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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.