The Presbyterian of the South : [combining the] Southwestern Presbyterian, Central Presbyterian, Southern Presbyterian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1909-1931, January 27, 1909, Page 10, Image 10

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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 1 J !1 1 *1 *** - A - 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