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September 29, 1909. THE ]
church, and another has been the opening
of the hearts of the people to the
Gospel message. Mr. McCutchen reports
that since his return to Korea in January
he has examined over 1,400 applicants,
of whom 273 were admitted to
baptism and 600 were enrolled as cate
cnuinens.
Mr. Grier wries from Hsuchoufu, China:
"As it appears to us, there has never
been a time when the prospect here
was so encouraging. At our recent communion
ninety applicants were examined,
of whom twenty-two were baptized.
At our morning service our church, seating
350, is crowded, and as many more
are gathered in the yard to an overflow
snrvire "
Mr. Pierce writes from Tunghsiatng:
"God has visited our church at this
place with a revival which has been
marked by visible manifestations of his
presence and power." Speaking of hie
revival at Kashing, Mr. Hudson write?,
"There was little or no excitement; some
wept some seemed overwhelmed with
shame; but the non-emotional, usually secretive,
non-committal Chinese were
overpowered by inward pressure and
poured out their very hearts."
Brethren, what does all this mean for
us? "Is it nothing to you, all ye that
pass by"? Can we not almost hear the
voice of our Saviour crying to his Church
in this great day of her opportunity, "If
thou hadst known; even thou, at least
in this thy day, the things which belong
to thy peace."
In order to meet, even in part, the obligation
which this opportunity lays upon
us, we need, first, 4,000 $50 shares to
be subscribed in our Forward Movement
to build homes, schools, hospitals and
chapels for our force already on the
field.
Second, we need $8,000 for outfit and
traveling and $35,000 for homes and
equipment for the twenty-one new missionaries
now under appointment and
waiting to go.
The total amount needed for the work
of the present mission year as already
projected is not less than $600,000. If
we uiight make this much advance towards
our goal of $1,000,000 a year for
our whole work, with what new Joy and
hope and courage would our workers at
the front be able to prosecute their as
yet unfinished task of evangelizing that
part of the great world field for which
we as a church have acknowledged ourselves
to be responsible.
Our greatest need of all is a deeper
recognition of our entire dependence on
the grace and power of the Spirit of Almighty
God, and a more earnest spirit
of belevlng and importunate prayer on
the part of every member of our Church.
This work for which we appeal is your
work. We of the Foreign Mission Committee
are only your agents. We ask
nothing in our own name. It is Christ
Himself who asks, "What will you, my
brother, my sister, give to help gather
into my fold those other sheep of mine
who have not yet heard my voice or
known my name"?
Fraternally yours,
i
t r
i
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SOUTI
Executive Committee of Foreign Missions
8. H. Chester,
Jas. O. Reavis,
Secretaries.
September 18, 1909. Nashville, Tenn.
MISSIONARIES.
Letter from Messrs. Sheppard and
Morrison.
We are taking this means of thanking
all who have been interested in us and
in the unfortunate native people in this
affair. We venture also to give some
account of the situation in order that
me maiier may De Deuer understood, for
it is usually not considered a recommendation
to one's character to be sued
for libel.
As is now well known and almost universal'y
admitted throughout the civilized
world, the Congo Free State, which
has recently been taken over by Belgium,
had become, under the absolute
rule of King Leopold, nothing more than
a big slave farm, in which the native
people were ruthlessly driven to make
more wealth for the already very rich
Leopold and others whom he had gathered
about him?and all of this in the
race or the treaties with the powers to
the contrary. It is doubtful if the
Congo State would ever have come into
existence if it had not been for the very
prominent part taken in the matter by
the United States. Therefore we, as a
nation, have a peculiar responsibility in
the situation here.
Some years ago many thousands of
square miles of territory including the
whole region covered by the activities
ui uur mission, ana raucn more Desides,
were farmed out for exploitation to a
rubber company, in which the government,
however, held controlling interest.
There are several other such companies
in the Congo State. At first this company
did not seriously oppress the people;
it only cut the price of the rubber
to about one-sixth of what it had formerly
been. We may say here that the
rubber is the sap of a vine which is
found, though not in large quantities, in
the forests. Only the natives ca/i make
the rubber, and it is a slow and laborious
process.
But at this low price the rubber did
not come in fast enough. Then the
company began to use pressure on the
people, threatening them that if the rubber
did not come in faster the State
would send soldiers to kill them and
burn their villages. The poor people
knew they could not stand against the
soldiers, armed with repeating rifles,
when they themselves had only, in most
Instances, bows and arrows. We have
not space here to go into the details of
all that this pressure meant. Suflice it
to say that th situation, while most distressing
over a large region with which
itd tcio acHuaiuieu, whh niuBi severe in
the Bakuba country. These are splendid
people. Our Ibanj station is located
among them. Mr. Sheppard was the
first foreigner ever to reach their capital.
These people were being driven
Into the forests by armed sentries placed
in their villages by the rubber company;
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*.
i. 15
their houses were falling down; their
fields had to remain uncultivated; but
little had been planted for many months;
the people were permitted to do nothing
else but make rubber; starvation and
annihilation were staring them in the
face; many had already died of hunger
and exposure in the forests, where they
had been driv^p to make more rubber;
others had fallen, in their weakness,
from the high trees to which the rubber
vines clung, and had either been killed
or seriously injured.
Not only so, but as can be easily seen
all this was seriously affecting our mission.
The price of produce had gone up;
the people could not pay their native
evangelist, and this fell more and more
on the mission. And yet we are mmwoH
of meddling in matters which are political
and which do not concern the mission!
At Luebo we publish annually a little
paper, the Kassai Herald in which we
give, for the benefit of friends in the
home land, an account of our work for
the year?our successes, our failures,
our wants and our problems. Mr. Sheppard
had for some time noted with
anxiety this growing oppression in the
Bakuba country, where he was located.
His heart bled for the people whom he
uau kiiuwu tor so long and to whom he
had given the best years of his life.
What was he to do? Certainly the State
and the rubber company would not attempt
to stop the situation or to speak
in behalf of the people. Just as certainly
the Catholic missionaries, some of
whom were located in the Bakuba country,
would not speak, for they were
working in harmony with the State and
the company. Our missionaries were the
only ones to speak, and Mr. Sheppard,
who knew the situation best, was the
one upon whom the greatest responsibility
rested. Feeling a deep sense of
this responsibility, he wrote for the January
1908 issue of the Kassai Herald a
brief, unimpassioned article, telling In
few words the story of the oppression,
believing that it was a matter of great
interest to the mission and that it was
something which all the friends of the
mission ought to know. Mr. Morrison
was then editor of tho 1 -1
w? tuu nciaiu.
Naturally the rubber company and the
State objected to the publication of such
an article, for all the while they were
flaunting to the world the statement that,
though there might have been such
abuses in other rubber companies on
the Congo, yet theirs was a model company,
and good treatment was universally
given to the natives. Letters were
received by the editor of the Kassai
Herald from the directors of the company,
who themselves, up to that time,
so far as we know, had never even been
in the Bukaba country, denying the
St Rt fimPTlto moHo In ,k- "
>u mo aruvie. some
weeks after the publication of the
article in question the British consulgeneral,
a man of the highest integrity,
made a tour through the country and
found that Mr. Sheppard had only told
a small part of the whole truth. The
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