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io THE PRESBYTERS
Missionary
PROGRESS OF THE GOSPEL IN KOREA.
Fifteen years ago there was not a Christian in Pyeng
Yang. The report for the present year shows 7,642 communicants,
5,989 catechumens, and 2,206 added during
the year. Nine hundred men attended the Bible Class
for ten days. Three hundred and seventy-five came fof
the first time.
The Church has raised twelve hundred yen ($600) for
missionary work on the Island of Quelport.
The Central Church in Seoul increased fifty per cent
in membership for the year. It has twenty-four district
leaders who give their time free of cost, holding services
in twenty-four centers outside the Church. This is truly
a Laymen's Movement, why should not the home
Church thus use the lay members?
Kank Kai, in the extreme north of Korea, is a new station.
This new station, as the report shows, has 437 communicants,
2,000 adherents, 15 schools entirely self-supporting,
the result of one year's work. One church gives
$3,851.83 gold, an average of ten dollars per member,
on an average income of from twenty to thirty cents a day.
A.-. r. _i.. . .t > <
n.i oiuagt gui ui uciiiiy iwu mourns income rrom every
member.
A year ago at a place thirty-three miles from Seoul
there were four Christians: now there are eighteen preaching
places, with groups of from fo tv f "~e hundred each,
and thirty places where men are begging for some one
to come and preach to them. Who will go?
A class of Korean doctors, the first to graduate, went
out this year from the Severance Hospital and Medical
College at Seoul. At the Francis Bridges Atkinson Hospital,
Kunsan, under the care of Dr. Thos. H. D. Daniel
and Dr. K. S. Oh, and Miss Ethel Kestler as trained
nurse, more than eleven thousand calls for treatment were
received last year. One poor fellow suffering from
tuberculosis of the foot, which prevented his walking, hearing
of the hospital and Christian doctors, crawled on his
hands and knees nearly three hundred miles, dragging his
affected foot the weary miles. It took him over three
months to make the trip, crawling about four miles a day.
In the hospital it was found that the disease had progressed
so far that arriputation was necessary. The limb
was amputated and he left for his home, having also heard
the story of the Father's love and of the blood of Jesus
Christ which cleanseth from all sin. "Inasmuch as ye
have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren
ye have done it unto me." "Blessed is he that considereth
the poor, the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.
The Lord will preserve him alive; and he shall be blessed
upon the earth: and thou wilt not deliver him into the
hands of his enemies. The Lord will strengthen him upon
his bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his bed in his
sickness" (Psalms 41:1-3).
Christian schools are crowded by students eagrer for
Christian education. Natives gave out of poverty, inconceivable
in America, over $6,100 gold last year for Christian
work. Will you who rejoice in the love of Jesus
Christ and all the riches of his grace consider these peo*
OF THE SOUTH. January 27, 1909
pie without Christ? these who are in the depths of dense
darkness, worshipping devils, groping for the light, or
will you harden your hearts and allow them to go down
to eternity without any opportunity to even hear the
blessed assurance, "God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten Son that whosoever bclieveth in him
should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
Think of the change in their lives when they came out
into the glorious liberty of Jesus Christ, who came to destroy
the works of the devil, and to save his people from
their sins. See them as they gather at the various mission
stations for prayer and the study of the Word of God,
and not only then, but daily, feeding on the promises of
God and gaining strength for service, and usiner the Word
of God to lead others to Christ.
See the family altar in their humble homes. See them
as they go out in bands or singly and preach the Gospel
to their friends and neighbors, not neglecting their own
flesh and. blood.
At one of the meetings one of the Christians promised,
after giving all the money he could, to give one hundred
and eighty days out of the year of personal evangelistic
work, without a cent of pay. At the next meeting he
came and apologized, saying that it took more time than
he thought and he had only been able to give one hundred
and sixty-nine days to this personal evangelistic work.
Where is the Southern Presbyterian layman who will do
what this poor Korean Christian has done, and that when
he has just been delivered from demon worship by the
power of Jesus Christ? Where is our boasted racial
moral and spiritual superiority when the laymen of the
church, the Southern Church, too, with an income carefully
estimated by the Laymen's Missionary Movement
of at least seventy million dollars a year, will complacently
allow the women of the Church to pay off the just
missionary debt and raise the needed money to carry on
the work as they are doing now and have so largely done
in the past? There are many men in our church that
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cuuiu casny noerate ^50,000 or $100,000, and numbers
who could give less amounts, and bring joy and encouragement
all along the lines and deliverance to countless
souls now in darkness.
Many, doubtless, recall Mr. Campbell White's reference
to the gift of Dr. Groucher, president of the Woman's
College, Baltimore, of $100,000 to India, which resulted
in fifty thousand conversions in that land. Will
not some Southern Presbyterian layman do what this
Methoditt worker has done and do it now?
What is done must be done quickly.
What is true of Korea is true of the other fields?
China, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, Africa, begging for
help in the name of our Saviour and for his sake. While
our General Assembly is calling for eight hundred missionaries
and a million dollars a year now, while millions
A. A 1 1 A ? 5 ? - * .? . ?
?uc t in uarKiicss anu dying aauy in mat darkness,
there is surely work for everybody who will help. "The
harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray
ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send
forth labc rers into his harvest."
Who will go? Who will send? Who will pray? In
the language of Keith Falconer, the Cambridge scholar
and athlete: "While vast continents are in almost utter
darkness and hundreds of millions of people suffer the