The Washington herald., 1911-09-24
THE TREND OF THINGS
Christian Conditions in South
Africa.


Africa.
Rev David Russell of Johannesburg.
South Africa, in America six months
as a member of one Of the ''men and
religion movement teams, reports that
Methodists, Congregationalists, Presby-
terians, and Baptists of South Africa
tried to effect organic union in vain. Both
Methodists and Presbyterians bolted, and
so while here the evangelist, famous
throughout South Africa as a missioner,
will study the Federal Council of
Churches, to see if it may be the feder-
ated plan South African bodies stand. in
need OF.
Observance of Sunday as a day of rest
becomes less and less in his country,
he say, while Sunday school work is less
developed than in almost any English
speaking country. There are under con
struction in several South African cities,
notably Johannesburg, handsome build
ings after the pattern of Y. M. Z. A.
buildings here. These were made possible
by American Association men going to
South Africa and teaching the Y. NJ. c.
A there how to raise money, whtrlWfnd
fashion.
Mr.. Russell states that even in English
possessions in South Africa the Dutch
Reformed Church is greatest in num-
bers and influence, and that the Church
of England and Methodists come next.
Higher criticism has made little inroad,
and labor troubles are few, white ar
tisans being paid literally and manual
labor being black. The influence OF the
United States in South African affairs,
political, social. and religious, is beyond
that of any other foreign, country, and
greater, Mr.. Russell is convinced, than
Americans are aware of.
Serious Outlook in Western China.
Secretaries of American missionary So
cieties, the American Bible Society. and
others having work and workers in the
upper Yangtse region of Western China,
express the belief that American mis-
sionaries are safe, although they admit
that the troubles there may be long con-
tinued and may result in much loss of
property belonging to American and
English missionary societies.
Chengtu, the capital of the Szechuan
province the center of the present out
breaks, is headquarters for vast mis-
sionary interests, most of them Ameri-
can There is located here one of the
numerous presses, or printing houses,
scattered through the far East, where
are manufactured Bibles, Testaments,
and vast numbers of Christian books in
languages of the Orientals. The Ameri-
can Bible Society makes and distributes
there upward of 100000 volumes a. year,
and others do colportage work in pro-
portion.
Societies having the largest numbers of
workers in the affected region are the
Methodist North, the Baptist North, the
American Bible Society, the Y. NJ. {. A.
the Methodist North Woman's, and the
Canadian Methodist, and from England
the Church of England Missionary, the
China Inland, the FL ends, and the
British and Foreign Bible societies.
The province is densly populated by an
uneducated, often warlike, but Wrile
class, a very small proportion of them
Manchus, and often given to uprisings,
not against missionaries, but against
foreigners, including the Manchus, and
against foreign ideas. The apparent need
has led missionary societies, especially
American Baptist and Methodist, to send
during receQt years large numbers of
workers in Chengtu and the country
about it.
Old Andover Indicating New Ways.
The change in ecclesiastical ideas, OBJ
tanning now for five yars at least, is
silently testified to by the form of the
chancel in the new chapel Of Andover
Theological Seminary al Cambridge, to !
be opened with the rest of the build |
ing, on October o next. Andover Sem |
mary, ended at Andover and rebuilt in |
Divinity avenue under the walls of Har- |
ward University, traditionally stands for |
the old Puritan ideals. Yet the chancel |
is distinctly Anglican in its arrangements, |
with eagle Iectern on one side, pulpit |
on the other, seats facing on epistle and |
gospel sides, and an open view of what |
approaches a reredos, with an altar be-
fore it,
The new structure is of stone, in the !
English Gothic of Oxford and Cambridge. |
and contains library, dormitory, and |
classrooms all in the richest luxury of
the Anglican, rather than the severe |
simplicity Of the Puritan. Andover Sem
lnary, for 100 years located in the
Bay State town, whence 1t took its |
the orthodox type, and has a record of
producing, or at least of developing, |
great men second to almost no other |
seminary in the world. Yet its student
body dwindled while its endowment grew.
There was opposition to its removal to
more liberal Harvard, but that opposi-
ton was overcome, and now 1t is to try
try. Larger enrolment. larger life, and
new prospects are said to be already
Indicated.
New and Big Home Mission Survey.
Home mission societies have long work.
ed to stop overlapping, an abuse de-
described as six to ten churches re-
ceiving mission aid in towns where two
or three at most are really needed Now
these societies declare there are Hundreds
Of towns overworked altogether, towns
where there are neither Catholic nor
Protestant churches.
To learn real conditions. one secretary
from each Of the twenty-six societies
represented in the home mission council
will undertake a study OF the two
contiguous tiers Of States between the
Mississippi River and the Pacific. One
paonth u TO be devoted to the survey.