The Portland daily press., 1898-12-22
CHRISTMAS GIFTS FOR MISSIONS.
The Foreign Boards In This Country
Ship Many Tons of Them Every Year.
New York Sun. J

Every foreign mission board with gen
eral offices in New York maintains snip
ping department., and a most important
item in the annual shipments is the poAes
for Christmas in remote countries. Al
though many Christian institutions niay
be contrary to the traditions OF the pe-
nighted races. the celebration OF onrisO'
nastide with presents and feastihg ap-
'peals to the imaginations of the ORIENT,
where ceremonious bestowai Oh giIes is
custom of great antiquity anu general
practice. West Africa, Persia, India
China and Japan are the lands to which
the greater part of Christmas good things
ara forwarded by the boards. However,
there is scarcely place in the antipodes
to which package is not sent.
The travels and vicissitudes of boxes fol-
thu Orient before they finally reach theil
destinations are interesting. They start
from New York in steamers, sail over the
Atlantic, through the Mediterranean, bhe
Suez Canal and the Red Sea and reach
the ports Of Asia. Thence, it may be by
elephants, camel carts, horseback, dom
keyback, mule caravan, jiurikishas, chi
nese junks, Siamese houseboats or porters'
shoulders they are carried to the distant
posts,of The missionaries. So great peril
cd, in fact, must elapss before the Christ
mas boxes are received that for the very
remote fields neither soap, candy nor edi-
bic of any kind not packed in hermeticai-
ly sealed cans can be sent, for the first
will melt, the other will return TO the
original sugar or stale, and the last are
bound to spoil. Very often in the past
molasses was shipped. On its arrival the
missionary who paid the freight was
often Mortified to discover that his pack
age contained simply rum, the molasses
having fermented in transit.
The last shipments for Christmas We're
made from New York in October. For
the comparatively inaccessible missionary
stations in Laos, Northern Siam, the
boxes were despatched in June, for there
are only two weeks in the year when
shipments can be made uhither, and that
is in the early summer. The boxes must
arrive at the coast Of Siam before Septem-
Der, when the shallow rivers OF that
country contain sufficient water TO per-
nit the houseboats to carry freight TO
Laos These beats are primitive affairs,
rude and elementary. Each Will hold
about tive TONS and is poied upstream to
the isolated districts in which the mis-
sionaries labor. The progress is slow, and
many weeks elapse between the reception
of the freight at the coast and its final
discharge at tile head of navigation.
When Christmas boxes are made up by
the foreign mission boards for Africa the
sweet tonth of the native is always kept
We in mind. Tons of cheap candies are
annually sent across the Atlantic for the
sfcfv, 1ot,, of / IA r,
missions. China wants picture cards, SO
every Yuletide, or, rather, in time for
that period Of rejoicing, great packages OF
colored illustrations and graceful designs
are sent to the missionaries in that cnun
try for distribution. Usually scripture
texts are imprinted on the backs OF tbs
cards, thus compelling them to DO two
fold duty In Parnir and Hindoostan
picture cards are also in demand and are
freely distributed, but, alasl SO strict are
certain of the conventions of propriety in
theselands that the missionaries have been