piness of America! The wisdom of the Puritan founders is justified by the fruits of their works, and to-day America stands before the world the champion of liberty and enlightened Christianity. Modern skepticism may sweep over the continent of Europe, but it will have a hard time to crush American Christianity. We who are here forming a new spiritual kingdom in Japan, ought to follow wisely their example. We need not only churches but schools. And this Do-Shisha College, which has so auspiciously begun its career, may it become the Yale and Andover of Japan! Under its roofs may science and Christianity be taught side by side, and may it be a useful means to bring about a beautiful harmony- a happy marriage, so to speak — of reason and faith, of science and Christianity, and if any one will talk of conflicts between science and Christianity, may this college be pointed out as an unanswerable argument against it! May it live long, grow large, and increase in usefulness more and more! May hundreds of liberally educated, pious, and earnest Christian teachers and preachers be poured forth from under its roofs, all over the land, and, like the waters of the Nile, may they bring life and perpetuity and fruitfulness and blessing wherever they go! May not this land be plunged into the horrors of a second French Revolution, nor into the spiritual torpor of Germany, but may it speedily be converted into a land of enlightenment and of Christianity, where peace, hope, love, and joy dwell, whose God is Jehovah, and whose Saviour is Jesus Christ! May we all work for it and pray for it and wait for it!

THE CHILDREN AND THE CAUSE OF MISSIONS.

BY REV. SIMEON GILBERT, EDITOR OF "THE ADVANCE," CHICAGO. I. Is it not as well to reckon "this generation” as including all there are Is it fair tacitly to vote and practically to proclaim our children out of the company? Is there any good reason why, in respect to that cause which ought to interest the church of Christ universally and supremely, the distinct part and recognized participation of the children, in the church and of the church, should be adjourned over to what we may be pleased to call the "next generation?" They are as truly, whether or not as conspicuously, on the stage of action" now as they ever will be. They are here with us; they are of us; we ought not to push them off or thrust them back. To do so, wrongs them and hinders the work. When the disciples refused to let the little children come to the Master, he chided their spiritual obtuseness in thus keeping the children off. Can he be pleased with the behavior of our American Congregational churches (not to speak now of others), that they should have been so slow to admit, and make room for, the young, in joint-partnership with the rest of us, in this supremely interesting worldmissionary undertaking?

It is wonderful what an effect it has upon people, whether young or old, to be treated as if they were always taken into the account, as having their acknowledged place and part. There is an instructive incident given by

John B. Gough, in his Autobiography, of a man and his wife, who through intemperance had well-nigh touched bottom in respect to personal degradation, but who were at last persuaded to sign the pledge, and how, when having received their certificate, they were each assured: "Now, remember, you are one of us!" and how, as they walked away in the strange wonderment of their newly-resurrected manhood and womanhood, they glanced at each other and exclaimed: "D'ye hear that? The gintleman says, 'You are one of us!" Nor is it any wonder that, years after, when Mr. Gough was at their happy home, the man spoke of how the "old woman," when she put the children to bed, used to "weave in little bits beautiful" that God would bless the man that told them, "Now, remember, you are one of us." The incident illustrates a trait of human nature that is common to us all. And it is one which it were well for the managers of all great social enterprises not to forget.

2. It must not for a moment be admitted that a vast and intense interest in missions is something above the heads or the hearts of children. They can get hold of the idea of it, till they shall be possessed by it. There is nothing unnatural or impracticable about this. Children are characteristically sympathetic, and, with suitable instruction and treatment, their sympathies for the less favored in their own and other lands can be kindled into a sustained sentiment that shall amount to a positive and pervasive enthusiasm for the race. This has often happened in enlightened Christian homes; is happening all the while. Some good measure of it might be continually coming into manifestation. But as things are in most of our churches and schools, this preeminently Christian sentiment, this deep enthusiasm for others' good, this large, sweet habit of doing and giving for others, does not have "half a chance." Hardly any incentives to it are placed before the young. It is seldom, comparatively, that anything like a system of instruction concerning missions is so much as attempted.

The American Board, it should be said, has never wholly neglected the children in our churches. From the first it has done something to engage their interest. Returned missionaries almost always have talks for the children, and express the hope often enough, that they, too, will want to have some hand in the work, by and by, when they shall be "grown up to be men and women." Occasionally the Board has made a direct appeal to them, for some specific object, as the building of a "missionary ship." Nor when it has done so, as if it really expected a good response, and the churches have taken the matter resolutely in hand, has it been disappointed. The Missionary Herald has a department for the young, admirably chosen in subject matter, and exceedingly beautiful in its illustrations. It is an important movement in the right direction, — good as far as it goes. Another notable indication of progress is that among some of the leading Sundayschool people, the idea seems to be on the point of being distinctly recognized, that any education of the Christian character and induction into Christian life which takes no note of the awful urgency and the glorious attractions of the missionary cause, must have glaring, even if not fatal, defects. This year, at Chautauqua, as a kind of preface to the great Sundayschool Assembly conducted by Dr. Vincent, there was held a "missionary

conference," continuing three or four days. Next year, instead of being merely a prelude to the Sunday-school Assembly, we venture to hope that it will be made an integral part of it.

There are, moreover, certain churches here and there which take regular and careful pains to gather the gifts of the young, and their efforts have been attended with delightful success. Some of the local Womans' Boards, too, have given earnest thought to the matter. Some of their most thoughtful women have been considering, with a great deal of earnestness, if there be not some way by which the missionary interest and enterprise among the young may be organized into system.

The grand alignment in this forward movement, which shall include the children, is certain as the morning to come. Some people, says Mrs. Browning, are "kind when they think of it." Congregationalists in this country may be depended on, when once they begin really to think about it, to devise and put in operation some kind of thoroughly-planned method for saving much of what now is wasted, through neglect, during their earlier years of life. God will not put it into the heart of rich, old men nearing the purple glow of the future horizon to give by the thousand and the million, and then not touch the heart of Christian childhood.

The best things tried and approved, here and there, now and then, will be suitably noted, compared, systematized, and made known, and then made common. There is still more to follow; but this, it seems to some, is something that should follow pretty soon!

LIVING FOR CHRIST.

THAT it is a duty to live for Christ no believer in the authority of the Bible can deny. Jesus, by his own claim, is Master, and men are his stewards. In the parables of the pounds and the talents he teaches us that our powers are given us for use in his service, while an inspired apostle tells us of this Master: "He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them." There can be no mistake as to duty in this matter; and hence the phrase, “living for Christ," has become very common both in address and in prayer. There is danger that it become cant, a solemn utterance with little appreciation of its profound meaning and force.

What is it, then, to live for Christ? The phrase is a simple one, with no chance for a double meaning in it. Clearly it must mean the holding of life, and all that belongs to life, as subject to Christ's commands and subservient to his interests. We know well enough when one human being lives for a fellow-being. We have seen such instances of devotion, parents living for their children, wives for their husbands, servants for their masters. To make the interests of another one's own, to forecast his wishes or needs, to subordinate all personal desires for his sake, and to do this early and late, year after year, to do it cheerfully and unweariedly, this is to live for him. But to give a fellow being only a fraction of our time, and a pittance

of our earnings, a chance or occasional service, and call this living for him, would be absurd indeed.

Now there is no mystery thrown around this matter when the person to whom the service is rendered is other than human. Yet can there be any question that many are regarding themselves as living for Christ, who, if they offered a like service to a fellow-mortal, would not for a moment think they were living for him? Let us beware how we use a solemn phrase and apply it to ourselves, without apprehending its meaning. Living for Christ requires clearly that we seek in our lives the ends which Christ sought in his life. Can there be any question as to what those ends were? The purpose alike of his advent and of his ministry and death, was one and simple, namely, to seek and save the lost, to bring redemption to all men, to build up a kingdom of God on earth. With an unutterable compassion for sinners, with a consuming zeal for God's glory and man's salvation, did he spend his days on earth. To live for him means that we live for like ends, seeking to accomplish the work which he began and which he left for us to finish. It is impossible to read the story of Christ's pilgrimage on earth without perceiving that his Father's business, which he was ever about, was the establishment of his Father's kingdom His view took in the world, and he was planning how to bring the Gentiles as well as the Jews to the knowledge and reception of his gospel. All along his ministry he was sending out his disciples, bidding them tell men of his salvation, and he ended his ministry with the command to "go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." Who can question what interests lay nearest the heart of Christ? His great thought was of God's glory in the redemption of the world. To live for him is to make his thought our thought; to spend our days, and, if needful, to give our lives, in making known that redemption which was the object of his life and the purchase of his death.

over men.

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN AUSTRIA.

BY REV. JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, LL. D., BERLIN.

HAVING been appointed by the Prudential Committee to represent the American Board at the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance held at Basel, Switzerland, commencing August 31, Rev. Dr. Thompson prepared a paper concerning the restrictions put upon religious liberty in Austria. Owing to the absence of Dr. Thompson, by reason of serious illness, the paper was presented to the Conference by Rev. S. G. Brown, D. D., President of Hamilton College. There is not room in these pages for the whole of this remarkably clear and able paper, but a portion is here given. After a review of the Austrian Confession-laws, which, though somewhat contradictory, seem in their phraseology to be quite liberal, Dr. Thompson speaks as follows of the restrictions put upon the rights of conscience and of faith by the Austrian police.

THE Missionaries of the American Board who have for some years been laboring in Austria, have carefully conformed to these regulations concerning domestic worship and public religious meetings, and till recently, have been allowed to carry on their work of evangelization with but occasional

interruption from the police. These missionaries are men of piety, of learning, and of prudence; they are in full harmony with the faith and with the spirit of this Alliance, and they have kept themselves aloof from political affairs. As teachers of religion they scrupulously refrain from intermeddling with the domestic concerns of the state. But their work of evangelization has begun to bring forth fruit, and a number of persons in Prague and its vicinity have been awakened to spiritual life by the preaching and the conversation of these American missionaries, and of the native colporteurs who act under their direction. These persons belonged for the most part, to the Roman Catholic church, and a few to a recognized branch of the Reformed Church. Naturally they were drawn into affinity with the teachers who had enlightened them, and into fellowship with one another, as subjects of the same religious experience; and for the sake of mutual edification and improvement in the Christian life they met together for the study of the Word of God, and for simple acts of divine worship. They took the precaution to withdraw from their respective churches in the manner prescribed by law, and they submitted to the police a statement of their belief and of their desire to worship together as Biblical Christians, not connected with any recognized Confession. The police allowed them to hold religious meetings in a public hall, and in their private dwellings, and after carefully inspecting these assemblies, found nothing in them contrary to the law. Of a sudden, however, and for no assignable cause, the authorities began to look upon these simple Christian assemblies with suspicion. Gens d'armes would enter a meeting and take down the names of all present, by way of warning. They would even go into private houses at the hour of family worship and take notice of any strangers present. At length, on the 20th of March, 1879, in place of the customary permission to hold Evangelical meetings, Mr. Adams and his assistant, Mr. Horky, were notified that persons belonging to a Confession not legally recognized, have only the right to hold domestic worship, and that at domestic worship only the family and members of the household may be present. The right to hold public religious meetings in accordance with the provisions of the meeting-law was also denied, and the meetings Messrs. Adams and Horky had announced to the police, both public and private, were forbidden.

Mr. Adams and his assistant, Mr. Nowák, were summoned before the police, and under a penalty of twenty-five days imprisonment, or a hundred florins fine, were forbidden to hold in private houses any meeting for religious exercises, or to admit to their family worship any person not strictly a member of their own households. They were even forbidden to attend religious worship in each other's houses, or in any society not recognized by law. What this means is pithily shown by the answer of a missionary to a Lutheran pastor, whose Confession is recognized, who had proposed to make him a friendly visit. The missionary said, "You shall be most welcome; my house shall be at your disposal; I will give you a room; a bed, food, everything we have; but when my family come together to worship God, I must put you out of the house, for the Austrian police will not suffer you to pray with us."

If from religious scruples, a visitor should withdraw from the domestic