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January 20, 1909. THE PRESBV,1,T?1?T/!
and be snared and be taken. And there were men sitting in the
hall that day of the trial listening to Peter, who thirty years
later saw Jerusalem besieged with armies, rent to pieces and
torn asunder, full of anguish, a monument to the sin of rejecting
Jesus.
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iiiijniioc ui iiic nuiy oxiusi ine woras oi reter
stunned the council. The boldness of the men, their language,
their argument could not be resisted, and so in the judgment
of their consciences the rulers sat abased and silent. The
lame beggar that was healed stood before them as a monument
to a living Christ. In this first battle the cause of Christ was
triumphant. By means of these unlettered men, unlearned and
unskilled, the wisdom of the world was brought to naught. The
judges could threaten, but the word of Gcd, quick and powerful,
they could not restrain.
The efTect upen the church at Jerusalem was strengthening
and comforting. Peter and John go forth and tell the story.
To God they cry. And the Holy Ghost came down again.
C. W. GRAFTON.
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Young People's Societies
INDIA'S HEROES.
Topic for Sunday. January 31?Herces of Missions in India.
Psalms 96: 1-13.
DAILY READINGS:
, Monday, January 25: The first missionary. Acts 8: 1-8.
Tuesday, January 26: A child heroine. 2 Kincs. 5:1-5. 14.
Wednesday, January 27: Power behind missionaries. Exodus
3:1-10.
Thursday, January 28: The great call. Isaiah 6:1-8.
Friday, January 29: An old time hero. Daniel 1:8-17.
Saturday, January 30: Paul, the hero. 2 Corinthians, 10:1218;
11:21-33.
Moses' first act, when the Jewish nation was completely organized
and ready to move-towards the Land of Promise, was
*o invite the Midianite Hobab to go with him. There foreign
missions began.
jonan was ordered to preach to the Ninevites. His Jewish
soul rebelled. God punished him and sent him on the mission
from which he had fled. Nineveh was convinced of sin
and repented. There foreign missions received a grand impulse.
Jesus went beyond the boundaries of Palestine. In the coasts
of Tyre and Sidon, at Caesarea Philippi, in Decapolis, in Perea,
he was outside the Jews' country. The Canaanite woman, the
Roman centurion, the leprous Samaritan, were beneficiaries
of his grace. He gave his gospel to Gentiles before Peter saw
the foreign mission vision at Joppa.
Carey's heart, like his Master's could not endure the thought
of men near by and yet not hearing of him. England's relation
to India revealed both the need and the opportunity. He forsook
his cobbler's bench and became the founder of modern
missions among the millions of England's great Eastern de
pendency. His name has been linked with the work in India
for one hundred and fifteen years.
But Carey was not the first to go there. He had at least two
forerunners. Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, a Danish preacher, began
the work, early In the eighteenth century, preached for a
few years, translated the New Testament Into one of the
tongues of India, and died In 1719, after much persecution,
while his followers sealed their faith, many of them, with their
blood.
Following Ziegenbalg, came Christian Swartz, who resigned
wealth, friendB and ease, to carry on the work where his predN
i
. . . * j. ' *
OF THE SOUTH. i 7
ecessor had dropped it. He was spared to longer service in the
field and nearly fifty years witnessed his efforts, until he died,
in 1798. He and the pioneer whom he followed opened the way
to India, and he was soon followed by the growing host whicn
has since sought to gain that land for Christ.
From England, William Carey went to India in 1793. He
organized the first Bapiist Missionary Society on October 2,
1792, and on June 13, 1793, went, with his family, to his chosen
field. He and his enmnnnton ti ""
, ... uwuu i uuuius, iosi an tney had,
jn the Hugli. Nothing daunted he kept on, severed his connection
almost at once with the Missionary Society, worked,
preached, studied, wrote, translated, and taught in a college.
At times he made thousands of dollars a year, but gave all of
it to missions except a pittance of two hundred dollars a year,
on which he lived. He died in India June 9, 1834.
From the "Haystack Meeting" American enterprise began. /
In 1812 Adoniram Judson, the great Baptist missionary, arrived
in Calcutta, in a little company of four. He accepted immersion
while on his journey out and passed at once under the
care of the Baptist Missionary Union. He began his work in
1813. It was six years before he saw his first convert. After
thirty years he returned to America, in 1845, and a year later
went back to his work, and died in 1850. In preaching and
translating, and in stirring the hearts of the people at home,
he was one of the great personalities of the missionary cause.
Henry Martyn, who afterwards went to Persia, Bishop Heber,
V? ? ~..-l ? * *
iwc auiuui hi ine iamous hymn, "From Greenland's Icy Mountains,"
Dr. Duff, of the Free Church of Scotland, Dr. John C.
Lowrie, of the Presbyterian Church of this country, Dr. Wilson,
the father of two beloved ministers of our own church, and
others might be named as part of the great host of worthies
who laid the foundations of a Christian church in India which
now numbers its hundreds of thousands and which has brought
joy and comfort to myriads of souls in the three or four short
generations in which the gospel has been proclaimed amongst
the teeming peoples of that land.
For the Presbyterian of the South.'
SCATTERED MISSIONS.
l-i J ~
tucu ici us sena tne uospel
Afar o'er every sea,
In praise for our salvation.
That makes us glad and free.
To Europe and its kingdoms.
With all its servile poor,
To islands in the distance,
Through every open door.
Far down the shores Atlantic,
On wild Pacific slopes
Proclaim the glad Evangel
Where man in darkness gropes.
To tribes among the mountains
And vales of Mexico,
Give wings to gold and silver
And freely bid them go.
Those who have ever eaten "the bread of life" go hungry
from Christless sermons.
n our u?aris are mil of worldiness, there will be no
'room for him who bought us.
Duty will lead you to your place In the world, and to
your life work, If you will let It do so.
;One vow will not suffice the long year through,
One prayer a twelve-month's needs may not allay;
Crown every morn with pure resolve anew,
And live each day as though 'twere New Year's Day.