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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; - * *. 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 (Continued on Page 25.)