginnings of enlightenment are
subjects of doubt and questioning.
In Hawaii one great drawback to
rapid progress is the backward condi-
ton of the Hawaiian churches. Too
large a proportion of Hawaiian church
members are not only ignorant of the
fundamental requirements, but indif-
ferent TO the obligation of common hon
esty in the payment of the promised
salaries of their pastors.
In Spain the fact that the mission
aries are citizens of a country against
which there is such strong feeling,
growing out of the Cuban question,
does not seem to be charged against
them by the most of those with whom
they come in daily contact and rela-
tions. That which perhaps more than
any other thing among the visible in
f1uence which prevails among the COM
munity has served as an obstacle to the
work in Spain has been the we'll known
and powerful ultramontane sympathieS
of the Queen Regent. This influence
predominates entirely in the court, and
from there reaches the most distant
Villages. and gives courage and
strength to the reactionary element
throughout the land. The Queen Re-
gent is a good mother, an intelligent
sovereign and a virtuous queen, but the
entire weight of her unmeasured infiu-
ence is thrown against everything that
-r.,,,e, <,f ayanpalical ralic~iou