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Dear Golden Age:
While lying here in the bay at Joffa (or Joppa)
waiting for the storm to subside that we may land
and go to Jerusalem, I wrote a brief sketch of my
trip from Beyrout, through Damascus and Galilee
to Caifa.
A party of- about sixty of us left the ship at
Beyrout, and took tne train for Damascus the 4th
inst., at 12 o’clock noon. Our route 1 lay across
the Lebanon Mountains, a distance of ninety miles.
Our railroad was a narrow gauge, the train rather
light. Each car was divided into two or three com
partments, each accommodating six or eight pas
sengers. This, though old style, adds very much
to the social feature of a trip. Leaving Beyrout with
its five thousand Europeans, thirty-five thousand
Greeks, twenty-six thousand Moslems and fifty-four
thousand others from the four winds of the earth;
a total of one hundred and twenty thousand people,
we started on our way up famous Lebanon. Passing
through orchards of oranges, lemons and olives, to
gether with palm trees, sycamores and grape vine
yards, we steadily mounted up and up, like an eagle
in her flight, tu* we found ourselves at the summit,
4,610 feet above sea level. How strange that in five
hours’ time we had climbed from
“A valley blooming like a rose,
To a summit clad in coldest snows.”
Strange enough, nearly every acre of this moun
tain below the snow line is in cultivation. At 11
o’clock that night we were in Damascus —“the old
est city in the world.” The hotel accommodations
were splendid for Syria. Next morning, bright and
early, after a repast of bread, jelly, honey and
coffee, we were out to drive in one long procession
over the city. The famous Arabian steeds and
victoria carriages made good tfieir reputation, even
with fault-finding Americans. We visited the ceme-
TRAINING SCHOOLS IN CHINA.
Prominent New York Teachers Will
Hold Bible Institutes in Celes
tial Empire.
By cable to Mr. John R. Mott, For
eign Secretary of the International
Committee of the Young Men’s Chris
tian Association, three summer con
ferences of missionaries in China,
through their committees, represent
ing the various leading denominations
of America, Great Britain, Canada and
Germany, have invited Dr. Wilbert
W. White and three others of the
Bible Teachers’ Training School to go
to China next summer, and the invi
tation has been accepted.
To accompany Dr. White are Dr.
Robert W. Rogers, Dr. Louis M.
Sweet and Miss Caroline L. Palmer.
The final arrangements have been
made for this group of Bible teachers
to go under the combined auspices of
the Committee of the Peitaiho, the
Kuling and the Mokanshon Confer
ences, the Shanghai Conference Com
mittee for the Promotion of Bible
Study and the Committee of the In
ternational Committee of the Young
Men’s Christian Association for China.
Mr. D. Willard Lyon, one of the in
ternational secretaries of the Young
Men’s Christian Association, will have
full charge of the itinerary, which
will include also Karuizawa, m Japan.
The party will sail on June 7th, go
ing byway of the Siberian railway.
They expect to reach Peitaiho, near
Pekin, on July 2nd, to begin work.
Kuling, the second place of confer
ence, is two and a half days up the
river from Shanghai, where the mis
sionary community in the summer
STORMBOUND MT JOPPA
IL bangs list Burton A. Hall Tells Stirring Story of Trabel.
THINGS THAT ARE HAPPENING
tery and saw the elaborate tombs of Fatima, daugh
ter of Mohammed, and two of his favorite wives.
We then drove past the reputed place where Paul
was let down from the city wall in a basket. From
there we hurried on to the house of Ananias—a
small mosque-like stone house, built by Hellen,
mother of Constantine the Great. Here I read the
ninth chapter of Acts. Next, we were shown into a
brass factory where all sorts of vessels and utensils
are hammered by hand out of brass. Our party left
S3OO or S4OO with this establishment.
Then we visited their most famous mosque—first
built for a pagan temple several centuries before
Christ, but captured and dedicated to John the Bap
tist, A. D. 323, by Constantine, and in A. D. 705 Khalif
el Walid reconstructed it into the present mosque.
Then after a long drive through “Straight Street,”
we were ready for lunch at the hotel Victoria.
In the afternoon we wandered through the bazaars
and the narrow, crooked, dirty, nasty, filthy streets,
crowding our way among camels, goats and dogs,
negroes, Arabs and asses, listening to the music (?)
of the braying donkeys, the howling, growling mangy
dogs; the prayers and pretence of the Moslem, the
loud cries of the clabber seller, the Comanche yells
of the peddler, the persuading tones of the “snide”
jeweler, while on every side black, dirty hands were
reaching out for a “backsheesh” (money). By and
by our curious eyes, ears and noses were satisfied.
And thus «nded the day’s visit to Damascus.
On Beautiful Galilee.
At sunrise next morning our train pulled out for
Lake Galilee. We ran along until noon through a
long, wide, stony valley, with just a few inhabit
ants here and there. We lunched at a little station
at 11:30 and were soon again on our way to the
sea. At 5:30 we found ourselves standing at the
south end of Lake Galilee. I cannot express my
season numbers about one thousand.
The third place of meeting will be
Mokanshon, near Shanghai.
The work in China will end anout
September Ist, when the party will
go to Japan for a short conference at
Karuizawa, and thence home by the
Pacific.
Among the members of the Shang
hai Centennary Bible Study Commit
tee are W. M. Bitton, of the Church
Missionary Society; Dr. A. P. Parker,
W. H. Warren, C. I. M.; E. W. Burt,
English Baptist; Llewellyn Lloyd, of
the Church of England, and Z. Zahn,
of Germany.
*
MERIDIAN MALE COLLEGE EX
PANDS.
Summer School to Be Organized.
One of the evidences of the wonder
ful growth of the Meridian Male Col
lege is the summer school which is
to be opened June 1. This feature is
the result of internal expansion, and
not merely an annexation. The de
mand for a summer school by stu
dents who are from a distance and
from those who want to make up
some work during the summer, also
from those who want to spend some
of the vacation better equipping
themselves to become self-supporting
by studying stenography or bookkeep
ing, seems to make it almost impera
tive that a summer school be opened.
That the “final product” of the col
lege is in demand and “making good”
is well known to those who know of
its work and are acquainted with its
graduates. One of its graduates of
1907 entered Harvard,- distinguished
The Golden Age for April 14, 1910.
himself as a public speaker, and last
month led to victory the Harvard De
bating team against Princeton. Oth
ers are filling important and responsi
ble positions. The demand for our
graduates can not anything like be
met.
The summer school will also fur
nish a splendid opportunity for
graded teachers to reinforce them
selves and prepare to make their
labors more profitable. The school
will try to accommodate its attend
ants and to supply their needs. Its
aim is to turn out trained young men,
with pure lives and a deep-seated pur
pose to live for God and humanity.
God always has honored and blessed
such a purpose, and will continue to
do so.
I?
MILLION MOVEMENT IN KOREA.
(Continued from Page 6.)
One of the foremost missionaries in
Korea is Dr. James S. Gale, of Seoul.
He has been here for a score of years,
and is the author of “The Vanguard”
and other books on the country. In
response to my request for his opin
ion of the million souls movement he
gave me the following: i
“The present moment calls for spe
cial effort in Korea. Its watchword of
‘A Million Souls’ rings out at a time
of supreme national hopelessness.
Wrecked and humiliated through her
own failures, incapable of self-defence
or self-government, she has fallen to a
place of contempt among all nations.
Authority no longer rests with her,
finances are out of her control, the
world of graft and fraud in which she
lived has been spirited away, and to
day stripped, and convicted and un-
feelings when mine eyes first beheld these sacred
waters. We were to go from there to Tiberias, six
miles distant, in small row boats. The sea was so
boisterous we feared to embark, but pressed by
the chief guide, we were soon headed towards Tibe
rias. Four natives manned each boat. We were
out something like a mile when a dark cloud arose;
the sailors made for shore, but we were too far
away. The angry storm caught us. I looked for the
other boats. Part of the time I could see them
on the crest of a wave, then they would go out of
sight in the hollow between two waves. The water
would not only slash into our boats, but clear across
them. Scared? Os course we were scared. We
were all scared for it seemed that there was no ray
of hope. Not so much afraid to die, but the so’emn
thought of being drowned in a sea six thousand
mlies from home and native land, without the kiss
of a mother or wife or the touch of her loving hand.
Drenched with water, covered with black clouds,
staring death in the face, clinging to our boats like
a child to its mother’s neck, we raised oqr hearts
to that Galileean, Who, in the long ago, took the
waves of this same troubled sea into His lap and
hushed them to sleep, as a mother would her babe.
Soon the clouds gave way to sunshine, the waves
forgot their anger and our proud feet rested once
more on land.
The storm is growing so desperate I cannot write
more. For ten hours we have been tossing in our
great ship, just out from Joppa. Maybe we wiT get
to land in the morning and go out to Jerusalem.
“I know my Heavenly Father knows,
The storms that would my way oppose,
But He can drive the clouds .away
And turn my darkness into day.”
Fraternally,
March 9, 1910. BURTON A. HALL.
done, she looks for a Saviour. This
is the supreme moment. We can not
reckon on the future or foretell it.
Now is the moment, and it is here: the
wide-open door, the humbled people,
the waiting heart. Will he come, this
great somebody for whom they wait?
Is it the Church? Is it the Salvation
Army? Is it Education? Is it Amer
ica? Who will save them? This is
the question. Jesus the Nazarene,
specialist for all hopeless ones, des
pised ones, incapable ones, impure
ones, fools and knaves, thieves and
robbers, outcasts and riffran of men
and nations. He is here, touching this
one and that. Reader, if thou know
est how to pray, pray that this moment
may be made sure, this sealing of a
hundred and forty-four thousand and
all the extra ones to make up the mil
lion.”
Will you not pray, and pray daily
for a great outpouring of God’s Spirit
upon Korea? A call has just been is
sued by a committee of missionaries
in Seoul asking that March 20, 1910,
be observed in America, England,
Australia, and other lands as a “Day
of Prayer” for Korea. It is suggested
that on this day the million souls
movement be explained both in church
and Sunday-school, and all Christians
be requested to join in daily prayer,
alone and in little groups, for such a
mighty outpouring of God’s Spirit up
on the land that the million converts
may be secured by the 9th of October,
1910. The missionaries are convinced
that NOW is the hour of crisis for
Korea. Will you help by prayer?
He is below himself that is not
above an injury,—Quarles.
