many other reasons why our progress is not so great as it ought to be, amongst others being the want of good example which is so often set by Christians, and therefore it behoves us to see that our own example in non-Christian lands is such as is calculated to raise esteem for Christianity. It also seems to me that one of the evidences of the truth of Christianity is the fact that in spite of the shortcomings of nominal Christians, and in spite of the difficulties, Christianity is so steadily progressing.

I will now call upon some of the members to discuss the paper.

The SECRETARY.-Mr. Chairman, I referred to a letter that has been written by Lord Cromer. When I was reading the paper I thought it of such extreme interest that I cut it out and brought it with me. It is within the memory of most of us that the Soudan was added to the British Empire by the victory of Lord Kitchener at Omdurman, and it has been under the authority of a new Sirdar, Sir Reginald Wingate, whom I once had the pleasure of meeting and travelling with from Port Said to Alexandria. He is the right man for the position which he holds with credit to himself and with great advantage to the Empire. He and Lord Cromer have united in requesting the Church Missionary Society to send missionaries not to the Mahommedans, the fanatical Mahommedans of the Soudan, but to the regions beyond, to a very high race of heathen idolaters.

The letter from Lord Cromer is as follows:

"CAIRO,

"23rd December, 1904.

"The Secretary,

"Church Missionary Society,

"Sir,

66 London.

"I understand from Mr. MacInnes, Secretary of your Mission in Egypt, that you are desirous of obtaining an expression of my opinion as to the prospect of missionary work in the Soudan. In my Annual Report for 1902 (p. 60) I said that both Sir Reginald Wingate and myself were of opinion that the time is still distant when missionary work may with safety and advantage be promoted amongst the Moslem population. There was no objection to the establishment of Christian schools in Khartoum, provided that

parents were warned that instruction in the Christian religion was intended. This opinion remains unchanged. The case of the more southern provinces of the Soudan, which are inhabited by pagan population, is different. There is no reason for imposing any restraint upon Christianity there, and the Mission will be welcome. This is more especially the case as regards education. I venture to express the hope that in any work undertaken by your Society special attention will be paid to some simple forms of industrial and agricultural instruction.

"An American and Austrian mission have been established in the Soudan; one on the Sobat river and the other on the White Nile. The Austrian mission has established two mission stations in the district lying west of the Nile. I enclose for your information a map showing that a large and populous district is still neglected.

"From Twi the boundary line proceeds to the Abyssinian frontier, and then follows the frontier to the Uganda border on 5° N. latitude. On the south it is bounded by the northern border of the Congo Free State and the Uganda province; on the west by a line drawn from Mashrael Rek to a point where the frontiers of the Congo Free State and the French State and the Bahr-el-Ghazal meet. No permission as to establishing missionary centres will be given until a sufficient period has been allowed to elapse for your Society to consider whether it wishes to occupy the extensive field now thrown open to it. I should be glad to receive information on the subject. No information from private Societies has been received to establish schools at their own expense, but in order to avoid confusion it ought to be mentioned that should such requests be received they will be considered.

"Sir R. Wingate has seen this letter and fully agrees with all that I have said."

Considering that this region borders on Uganda to the south and is connected with Egypt-by the Copts and Christians of the Nilewe should have, if this mission is established, a complete line of Christian missionary effort from the Cape to Cairo.

This is a most wonderful opening and one of great interest to us. Mr. ROUSE.-While not being able otherwise than to rejoice in the growth and spread of Christianity, even though it be largely in

name, in the world, I cannot but disagree with the author in his statement that it might not have been spread long ago and that thus the purpose of God would long since have been achieved. He would have us believe that a definite time having been fixed by the Almighty for the advancement of human good, Christ could not have come again before the end of that time, and therefore it was not to be expected that the Gospel would have spread over the world till the end of that time. But we do find in the Scriptures that God modifies His plans. He would have had the Israelites enter Canaan in two years; and they came to the borders of Canaan within the second year: but, because they had not faith to enter the land, He compelled them to wander thirty-eight years more, until all that generation was wasted away, with the sole exception of the two believing spies and Eleazar the priest.

Again, when the Lord Jesus was on the earth, he spoke of John the Baptist as being Elias, and yet he said that Elias was to come and restore all things (Matt. xvii, 10-13, et pll. cp. Mal. iv, 5, 6). How are we to reconcile the two expressions? except that if the Jews had accepted John the Baptist as the man sent to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord, they then would have received Jesus as the King, and the Kingdom then would have been set up in the world (cp. Luke i, 17). So, too, just after His ascension, the apostles thus appealed to the Jews: "Repent times of refreshing may come He shall send Jesus

that the from the presence of the Lord: and whom the heavens must receive until the restoration of all things." (Acts iii, 19, 20, R.V.) Therefore, if they had then repented, "The restoration of all things," that is to say, the visible establishment of God's righteous kingdom over the whole earth, would then have taken place.

Nor can we suppose that God meant Christian men to stop their missionary efforts. The author makes a slip in saying that. missionary efforts have never ceased. That is a mistake. McLear, who, I judge, is a good authority on this subject, distinctly states in his book, that from the time of the commencement of the Crusades down to the Reformation there was but one missionary; that was Raymond Lull, a man who received very little support

* The Apostles of the Middle Ages.

from the Church, but who bravely went thrice to preach to the Mahommedaus, in Africa, and was finally martyred amongst them. There was one other whom McLear does not mention who went all the way to China. But these were the only Roman Catholic missionaries through four centuries and a half.

I cannot agree that it was part of God's plan that the monks should remain in their cloisters, a few of them writing out the Scriptures in Greek and Latin and none doing anything towards spreading a knowledge of them. It required Wycliffe to come into the world and send out his bodies of good men, two by two, over the land, with copies of the Scriptures in their native language, before the word of God could be spread. And what did a leader of the Roman Catholic Church then say that Wycliffe was casting his pearls before swine; and yet, as Milton remarks, if the Lollards had not been crushed, we should have been the foremost nation in the world in establishing the Reformation in Europe.

Yet, while the Western Church was apathetic, and while the monks in their cloisters were leading lives of little use, there was a body of Christians who were preaching to the heathen world, had ventured right into China, and in India and Burmah had become a great power, with a multitude of converts, but who were regarded by the Roman Catholics as heretics. These were the Nestorians, who have left a monument in Northern China dating from the sixth century. The mistake of the Nestorians, however, was that they did not translate the Bible into the language of the people. Had they done so, their work would have been permanent everywhere. In China there is not a vestige of it left.

Colonel Hendley has told us how Christian supremacy in India is destroying evil customs. We might allude to the customs that formerly prevailed and which the English government has suppressed -the burning of widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands, the drowning of children in the Ganges, the self-destruction of men beneath Juggernaut's car. It has also hindered the very early marriages of Hindus by raising the minimum of age by two years; and of course it has put down lawless crime and violence in all directions. Let us hope that it will succeed in doing a vast deal more. We may further allude to the fact that the English Government has eucouraged and established leper hospitals and many institutions for the benefit both of mind and body in India; and undoubtedly

the Hindus in seeing these things cannot but conclude that Christianity is a true religion.

The pagans had no public hospitals or poor-houses or asylums for the advantage of the dumb, the blind, the lame and the insane such as we see spread over Christian countries; still less any society such as Christian England set the example of founding for protecting poor animals.

Professor LANGHORNE ORCHARD.-Since "nature" and God's spiritual kingdom are both under the same King, we shall agree with the author of this interesting paper that both may be expected to evidence a similar process of government and working. Undoubtedly, history brings before us "Purpose, Plan, Preparation, and fixed Times," evident in the growth of the Kingdom of God. The instances adduced from prophecy and from general history abundantly illustrate this pre-arranged timing of events. In connection with the preparation of a "suitable cradle" for Christianity, it is very noticeable that Alexander the Great died just at a time so specially critical, and that Seleucus transplanted two thousand Jewish families into all the cities of his kingdom. Things like these, which cannot be accounted for by any theory of coincidence, constitute a strong, and indeed decisive, argument in favour of the author's thesis.

I am glad that the author clearly affirms his belief in human free-will. Without free will there cannot even be morality. God never over-rides free will. But, though He does not over-ride, He uses and over-rules it, to carry out His own purposes. If a statesman, gifted with the wisdom and insight of a Bismarck, could so correctly guess as to what men would do, as often to make their actions subserve his plans, can we find any difficulty in believing that the certain fore-knowledge and unerring wisdom of God employs and over-rules all results of human free-will?

The great philosophies referred to by the author, reinforced, by the conclusions of the intellect, the conclusions of the heart. Their failure helped to prepare the way of the Lord.

After some observations by Colonel Alves, a cordial vote of thanks to the author was passed and the meeting separated.