Newspaper Page Text
22 ' THE
mm^isaaammamciiiniiiiiiiiiitiiiiiitn
| Miscellaneous ij
nnrnrmn.::v.zxzi ntn:n::n::!?;?i;>??:?u?
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT.
The bare announcement that the Sixth
International Convention of the Student
Volunteer Movement is to be held at
Rochester, N. Y., during the Christmas
holidays, December 29 to January 2, and
that it is likely to call together 3,000
delegates from schools, colleges and universities,
from the various missionary
boards and their foreign fields, from the
many young people's organizations and
from editorial sanctums all over the land,
can not fail to have raised the question
in many minds, "What is this Volunteer
Movement which is creating such a stir?"
The Student Volunteer Movement originated
in the summer of 1886, at Mt. Hermon,
Mass., in connection with the first
international Christian student conference
ever held.
But what does this movement attempt
to do, and how is the work done? To
reach student centers, traveling secretaries
to the number of eight or ten a
year go from college to college, where
they strive to accomplish four things:
To bring the missionary message to the
entire body of students in as intelligent
and forceful a way as possible; to interview
and direct as well as may be, any
who may feel that God is calling them to
foreign missionary service; to organize
these volunteers, where the number permits,
into a Volunteer Band, whose business
it is to carry on the missionary
propaganda and to be mutually helpful
to one another in the matter of preparation
for the foreien field: to see that
everything which will awaken and foster
missionary interests in the college is
brought into its life.
At the Sixth General Council of the
Alliance of the Reformed Churches holding
the Presbyterian System, held at Glasgow,
1896, Secretary George Smith, LL.
D., of Edinburgh, read a paper from which
the following conclusions are extracted:
"I thus sum up the advantages of the
Student Volunteer Movement of Reformed
Christendom:
"1. The movement sweeps aside, for
tha fire* i mo *VlA /liflRonHir a a * aaa.??.
... ov MU1V; CUV U11UVUUJ ao W DCI. UI
tng at once spiritually and professionally
trained men and women of the
highest type.
"2. The movement has created a Christian
nucleus which, in East and West,
should make every college in its degree
a missionary Institute or a missionary
station.
"3. The movement has organized centers
at which students seek to master
the fact as well as the duty of missions.
Even when they do not or can not go
themselves, they become, as ministers of
churches, professors, members of tbf:
learned professions, and leaders of men,
the intelligent friends and promoters of
missions.
"4. The movement challenges Christendom
to do its duty to the Master and
IJ8 King.
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SOU!
"5. Finally, the movement must lead
to a modification of old and the adoption
of new missionary methods. . . "
CUBA.
Janet Hay Houston.
We live in a day of paradox. The shal
low minded think they have triumphed
when they stumble on what they are
pleased to call a contradiction in theii
seiaom reaa BiDie. But we all err on our
own lines. The wisest among us is not
a whit wiser than his own experience.
And we are all fools when we meddle in
other men's matters. Finding out sooner
or later that we have "taken a dog
by its ears." Learning at length, in the
complex machinery of humanity, to
change the metaphor, to keep our hands
off the cog wheels that do not belong
to us.
All of which is a prologue to a very
short sentence, "People in general know
very little about Cuba."
I met a woman the other day who had
taught in Porto Rico. She instructed me
as to hnw nno chAulH Hroao in k?
Having lived eight years in that island,
I did not coincide with her views, and
felt I immediately became an object of
her scorn. But when it comes to one,
who has been in Havana, or worse still,
whose friend. or friend's friend has
touched at that port, beware of contradiction,
as you value your peace of mind.
My digestion is good and my nerves
are quiet, but I am pioneer in a fresh
held. And as has happened since the
world began some very good people think
it safest not to coincide. We have passed
the time of burning witches in the
open square and "the stocks" are only
seen in museums, yet each one of us,
and you, too, still do our little "stunts"
so to speak, in medieval ways just as
often as something out of our former experience
presents itself Hew trim it Jo
that in all things worth our acceptance
we must become as little children ere
we enter in, "believing all things."
Cuba like the star, "so near and yet
so far," is not taken seriously by many,
of course, excepting the United States
Government, the Sugar Trust and the
tobacco men. Many of our church people
prefer Atlantic City. We are really
"quite naughty" in Havana.
But leaving jesting aside, it is a constant
wonder to me that although Cuba,
fairer than the garden of Babylon, hanging
in mid-sea, only a few hours from
our eastern coasts, attracts so few of
our Ghrlatinn nonnlo V.??!-?
i uauAUC/ou
European tours still are their first love.
Now, after a forced year's absence, 1
And my heart stirring when her loveliness
rises before me in remembrance.
I remember one Thanksgiving night,
when a mission duty gave me a drive of
seven miles between Remedlos and Caibarien.
As we clattered out of Hemedios,
remembering and feeling she was
four centuries old, under a moon, whose
splendor touched every object to beauty,
and whose inky shadows as surely hid
oven the "works of darkness," a scene
opened upon me that lifted the soul for*
'H. December 15, igog.
ward to an epoch coming, when centuries
shall no longer be counted, and God
shall say once more over Eden: "It is
very good." The highway lay before us
like a line of light that issues from an
unclosed door of inner brightness. Palms
skirting the road, raised their fronds
from fifteen to ninety feet in air, standing
in individual majesty or cloistering their
granite boles in naive or aisle. I would
nave stayed to worship. Great inoon
flowers along the way spread with a luxuriance
of form and size never seen before,
being to such "manor born." The
character of the soil was white and under
a tropic moon lined out our course
like a ribbon stretched down. And the
moonlight! One is tempted to believe
it another sun. As for that, I have long
known there is a special phase and a
particular effulgence for Cuba and her
contiguous lands. That wonderful influence
of the southern moon, so good for
the soul and so perilous for the heart!
It may be in the air it wells through. A
Cuban exile, weary of heart and sick of
body, returning to her beloved land, said,
"I knew I was near Cuba when I saw
the skies."
That particular Thnnkaeivino niorv.*
with its mingling of snowy memories and
its actual setting of tropical balminess,
left me bewildered as by the witchery
of a dream. The atmosphere of Cuba is
hypnotic, a term I do not like in its degradation.
A cultured woman, having
brought an invalid son to Cuba, described
it well to ice bound friends In Michigan
by writing: "This Cuban air! 1 can't
tell you how it feels; it is like the touch
of baby fingers on my face."
A certain November I left New York
in her first "surly blast." "Off Hatteras,"
bad weather and an uncomfortable
nm/\n?* ~ *
umuuui ut boh nicKueHB aooaru; isolated
the well and made landing deisrable; had
it been only on Tempest's "acre of Band."
But our landing meant Matanzas,
through its approach of blue sky and
bluer water. With sea cloaks on the
arm, and these a burden, and the soft
Spanish language in the air, and a jangle
of mule bells on the wharf, and the
sampans bobbing in that blue water and
everybody glad to see "Las Americans."
And everybody, too, with so
much time, more than you ever imagined
was anywhere in the world, and,
too, something strange hanneniner inaiHn
of your heart, making you feel like you
did so long ago, when you made thistle
parasols and asked for "ginger cakes."
And you begin to smile like all the people
around you, making more smiles
back; feeling I had reached a lovely
land in a fairy book, where everybody
is good and going to live forever happy.
Having been a year in the United
States, I am homesick for Cuba. Not
only for her natural beauty, but to see
once more, face to face, our native Christians"
to whom America has giVen civil
liberty and in a measure soul freedom.
Come with me and look into their sweet
faces, and once under the spell of those
azure skies, you will think a month all
too short for lingering under their influ
ence.