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  THE CHILD IN THE
  MIDST

  _A Comparative Study of Child Welfare in
  Christian and Non-Christian Lands._


  BY
  MARY SCHAUFFLER LABAREE
  (MRS. BENJAMIN W. LABAREE)


  “_And He took a little child and set him in the midst of them._”


  PUBLISHED BY
  The Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions
  West Medford, Massachusetts




  COPYRIGHT, JANUARY, 1914


  CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON THE UNITED
  STUDY OF FOREIGN MISSIONS


  FRANK WOOD, PRINTER
  BOSTON, MASS.




FOREWORD


The Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions sends
out the fourteenth text-book with hearty appreciation of the favor
with which the thirteen already issued have been received. The phases
of work which have been treated and the manner of their treatment have
appealed to a large constituency of various names, resulting in an
increase of knowledge and an impulse to pray and work and give.

This is not a book for children, but a book about children the world
over, and with its accurate statement of facts solicits attention to
the great need of new effort in behalf of children in non-Christian
lands. The author, Mary Schauffler Labaree (Mrs. Benjamin W.), a
missionary daughter, granddaughter, wife, and mother, was born into an
environment of missionary intelligence and activity in which her
girlhood was trained. Later years of experience in Persia, and
subsequent association with many nationalities in our own land, have
given her large opportunity to know whereof she writes with tender,
sympathetic touch. If the book may lead others to know and do, its
purpose will be fulfilled.

                              CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON THE UNITED STUDY
                              OF FOREIGN MISSIONS.

                                        MRS. HENRY W. PEABODY.
                                        MISS E. HARRIET STANWOOD.
                                        MRS. DECATUR M. SAWYER.
                                        MRS. FRANK MASON NORTH.
                                        MRS. JAMES A. WEBB, JR.
                                        MRS. A. V. POHLMAN.
                                        MISS OLIVIA H. LAWRENCE.
                                        MISS GRACE T. COLBURN.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


                                                            Page

  FOREWORD                                                     v

  CHAPTER I.
      The Child in its Helplessness. “The place where the
          young Child lay”                                     1

  CHAPTER II.
      The Child at Home. “Train up a child in the way he
          should go”                                          45

  CHAPTER III.
      The Child at Play and at Work. “Boys and girls
          playing in the streets thereof”                     87

  CHAPTER IV.
      The Child at School. “Come, ye children--I will
          teach you the fear of the Lord”                    131

  CHAPTER V.
      The Child at Worship. “Suffer the little children
          to come unto Me”                                   177

  CHAPTER VI.
      The Child at Work for Christ. “I must be about my
          Father’s business”                                 221

  CHAPTER VII. Appendix
      The Mother and the Christ-Child. “Behold the
          handmaid of the Lord”                              259




CHAPTER I.

THE CHILD IN ITS HELPLESSNESS

“The place where the young Child lay.”

    What do the children need?--“The Age of the Child”--All children
    to be included--Rights of every child and every
    mother--Conservation of human resources--Eugenics and
    heredity--Protection of motherhood--Suffering
    mothers--Superstitions regarding new-born
    infants--Twins--Infanticide--Bathing and clothing
    children--Feeding--Hygiene--Starving children--Infant
    mortality--Health--Diseases and their treatment--What missions are
    doing for the helpless children.


[Sidenote: What do the children need?]

“What do the children of India most need?”

The question was asked of an earnest young teacher, at home on her
first furlough. It was easy to see how quickly her thoughts flew back
to that school for little low-caste children which had so recently
been started, and with a far-away look in her eyes she answered:--

“What the children of India need is _childhood_ itself. They are
little old men and women, and they need to learn what it means to be
happy, care-free children, to play, and to have good times.”

“What do the children of Syria most need?”

This time it was a beautiful, young missionary mother who answered
quickly:--

“The greatest need of the children in Syria is _educated motherhood_.
They are born, carried around, and then turned loose to do as they
please as soon as they are able to toddle. It would mean that they
would be kept clean physically, would be properly fed, taught, and
trained.”

“What is the greatest need of the children in Persia?”

The answer came from a father of little children who had himself been
a missionary’s child in Persia and knew well the country and its
needs.

“What Persian children need is _proper home environment_.” A splendid
Christian teacher was talking with one of the boys of our Moslem
school about personal purity. “That is all very well,” responded the
boy, “but what do you really expect of me with my training and home
life when my father has had one hundred and five wives?”

“What do the children of America need?”

We turn and ask ourselves and one another this question. And lo!--we
find that the needs of childhood are very much the same the world
around. What is being done to meet those needs? Ah! that is a very
different question, and startling, yes, more than startling, are the
contrasts discovered as the thoughtful woman studies the subject of
child life.

[Sidenote: “The Age of the Child.”]

The “unity of childhood” throughout the world makes this a vital
question to all fathers and mothers, to educators, religious and
social workers, to every thinking man and woman. So urgent a question
has it become in many Christian lands that this has been aptly called
“the age of the child.” In our own land the needs and rights of the
child are being discussed on every hand, and through the Public
Schools, Juvenile Courts, Juvenile Commissions, Federal Children’s
Bureau, Playground Movement, Child Welfare Exhibits, Child Labor laws,
and numerous other agencies we are striving to deal with the problem
that involves the whole future of our land for weal or woe.

[Sidenote: _All_ children must be included.]

But just as I cannot care for the interests of my child alone, but
must recognize that his life will be vitally influenced by whatever
concerns his playmates and schoolmates, so I must inevitably be drawn
into consideration of what is due to the children of the community,
the state, the country, the world. What right have I to demand that my
baby be well fed, my child be protected by laws that ensure his
safety, that proper schools be provided for his education, that my
daughter’s purity and girlhood be respected, unless I concede that
right to every mother in the world and _care_ whether she has that
right or not?

One earnest mother heart poured itself out in these words when it was
planned that the women’s missionary societies should take up the study
of the children of non-Christian lands:--

“Sometimes I almost resent the absurd extremes of tenderness and care
for babies here, when I think of the world of neglected children. It
seems to me, our Women’s Missionary Societies are just a great,
beautiful, organized motherhood for the world, and the women don’t
half know or appreciate this or they would be swarming in by
thousands and giving their money by millions.”

If any woman is tempted to feel that the problems of our own land are
so overwhelming and so imperative as to demand all our time and
strength and attention, let her read what is said on this subject by
Edward T. Devine, the eminent writer and professor and social worker,
who is one of the greatest leaders in all lines of child welfare and
general welfare work in America. Dr. Devine links our obligations to
foreign lands inseparably to our duties to our own country.

    Our responsibility to foreign peoples,--our responsibility to
    immigrants who come to live in America, and to the negroes whom
    our own ancestors brought here by force, our responsibility to all
    those who for any reason do not fully share in that degree of
    prosperity and in that type of civilization which are our
    heritage, thus becomes clear and is seen to be at one with our
    direct personal responsibility towards those who for any reason
    need our sympathy, our fraternal co-operation, and our personal
    help.[1]

[Sidenote: Testimony of Alonzo Bunker.]

Couple with the utterances quoted above such words as the following by
Alonzo Bunker, whose faithful labors among the Karens of Burma have
worked wonders in the transformation of a race, and it seems as though
no conscientious, intelligent man or woman would need to go further
for proof that the awakening social conscience regarding the welfare
of children in our own land _must_ include in its study and its
efforts for improvement the children of _all_ lands.

    This unity of childhood marks the unity of the human race, and the
    saying that “human nature is the same in all the world” gains new
    emphasis when studied from the standpoint of the child.

    ... These characteristics which mark the unity of childhood among
    all races, sometimes appear to be accentuated among less
    intelligent peoples; so that, before the fogs of sin and
    ignorance have blurred the image of God in which they were
    created, they show a strength and brightness more marked than in
    their more favored brothers and sisters in enlightened lands.
    This fact has not received due attention in ethnological
    studies.[2]

[Sidenote: The rights of every child.]

_Every child has the inalienable right to be well-born, to be
welcomed, to be properly cared for and trained through the years
of helplessness and development, to follow his instinct for
healthful play, to receive an education sufficient to make him a
self-supporting, useful member of society, to have such moral and
spiritual training as will develop the highest type of character of
which he is capable._

[Sidenote: The rights of every mother.]

_Every mother has the right to accept the duties, responsibilities,
and sufferings of motherhood of her own free will, to be surrounded by
such conditions as will help her to bring her child into the world
with the greatest possible safety to her own life and health and to
those of her child, and to loving care during her days of weakness and
recuperation._

[Sidenote: Conservation of human resources.]

Where the rights of mothers and children are not thus recognized and
guarded, we have a condition that endangers the welfare of the race
and leads to its deterioration. Every nation has looked well to the
conservation of some part of its human resources,--to its royal line,
to its soldiers or sailors, to its wise men and astrologers, to its
priests and religious leaders.

The well-known methods of ancient Sparta, which consisted in
destroying all weak children and submitting all boys of seven years
old and upward to the most rigorous training under state educators,
resulted in producing a race of warriors. Fighting men were what
Sparta wanted, and fighting men she produced. The possible heir to a
throne in modern times must have no drop of common blood in his veins.
Royalty must therefore mate with royalty in order to conserve the
royal line. And so we might go on and prove how one country after
another observes the great law of conservation of human resources
along some favorite line.

[Sidenote: Importance of the children of a nation.]

But a nation to be truly great and to be sure of future development
and success must realize that its greatest wealth lies in its
children, its highest possibilities are wrapped up in all its little
ones, its one hope for the future is in the childhood of the nation.
Many earnest writers of to-day are emphasizing in one way or another
this great truth in relation to children.

Mrs. Frederick Schoff in an address at the National Congress on
Hygiene and Demography makes a most practical application of these
principles, showing some ways in which the desired results may be
attained.

    It takes time to battle down the old wall of belief that mother
    instinct teaches a woman all she need know about child nurture....
    The great functions of fatherhood and motherhood should not be
    ignored in the training of children for life. They should be held
    up as the highest and most far-reaching functions of human
    life....

    “One generation, one entire generation of all the world of
    children _understood_ as they should be, loved as they ask to be,
    and so developed as they might be, would more than begin the
    millennium,” has been truly said by that lover of childhood,
    Frances Hodgson Burnett.

    Child Welfare is at the foundation of world-welfare. Child
    nurture is the greatest science of the age. To arouse the whole
    world to a realization of its duty to the children ... is the
    propaganda in which all who see the infinite possibilities of the
    child should unite.[3]

[Sidenote: Eugenics and Heredity.]

In a study of Childhood such as this, undertaken by Christian women in
their missionary societies and mission study classes, it is not enough
to begin with the child at the day of his birth, but we must consider
also the pre-natal influences, the history of his parents, and, in
fact, all those deep and far-reaching subjects which are engrossing
the attention of students in America and England and on the Continent
of Europe. In studying the subjects of eugenics and heredity, in
watching the social investigator as he shows us how from one drunken,
vagabond woman in Germany there were 834 known descendants, the great
majority of whom were prostitutes, tramps, paupers, criminals, and
murderers, let us remember that the principles arrived at apply with
equal significance to the future of the citizens of China and of
Turkey.

A missionary mother from China tells us that Chinese mothers make no
preparation for the coming of their babies because of foolish
superstitions, fearing that, if they prepare, it will bring bad luck
and the baby will die. “So,” she continues, “Chinese mothers miss the
delightful months we American mothers consider the best in our lives,
and the babies are deprived of the right sort of pre-natal influence.”

One missionary draws our attention to the fact of the awful fears and
deadly terror that haunt the lives of so many people in India, and
asks if this may not well be the result of the fact that their mothers
are the little, shrinking, frightened child-wives of India. “The
wrongs of Hindu womanhood in all past ages,” says Edward Payson Tenney
in his volume on “Contrasts in Social Progress,” “have been avenged by
the propagation of a race inferior to that which would have peopled
Hindustan to-day, had the domestic and social status of the mothers of
a great people been of a different character.”

Dr. Charles C. Selden, assistant to Dr. John G. Kerr in the Asylum for
the Insane in Canton, says that there are no statistics that will
allow comparison between the number of insane in China and America.
“If conditions are in any particular worse in China than in America,
it is along the line of imbecility resulting from bad heredity. Under
the social ideals of China every man is anxious to marry, but no man
is permitted to seek a wife for himself. The contract of marriage is
always made by a third party, and often a man finds himself bound to
an imbecile, insane or chronically diseased wife whose father has paid
the marriage broker a high price to get her a husband. There is surely
a great need for the study and practice of eugenics in China.”

[Sidenote: Protection of motherhood.]

It is only within the last few decades that the protection of
motherhood has been recognized in civilized lands as an economic
principle. In the protection of the mother lies the welfare of the
nation. But alas! the light of this knowledge has not yet begun to
penetrate into the darkness of heathen and Mohammedan lands.

Intelligent Christian women will find much food for thought and
material for interesting study in looking up the history of races now
extinct or those that are dying out. Trace to their true source the
reasons for the decadence of a race and try to discover if the
principles of practical, applied Christianity, used betimes in all
their truest and most enlightened methods, would tend to save and
elevate such a race. In Robert H. Milligan’s recent book, “The Fetish
Folk of West Africa,”[4] his fourth chapter is on “A Dying Tribe.” A
few extracts will show some of the reasons for the adjective “Dying.”

[Sidenote: “A Dying Tribe.”]

    This amiable and attractive people, the Mpongwe tribe, is now but
    a dying remnant, hurrying to extinction. It is not long since they
    were numbered by tens of thousands; now there are probably not
    more than five hundred pure Mpongwe.... The first exterminating
    factor was slavery.... The slave traffic was succeeded by the rum
    traffic; and it would not be easy to say which of the two has
    proved the greater evil for Africa.... Except among the few
    Christians, an abundance of rum is used at every marriage and
    every funeral and both men and women drink to drunkenness.... I
    have known of parents getting their own children to drink to
    intoxication for their amusement. It is doubtful whether there is
    another tribe in all West Africa so besotted with alcoholism as
    the Mpongwe. Physicians agree that it is one of the chief causes
    of their increasing sterility.

    Another factor in the extermination of the Mpongwe is the
    demoralization of domestic life incident to methods of trade....
    White traders all along the coast employ the Mpongwe as middlemen
    between them and the interior people, who possess the export
    products. The white man gives the middleman a certain quantity of
    goods on trust. With these he goes to the interior and
    establishes a small trading-post in one or several towns.... He
    has a wife or wives at Gaboon, and he takes to himself a wife or
    two at each of his interior trading-centres....

    This demoralization of domestic life is even worse for the
    Mpongwe women than for their absent husbands. There is a large
    settlement of white men in Gaboon, most of them government
    officials.... Nearly all the Mpongwe women become the mistresses
    of these men.... The marriage tie in Gaboon has long ceased to be
    a “tie.”... The Protestant Christians of Gaboon are a very small
    community; but they are the best Christians I have known in
    Africa. They alone of the Mpongwe have good-sized families of
    healthy children. They are the living remnant of a dying tribe.

[Sidenote: The sufferings of motherhood.]

Two outstanding facts make the experience of motherhood in
non-Christian lands a time of almost intolerable anguish, both
physical and mental. The first of these facts is the absence of
skilful, intelligent care previous to and during childbirth, and the
second is the presence of innumerable superstitions that envelop the
mother and her little one and the whole household.

It is a most interesting study to learn how customs differ in various
lands and swing to extremes, from Persia, where the time of childbirth
is the occasion for a large neighborhood gathering of women and
children, to certain regions of China, where we are told that there is
an absolute interdict on seeing mother or child for forty days after
the birth, and during that time many and many a little one
mysteriously disappears, never to be heard of again. In China the
mother who loses her life before being able to give birth to her
child is consigned by popular opinion to the very lowest hell, which
is said to be reserved for the worst criminals. In a large Buddhist
temple on a hill outside of Ningpo hangs a huge bronze bell, over
which are tied numberless bunches of hair of women who have died in
childbirth. When the bell is rung, the motion is supposed to pull the
poor women out of the place of punishment. Among the Lao a woman dying
in childbirth is not allowed to be cremated, for her death is supposed
to have been caused by evil spirits and the victim is blamed and is
not deemed worthy of cremation wherein is _merit_. These suffering
mothers feel as if an angel from heaven had come to their aid, when
the loving face of a missionary physician stoops over them, and her
skilful hands minister to their needs. A few words by Dr. E. M. Stuart
of the Church Missionary Society, at work in Ispahan, Persia, give a
vivid picture of the need for women physicians and nurses to do this
work,--a need that exists not only in Mohammedan harems, but in the
zenanas of India and in the homes of other lands where women live in
seclusion.

[Illustration: HOW BEDOUIN MOTHERS CARRY THEIR BABIES]

    In every Moslem land there are countless lives lost every year
    from lack of skilled assistance when it is sorely needed.... This
    work calls specially for women-doctors and nurses, for though
    Moslem women will consent to see men-doctors for many of their
    ailments, and will even crowd out the men-patients at dispensaries
    taken by male doctors, very few will allow a man to give them the
    assistance they need in difficult labour; were even the women
    themselves willing, it is very uncommon for the husbands and other
    male relations to consent to it. As a rule they would rather the
    women died than allow a man to interfere; the only comfort they
    give them is the assurance of the Prophet that women who die in
    childbirth go straight to Paradise.

[Sidenote: Superstitions regarding newborn infants.]

There is scarcely a land outside the pale of Christian civilization
where the newborn infant is not surrounded by absurd, painful, or
distressing ceremonies because of superstitions that may not be
ignored, the “Evil Eye” that must be averted, or ceremonies that are
to be observed because handed down from generation to generation. One
of the most astonishing and picturesque of these observances is
described by the Swiss missionary, Henri A. Junod, in his careful
study of “The Life of a South African Tribe.”

    The second act is the _rite of the broken pot_.... This is a
    medical treatment and a religious ceremony combined. It is
    performed by the family doctor on the threshold of the hut in the
    following way: He puts into this piece of broken pottery pieces of
    skin of all the beasts of the bush: antelopes, wild cats,
    elephants, hippopotami, rats, civet cats, hyenas, elands, snakes
    of dangerous kinds; and roasts them till they burn. The smoke then
    rises, and he exposes the child to it for a long time, the body,
    face, nose, mouth. The baby begins to cry; he sneezes, he coughs;
    it is just what is wanted; then the doctor takes what remains of
    the pieces of skin, grinds them, makes a powder, mixes it with
    tihuhlu grease of the year before last, and consequently hard
    enough to make an ointment. With this ointment he rubs the whole
    body of the child, especially the joints, which he extends gently
    in order to assist the baby’s growth.

    All this fumigation and manipulation is intended to act as a
    preventive. Having been so exposed to all the external dangers,
    dangers which are represented by the beasts of the bush, the
    child may go out of the hut. He is now able “to cross the
    foot-prints of wild beasts” without harm.... This rite of the
    broken pot is also the great preventive remedy against the much
    dreaded ailment of babies, convulsions.

[Sidenote: The Evil Eye.]

From land to land you may travel, through Africa, Asia, and the
Islands of the Pacific, and all the poor little babies and their older
brothers and sisters will be found to be victims of superstitions that
surround and hamper and often injure their pitiful little lives. The
Evil Eye,--oh! how it is feared and how every possible and impossible
means is used to avert it. You must not think of openly admiring a
Mohammedan baby, or of wearing anything black on your head when making
your first call upon it, for you would certainly cast the Evil Eye on
it. A Maronite woman in the Lebanon mountains, Syria, had lost a baby
three or four weeks old,--her first baby boy. She told a missionary
that the child had died because while he was sick they opened an egg,
and found therein an eye (the life-germ) and that was the Evil Eye
which had killed the child.

[Sidenote: Teething.]

“Children in Nyago, Africa,” we read in a Church Missionary Society
report, “receive the tribal mark by being branded on their foreheads
with a hot iron. Some of the front teeth are extracted as soon as the
child can speak.” The teething period as well as every other part of a
child’s life has to be safe-guarded from malicious influences. For
instance, a child of the Thonga Tribe in South Africa has a white bead
tied to a hair about the forehead as soon as it has cut the two
upper and lower incisors, for, unless this is done, there is no hope
that the child will become intelligent; he would shiver instead of
smiling, and the other teeth would not come out normally.

[Sidenote: Evil spirits “driven out” by the missionary.]

Thank God that there are sometimes missionaries near at hand who have
won the love and confidence of the mothers and who are allowed to
“drive out the evil spirits” by means of applied Christianity, common
sense, and cleverness. Here is an example of all three means used for
a baby on the borders of Pigmy Land.

    One morning a woman brought down to the dispensary a wee morsel of
    three weeks; it was a pitiful little object of mere skin and bone.
    The mother explained that it had been poisoned out of spite, or it
    was possessed of an evil spirit. “See,” said she, “I have done all
    I could to let out the poison or devil.” Looking at its body I saw
    it was covered with a number of small, deep cuts, and the blood
    had been left to dry. Low moans and a tired cry came from the
    poor, little, helpless mite as the flies tortured its mutilated
    body. After questioning the mother the “evil spirit” took the form
    of bananas and mushrooms, on which she had been bringing up the
    three weeks’ infant! Feeding bottles were an unknown luxury, and,
    as no equivalent had been invented, babies were compelled to lap
    from the hand, an art they never properly learned and thrived on
    very poorly. Some three dozen india rubber “comforters” were sent
    out to me, and these I managed to fix on empty ink bottles or
    medicine bottles, and so a new fashioned “Allenbury feeder” was
    introduced. The demand far exceeded the supply, so they could only
    be lent out by the month.[5]

[Sidenote: Superstitions regarding twins.]

Strangely enough the birth of twins seems to be regarded with horror
or disgust, or at least as a misfortune, in almost all lands where
Christ, the Lover of children, is not known. In some parts of Africa
the little twin babies are stuffed into a pot and thrown into the
woods to die, and their mother is considered disgraced for life or
sent into exile. A missionary of the Church Missionary Society of
London tells us that in West Africa the idea is that by the law of God
human births should be single; therefore, if a mother has twins, she
has been degraded to the level of a beast, the children are also
beasts, and their death is necessary in order to preserve the human
race pure and to prevent misfortune. Japanese fathers will not let a
little child look into a mirror and see its double, for fear that when
grown it will be unfortunate enough to have twins!

As there is no phase of life that Christian missions cannot touch and
change, so among some of the African West Coast tribes, as the people
have learned of Christianity, twin murder has been abandoned along
with human sacrifice, though even harder to eradicate.

[Sidenote: Infanticide.]

Were twin murder alone prevalent among non-Christian races, it would
be reason enough for earnest effort and prayer on the part of every
Christian mother in the world until it could be stamped out. But the
crime of infanticide is so frightfully prevalent in China, India, and
the Pacific Islands that it is a loud challenge to Christian parents
to bring into darkened hearts and homes the knowledge of Him who
considered it a capital offense even to “cause one of these little
ones to stumble.”

In very few cases do we read of infanticide being practiced at the
present time on boy babies. Twin murder as mentioned above, the
killing in Central Africa of “monstrosities” who have been born with a
tooth cut, or who cut their upper teeth first, and the putting away of
illegitimate children among some Mohammedans, seem to be almost the
only exceptions to this rule. The poor little girl babies, not wanted,
not welcomed, considered a disgrace and an expense, must again and
again pay the penalty for being girls with their lives.

“Why should the girl live?” the Pacific Islander would say to the
early missionaries, “She cannot poise the spear, she cannot wield the
club.”[6]

[Sidenote: Causes of infanticide in India.]

Rev. E. Storrow has made a careful study of the causes of infanticide
in India, and his conclusions are worthy of our attention.

    Our knowledge, at the best imperfect, is confined to the present
    century, the period of British supremacy.

    Three causes have led to it:--

    1. Great moral laxity, combined with indifference to infantine
    life, and a desire to conceal wrong doing, which the privacy of
    native habits renders comparatively easy.

    2. Religious fanaticism has led to the crime in restricted
    areas....

    3. But infanticide, springing out of disappointment at the birth
    of girls, because of their assumed inferiority to boys, the
    lowering of the family repute, and the inevitable expense
    demanded by usage on their marriage, chiefly requires our
    attention; because it grew into a system which was hardly
    concealed, and became prevalent in Rajputana, Gujarat, Cutch, and
    other great districts in Central and Western India....

    The little ones were usually destroyed immediately after
    birth.... The reasons for such a usage, widely established among
    such people, and perpetuated through many generations, are worthy
    of close attention.

    Cruelty is not a Hindu characteristic.... But the people are
    callous and apathetic. They would not deliberately inflict
    suffering and take pleasure in it, but they would not move hand
    or foot to rescue such as were greatly suffering.... This goes
    far to explain the unchallenged prevalence for ages of such
    atrocities as suttee and infanticide....

    “A mother of sons” is one of the highest compliments that can be
    paid to a wife; “a mother of daughters” is one of the most
    contemptuous and scornful of all terms of reproach. This explains
    the gladness with which the birth of sons is welcomed, the
    disappointment manifest at the birth of daughters, and the
    disposition to put them away....

    But whilst these were the causes generally operative, there were
    two special ones, which were influential among the haughty,
    high-caste Rajputs and kindred tribes--the difficulty of
    procuring suitable husbands for their daughters, when the
    customary age for marriage arrived; with the supposed disgrace of
    having unmarried daughters, and the difficulty of defraying the
    heavy expenses which usage demands....

    Happily, the crime is abating through the persistent action of
    the government, and yet more because of that great wave of
    renewed opinion and sentiment passing over the people. But that
    this crime is yet frequent, and the law evaded, is evident.[7]

Was there a dry eye in the auditorium at Northfield when Mrs. James
Cochran, only a few weeks before her death, told of the little girl
babies in China who are thrown out to die? All could feel the
throbbing love of her mother heart as she told the story in such
simple words to the hundreds of young women gathered before her. Who
among them could ever again be guiltless if she did not do her share
towards saving the baby girls of China? Listen to her words:[8]

    Confucianism wants no little girls, for they are of no use. It is
    very nice to have one or two, but in the part of China from which
    I come it is absolutely a custom, if there are more than two or
    three, to murder the others in some horrible way. One night one of
    my pupils came to my class very soberly. At first she whispered to
    the women about her and then they began to whisper to each other.
    Finally I inquired the reason. One of the women replied, “She is
    feeling badly because they are killing a little baby down at her
    house.”

    “Killing a little baby!”

    “Yes,” the girl replied, “they have three little girls and
    another girl has just come. I feel so badly because she is a
    dear, fat, little baby. I did not want to see her die, but my
    sister is determined to kill her.”

    “Oh,” I said, “you go and bring that baby to me. I can take care
    of her.”

    So she went, but before she arrived the baby had been murdered in
    a way too dreadful to tell.

[Sidenote: Bathing of children.]

It is rather entertaining to pick up, one after another, books and
magazine articles written for children about the children of
missionary lands, and to find them all starting out with the
proposition, “Children are very much the same the world around.” How
are we going to reconcile this statement with the fact that some
children survive and even thrive upon treatment that would mean
certain death to others? What would happen to the little American baby
first opening his eyes on the world, if he were taken out of doors as
the babies are in Central Africa between four and five o’clock in the
morning, when the cold night winds are still abroad, and cold water
were dashed over him, and he were left naked out there to dry? The
cold water treatment of the Africans and the Lao differs widely from
the baths of little ones in Japan where the water must be nearly
boiling hot to be of the proper temperature. But in Persia it would be
sure death to a newborn baby to be bathed at all,--he must be
carefully rubbed with salt as were the properly-cared-for infants of
Ezekiel’s time! (Ez. 16:4.) Then into a cradle he is not laid, but
strapped, wound round and round until his little legs and arms are
rigid and immovable, and the soft bones of the back of his head are
flattened as he lies there day after day. Oh, how we long to pick him
up and let him change places occasionally with one of the imperial
babies of Japan, who must be held in some one’s arms day and night
from the time of his birth until he can walk. But no, there he must
lie, and, in order that he may not take cold and fall a victim to that
dangerous enemy, fresh air, over the ridgepole of the cradle are
thrown various coverings, most of which hang to the floor. A
missionary told me that once when she wanted to look at a Syrian baby,
she took off four blankets which had been thrown over the whole
cradle, and then removed a Turkish towel folded double over the
child’s face.

[Sidenote: Clothing of children.]

It is strange to learn in how many lands the mothers feel that they
must wrap and tie and bind and swathe their babies until they are
deprived of all power of motion, and lives and health are sadly
endangered by too much rather than too little clothing. The Chinese
mother dresses her baby in a tiny wadded jacket, then another, then
another, saying perhaps, “It is five jackets cold to-day.” He is
wrapped and tied up until the bundle with a baby at the centre can be
rolled on the floor without hurting him, or may perchance act as a
life-preserver if he falls off the houseboat into the canal. It is
pretty sure to keep afloat until it can be pulled in with a boat hook.

[Illustration: A PERSIAN BABY IN HIS CRADLE]

Very differently clad are the “Coral Island Brownies” or the babies of
Africa, who are not hampered with any clothes at all, and as they grow
older simply wear a fringe of grass or a strip of calico about their
waists.

It is easy to trace many of the cases of terrible eye disease among
children in Egypt, Syria, and other warm countries to the utter lack
of any protection to the eyes from the glaring sunlight. Often boat
women are seen rowing in the bright sunlight in China with babies
asleep on their backs, and nothing over the sensitive little eyes as
their heads bob up and down in time with the oars.

It is often a great shock to the American missionary mother to see
little heads wrapped and swathed in numerous cloths and kerchiefs,
while the little feet are blue with cold. But then, the shock is
reciprocal, and, while the mother is off conducting a meeting, her
nurse is carefully making up for her negligence by wrapping up the
head of the missionary baby until he is bathed in perspiration!

[Sidenote: Infant mortality.]

The study of Infant Mortality is now engrossing the thought and
attention of many earnest men and women. It is most difficult to get
vital statistics from any non-Christian lands in order to give
comparative tables. In comparing the mortality statistics of the
United States for 1890 and 1909 we find marked improvement in the
“opportunity for life and health” granted to American children. If
George B. Mangold is right in saying that “the infant and child
mortality of a people is a barometer of their social progress,” then
we have reason to believe that our land is making real advance in this
respect.

In 1890 the total number of deaths of children under five years was
307,562; in 1909 the total number of deaths of children under five
years was 196,534.

From the first mortality table of the principal cities of the world in
1912 that has been made public we learn that--

  Stockholm has  82 deaths per 1,000 births.
  London     „   90    „    „    „     „
  New York   „  105    „    „    „     „

Contrast with these figures the following, based upon careful study
and research by high authorities:--

“It is by no means improbable that more than half the whole number of
Chinese children die before they are two years old.” (Arthur H.
Smith.)

In Syria the infant mortality is 75% of the births.

In Persia the infant mortality is 85% of the births.

At a meeting of the National Association for the Prevention of Infant
Mortality in Great Britain, the Right Honorable John Burns, P. C., M.
P., speaking on “Infant Life Protection” gave many interesting facts
and figures to show how infant mortality is being decreased in Great
Britain through scientific and systematic efforts along many lines.
One sentence is significant:

“Let me decide the food, the home, and the condition of life of every
child from birth to seven years of age, and the rest of mankind can
do with the children after seven years of age what they like.”

[Sidenote: Feeding of children.]

Constant and increasing attention is being paid in these days to the
proper feeding of children, to the study of dietetics, to the
preparation of suitable food for infants, and to the proper intervals
for administering the food. Any mother of average intelligence in our
land may secure one of the carefully prepared books such as Dr. Holt’s
on “The Care and Feeding of Children,” or the smaller leaflets such as
“What Children Should Eat,” and by making a study of them and of her
child may hope to see that it is well and properly nourished. But what
chance is there for the mother in Asia or Africa who, even if she
cares to learn, has no means of knowing how to feed her child
properly?

[Sidenote: Ignorant mothers.]

I was making a call of condolence on a neighbor in Persia who had just
buried a dearly loved baby, the fourth or fifth she had lost. With
such a pathetic look she said, “It seems as if we did not know how to
care for our babies. You missionaries take such beautiful care of
yours.” A wonderful opening, by the way, for starting a mothers’
meeting at which we used to discuss the care and training of our
little ones. A mother arrived early one meeting day to tell me, “I
tried on my children what you suggested last week, _and it worked_.”

Quite different was this set of mothers who had long been in contact
with the missionaries, from the mother in a Persian village who begged
a missionary to put a cent on her baby’s head and write a prayer that
it might not die as six others had done in that family. The missionary
replied with some severity that it was much more to the purpose to
have the mother learn to take proper care of it, for the baby was not
yet a year old and she was feeding it with meat and fruit.

In most if not all of the non-Christian lands whose child life we are
studying there seems to be the tendency to two extremes. The children
are often nursed by the mother for two, three, five, or even more
years, and at the same time they are allowed to eat anything that
their fancy dictates or that they can get hold of. Mrs. Noyes of China
says that if the mother has no milk she cannot afford to buy canned
milk, and of course fresh milk is entirely out of her reach. So she
chews rice most carefully until it is soft and mushy, then takes it
from her own mouth and puts it, germs and all, into the baby’s mouth.
This diet is supplemented with rich cakes and the inevitable tea.
Another missionary tells us that, if a child in China is ill, his
appetite is tempted by rich, heavy food or fruit, and adds, “the
mortality of children is frightful.”

[Sidenote: An unwholesome diet.]

Mrs. Underwood, an experienced mother and physician who has lived and
worked many years in Korea, says:

    Every imaginable practice which comes under the definition of
    unhygienic or unsanitary is common. Even young children in arms
    eat raw and green cucumbers, unpeeled, acrid berries, and heavy,
    soggy bread. They bolt quantities of hot or cold rice, with a
    tough, indigestible cabbage, washed in ditch water, prepared with
    turnips, and flavored with salt and red pepper. Green fruit of
    every kind is eaten with perfect recklessness of all the laws of
    nature, and with impunity....

    But even these, so to speak, galvanized-iron interiors are not
    always proof. It takes time, but every five or six years, by
    great care and industry, a bacillus develops itself ... and then
    there is an epidemic of cholera.[9]

It is one of the most difficult lessons to impress on those who have
become Christians that true Christianity, lived out to its logical
conclusion, includes all that proper physical care of the child which,
with the right mental and spiritual training, shall prepare it to take
its place in the world.

Dr. Exner, recently in physical educational work in the Y. M. C. A. at
Shanghai, says:--

[Sidenote: Hygiene and the child problem.]

“The need of the knowledge of hygiene has a very definite bearing on
the child problem. Thousands upon thousands of children are killed
simply for the lack of knowledge of the simplest elements of feeding
and care. To illustrate: A well educated Chinese teacher, graduate of
a mission school, fed his five months’ old daughter a piece of rich
cake. It developed intestinal trouble from which it died in spite of
expert medical care. When I expressed my sympathy, he said, ‘Well, it
is the Lord’s will.’ I added to myself, ‘You should know better!’”

How much easier it is to say piously, “It is the Lord’s will,” than to
take trouble and bear expense and lay aside age-long custom and
prejudice in order that little ones may live! But we must not judge
too harshly when we remember how long it has taken more enlightened
lands to learn the great value of the lives of the children and how to
care for these lives. Rather should we be all the more ready to send
and carry to them the light and knowledge that have come to us. Then
there will be fewer such scenes as one missionary mother witnessed in
Syria. It was in a Jewish family where there were four little girls.
The baby was a mass of sores from head to foot, and the missionary
physician said that they were merely the result of mal-nutrition. But
the mother said that her husband was utterly unwilling to buy a little
milk each day,--“It is not worth while, for she is only another little
girl.”

[Sidenote: Special work for missionary mothers.]

It is a most legitimate and absolutely essential part of missionary
work,--and not one of the easiest tasks, either,--to teach parents
that “children intelligently fed during infancy, childhood, and youth
may hope for normal health in adult life, with natural physical
strength, endurance, buoyancy.” Here is a special field of labor for
missionary mothers, who have this advantage over physicians and
teachers that they can teach by object lessons which _always_ make a
deeper impression than exhortation or verbal instruction. Of course
the missionary mother often has the great handicap of an adverse
climate in which to bring up her child. But her intelligent
application of the principles she should learn in order to fit _her_
for motherhood, and her willingness to teach these principles to the
ignorant mothers so interested in all that pertains to the little
foreign baby, may be some of the greatest factors in the future
welfare, stamina, and development of great nations such as China and
India.

[Sidenote: Children starving.]

Which is more harmful to a child, reckless, indiscriminate
over-feeding or under-feeding and starvation diet? In lands swept
periodically by famine or flood or devastated by war and massacre,
there are thousands of little children who literally starve to death
while other thousands continue to exist,--but what an existence it is!
How can it but have its evil effect on the mind and morals of a child
as well as on its physical well-being to be deprived of proper or
sufficient nourishment during the years of growth and development? If
child welfare is the legitimate, rightful responsibility of every
Christian woman, then it behooves us to see that such scenes as the
following cease to be possible anywhere in the world.

    One mother, a widow with four children dependent on her, told me,
    with tears streaming down her face, how she had tried to throw
    away the skeleton-like little baby she carried in her arms, but
    she said the child always found its way back to her, and she
    added, “It is not easy to give one’s own child away.” She said she
    felt sometimes she would just have to drink poison, and put an end
    to her miserable existence, and one of the others asked her what
    would become of her children if she did that, and she said, with
    despair in every feature, “Don’t ask me.”[10]

In a later chapter we shall learn of what is being done through
Christian orphanages for many little famine waifs and the orphans of
those killed in battle and massacre, but, when we consider the untold
harm to body and mind that has befallen these children before help
reaches them, we realize that we must hereafter work with heart and
soul at the task of _prevention_ of these great evils if we believe in
the welfare of the human race.

[Sidenote: Health.]

“Health,” we are told by Dr. E. T. Devine, “is influenced by the
occupations and habits of growing children; by their play and their
attendance at school; by the attention given to their eyesight,
hearing, breathing, and digestion, to their spines, and to the arches
of their feet, to their position at the desk, and to the type from
which their text books are printed; by the readiness with which they
make friends and so enter into the natural sports and exercises of
childhood; by the development of their self-control, and their more or
less unconscious acceptance of standards of conduct and principles of
action which will be their ultimate safeguard against those diseases
and weaknesses which come from indulgence of wrong appetites and
desires.”

[Sidenote: Foot-binding.]

Judged by these standards, what chances have the children of Asia and
Africa and the Pacific Islands for being safeguarded against disease
and weakness and death? Consider the one matter of “attention to the
arches of their feet” and compare such a standard of health with the
age-long custom of foot-binding in China, and what hope is there for
perfect, blooming health among the women of China or their children? A
full description of the horrible custom of foot-binding may be found
in Dr. James S. Dennis’s “Christian Missions and Social Progress”
(vol. 1, p. 212). The effects of it upon the little girl victims are
thus described by one who has every right to speak on the subject.

    Mrs. Archibald Little, whose position as president of the
    Natural-feet Society has given her special reason for
    investigating, says in her book, “Intimate China”: “During the
    first three years (of foot-binding) the girlhood of China presents
    a most melancholy spectacle. Instead of a hop, skip, and a jump,
    with rosy cheeks like the little girls of England, the poor little
    things are leaning heavily on a stick somewhat taller than
    themselves, or carried on a man’s back, or sitting sadly crying.
    They have great black lines under their eyes, and a special
    curious paleness that I have never seen except in connection
    with foot-binding. Their mothers sleep with a big stick by the
    bedside, with which to get up and beat the little girl should she
    disturb the household by her wails; but not uncommonly she is put
    to sleep in an outhouse. The only relief she gets is either from
    opium, or from hanging her feet over the edge of her wooden
    bedstead, so as to stop the circulation. The Chinese saying is,
    “For each pair of bound feet there has been a whole kang, or big
    bath, full of tears.” And they say that one girl out of ten dies
    of foot-binding or its after-effects.”[11]

Among the changes that are sweeping over China, the Anti-foot-binding
Movement ranks high in importance. It is receiving daily impetus by
reason of all the new things Chinese women and girls want to do, which
are impossible to accomplish unless they can walk instead of hobble.
When this movement has really conquered the custom and “fashion” of
centuries, there will be a better health report from the girls of
China.

Utter carelessness or ignorance of the first principles of cleanliness
is responsible for much ill-health and death. A “swat-the-fly
campaign” would save thousands of unprotected baby faces from being
covered with loathsome disease or disfigured with dangerous eye
trouble, but it would encounter not only hopeless inertia,--it would
arouse serious religious opposition. In some countries the “sacredness
of life” means,--Protect the fly, no matter what happens to the baby.

[Sidenote: Medical practice in non-Christian lands.]

One subject, upon which Dr. Devine has not touched in his list given
above, is the necessity for the protection of well children from
contagious diseases, and of skilful, tender care of the sick. We might
easily fill a chapter with the study of so-called “medical practice”
as conducted in non-Christian lands,--a practice composed largely of
mingled superstition, ignorance, cruelty, and avarice--but a few pages
on the subject in addition to our earlier study of what takes place at
the time of childbirth will suffice, we trust, to make earnest
Christian women desire to study it further. It is easy to shrink from
contemplating the sufferings of innocent children, and many a woman is
tempted to say, “I am too sensitive, I cannot hear about such things.”
But are we more sensitive than the little, shrinking, pitiful children
to whom these things happen daily? Therefore, not to encourage morbid
curiosity, but in order that as Christian mothers and sisters we may
lift the burden from little shoulders unable to bear it, let us
fearlessly face the facts as they are.

[Sidenote: Contagious diseases.]

The frightful ravages made by smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and
even the milder “children’s diseases,” such as measles and
whooping-cough, often devastate whole towns and carry away the larger
part of the children in a community. Smallpox, for instance, is so
common in Korea that it is not considered worth while to try to escape
it. It is caused by the visit of a very great and honored spirit, and
while he remains the children are addressed in high sounding terms in
honor of their great guest. When he is about ready to return to the
south land, _i.e._, when the child has nearly recovered, a feast is
made in honor of the visitor and he is provided with a wooden horse
for his journey.

On an itinerating journey in Korea Dr. and Mrs. Underwood with their
little boy stopped at a village called Pak Chun and had a rather
disturbing experience.

    Just before leaving, I saw a child quite naked, covered with
    smallpox pustules in full bloom, standing near our door. I asked
    one of the natives if there was much of that disease in the
    village at present. “In every house,” was the concise reply. “Why,
    there is none in the house we are in,” said I with confidence.
    “Oh, no, they took the child out the day you came in order to give
    you the room,” was the reassuring answer. We had eaten and slept
    in that infected little room, our blankets all spread out there,
    our trunks opened, everything we had exposed. We had even used
    their cooking utensils and spoons and bowls before our own packs
    had arrived. For ourselves we had been often exposed, and believed
    ourselves immune. Mr. Underwood had nursed a case of the most
    malignant type, and I had been in contact with it among my
    patients,--but our child! So we sent a swift messenger with a
    despatch to the nearest telegraph station, twenty-four hours away,
    to Dr. Wells, in Pyeng Yang. He at once put a tube of virus into
    the hands of a speedy runner, who arrived with it a week later.

    We found the country full of smallpox, measles, and
    whooping-cough, and added to our smallpox experience an exactly
    similar one with measles.[12]

The loud death wail goes up from a village home in Persia where a
little life has been snatched away by diphtheria. Instantly every
mother in the village seizes her baby and the next-to-the-youngest
toddles after, and all gather in the family room of the little mud
home, where the body lies, and show their sympathy by adding their
voices to the general din. Fortunately custom decrees that burial take
place as speedily as possible, but the mischief has already been done,
and echoes of the death wail are heard from far and near.

Call over the roll of physicians of your own Board. A wonderful report
it would be if each could respond and give the number of epidemics
through which he or she has worked unflinchingly, bringing hope and
comfort and life to hundreds and thousands stricken down not only by
the diseases already mentioned but by typhus, cholera, and plague.
Call the roll of the countries where no law demands isolation or
precautions of any kind, and one after another would respond, if it
could, in terms of loving gratitude to missionaries who have
introduced or freely used vaccine, anti-toxin, cholera serum, and
other products of medical science. Many lands are now awaking to the
possibility and desirability of using preventive measures, and
vaccination, for instance, is very prevalent in China. It is good to
hear Dr. Estella Perkins of China say, after an epidemic of scarlet
fever, “I must say, however, that these young mothers have been very
obedient to orders. I know by the number of dispensary cases of
sequelae in patients I did not treat, that the careful following of
directions by the mothers of my children must have saved half of them
from bad results of the disease. It is a comfort to be able to do
something more than prescribe a little medicine.”

[Sidenote: Cruel treatment of sick children.]

We spoke above of the ignorance, cruelty, superstition, and avarice
that compose so largely the medical practice of the Orient. Disease is
very frequently considered the work of an evil spirit which must
either be appeased by offerings or driven out by harsh and cruel
treatment. And so the tender little bodies are branded with hot irons,
pierced by needles, or burned with rags dipped in oil and set on fire.
While the little one suffers, a witch doctor may be called in to use
his incantations, or the mother may take a little rag from some
article of the child’s clothing and tie it to a sacred tree already
covered with hundreds of these rags, or the string of beads or the
entrails of a beast are consulted to see if the omen is favorable for
administering medicine. Let me give just one case from Central Africa
which can be duplicated many times over from the records of other
lands.

    As an example let me give the case of a lad who was suffering from
    tuberculosis. He had consulted the witch doctor, and after having
    paid his fee was told that he had been poisoned. Whereupon the
    “surgeon” drew his knife out from his belt and made a number of
    small incisions. He then declared he could see the poison inside
    the youth, and took it away. But the lad was not cured, and so
    came down to give the European’s wisdom a trial.[13]

[Sidenote: Christian help for sick children.]

Thank God, there is a brighter side to the story. In the name of the
little Child of Bethlehem the little children of sorrow and darkness
and suffering are being reached and helped and cured and loved. In
many a mission hospital and many a humble home the blind are receiving
sight, the crooked limbs are being straightened, the burning fever is
checked, the hollow cheeks are growing round and rosy. The last word
picture of this chapter shall be from the pen of Mrs. Gerald F. Dale,
the mother-saint who presides over the women’s and children’s
hospitals in Beirut, Syria.

[Sidenote: Children’s Pavilion, Beirut.]

    The Children’s Pavilion is the arena which calls into play the
    whole gamut of one’s emotions. Such poor, wasted faces; such
    robust, jolly faces; so much pain; so much fun; twisted limbs
    before operation, straight ones after; noses and mouths cobbled
    and mended, a stitch here, a fold there, and what a change! It
    requires the standpoint of the East to unravel the full meaning of
    little Hindiyeh’s exclamation, who, gazing in admiration at her
    straightened legs, looked up with a merry laugh and said: “Curse
    the religion of the father of my legs as they used to be!” A
    baby-boy was to have no say in the matter of his poor crumpled-up
    little club-feet, for the mother begged that only one might be
    straightened, in order to save him from military service in the
    future.... The children’s favorite game is “operations,” the
    patient being in turn a real child or a doll. Everything is
    reproduced to the life. A pin stuck into the doll’s mouth is a
    thermometer; sawdust stuffing makes a most realistic draining
    wound; bits of wire and gauze are twisted into a mask, and
    chloroform is poured from an empty spool. The scientific bandaging
    of head, legs, and arms shows how intently the little brains have
    observed. They are busy with other things too; hymn after hymn is
    learned, the commandments, verses, psalms.

    Everything that is dropped into these receptive minds stays, and
    once there will be shared, who can tell by how many? It is the
    little child who shall lead, and it is the _handful_ of corn
    whose fruit shall shake like Lebanon.[14]

[Sidenote: The Christ-Child and these little ones.]

“The place where the young Child lay” was the place where the brooding
mother love shining from the tender mother eyes hovered over the
little One to guard and protect and care for Him in His appealing
helplessness. And from those lips, once cooing in sweet babyhood, come
down to _us_ the words,--“Inasmuch as ye did it unto _one of the least
of these little ones_, ye did it unto Me.”

[Illustration: Little Abraham found living alone in a ruined house,
and brought to the door of the Mission Hospital in Persia]

[Illustration: Abraham 18 months later, ready to be dismissed from the
Hospital]


QUOTATIONS

CHILDBIRTH--CHINA

Mary V. Glenton, Wuchang, China, writes in the _Spirit of Missions_
for July, 1902:

Recently I was called to a case of childbirth away out in the country.
My native assistant had asked for a holiday; she had gone that
morning. After a long ride in the chair through country roads, past
the pagoda, I was ushered into a small house of two rooms and then
into one of these rooms to my patient. When I shut the door to keep
the crowd out, and had thrown water out the window several times for
the same purpose, ineffectually, I found that I must have some light
and also some air; so I stationed one chair coolie at the door and
another at the window, and started in. I had to give chloroform
myself, as well as do the rest of the work. But after four hours’ hard
work, so hard that while my feet were cold on the earth floor (it was
February), the upper part of my body was in profuse perspiration, I
got through, and saved the woman’s life.

Immediately there arose a most tumultuous screaming, shrieking,
stamping, calling, flapping doors back and forth on their hinges, and
any sort of noise that could be made. I had never heard such a din in
my life. What was coming I could not imagine. I was miles away from
home; it was growing dark; I had no one with me, whom I knew or could
reason with, but the chair coolies, one of whom was a mere boy, the
other a perfect goose, who thinks himself unusually intelligent. I
managed to make myself heard after a while, enough to ask what they
were doing, and found that all the din and racket were to frighten
away the spirit of the dead baby that had just been born.

MOHAMMEDAN BABIES AND CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS

During the Balkan War a number of Bulgarian soldiers came into a
village which had been deserted by the Turks, and there they found
eight little Turkish babies who had been left behind,--girls of
course. They were in a dreadful condition, but the tender heart of one
of the soldiers could not bear to leave them so. He found a tub, and
they undressed the babies, bathed them, and, taking some cloth from a
store, bound them all up again in Oriental fashion. The tiny ladies,
being very hungry, continued to cry. The dilemma was how to find food
for these eight babies, all under a year of age. The kind-hearted
Bulgarian was equal to the emergency. Dispatching one of his comrades
to a neighboring village for some milk, he proceeded to kill eight
geese. Removing and cleaning the crops from these, he filled them with
the milk, using goose quills for nipples, and soon the eight babies
were fast asleep. Then they sent them on into Bulgaria to be cared
for, with greetings from Turkey.

(Told by Mrs. E. E. Count of the Methodist Episcopal Mission in
Bulgaria.)


BIBLE READING

“What manner of Child shall this be?” Luke 1:5-14, 57-66, 80.

The little child greatly longed for--promised by God’s
messenger--rejoiced over at birth--named “Jehovah is gracious,” not
according to custom but with peculiar significance--grew in
stature--waxed strong in spirit--God’s hand was with him.

“When I see a child he inspires me with two feelings: tenderness for
what he is now, respect for what he may become hereafter.” Louis
Pasteur.


PRAYER

O Lord Jesus Christ, we beseech Thee, by the innocence and obedience
of Thy Holy childhood, guard the children of this our land and of all
lands; preserve their innocence, strengthen them when ready to slip,
recover the erring, and remove all that may hinder them from being
really brought up in Thy faith and love; Who livest and reignest with
the Father and the Holy Ghost ever, one God, world without end. Amen.


QUESTIONS

1. What do you consider the greatest need of the children of your
community?

2. How does this need compare with the needs of children in the
mission land in which you are most interested?

3. Name the organizations in your community that deal with Child
Welfare (i.e., milk station, children’s hospital ward, etc.). How many
of these exist in non-Christian lands? By whom were they introduced?

4. What can a ruling power like the British Government in India do to
bring about better conservation of motherhood?

5. How would you go to work to eradicate harmful superstitions in a
Mohammedan land?

6. If you were conducting a series of six mothers’ meetings in China,
what topics would you select?


BIBLIOGRAPHY. CHAPTERS I AND II.

Child Problems, George B. Mangold--Macmillan.

“European Institutions for Protection of Motherhood,” etc. Theodore L.
Smith, _Pedagogical Seminary_, Mar., 1912.

The Problem of Race Regeneration, Havelock Ellis.

Parenthood and Race Culture, Saleeby.

The Family and Social Life, E. T. Devine.

Fifteen Years Among the Top-Knots, L. H. Underwood--Am. Tract Soc.

Home Life in Turkey, Lucy M. J. Garnett--Macmillan.

Fetish Folk of West Africa, R. H. Milligan--Revell.

Jungle Days, Arley Munson, M.D.--D. Appleton & Co.

Our Sisters in India, Rev. E. Storrow, Chapter vii--Revell.

“The Unbinding of Bright Blossom’s Feet,” _Everyland_, March, 1913.

The Light of the World, R. E. Speer, Infanticide, pp. 353, 354.

Christian Missions and Social Progress, J. S. Dennis, Infanticide,
vol. i, p. 133.

When I Was a Boy in China, Ian Phon Lee--Y. M. C. A. Press.

Village Life in China, Arthur H. Smith--Revell.

Village Life in Korea, J. R. Moose--M. E. Church, South.

The Chinese at Home, J. Dyer Ball--Revell.

On the Borders of Pigmy Land, Ruth B. Fisher--Revell.

“The Training of a Japanese Child,” Francis Little--_Century_, June,
1913.

For leaflets and Children’s Magazines see Bibliography for Chapter II.

_Much valuable material will be found for this and the following
chapters in all the earlier text-books of the Central Committee on the
United Study of Foreign Missions. These books, studied with special
reference to The Child, will bring new light and interest to their
readers._


FOOTNOTES:

[1] E. T. Devine, “The Family and Social Life,” p. 51.

[2] Alonzo Bunker, “Sketches from the Karen Hills.” Revell.

[3] _Child Welfare Magazine_, Feb., 1913, p. 195.

[4] Fleming H. Revell.

[5] Ruth B. Fisher, “On the Borders of Pigmy Land.” Revell.

[6] Alexander, “The Islands of the Pacific.” Am. Tract Soc.

[7] E. Storrow, “Our Sisters in India.” Revell.

[8] _Record of Christian Work_, Sept., 1912, “How Chinese Religions
Fail.”

[9] L. H. Underwood, “Fifteen Years among the Top-Knots.” Am. Tract
Soc.

[10] _Missionary Review of the World_, June, 1911, W. D. & A. T.
Bostick.

[11] M. E. Ritzman in _Missionary Review of the World_, Feb., 1911.

[12] L. H. Underwood, “Fifteen Years among the Top-Knots.” Am. Tract
Soc.

[13] Ruth B. Fisher, “On the Borders of Pigmy Land.” Revell.

[14] _Woman’s Work_, Dec., 1911, p. 271.




CHAPTER II.

THE CHILD AT HOME

“Train up a child in the way he should go.”

    A Mohammedan home in Persia--A heathen home in Africa--A Christian
    home in Zululand--The home the centre of a nation’s
    life--Christianity’s gift to non-Christian homes--Greatness of the
    task--Disorderly homes--Moral influences--Need of teaching the
    mothers--Lack of proper discipline--Lack of innocence coupled with
    appalling ignorance--Sex knowledge--A missionary mother’s
    “dream”--Position of fathers--Fathers transformed by
    Christianity--Motherhood--Christian wives and mothers--Child
    marriage--Betrothal customs--Dying child-wife--Child widows--Homes
    of the world need Christ--Vocation of a missionary
    wife--Missionary homes.


Scene One: A Mohammedan home in Persia.

[Sidenote: A Mohammedan home in Persia.]

The women’s apartments opening onto an inner court-yard present an
animated scene, for some ladies from another harem have come with
children and servants to make a call; _i.e._, to spend the afternoon,
drink unlimited quantities of tea and pussy-willow-water, smoke
unnumbered cigarettes alternating with the water pipe, and nibble at
sweetmeats and fruits provided in large abundance. The greetings are
conducted with due decorum by women and children, and then, while the
servants and concubines of the home move to and fro with the proper
refreshments, and while the children dispose of large quantities of
sweets, the gossip of the neighborhood is discussed with animation.
The conversation,--no, it cannot be repeated here, for it is not fit
for the printed page; but little girls sit eagerly drinking it in, and
little boys stop in their play to wink at each other with knowing
looks as they catch the drift of the talk. A mere baby crawls up to
attract his mother’s attention and, not succeeding, slaps her with all
his tiny might as she sits on a cushion on the floor. “Oh brave boy!
oh splendid boy! just see how he hits me when I do not listen to him!”
And the little boy is hugged and his wishes are granted while he
learns well his lesson of the inferiority of a woman,--even his
mother. Presently a little girl begins to scream vigorously, having
been pounded and scratched by a small boy in the party. The lad is
rewarded for his manliness with a big piece of saffron candy, but the
girl, being a visitor, must be consoled; and so the delightful promise
is made: “Never mind; stop crying, and we will find you a nice
husband. Now wouldn’t it be fine to arrange a marriage for her with
the son of ----?” and so the whole matter is discussed in the child’s
hearing, and she too learns her lesson,--that the one ambition of a
girl must be to get married as early as possible, and the more
valuable she is, the greater settlement must her prospective husband
make upon her, to be paid in case he wishes to divorce her.

It is evening, the visitors are gone, and the head of the home with
the older boys will take his evening meal in the anderun (women’s
apartment). No cloth is spread for the whole family. The husband and
sons are served on large copper trays by the women of the household,
who eat later what is left. The husband is in a wretched mood and
vents his anger right and left. Even the favorite wife, a young girl
who has recently superseded in his affections the mothers of his
children, trembles for her position when the rice is not to his taste;
and suddenly at some further provocation he turns upon her, and with
the words, “I divorce you,” sends her cowering from him, a divorced
woman of fifteen, amid the sneers and insults of those who served and
fawned on her earlier in the day.

       *       *       *       *       *

Scene Two: A hut in Central Africa.

[Sidenote: A heathen home in Africa.]

Soon after sunrise a number of women and girls, laden with hoes,
baskets, and babies, start out from the grass hut which is home to
them, and make their way to the field to work all day in the hot sun.
Having leisurely smoked his pipe in preparation for the day’s labors,
the man of the house starts with sons and neighbors on a hunting
expedition, or goes to a neighboring town to exchange his stock for
some coveted article. Towards evening all is bustle and confusion
about the home, as the women have returned and are preparing the
evening meal. All goes merrily, for here comes the head of the house
in an excellent humor. Picking up the nearest baby, he fondles it and
says, “A man in the next town has just bought this baby of me as wife
for his son. Being strong and fat and lusty, she has brought a good
price.” Whereupon a small brother shouts with delight, for this means
that the dowry for _his_ wife is provided and the girl on whom he has
set his affections can be procured without further delay. His mother
is pleased,--the prospect adds to her importance,--but the seventeen
year old mother of the fat, cooing baby turns away to hide her face
and surreptitiously to hug her two other children. “Anyway, they are
boys; _they_ cannot be taken from me.”

The boy who is to profit by the sale of his little sister is not
suited with his evening meal, and, catching a chicken, he cuts off one
leg and demands that it be cooked for him. No thought of the suffering
fowl interferes with his appetite, any more than of the little sister
so soon to be sent out on the forest trail, her little brown body
carefully oiled, to be subjected to the blows and ill-treatment of an
unknown mother-in-law. But even before the little one goes, she has
learned her life lessons,--that a lie is a crime only if it is
discovered,--that if she does not like her husband she may console
herself with some other man so long as she is not found out. And,
after all, the relation may be of short duration, for, if her future
husband is unkind, one of his wives will surely be an adept in the art
of poisoning, and then all of them will be inherited by his brother.
And so the little brown baby, fondled, petted, spoiled today, is sent
out tomorrow with foul words on her tongue and foul thoughts in her
heart, to be a wife and the future mother of little brown babies
whose possibilities are infinite, whose opportunities are to
be,--what?

       *       *       *       *       *

Scene three: A Christian Home in Zululand.[15]

[Sidenote: A Christian home in Zululand.]

“I have already given you a peep at the life in a heathen kraal. Now
repair to a Christian home. Here we find everything simpler and more
quiet. Here polygamy, with all its attendant sensualities and riot,
has given place to restraint of passions and a purer union. Here is
but one house and one wife. The Christian man’s love is now undivided,
and all his efforts are centred in one objective. The single house is
no longer a stack of grass enclosing a dungeon of darkness, but a
square-walled building, humble indeed, but airy and bright. In place
of being obliged to crawl like animals on our knees into the heathen
hut, we may enter erect as becomes the dignity of man, through
swinging doors. We come not into a smoky darkness, but into a dwelling
flooded with the light of glazed windows. In the kraal we found the
whole family, old and young, male and female, huddled together night
and day in the one small room; here we have a dwelling with separate
rooms, so that parents and children and strangers may each enjoy some
privacy. The air is not only light with sunshine; it is also pure and
clean, for no cooking operations are performed herein, but in a
special kitchen outside. In the heathen hut, whether for sitting or
sleeping, we were accommodated on the floor; now we may sit more
respectably on chairs, eat our meals from a table, and rest our weary
bones on a raised bed.

“At four or five o’clock in the morning, according to season,--for the
Zulu is an early riser,--all are up. We hear a gentle murmur from
within. Ah! it is the familiar sound, so sweet to us, but never heard
in the heathen kraal. It is the hour of morning prayer, when husband
and wife and little ones join their hearts and voices together in a
fervent hymn of praise or hopeful supplication for protection and
aid.”

[Sidenote: The home, the centre of a nation’s life.]

The home is the centre of a nation’s life. More and more emphasis is
being laid in enlightened communities on the need of proper home
environment and on the grave risks and great dangers that accompany
the lack of such environment. If one studies the labors and writings
of the great social and religious workers of today, this note of
emphasis on home life and training will be heard to ring out loud and
clear, above all other sounds of harmony or discord,--a call to meet a
definite need.

Dr. Devine has voiced this thought and enlarged upon it in its various
phases in his recent book, “The Family and Social Work,” in which he
claims that “To maintain normal family life, to restore it when it has
been interfered with, to create conditions more and more favorable to
it, is thus the underlying object of all our social work. Efforts to
relieve distress and to improve general conditions are shaped by our
conception of what constitutes normal family life.”

[Sidenote: Christianity’s gift to non-Christian homes.]

Any candid woman who has studied the “home-scenes” at the beginning of
this chapter and has then proceeded (as it is hoped and expected that
she will) to study home conditions and surroundings in other lands,
will surely be ready to admit that the greatest gift Christianity has
to offer to a non-Christian land is the introduction of the power of
the Christ life into the homes of that land. Dr. Dennis lays great
emphasis on the necessity and opportunity for missionary endeavor
along this line.

    The reconstruction of the family, next to the regeneration of
    individual character, is the most precious contribution of
    missions to heathen society, and we may add that it is one of the
    most helpful human influences which can be consecrated to the
    service of social elevation. In the effort to hallow and purify
    family life we stir the secret yearning of fatherhood and
    motherhood; we enter the precincts of the home, and take childhood
    by the hand; we restore to its place of power and winsomeness in
    the domestic circle the ministry of womanhood; and at the same
    time we strike at some of the most despicable evils and desolating
    wrongs of our fallen world. Nothing in the history of human
    society, except the teaching and example of Jesus Christ, has
    wrought with such energy and wisdom in introducing saving power
    into social development as a sanctified home life. If parental
    training can be made loving, faithful, conscientious, and helpful,
    if womanhood can be redeemed and crowned, if childhood can be
    guided in tenderness and wisdom, if the home can be made a place
    where virtue dwells, and moral goodness is nourished and becomes
    strong and brave for the conflicts of life, we can conceive of no
    more effective combination of invigorating influences for the
    rehabilitation of fallen society than will therein be given.[16]

[Sidenote: Greatness of the task.]

The task fairly staggers us with its greatness and its limitless
scope; but let us be big enough to look even beyond all this, and,
with the glorious capacity for motherhood that lies in every good
woman’s breast, let us see not only the millions of homes that are in
darkness and sorrow and degradation today, but also realize that the
children of today are to be the fathers and mothers of tomorrow. Our
work as a “great, beautiful, organized motherhood for the world” must
include the preparation of these children to assume the duties of
parenthood in the future, and to raise from generation to generation
the standards of individual and home and national life “till we all
attain unto a full grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the
fulness of Christ.”

[Sidenote: Disorderly homes.]

The physical conditions of a home, and the moral and spiritual
characters developed in the home act and re-act on each other with
clock-like precision. Would you expect a neat and orderly housemaid if
you engaged a girl from a home in China which Mrs. S. C. Perkins thus
describes?--

    The great mass of the people live in what can only be called
    hovels, the family occupying one room, shared with pigs and
    chickens; damp, dark, unventilated, and unclean. Even in the
    houses of the rich there is a certain cheerlessness owing to the
    lack of carpets, the absence of sunlight, and the stiff
    arrangement of the furniture. The odor of incense in all houses
    renders the atmosphere close and unpleasant. The people will not
    use whitewash, because white is an unlucky color; indeed, their
    many superstitions interfere with the comfort of the poorer
    classes quite as much as does their poverty. In Northern China
    every house has its kang, a platform of stone about two feet high,
    underneath which a fire is kindled for warmth and for cooking, the
    heat being carried through it by a flue into the chimney. Here the
    family sleep at night, sit by day, and on it they cook their
    food.[17]

How much ambition would one be able to arouse in a school girl coming
from this home in Burma?

    The home of one of the mission school girls is described in this
    way: “It is a large teakwood house, and we walk right in, for
    there is no door bell. The large hall is half filled with piles of
    wood, for the family lives on the second floor. A servant tells us
    to go up, and we climb the long stairs. At the top we find the
    lady of the house sitting on a mat smoking. She motions us to be
    seated. In the large room are two mats, two chairs, and two
    tables.”[18]

[Sidenote: Absence of innocence.]

Innocent childhood, modesty, purity can hardly be counted on in the
unnumbered homes of Africa, India, Persia, Korea, and other lands
where the whole family lives in one room, where sons bring their
brides to swell the number of those whose every act and word is seen
or heard by the whole patriarchal family. If further evidence is
needed of the inter-relation of the physical home surroundings and the
formation of character, study the history of those savage communities
that have come under the power of the Gospel, as for instance the New
Hebrides Islands, and it will be very evident that “godliness is
profitable for all things,” even for introducing a comfortable, tidy
home in which one can stand upright and enjoy some degree of privacy!

[Sidenote: Moral influences.]

In order to learn what should be done for little children in
non-Christian lands, we must know in addition to their physical needs
something of the moral and spiritual influences that surround them. Of
the spiritual influences we shall speak in a later chapter, and,
though the moral effects on life and character have already been
touched on in various ways, it seems wise to sum up briefly some of
the special home influences that affect child life in the lands of
which we are studying. We must be humble and teachable too, for it is
true that we Americans could well be learners when it comes to the
lessons in filial piety taught to Chinese children, and the careful
attention to etiquette and social graces which form an important part
of the training of Japanese girls.

[Sidenote: The Chinese Mother Ideal.]

In a most interesting and enlightening study of “The Chinese Mother
Ideal”[19] Mrs. Gammon shows that “even a cursory glance through
Chinese literature reveals teachings which if carried into effect
might transform the whole empire.” But alas! “to the majority of the
women of China the printed page is a sealed book,” and in many of the
moral as well as the spiritual teachings we find minute instructions
for outward observances, but no life-principles upon which true
character may be built.

[Sidenote: Evil influences surrounding the children.]

Immodesty, shocking impurity, dishonesty, lying, disobedience, foul
and abusive language, quarrelsomeness, bad habits, cruelty, anger,
jealousy,--we might go on with the long terrible list of influences
that surround the child from babyhood up, that are a part of his
heritage, and are not treated as evils to be uprooted by careful
training and wholesome example, but as qualities to be emulated. One
of the “Sacred Books” of Burma says, “A statement constitutes a lie
when discovered by the person to whom it is told to be untrue!” In the
same way millions of children are today being taught that sin is sin
only when it is found out or when it inconveniences a superior
avenging power. How to teach the mothers so that their example and
precepts may produce different children, that is our great problem. We
hear of a convert in India who told a missionary that she “often
prays for power to forget the words she heard and the things she saw
and the games she played when she was a little child in her mother’s
room.” I often recall an impromptu mothers’ meeting held on the mud
roof of a village home in Persia, where the text was furnished by a
self-righteous mother whose child had misbehaved at the afternoon
service conducted by my husband. The mother boasted that she had
dragged her child out of the meeting and beaten him on the head till
his nose bled.

[Sidenote: Lack of proper discipline.]

[Sidenote: “No plan.”]

Of real discipline,--punishment administered in love, not in anger,
for the purpose of teaching great life principles, I have yet to
discover a trace in homes untouched by the love of Christ in the lands
of which we are speaking. Love there is, and how often the unexpressed
yearning of the mother heart finds utterance at last when she comes
into contact with a mother who _knows_ of these things. A young
missionary mother from China told me about a pleasant gathering of
women in her parlor after her youngest baby was born. One woman said
to her, “I wish I knew what to do when my children are naughty. I have
no plan.” The poor woman was nursing her fourth baby, and worn by
wakeful nights and constant nursing was in no condition, physically,
mentally, or morally, to rule wisely her mischievous, disobedient,
crying children.

[Sidenote: Miss Holliday on child training in Persia.]

From the vast amount of interesting information which our missionaries
are glad to share with us the moment this subject is broached, it is
difficult to select something for the limited space in this chapter.
In this as in other instances, the intention is rather to whet the
appetite for more, than to make an exhaustive study of the subject.
Miss G. Y. Holliday of Persia says,--

    I find children passionately longed for, much loved, though not at
    all wisely; often the tyrants of the household. It is a sad
    commentary on the depravity of human nature, that no matter what
    outrage a child commits or how abominable his conduct may be, it
    is considered an all-sufficient excuse to say, “He is a child,” as
    if there were no such things as good and well behaved children,
    and nothing else was to be expected but disorder and disobedience
    from them. The atmosphere of a Moslem home is so bad for them,
    with the continual swearing and vile language. I was talking one
    day to a small boy, the idol of his grandparents, with whom he
    spends most of his time. The subject was family discipline; I
    said, “Parents sometimes find it necessary to punish the
    children.” He replied with emphasis, his eyes opening wider and
    wider, “Yes, parents whip, they kick, they strike.”

[Sidenote: Lack of innocence coupled with appalling ignorance.]

One of the most terrible results to children of the lack of proper
home life and training is loss of innocence coupled with appalling
ignorance. This condition existing also in our own land is being faced
in these days with new purpose and determination by earnest,
conscientious men and women who are seeking in many ways to find and
apply a remedy. From the many strong, true writers and speakers on
this subject we select a few words written by Professor E. P. St.
John of the Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy.

[Sidenote: Prof. St. John on sex knowledge.]

    It is unsafe to leave a child ignorant about sex. The writer
    firmly believes that a majority of the evils that appear in
    connection with this phase of human nature could be avoided by
    simple, frank instruction of children and youth. The great trouble
    has been that parents who have clean ideas about sex and its
    relations have kept their lips sealed on the subject.... Even if
    it were desirable, children _cannot_ be kept in ignorance of these
    things. _Through the parents’ neglect_ their thoughts of these
    matters have too often been perverted and impure from the first.
    The aim should be to pre-empt the ground for cleanness and truth.

[Sidenote: A missionary mother’s “dream.”]

All honor and assistance be given to the missionary mother who,
feeling the horrible need of China’s children and youth in this
respect, is spending much of her furlough year in working out a
plan,--a “dream” she calls it. Will you listen to her dream, and then
see if it is not in your power to help the missionary mothers whom
_you_ know to make this dream a great and living reality in many of
the dark habitations of the earth? “A Chinese child knows all there is
to be known about the deep life truths, and knows it without the
beauty of life being impressed on him. I am going to tell you a dream
I have. Perhaps it is not necessary to speak of it, but it will show
how strongly the awfulness of conditions has forced certain truths on
me. I am inquiring among my friends, those who would know, what are
the best books of sex knowledge for men and women, and especially the
books or stories for children. I am already beginning the little
nature stories with my own boys and intend to teach them
scientifically all the truths about themselves so beautifully and so
naturally and so early that they will never know when they weren’t
acquainted with these facts, and will never have aught but the deepest
love for the knowledge I give them. I think I can do it, with plenty
of study and determination. Then as I know Chinese better, I want to
conduct classes for mothers and for children, and also to get hold of
our school boys and talk to them or put literature in their hands that
will make better men of them. If I stayed in this country, I should
push such knowledge at every turn. I expect to keep a library that I
can loan to American sailors and other young men. I thoroughly believe
that the propagation of such information will do more to change the
life of children and the atmosphere of the Chinese home than anything
else. For with this knowledge one learns the beauty and wonder of a
God that could make such a beautiful human body. It is wonderful to
see what Christian homes _are_ doing, but how much more they could do
with _knowledge_, scientific Christian knowledge, in the hearts of the
parents!”

[Sidenote: Position of the father.]

The position of the husband and father in most non-Christian lands is
that of supreme ruler and despot in his home. In many cases he has
the power of life and death over his children, during infancy at
least, and where polygamy exists many a wife has suddenly disappeared,
never to be heard of again; but no one thinks of questioning the
rights of the husband in the matter. His attitude toward the mothers
of his children is the “sample copy” for his boys to imitate, and
right faithfully do they follow his example.

[Sidenote: An Egyptian father.]

    In the native quarter of Alexandria, Egypt, I saw a little boy who
    was very fond of making mud-pies in front of the house. One
    afternoon his mother stepped into the doorway and called:

    “Come in, darling; don’t get your clothes so dirty. Come in,
    sweet one.” No answer from the four-year-old.

    The mother stepped into the road, looking about to see that there
    were no men near to watch her, and laid a kind motherly hand on
    the child to take him into the house.

    “Come, little one. I will give you sweets; come!”

    Her husband at that moment came around the next corner, and stood
    still to see what would happen. The child turned on his mother,
    and, doubling up his little dirty fist, he beat her right in the
    face, and snarled, “Bint el kelb!” (Daughter of a dog), tearing
    himself loose.

    The father stepped up, and, in place of giving the little
    scoundrel a thrashing, he patted his son on the back, smiled upon
    him, and said: “Brave little fellow! Thou magnificent little
    fellow!” Proud of the son who could treat a woman thus![20]

[Sidenote: An African father.]

[Sidenote: Fathers transformed by Christianity.]

Through the jungle of Africa strides the man carrying his pipe and a
big hunting knife; after him comes his wife with a baby slung at her
side, stooping under the great pack on her back, to lighten which he
will not lift his little finger. Oh! it is a sight to make angels
rejoice when the grace of God touches the heart, and manliness and
chivalry are aroused in him who had all his life seemed absolutely
callous to the needs and sufferings of those dependent on him! In a
Persian village where a missionary lady was touring, a man came to
evening prayers and slipped a note into her hand that read, “Receive
M. B. with love,--he is a brother.” Several years later she again
visited the village, but though she had no opportunity to talk with M.
B. she saw something that spoke louder and more forcibly than a dozen
conversations would have done. When he was ready to go home from the
meeting in the missionary’s rooms, he said to his wife, “Give me the
child,” and took the heavy, sleeping boy out of her arms. In all her
long years of work among Mohammedans this missionary had never seen a
Mohammedan man do such a thing.

[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD IN EGYPT]

“A Japanese woman whose husband is a Christian,” writes Miss Ransome,
“though she is as yet only an inquirer, said recently that the change
for the better had been so marvelous in her husband that she had
decided to try to rear her boy in such a way that he would eventually
become an evangelist. She wanted others to know of the power of
Christianity which could change a quarrelsome, drinking man to a
kind, sober, industrious father.” That boy’s chance for a happy,
useful life was the direct result of what the knowledge of Christ had
done for his father.

[Sidenote: Motherhood.]

The sacred vocation of motherhood is regarded almost entirely from a
commercial or social standpoint in non-Christian lands. The free woman
who remains unmarried is wellnigh an impossibility,--she has no chance
for winning respect or position in this life, and, according to
Mohammedan belief, has a very inferior place in heaven. The woman who
marries and has no children needs one’s sympathy almost as much as
does her unmarried sister. In many cases she may be divorced after a
certain number of years if no child has been born to her, or she lives
in dread of having another wife brought into the home, who will make
her life miserable with taunts such as Peninnah heaped upon Hannah in
days of old. And there is no hope that her lord and master will
comfort her as Elkanah comforted Hannah, offering her the devotion of
ten sons.

[Sidenote: A mother of girls.]

But the unmarried woman and the childless wife are not alone in their
degradation and distress. Never can I forget my feelings when told of
a neighbor in Persia who had just given birth to her seventh daughter.
Her husband on visiting the room crossed over to where she lay on her
bed on the floor, looked at her with disgust and disapproval, spat
in her face and covered it with a cloth to show that she was a
disgraced wife. To be the mother of sons is the great wish of a
woman’s heart, to have many daughters-in-law brought into the home to
serve her and cower before her tyranny is her fondest ambition, and
when she attains it her influence is indeed great, and in one respect
at least she is queen of her home.

[Sidenote: Foundations of family life.]

Is it a mistake in this study of child life to pay so much attention
to the subjects of fatherhood and motherhood? Nowhere can we find the
real remedy for the evils that degrade and debase and oppress and
crush the sweet innocence and dependence of childhood unless we go
back of the child to the very foundations of family life. Many great
authorities in America and Europe, as well as those who have labored
and studied in Oriental lands, will testify to the truth of this
statement. Rev. J. Sadler of Amoy says, “You would be profoundly
impressed if you could realize how the strength of heathenism is in
the women. From earliest years they teach their children concerning
demons, and to be early eager as to inheritance, and thus inspire
selfish and quarrelsome ideas leading to divisions and life-long
conflicts. The importance of women’s work cannot be estimated. The
destiny of the country is largely in their hands.”[21]

[Sidenote: Training Christian wives and mothers.]

This is one side of the picture. The other is equally true. Dr. Daniel
McGilvary, for half a century a missionary among the Siamese and Lao,
tells of the wonderful result of a school for girls that provides
Christian wives and mothers.

    Notwithstanding our disappointment in the delay of the school for
    boys, it proved a wise arrangement that the girls’ school was
    started first. A mission church is sure to be greatly handicapped
    whose young men must either remain single,--which they will not
    do,--or be compelled to take ignorant non-Christian wives....
    After marriage the almost universal custom of the country has been
    that the husband lives with the wife’s family.... Where all the
    atmosphere of the family is strongly Buddhist, with daily
    offerings to the spirits and gala days at the temple, the current
    would be too strong for a father, with his secondary place in the
    family, to withstand. For a while it was feared that Christian
    girls would have difficulty in finding husbands. But, on the
    contrary, our educated girls become not only more intelligent, but
    more attractive in manners, dress, and character; and therefore,
    have been much sought after. The homes become Christian homes, and
    the children are reared in a Christian atmosphere. The result is
    that, instead of the wife’s dragging the husband down, she
    generally raises the husband up; and, as a general rule, the
    children early become Christians.[22]

The Mohammedan girl educated in a Christian school, even though she
must marry and live her life according to Mohammedan customs, takes
with her to her father-in-law’s home new ideas and customs that are
going far to break down the old walls of prejudice. Mrs. C. M. Wherry
of India writes:--

    One of the most interesting facts that has come to light during
    recent years is this: We do not know of any educated Moslem girl
    who has spent four or five years in our schools,--and I include
    those of the British workers too,--who has ever been subjected to
    the indignity of a second wife brought into her home. They seem to
    have gained strength of character and graces enough to hold their
    own against the bad influences of Mohammedanism. More and more we
    hear of Moslem families who practically adopt the Christian idea
    of marriage, that is, one woman in the home: these families
    frequently in giving away their daughters take pledges from the
    bridegroom that she is to be the only wife, while still more
    encouraging is the fact that many of these educated girls
    absolutely refuse to be given in marriage unless their parents
    insist on this single wife.[23]

A little Mohammedan girl had attended for a few months a small day
school on the mission premises. Years afterwards her missionary
teacher found her in a village, and the woman gathering her children
about her led them in the Lord’s Prayer, explaining that she and the
children prayed together every day.

[Sidenote: A Christian mother in Syria.]

Who can foretell the influence that will go on down through the years
because of one mother in Syria who has recently passed to her reward
at the age of ninety years? She was the mother of eight children, two
of whom were ordained pastors, two licensed preachers, one the wife of
a pastor, another a helper in the Sidon Missionary School, one is
employed by the Church Missionary Society in Nazareth, and two more
are teaching and preaching in the German Orphanage in Jerusalem. Think
what the land of our Saviour’s sojourn would have lost had not that
one mother learned to love and follow Him, and to train her children
as a Christian mother should.

[Sidenote: Child marriage.]

Many chapters might easily be devoted to the subjects of child
marriage and child widowhood and their frightful effect on past,
present, and future generations. They have, however, been treated
quite fully in recent mission study books, and so much authoritative
literature on these subjects exists that it does not seem best to
dwell on them at length in this connection.

But every Christian mother should pause and ask of herself earnestly,
“What if it were my daughter, my son, how could I stand it? Would I
not move heaven and earth to see that some remedy were found for this
monstrous evil?” What if your daughter were that widowed teacher in a
missionary school in China who had been married at nineteen to a boy
of twelve, and who every morning after washing his face and combing
his hair had to see that he started off properly to school, often
crying and protesting, and then turn to her weaving, in order to earn
money for his education?

[Sidenote: Testimony of an Egyptian.]

Are we overestimating the evil because of our Occidental customs and
prejudices? Listen to the words of an Egyptian, translated and
re-printed from a Cairo daily paper.

    I am an Egyptian, and speak of that which is customary in my land;
    yet I wait to be shown that the Moslems of India, of Yemen, of
    Syria, or of Persia are in any better case....

    The first step in our faulty marriage system is that of marrying
    boys of thirteen to girls not more than ten years of age, as is
    the custom. This custom is like making a fire of tender green
    branches; you benefit not by its warmth, but you suffer much from
    its smoke. How many of us have suffered from this cause? The
    excuse given for it is that it is to preserve our youth from
    impurity. But what a feeble excuse! Silence were better than
    such.[24]

[Sidenote: The betrothed boy in Korea.]

Strange customs prevail in different lands regarding betrothal and
marriage. Their effect upon the life and status of the boy seems to be
peculiarly marked in Korea.

    The matter of becoming a full-fledged man does not depend upon
    years, but is a matter to be decided on its merits by the parents
    or guardians of the subject in hand. The badge of manhood is none
    other than the topknot, which is made by combing all the hair to
    the top of the head and making it into a coil about an inch and a
    half in diameter and four or five inches high. From the time the
    boy’s hair is long enough, it is plaited into a straight braid and
    left hanging down his back. When the time comes for him to be
    engaged to marry, his topknot is put up, and from that time forth
    he is recognized as a man. This usually takes place between the
    ages of ten and twenty, though he is not likely to be so old as
    twenty....

[Illustration: IN A KOREAN HOME]

    As long as a boy wears his hair plaited and hanging down his
    back, he is addressed in low talk. His age has nothing to do with
    the form of speech, but the style of his hair settles that. It
    sometimes happens that a very poor family will not be able to
    contract a marriage for their son, and so we occasionally meet a
    man thirty years old with his hair still hanging down his
    back.... But the boy who is honored with the precious topknot is
    addressed in middle or high talk, though he may be only eight or
    ten years old.[25]

[Sidenote: Customs preceding marriage.]

A girl’s hair receives special attention among the Persian
Mohammedans, and must be banged when she is taken to the public bath
on the day preceding her marriage. In one of the islands of the New
Hebrides the struggling girl is held down by several old women while
her two upper front teeth are knocked out as a necessary preparation
for marriage.

Among the Lao, where marriage is much more honored and considered more
sacred than in many other countries, the boys are freer to do their
courting in person, and both boys and girls have far more voice in the
selection of a life partner than in countries where women live in
seclusion and where polygamy abounds.

[Sidenote: The burden of motherhood.]

Through long years there has run in my ears the brief story of a
Christian servant in one of the missionary homes in Persia. “I was
married at twelve years and had a baby when I was thirteen, and, oh!
how glad I was when it died!” Glad? Of course she was glad. What
child of thirteen would want the burden of motherhood?

Who of us who has witnessed the agonies of the little dying
child-mother can ever for a moment think with carelessness or
indifference of the awful custom of child marriage?

[Sidenote: A dying child-wife.]

“A girl of fifteen was dying,” writes a friend from India. “Her
husband, a man of fifty or more, is a man of good position and
considerable means. The girl lay in a bare room with nothing but an
unbaked earthenware vessel near her. Her _second_ baby had been born a
few days or weeks before and something was wrong.... But she was a
purdah woman and could not see the doctor. He had asked a few
questions from outside and had diagnosed the illness as tuberculosis,
was treating it as such,--and had given it as his opinion that she
would die. Our pastor’s wife, dear Mrs. Roy, had somehow gone to see
her. Even her non-professional eye saw that a mistake had been made,
and she tried to persuade the mother to send for a woman doctor. ‘What
was the use? She was doing to die.’

“Mrs. Roy expostulated indignantly with the mother for having married
this child of twelve to a grown-up man, just for money. The poor child
seemed so sad. Mrs. Roy told her of the Christian’s hope and a
Saviour’s love. The child listened with the tears running down her
face. Then she asked, ‘May I touch you?’ (Being a mother of a few days
she was still unclean and no one would touch her). So Mrs. Roy went
to her and held her hands and stroked her face and hair and tried to
give her comfort for the journey for which she was so little prepared.
Thus is the ‘hope of India’ MURDERED by custom and carelessness and
greed. _Oh, India is horrible!_”

[Sidenote: Statistics from India. Child-marriage; Child-widowhood.]

From the _Missionary Review of the World_ (August, 1911) we quote the
following statistics, each word and figure of which cries out to us
Christian women, “How long, oh, how long, shall these things be?”

    The figures are appalling in respect of child-marriages. The
    census of 1901 showed 121,500 married boys and 243,500 married
    girls, whose age was under five: 760,000 boys and 2,030,000 girls
    between the ages of five and ten; 2,540,000 and 6,586,000 between
    ten and fifteen. Of these, all except a certain number of girls
    under the last class were married before they were able to realize
    what marriage is. The most deplorable result of such marriages is
    seen in the number of widowed children; 6,000 widowers and 96,000
    widows were between five and ten; 113,000 widowers and 276,000
    widows between ten and fifteen.

[Sidenote: The homes of the world need Christ.]

[Sidenote: Three methods of bringing Christ to needy homes.]

The homes of the world need nothing so much as the presence and
blessing of the Christ who brought cheer to the home in Cana, comfort
to the widow’s home at Nain, resurrection and life to the home at
Bethany, vision to the home in Emmaus. How are _we_ to help to make it
possible that fathers, mothers, and children in homes where He is not
known should hear Him as He stands at the door and knocks, and shall
open to Him that He may sup with them and they with Him? There are at
least three practical methods by which Christian women may help to
bring about this result.

_First_: Through Christian schools which take children and youth in
their impressionable years and train them to be the Christian fathers
and mothers of the future. We have briefly alluded to this method and
shall speak of it more at length in a later chapter.

_Second_: In Zenana work and other forms of visiting in the homes, in
crowded cities, and isolated villages, taking to each individual home
the story of the Christ who gathered the little ones in His arms, and
the practical, homely lessons of efforts that Christian civilization
is making in behalf of home life.

_Third_: Through the great object lesson, the missionary home.

Never again let it be asked in church or missionary society of a young
woman starting for the foreign field, “Are you going out as a
missionary, or only as a missionary’s wife?” At a conference for
outgoing missionaries, a beautiful, talented college graduate, leader
in many activities and full of capacity and consecration, said to a
returned missionary,--“I am to be married, and have listened and
listened at this conference to know what particular work is waiting
for me, but there has been _nothing_ for me as yet.” When it was
pointed out to her that by means of her paramount duties and
obligations as wife and mother in a missionary home she would have an
opportunity of _living_ the missionary message such as few of her
fellow missionaries might have, her beautiful face lighted up with a
look that illumined it. The making of a missionary home was a vocation
indeed to call forth all the highest powers of her consecrated
womanhood.

[Sidenote: E. A. Lawrence on missionary homes.]

Mr. E. A. Lawrence has stated so clearly the possibilities and
opportunities of the missionary home that he is worth quoting at
length.

    There is an element of missionary life which is seldom presented,
    yet most important. It is the mission home.... It underlies the
    whole of the work, and discloses the ideal of Protestant missions
    more clearly than any other point....

    The first thing the Protestant missionary does among the heathen
    is to establish a home. He approaches them not as a priest, not
    simply as a man, but as the head of a family, presenting
    Christianity quite as much in its social as in its individual
    characteristics. This Christian home is to be the transforming
    centre of a new community. Into the midst of pagan masses, where
    society is coagulated rather than organized, where homes are
    degraded by parental tyranny, marital multiplicity, and female
    bondage, he brings the leaven of a redeemed family, which is to
    be the nucleus of a redeemed society.... It is on this mission
    home that everything else is founded--the school, the college,
    the kingdom itself....

    When they are at their homes, this new institution, with its
    monogamy, its equality of man and woman, its sympathy between
    child and parent, its co-operative spirit of industry, its
    intelligence, its recreation, its worship, is at once a new
    revelation and a striking object-lesson of the meaning and
    possibility of family life. Whether they come to his church and
    school or not, the natives seem always ready to visit the
    missionary’s home, and to remain there so long, and to conduct
    themselves so familiarly, that it sometimes becomes necessary to
    teach them by object-lesson another feature of the Christian
    home--its privacy....

    If the family in its very existence is an important missionary
    agent, having a distinct work to do, not only for its own
    members, but for the natives, ... then there must be a distinct
    acceptance of this office by its members, and it must play its
    part in the outreaching work of the missionary. The natives must
    be brought in contact with this domestic sphere. The walls of the
    home should be at least translucent, that its light may
    continually shine through to them; its doors should be often
    open, its table often spread for them; a distinct social as well
    as Christian fellowship should be cultivated.[26]

[Sidenote: At the missionary’s table.]

“Given to Hospitality” might be the true epitaph on the headstone of
most missionary wives, and untold lessons in love and deference
between husband and wife, obedience of children, interesting and
profitable table conversation, self-control, and courtesy, are taught
in the missionary dining room as they could never be taught in church
or school room.

[Sidenote: Planning the day’s work.]

“Won’t you write an article on the orderly management of a home for
the paper published by the mission?” begged a young Christian teacher
who was spending her vacation week as a guest in the missionary home.
“The work of each servant and person in this house is arranged for
every day, and everything goes on quietly and regularly. Our women
have no plan for their day’s work, and I wish they might know how you
do it.”

“I was taking dinner at the home of Mr. C.,” said a native pastor,
“and his little boy cried for some more of the food he liked. Instead
of giving it to him, his mother actually sent him away from the table
to stay until he could be pleasant! I never heard of such a thing, but
I went home and told my family about it.”

[Sidenote: Learning to cook.]

Mrs. J. C. Worley of Matsuyama, Japan, writes: “One woman whom Mr.
Worley baptized a year ago walked thirty-five miles over the mountains
and carried a baby on her back to get to us so she could learn foreign
cooking in a week. I could not do too much after she had made such an
effort. She came over every morning into our kitchen, and we proceeded
to cook; she with paper and pencil in hand and watching with both
eyes. I am wondering what I shall be expected to eat next time we go
there. I taught her some new songs for the Sunday School she and her
husband hold in their little mountain village. I just wanted to fill
her up with good thoughts and helps to take home, as she had made such
an effort to get here.”[27]

[Sidenote: The baby who made her smile.]

Even the little missionary children may have their unconscious share
in kindling a new light that shall shine in palace and hovel, and be
reflected in the faces of parents and children who have long since
lost the radiant look they were meant to wear. A woman of high
position was making a very formal call in the missionary home,
accompanied by many retainers. Every effort was made by the ladies of
the station to entertain her fittingly and to bring some gleam of
interest to the weary, hopeless face. The piano, beautiful pictures,
the wonderful writing machine (typewriter), dainty refreshments,--all
were acknowledged courteously, but, neither interest nor heart was
touched. At last in desperation the tiny baby in her dainty, long
dress was brought out from the bedroom, and, as the visitor’s arms
were stretched out eagerly for the cunning form, so different from any
baby she had ever seen, the little face looked up into the sad,
wondering eyes, and a beautiful smile crept into the baby eyes and
hovered about the rosebud mouth. “Oh, see,” whispered the servants in
eager watchfulness, “our lady is smiling,--smiling for the first time
since her brother died. God bless the little baby who made her smile!”

Ah yes! God bless the missionary babies, and the missionary fathers
and mothers, and every one of the men and women whose hearts glow with
the love of the great Father whose supreme will it is that “not one of
these little ones should perish!”


QUOTATIONS--CHAPTER II.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE HOME

Christianity will call into existence a sympathy between parents and
children hitherto unknown, and one of the greatest needs of the
Chinese home. It will teach parents to _govern_ their children, an
accomplishment which in four millenniums they have never made an
approach to acquiring. This it will do, not as at present by the mere
iterative insistence upon the duty of subjection to parents, but by
showing parents how first to govern themselves, teaching them the
completion of the first relations by the addition of that chiefest one
hitherto unknown, expressed in the words Our Father. It will redeem
many years during the first decade of childhood, of what is now a mere
animal existence, filling it with fruitfulness for a future
intellectual and spiritual harvest.

It will show Chinese parents how to _train_ as well as how to govern
their children--a divine art of which they have at present no more
conception than of the chemistry of soils. (Dr. Arthur H. Smith,
“Village Life in China.” Revell.)

MOTHERS’ MEETINGS

I have been much interested in our Mothers’ Meetings this winter. They
meet at our house twice a month, and we have been trying to have some
very practical talks which shall help them to be better mothers and
women. The need for such talks is very great, and I wonder more and
more that so many children escape physical and moral wreck. Our more
intelligent women realize their need for instruction and help, and are
very grateful for the opportunities given them by these meetings, but
a large number come only out of curiosity. Some of the young women
say, “You ought to have these meetings for our mothers-in-law instead
of for us. They govern the house and our children. We would like to
try these methods. We know they are right, but we are not allowed our
way.” But I know it is hopeless to do anything with the grandmothers,
and I believe that at least these young women will learn enough to
keep their hands off when their turn comes to be mothers-in-law! It’s
a long look ahead, but well worth while to plan for the future
generation, even though we cannot do all we long to for the present
one. (Mrs. Henry Riggs, Harpoot, Turkey.)

A TRANSFORMED HOME

In a small village near Hoi-How lived Sitli Nin, a poor woman, worn
out by a life of hard work, bitter poverty, and sorrow. Her husband
had become a victim of the opium habit, and squandered what little
property she had. When her eldest boy was eight years old, the inhuman
father, in order to gratify his cravings, sold him to a Hong Kong
boatman, and the mother never heard from him since. Eight times she
had attempted suicide, three times by drowning, three times by
hanging, and twice by taking opium; but in the latter case she had
failed to take enough, and the other times love for her children
restrained her at the last moment. By some chance the ladies of our
mission found her. Her husband was persuaded to take the opium cure at
the hospital.... While he was in the hospital, she attended the
services at the mission, and was genuinely converted. Her husband was
cured, and they went home rejoicing in their new-found happiness.
(Josephine P. Osmond, “Home Life in Hainan,” leaflet of Women’s
Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church)

CHILD MARRIAGE, INDIA

Sir W. W. Hunter says, “In Bengal, out of every thousand girls between
five and nine years of age, two hundred and seventy-one are married.
More than ten boys in every thousand between five and ten years old
are bridegrooms; while of girls, twenty-eight in one hundred are wives
or widows at an age when, if they were in Europe, they would be in the
nursery or infant school.”

In England, out of every hundred females of twenty years of age and
upwards, 25.80 are single, 60.60 are married and 13.60 widows.

“A Brahmin of Bengal gave away his six aunts, eight sisters, and four
daughters in a batch of altogether eighteen, in marriage to one
person--a boy less than ten years old. The brides of three generations
were in age from about fifty years to three months at the lowest. The
baby bride was brought to the ceremony on a brass plate.” (Quoted from
_Times_ of India.)

The origin and authority for early marriage are worthy of inquiry.
Like so many Hindu customs, it claims a quasi-divine authority, and is
based on certain reasons which, from the Hindu point of view, are of
great weight. “Reprehensible,” says Manu, “is the father who gives not
his daughter in marriage at the proper time.” And all commentators say
the proper time is before the age of puberty.... A high legal
authority, Mr. Justice Moothoswami Iyer, recently said, “According to
custom now obtaining, a Brahmin girl is bound to marry, for fear of
social degradation, before she attains maturity. Marriage is of the
nature of a sacrament which no Brahmin is at liberty to neglect
without forfeiting his caste.”... Thus a religious or sacramental
purpose has been operative here, as in most other departments of Hindu
life and thought.... There has been one strong incentive to early
marriage, which in the past might be urged in its justification. The
unsettled, precarious conditions of life, from the remotest times
until the establishment of British power, encouraged parents to have
their children married as soon as possible. (Rev. E. Storrow, “Our
Sisters in India.” Revell.)

CHILD-WIVES, PERSIA

The usual age for a Mohammedan girl to marry is thirteen or fourteen,
but in many places they marry as early as eight.... Poor little girl
wives! They are taken away from home before they are grown up, and
although they are now married women they cannot help behaving as
children. There was one young wife of a Government official who
received her visitors with the utmost dignity and propriety, and then
could not resist the temptation to pinch the old black woman who was
handing the tea and make her jump....

[Illustration: A LITTLE GOANESE BRIDE IN INDIA]

Even when the children grow older their mothers, grown-up children
themselves, do not know how to manage them.... One woman bit her
little boy’s hand till it bled badly. He was about seven, and had
cried to have his best coat on when he went to see the missionary.
Another woman bit the cheek of a poor little consumptive girl of eight
or nine so that there was a great bruise and the skin was broken. She
told a neighbor, with a laugh, that she had got angry with the child
because she was tiresome about taking her medicine, which was very
nasty.

There is no command in the Koran that girls should be married so
young, but the mothers declare that it was the command of Mohammed,
and certainly he himself set the example by marrying a girl of
nine....

The man is absolute master in his own house, and unless his wife has
powerful relations he may do what he likes to her and her children,
and no one will take any notice. I knew one woman whose husband
treated her like a slave. He forced her not only to do all the work of
the house, but the work of the stable too, for he was well enough off
to keep a horse. He killed one child in her arms, and twice stole
another away from her, sending it once to a town a week’s journey off,
and once to another part of the town. Finally he divorced her, without
giving any reason, and left her ill and destitute. And she had at no
time any redress....

Little Bagum, the child-wife, was deliberately and cruelly burnt by
her husband, and was brought to the mission hospital. There was no
hope of recovery, but all was done that was possible to relieve her
pain and brighten her last days. She had heard something of the Gospel
story from a missionary who had paid a visit to her native village,
and she had been so interested that she asked two Persian children to
teach her more. When she was brought to the hospital even the terrible
pain she was suffering did not make her forget the wonderful story,
and she begged to be told more and more. And, resting in the love of
Christ and trusting wholly in Him and His salvation, she loved to sing
of the joy to which He was going to take her, and kept begging for
“Here we suffer grief and pain,” until even the Mohammedan women would
sit beside her and sing the hymn that comforted her so much....

“I have a foolish husband,” said one little girl, “He says he will
beat Jesus Christ out of me, but he can only beat my body, and Jesus
Christ is in my heart, so he cannot beat Him out.”

(Mrs. Malcolm, “Children of Persia,” Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier.)


BIBLE READING

THE IDEAL HOME

Psalm 128

v. 2. The busy father working with joy for the maintenance of the
home.

v. 3. The happy, willing, successful mother, striking the keynote of
the home.

v. 3. The vigorous young children growing up in the home.

v. 4, 5. All this is the token of God’s rich blessing to him who puts
God first, and who is interested in the growth of God’s kingdom as
well as in his own home.

v. 6. Not only as parents but as grandparents God’s blessing will be
enjoyed.


PRAYER

We thank Thee, O Lord,

For the sweet and silent years of the Holy Childhood.

For the light and gladness brought into the world by little children.

For Thy servants who, by word and good example, are protecting and
guiding Thy lambs in the dark and waste places.

For the Christian nurture, Christian homes, and Christian parents,
which are the gifts of the Christ-Child to our nation; the strength of
its life and the hope of its future.

For Thine assurance that inasmuch as we have done it unto the least of
Thy little ones, we have done it unto Thee.

For the growing interest and co-operation of the children of the
Church in the up-building of the world-wide Kingdom.

May it please Thee--

To guard and protect the innocence of children, and by their example
to win men and women to a worthier life.

To bless family life, and direct parents in their sacred task, that
Thy children may have a fear and love of Thy Holy Name.

To bring to the mothers of the world the knowledge which alone can
sanctify their joy and soothe their sorrow.

(_Spirit of Missions_, February, 1910.)


QUESTIONS

1. What is the saddest part of the life of a girl in India?

2. What do you consider the greatest sorrow of Mohammedan motherhood?
Of heathen motherhood?

3. What methods can you suggest for effecting a beneficial change in
the home life of the Chinese?

4. What feature of home life in Mohammedan lands most needs to be
improved?

5. What effect would it have on your boy to be married at the age of
fourteen?

6. If you could make marriage laws, what would you set as the lowest
marriage age for boys? For girls?

7. Name the missionary wives and mothers of your acquaintance. In what
ways do they serve and help the communities in which they live?


BIBLIOGRAPHY. CHAPTERS I & II.

LEAFLETS

  Home Life in China              Women’s Foreign Missionary
  Home Life in Syria                Society of the
  Home Life in Siam                 Presbyterian Church.
  Home Life in Persia
  Home Life in Hainan
  Home Life in Korea
  Home Life in Africa
  Home Life in India
  Home Life in Japan
  Child Life among the Lao
  Other Children

  Being a Boy in Korea            Woman’s Board of Foreign
  Selma (Beirut)                    Missions of the
  A Faithful Follower               Presbyterian Church.
  Auntie’s Explanation

  Child Life in China             Woman’s Presbyterian
  Story of Satabia                  Board of Missions of
                                    the Northwest.

  Child Life in Burma             Woman’s Foreign Missionary
  Foot Binding in China             Society of the
  Little Daughters of Islam         Methodist Episcopal Church.
  Motherhood in Heathen Lands
  Young Ladies here, Young
    Ladies there
  Childhood in Heathen Lands

  Child Life in Turkey            Woman’s Board of Missions
  Chih, the little Chinese Girl     of the Congregational Church.

  Sister May’s Impressions        Woman’s Board of Foreign
  Village of the Milky River        Missions of the Reformed
                                    Church in America.

  Sorrows of Heathen Motherhood   Woman’s Baptist Foreign
                                    Missionary Society.

CHILDREN’S MISSIONARY MAGAZINES

  _World Wide_                    American Baptist Publication
                                    Society, Ford Bldg.,
                                    Boston, Mass.

  _Over Sea and Land_             Pres. Bd. For. Miss., 156
                                    Fifth Ave., New York City.

  _Day Star_                      Woman’s Bd. of For. Miss.
                                    Ref. Ch. in Am., 25 E.
                                    22d St., N. Y.

  _Lutheran Boys and Girls_       Lutheran Board, 1424 Arch
                                    St., Phila.

  _Children’s Missionary Friend_  Woman’s For. Miss. Soc.
                                    of the M. E. Church, 581
                                    Boylston St., Boston, Mass.

  _Everyland_                     Everyland Publishing Co.,
                                    156 Fifth Ave., New
                                    York, N. Y.

  See magazines of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Boards.
  See also Bibliography for Chapter I.


FOOTNOTES:

[15] John L. Dube, Orange, Natal, _Missionary Review_, June, 1912, p.
410.

[16] J. S. Dennis, “Chr. Miss. & Soc. Prog.,” vol. ii, p. 176. Revell.

[17] Mrs. S. C. Perkins, “Home Life in China.” Pres. Wom. Bd. of Miss.

[18] Mrs. O. W. Scott, “Child Life in Burma.” Wom. For. Miss. Soc. M.
E. Ch.

[19] _Life and Light_, Aug., 1912.

[20] _Missionary Review_, June, 1912, Karl Kumm, F.R.G.S.

[21] _Missionary Review of the World_, Oct., 1911.

[22] Daniel McGilvary, “A Half Century among the Siamese and Lao.”
Revell.

[23] Mrs. C. M. Wherry in “Daylight in the Harem,” Revell.

[24] M. Fadil, Atbara, in _Missionary Review_, Feb., 1912, p. 131.

[25] Robert Moose, “Village Life in Korea.” Pub. House of M. E. Ch.
Soc.

[26] E. A. Lawrence, “Modern Missions in the East,” Chap. viii.
Harper’s.

[27] _The Continent_, April 17, 1913.




CHAPTER III.

THE CHILD AT PLAY AND AT WORK

“Boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.”

    Questions concerning play and work--Two great movements,
    Playground movement and Child Labor movement--The importance of
    play--Children at play in Japan--Games known the world
    over--Children at play in Africa--In the desert--Why play stops so
    early in non-Christian lands--Need of the “Spirit of Play” in
    children and parents--The message of a doll--Child labor--Bedouin
    and African girls at work--Children at work in many lands--Child
    slavery--Rescue homes for slave children--Defective and dependent
    children--Orphans and orphanages--Famine waifs--Blind, deaf and
    dumb children--Homes for untainted children of lepers--A crime in
    the name of civilization--The Child in the Midst.


What is play?

[Sidenote: How would you answer these questions?]

What are the advantages and disadvantages of play?

At what age would you wish your child to stop playing?

What would be the physical and moral consequences to a child who
practically stopped playing at or before the age of ten years?

At what age would you advise that a child begin to work for commercial
profit?

If it is good for the children in whom you are interested to have time
and opportunity for play, how far would the same rule hold good for
other children in America? For children of other countries?

Name the countries in which defective and dependent children may be
neglected or overworked without danger to world-welfare.

Reversing the stereotyped text-book arrangement, we place our
questions at the beginning rather than at the end of this chapter.
Every thoughtful woman is begged to stop and answer these
questions,--in writing, if feasible,--as fully and as honestly as
possible, and then, after carefully studying the subject, to see if
her opinions have altered in any particulars.

[Sidenote: Two great movements.]

Two of the great movements that are sweeping over our land,--the
Playground movement and the movement to create and enforce proper laws
concerning Child Labor,--are engrossing the attention of some of our
greatest and wisest men and women. The abundance of literature on
these subjects, the time devoted to them in great conventions and in
lesser gatherings, the very opposition encountered in the ranks of
those who profit by the exploitation of America’s growing
children,--all go to prove that they belong to the living issues of
the day. Our grandmothers would doubtless have been shocked beyond
words to be told that the subject of their children’s play belonged to
the “Child Problems” studied by the country at large through its
Juvenile Commission, and had become a matter for legislation and
financial appropriation by state and municipality! But so it is, and
Hygiene and Psychology and various other learned sciences each claim a
voice in the subject of the play and the work of the nation’s
children.

[Sidenote: The importance of play.]

A few extracts from earnest writers and thinkers on this subject will
illustrate their view point.

    All animals play. Play is likewise one of the fundamental
    instincts of the child. If there are any inherent rights of
    childhood, the right to play must be considered one of them. It
    carries with it immeasurable benefits, but the exact results still
    remain comparatively uncertain. It is unquestionable, however,
    that play promotes the physical and mental development of the
    child, and that it is no mean factor in his social and moral
    elevation.... The ancient attitude toward play was that of
    toleration of the ebullient spirits of the growing boy.... The
    utilitarian function of play was undreamed of. The physical
    weakness of the child and his incapacity for concentrated thought
    and endeavor saved to him the enjoyment of play until his parents
    could use his services in some gainful occupation.... Play--the
    most enjoyable right of childhood--was unduly curtailed, and even
    at the present day its value is minimized by many who do not
    recognize its varied functions....

    Whatever be the correct theory of play--that it is practice in
    the line of future methods of conduct, that it is simply the
    discharge of the surplus energy of the young, or that it is for
    the purpose of relaxation and recreation only--whatever theory be
    adopted, the inestimable value of play to the child and to the
    nation cannot be gainsaid. Play is an irrepressible method of
    self-expression....

    The social and moral influences of play produce indelible effects
    upon the child mind.... The recognition of mutual rights is one
    of its initial values. These rights are but little understood by
    the unthinking child, and when brute force permits, are often
    entirely overthrown or perverted into a mere toleration of
    privileges.... On the supervised playground a new regime is put
    into operation.... The growth of the instinct of co-operation is
    perhaps the most valuable result of play.... Ability to
    co-operate spells ability to excel.[28]

[Sidenote: Jane Addams on Play.]

Miss Jane Addams of Hull House, Chicago, speaks with no uncertain
sound and with undisputed authority on this subject.

    This stupid experiment of organizing work and failing to organize
    play has, of course, brought about a fine revenge. The love of
    pleasure will not be denied, and, when it has turned into all
    sorts of malignant and vicious appetites, then we, the middle
    aged, grow quite distracted, and resort to all sorts of
    restrictive measures. We even try to dam up the sweet fountain
    itself because we are affrighted by these neglected streams; but
    almost worse than the restrictive measures is our apparent belief
    that the city itself has no obligation in the matter, an
    assumption upon which the modern city turns over to commercialism
    practically all the provisions for public recreation.[29]

[Sidenote: Professor St. John on the little girl and her doll.]

Singling out one type of the play instinct, the little girl and her
doll, Professor St. John of the Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy
says:--

    Altruistic feeling had its origin in motherhood, and it has
    reached no greater heights of self-denial and service than in that
    same relationship. In playing with her doll the child is in
    thought and feeling making that experience her own. At a very
    formative period of her life it gives her much the same training
    that the race has received through the actual experience.... Every
    impulse toward loving care of the doll should be encouraged. To
    the child in her play it is a living child, and hence the
    experience provides the same kind of emotional training that would
    come from the care of a baby, without the obvious disadvantages to
    the infant.

    Kate Douglas Wiggin says, “Every mother knows the development of
    tenderness and motherliness that goes on in her little girl
    through the nursing and petting and teaching and caring for her
    doll.”[30]

If we agree with an axiom laid down in the first chapter (p. 7) of
this book, that one of the inalienable rights of every child is to
follow his instinct for healthful play, it is now our privilege and
pleasure to watch the little ones of many lands with their tripping
feet and merry voices and lithe little bodies. We instinctively turn
to Japan, “the paradise of children,” where annually at the “Feast of
Dolls” the whole home becomes a big playhouse for the girls of the
family, and where the “Feast of Flags” is the day dedicated to the
boys of the nation. We certainly must stop long enough to see what is
done at these feasts.

[Sidenote: Feast of Dolls.]

    And then there is the feast most loved in the whole year, the
    Feast of Dolls, when on the third day of the third month the great
    fire-proof store-house gives forth its treasures of dolls,--in an
    old family, many of them hundreds of years old,--and for three
    days, with all their belongings of tiny furnishings, in silver,
    lacquer, and porcelain, they reign supreme, arranged on
    red-covered shelves in the finest room of the house. Most
    prominent among the dolls are the effigies of the Emperor and
    Empress in antique court costume, seated in dignified calm, each
    on a lacquered dais. Near them are the figures of the five court
    musicians in their robes of office, each with his instrument.
    Beside these dolls, which are always present and form the central
    figures at the feast, numerous others, more plebeian, but more
    lovable, find places on the lower shelves, and the array of dolls’
    furnishings which is brought out on these occasions is something
    marvelous....

[Sidenote: Feast of Flags.]

    As the Feast of Dolls is to the girls, so is the Feast of Flags to
    the boys,--their own special day, set apart for them out of the
    whole year. It comes on the fifth day of the fifth month.... When
    the great day at last arrives, the feast within the home is
    conducted in much the same way as the Feast of Dolls. There are
    the same red-covered shelves, the same offerings of food and
    drink; but instead of the placid images of the Emperor and Empress
    and the five court musicians, the household furnishings, and
    toilet articles, there are effigies of the heroes of history and
    folk-lore.... Behind each figure stands a flag with the crest of
    the hero in miniature. The food offered is mochi wrapped in oak
    leaves, because the oak is among trees what the carp is among
    fishes, the emblem of strength and endurance. The flower of the
    day is the iris or flag, because of its sword-shaped
    leaves,--hence the name, Shobu Matsuri, feast of iris or flag.[31]

[Sidenote: Playground movement in Japan.]

It is a matter for heartfelt rejoicing that the Japanese Government
has seized upon the idea of the Playground Movement as one of the
really essential activities of some of the great Christian nations,
and is introducing playgrounds for the benefit of Japanese children,
who certainly deserve a suitable place and opportunity to follow their
instinct for play. We hope that hammocks and sandpiles for babies will
soon eliminate one feature of the play hour which is described by many
missionaries and tourists.

“We have such hosts of children here in Tokyo,” writes Mrs. J. K.
McCauley. “We go out and see boys on high stilts, with babies on their
backs, and we tremble lest they fall and drop the baby; but I have
never heard of one who did; and we see girls, jumping the rope with
babies on their backs, and playing battledore and shuttlecock,
dodging, hopping, stooping, and the wee baby’s head bobbing up and
down, laughing, and sometimes crying; but the playing goes on, winter,
summer, no matter how cold, unless raining or snowing. The streets
swarm with children, with bright colored kimonos, bright eyes, rosy
cheeks, and on wooden shoes, making such a clatter; but seldom are
they noisy in their play, but fun-loving as any children in the
world!”[32]

[Sidenote: Other lands feel the need of play.]

That other lands than Japan are beginning to be aroused on the subject
of Child Play by America’s example is proved by the fact that in
April, 1913, letters were received by the Playground and Recreation
Association of America from Persia, Russia, China, and Uruguay
regarding recreation in those countries. The suggestion is made that
perhaps as Rome gave to the world law, and Greece gave art, so America
may contribute play as her share towards the world’s progress.

[Sidenote: Games that are known the world over.]

There are some games that seem to be as instinctive to mankind as are
the processes of eating and sleeping. Kites, tops, and marbles appear
at their proper seasons in Korea, India, and Persia, the rules of
“Hop-Scotch,” “tag,” “hide and seek,” “crack the whip” seem to be very
similar whether played by the Lao children or European immigrant
children on an American pavement. Jack-stones and “Fox and Geese” are
popular among the small, bound-footed girls in China. The rhythmic
movement and exciting choices of “London Bridge” are recognized in the
very heart of Africa in a game so prettily described by Miss Jean
McKenzie that we long to join in the fun.

[Sidenote: African “London Bridge.”]

    A mother and her children file under the arms of two players. The
    child caught is drawn aside for the choice between a cake of gourd
    seed or a peanut porridge, a necklace of beads or a bow and
    arrow--we all know the phantom bliss of such choices. The children
    are caught and ranged until there remains none but the mother and
    one who is now called “the only child.” This remnant of a once
    numerous family takes to the bush, but the mother sallies forth
    from time to time and tosses a handful of grass toward the
    company, who ask her in chorus:

    “How big is the only child now?”

    “The only child creeps,” says the mother.

    “Hay-a-a!” exclaims the astonished chorus after this and all
    other complacent maternal announcements.

    “How old is the only child now?”

    “The only child walks.”

    “Hay-a-a!”

    To this chorus of astonished approval, the only child comes to be
    a young girl, has a sweetheart, is married, and has a baby!

    Having achieved so much success, the only child ceases to figure
    in this drama, and the grandmother is plied with questions about
    the child of the only child.

    “How old is the child of the only child now?”

    “The child of the only child creeps.”

    “Hay-a-a!”

    He walks, he sets traps, one day he has killed a little antelope,
    another day he has killed a big antelope, and now he has killed
    an elephant!

    Here surely is a climax. “Hay-a-a!” The chorus disintegrates; one
    after another comes to beg a piece of elephant meat from the
    child of the only child, who emerges from hiding. One after
    another is refused, until that one comes who pleases the child of
    the only child. He gives her a piece of elephant meat for a sign
    that she is his sweetheart--and they are obliged, of course, to
    run away. After them the entire company is, of course, obliged to
    follow.

    Here, you see, is a rehearsal of life as it is to be. Here is the
    dissension, the gossip, the greed, the romance, and the adventure
    of life.[33]

[Illustration: “LONDON BRIDGE” AT THE MIDORI KINDERGARTEN, JAPAN]

[Sidenote: African children’s play.]

“Kidd in his book on ‘Savage Childhood’ describes the Bantu children
of Africa as showing great power of imagination in their games. Before
the missionary they appear dull and unresponsive, but when no stranger
is about they delight in playing missionary, holding a play service,
singing hymns, and mimicking the padre’s bad dialect. The insistence
of the motor idea is strong in the native; he likes to play games
involving motor skill, is fond of acrobatic tricks, of mimicking
animals, and delights in dolls and play animals. In fact, the whole
picture is that of an intensely human little animal, decidedly
attractive, and one feels pity that it should grow up into an
unattractive and troublesome Kaffir problem.”[34]

[Sidenote: Children of the desert at play.]

How invariably true is the child’s instinct for imitation, for making
his play largely a “rehearsal of life as it is to be.” The little
Bedouin boys, each with a pet locust harnessed to a bit of string,
enjoy the exciting races of their “fiery steeds,” and prepare eagerly
for the great game in which the bigger boys show their budding
manhood. A dweller in the region of the Dead Sea thus describes some
of the games of the desert:

“The boys of the desert are glad when the first of the month comes.
For that day their fathers allow them to have a horse each and ride
away from their black tent homes into the open desert, their athletic
field. A few of the men, heroes of the tribe, meet there with the boys
and act as judges in the horse-racing. They divide the boys in two
rows, and then select a boy from each side, and start off this first
pair in their race (on horseback) to the distant goal, a pole with a
prize on it such as eggs, money, or clothes. The one who arrives first
takes the prize off the pole or knocks it down with his staff. The
judge keeps the conqueror on one side, the conquered on the other. A
new prize is put up, another pair races, and so on till all the
victors are on one side, and the poor defeated ones on the other.

“A sham battle takes place, the conquerors shooting the conquered with
paper or some harmless shot. Then the beaten soldiers are taken
captive and led to their homes, while the proud victors are allowed to
go to the meeting place of the men and drink coffee with the heroes of
their tribe.”

[Sidenote: Why play stops so early in non-Christian lands.]

All too soon the games of childhood merge into the stern realities of
life, and, as we watch and listen and smile, we suddenly wonder why
the laughter is hushed, why the smiling, girlish lips are covered by a
woman’s thick veil, why the little backs stoop beneath loads far too
heavy for them. Then from far and near comes the testimony of those
who have lived and worked among the children in non-Christian lands.
The physical director of a Y. M. C. A. says:--“One of the strongest
impressions made on me in China was by the lack of opportunity which
the average child has for normal physical development and for the
adequate expression of its play instinct.”

Deaconess Phelps of St. Hilda’s School for girls in Hankow says: “When
Chinese girls come to our mission schools we find it difficult to
teach them how to play, and in the case of elder children we often
fail completely, because from time immemorial the idea of learning
and scholarship has been entirely inconsistent with fun and good
times.”[35]

So great an authority as Dr. Arthur H. Smith says: “The outdoor games
of Chinese children are mostly of a tame and uninteresting type. Even
in the country Chinese lads do not appear to take kindly to anything
which involves much exercise. Their jumping and climbing are of the
most elementary sort.”[36]

Mrs. Napier Malcolm after discussing the play life of Persian children
adds:

“But when all is said, the games and toys are very few in Persia as
compared to those you are accustomed to. No great distinction is made
between children and grown-ups, and really there is not so much
difference as we find at home. The children are taught to take life
very seriously ... and they have no time to grow up into proper men
and women. The result is that we find the children too grown-up and
the grown-ups too childish.”[37]

[Sidenote: Need of the “Spirit of Play.”]

“Little old men and women” the missionary called them in her plea that
to the children of India might be brought the gift of CHILDHOOD, and
so we must not be surprised that our missionaries find the lesson of
“HOW TO PLAY” one of the most essential and one of the most difficult
to teach in many lands. They have been at it for many years in a
quiet, unpretentious way, these pioneers of thought and action. Now
that the whole American public is being aroused as never before to the
value and need of play for _all_ children, let us see to it that all
necessary facilities are in the hands of our missionaries, and that
their numbers are sufficiently reinforced so that the “Spirit of Play”
may flit from land to land and bring smiles and joy and health and
lessons of unselfishness and co-operation to little children who have
long since forgotten how to play.

[Sidenote: Parents ought to know how to play.]

Not only because they are children today, but because they will in a
few short years become parents, must we give the little ones this
opportunity. If the fathers and mothers of the near future know how to
value the development of the play instinct at its true worth, there is
great hope for their children. If they can enter into the play spirit
with their boys and girls, there will be a revolution in home ideals
and companionships. That the lesson is not an easy one to learn or to
teach, we are assured by Elizabeth Harrison, who says, “How many
parents and teachers are there who can enter into this world of play
and not spoil it? In my classes for mothers I have found that one of
the most difficult things I have had to teach many of them has been
how to play simply and genuinely as a child will play.”

But whether the parents themselves know how to play or not, the
quickest and surest way into their hearts is through sympathy with the
play instinct of a little child. The missionary who can enter into
even that realm of the life of a child has the wondering appreciation
of the parent. A little mountain girl lay dangerously ill at the
girls’ school in Urumia, Persia. The principal, who was tenderly
caring for her in her own room, came to ask if by any chance I knew
how to get hold of a dollie for the little child, who had seen such a
toy in the possession of a missionary’s child. Yes, a thoughtful
friend had tucked a couple of dolls into one of my boxes for just such
an emergency, and the one whose head had survived the eight thousand
mile journey was found and sent to the little girl. Such rapturous
smiles, such motherly hugs and caresses, such appreciation when her
schoolmates gave up their recreation hours in order to make proper
Persian clothes to replace the queer American garments! And when the
little one went to be with Him who “gathers the lambs in His arms,”
her weeping parents selected according to custom her chief treasure to
lay into the casket,--in this instance, the cheap little American doll
that had travelled so far to bring joy to the heart of a dying child.
Up into the rugged Kurdish mountains the crude casket was carried on
the back of a sure-footed horse, and at every village where there were
friends of the family the caravan was halted for a last glimpse of
the little face and a wondering look at the fascinating toy. “How they
must have loved her!” was the text from which the doll preached many a
sermon that day.

[Sidenote: Need of public sentiment concerning child labor.]

In order that the “Spirit of Play” may have full right of way, a
great, united, preliminary effort is needed, that the little ones of
all lands may come into their rightful heritage. What time, what
strength, what zest is there left for play when the children have to
work and contribute toward the family support? With shame we confess
that the Christian nations are far from guiltless in this matter,--the
blood of thousands of their children cries to God from the ground.
But, thank God, they are _aroused_, and changes are taking place with
wonderful rapidity, and nations like China and Japan are _looking to
us_ as examples. Shall we fail them in their hour of crisis, or shall
we lead and help and encourage them and other lands awaking from
age-long sleep in this matter of their duty to the children?

    Prominent among the rights of the child must be the right to
    abstain from the task of earning money either for his own support
    or to increase the family income. Premature child labor is an
    absolute evil and is wholly without justification.... The
    enlightened view of today refuses to regard the child as a mere
    commercial asset of the parent. On the contrary, the relation of
    the two is exactly reversed. Until children reach a certain age it
    is absolutely necessary that they be supported by their parents,
    and society must enforce this obligation.[38]

[Sidenote: Bedouin girls at work.]

“How hard the Bedouin girls have to work,” we read in “Topsy-Turvey
Land,”[39] “treated like beasts of burden as if they had no souls!
They go barefoot carrying heavy loads of wood or skins of water, grind
the meal and make fresh bread every morning, or spin the camel’s hair
or goat’s hair into one coarse garment.”

One little Bedouin girl said, “I tote my two small brothers on my back
all day long, and they kill me a thousand times with their crying.”
Another said, “What do I do? Why, nothing but work--that’s what
children are for.”[40]

The familiar Chinese proverb,--“A child of six should earn his own
salt,” is an indication of public opinion that needs revision.

On the African girl the burden falls early and heavily, while her
brother, joining the men in their occupations, finds life much easier
and more enjoyable than she does.

[Sidenote: The burden of the African girl.]

“The girl follows her mother to the plantation (distance one-half to
one mile from the village), imitating her mother in carrying a basket
on her back, its weight supported by a broad strap going around it and
over her forehead. Some burden is always put into that basket, often
one beyond the child’s strength, as a jug of water. The little one
staggers under it, leaning far forward to lessen the direct traction
over her forehead. With that daily bending the child would become
deformed, were it not counteracted by the carrying at other times of a
log of firewood or some lighter burden on her head.”[41]

[Sidenote: Children at work in many lands.]

The little coolie children of Hong Kong toiling up a steep road under
the broiling sun with great loads of bricks slung on either end of a
bamboo pole; the thousands of Chinese children gathering and carrying
home great loads of fuel and manure; the Japanese girls sitting
closely on their heels and painting cheap crockery for $1.00 a week;
the little children of a Japanese village helping to support
themselves by making match boxes for the sum of eight cents a
thousand; the mere babies picking tea leaves under the hot sun in
Bengal; the seven year old girls working from five in the morning to
six at night in the cotton and silk mills in China;--these and
countless others seem to be calling to us in the name of the Child of
Bethlehem to lighten in some way their heavy load.

[Illustration: LITTLE MANURE GATHERERS IN A PERSIAN MOUNTAIN VILLAGE]

And, oh, what heroic efforts your missionaries are making to lessen
the great evil, but how powerless they seem in lands where _no law, no
custom, no religion_ gives the child any rights. Once more we turn to
Mrs. Napier Malcolm for a vivid word picture from Persia.[42]

[Sidenote: The little carpet weavers of Persia.]

    But for the horrors of child labor in the carpet trade we must
    turn to the factories of Kirman.

    These factories are filled with children from four years old
    upward, underfed, overworked, living a loveless, joyless,
    hopeless life. The factories are built without windows lest the
    children’s attention should be distracted, and the bad air, want
    of food, and the constantly keeping in one position produce
    rickets and deformity in nearly all. Of thirty-eight children
    examined in one factory, thirty-six were deformed.

    One of the Governors of Kirman forbade the employment of children
    under twelve in the factories, but the order did not last beyond
    his governorship. The same Governor gave the order still in
    force, which forbids the employment of children before dawn or
    after sunset, thus reducing their working hours to an average of
    twelve hours a day. A recent Governor added to this an order
    limiting the Friday work to about two and a half hours, “from
    sunrise to full sunshine,” so now the children share in part the
    general Friday holiday of Mohammedanism.

    One of our medical missionaries was called to attend the wife of
    the owner of one of these factories, and consented to do so on
    condition he made windows in his factory to allow the children
    air and light. He objected at first, saying that it would prevent
    their working, but finally consented, and admitted afterwards
    that the children did more work with the windows than they had
    done without them.

    The factory owners are glad to get the children, for they say
    children work better than grown-up people at carpet-making, and
    of course they expect less wages. But how can the parents allow
    their children to live this cruel life? You will find the answer
    in the Persian saying that “of every three persons in Kirman,
    four smoke opium.”... Over and over again comes the terrible
    story, the father and mother smoke opium; the little deformed
    child toils through the long days to earn the money that buys it.

Is the picture sad enough, are the colors gloomy enough, are the weary
cries loud enough to reach and touch every womanly heart in a
Christian land,--every mother or sister or teacher who has ever loved
or helped or taught a child? Ah, but we must go into darker depths
than these if we are to be even ordinarily intelligent concerning
child life and its needs. What of the little slave children who are
stolen from their homes “in darkest Africa,” who are sold by their
parents in China and Assam, who live lives of unspeakable misery in
Korea, in Siam, in Turkey, Morocco, and Arabia? Paid child labor is
terrible enough, but the countless slave children of the world live
under a far more cruel system.

In his revelations concerning “The Crime of the Congo,” A. Conan Doyle
gives proof of the atrocious crimes perpetrated on little children as
well as on men and women by employees of the Congo government. The
selling, beating, mutilation, and murder of children were proved to be
common occurrences.

It is said to be difficult for even the missionaries to realize the
awful extent of the traffic in girls in China. In famine times girls
may be bought for a mere song, sometimes being peddled about the
streets in a basket and sold like poultry. In Siam the problem of
slavery has assumed such large proportions that the king issued an
edict a few years ago that thereafter all children born of slaves
should be free.

[Sidenote: Rescue Homes for slave children in Arabia.]

“To set at liberty them that are bound” is still the work of Jehovah’s
servants, and here and there throughout mission lands will be found
Rescue Homes for slave children where new life and hope and
opportunity are given to children who have been stolen from their
homes or deliberately sold into slavery. The rescued-slave school in
Muscat, Arabia, was started by the Rev. Peter Zwemer for some African
slave boys caught by Arab traders, who were in turn caught by a
British consul whose servant saw the slave-dhow and reported it. The
rescued children were turned over to Christian people, most of them
being cared for and trained for useful Christian manhood at the Muscat
school.

[Sidenote: In China.]

_The Spirit of Missions_ for June, 1905, tells of a woman’s conference
held at Shanghai at which one of the subjects chosen for discussion
was “Chinese Slave Girls.” A successful effort was made to enlist the
co-operation of non-missionary ladies, and the result was the opening
of a home for slave children under the direction of a committee on
which the missionaries and the foreign residents were represented.
After four years they were able to report the presence of fifteen
girls, most of them very young and looking even younger than they
really were because stunted by harsh treatment and lack of sufficient
food. Not a child in the home but had been taken from a life of pain
and cruel hardship, and none is too wretched or maimed or low to be
received. They are taught to sew, to read and write in their own
language, and to know and love Christ who put it into the hearts of
His children to save and help them.

[Sidenote: Result of saving a slave-child.]

If you are tempted to query,--Can a stunted, maimed, degraded
slave child ever repay such an outlay of effort and toil and
expense?--please read the following extract from a letter from Miss
Muir of the Methodist Episcopal Mission in China.

    One year ago last spring Dr. B. was called to see a little slave
    girl in one of China’s most prominent official’s families. She was
    five years old. She was caught napping when she should have been
    fanning one of the young ladies of the family. This young lady,
    sixteen years old, a spoiled pet, struck the child over the head
    and face, leaving deep scars, tied her hands and feet together,
    and threw scalding water upon her. When Dr. B. saw her he
    persuaded them to let her go to the Hospital, where her feet and
    all fingers except the stump of her right thumb had to be
    amputated. Then Dr. B. wanted to put her into the school, and so
    he told this official he would have to settle a certain amount of
    money on her for life or he (Dr. B.) would expose him to the
    public and the foreign countries where he had lived. After he had
    tried in every way to creep out of it, Dr. B. holding fast,
    $3000.00 was settled upon the child as long as she lives, but
    whatever has not been spent of it at her death goes back to the
    family. This is poor little Mary, who is compelled to walk on her
    knees the rest of her life just because she was too sleepy to keep
    awake one afternoon when only five years old. But her influence in
    the school cannot be estimated. Her being there has helped to
    soften and make more kind and thoughtful every girl from the
    oldest to the youngest. It is beautiful to watch the little ones
    try to carry her or pick her up when she falls. It has been the
    redemption of “Pontsi” (Fattie), who used to be the mischief of
    the school: she would not study for any teacher, and was the
    hopeless case of every one. “Pontsi” appointed herself the
    guardian and caretaker of Mary as soon as Mary came to school; she
    is Mary’s partner in the line; she wheels Mary in her little
    chair; helps her up and down from the bench in chapel; and is
    always alert to do the many little helpful things where Mary needs
    help. She has become very studious and good in her classes, no
    more in mischief. But Mary has such a bright, happy disposition
    that she is a great help to herself, and many a time will beat
    half a dozen with two good feet running across the compound on her
    knees.

[Illustration: CHINESE MARY

A Cripple for life, because she took a nap at the wrong time]

[Sidenote: Defective and dependent children.]

We started our chapter with children at play; we found that all too
soon in countless instances the play must cease and hard grinding work
must begin; we learned that in many lands great masses of little
children are in hopeless slavery. One other large group of pathetic
little ones claims our attention, sympathy, and help in this
connection,--children who know little or nothing of play and fun and
laughter,--for whom no provision is made in lands where Christ is not
known. These are the defective and dependent children,--cripples, deaf
mutes, the blind, orphans, famine waifs, children of lepers. Why is it
that until missionaries started to work for these classes of children,
or governments were inspired to such efforts by the examples of
Christian governments, there was no chance or hope for the great mass
of defective and dependent children in non-Christian lands? Why is it
that blind girls in Korea had no other prospect than that of being
sold to be trained as sorceresses, or that parents of blind Chinese
girls find a ready market for them in brothels? Search diligently and
find out if you can what would have become of the famine waifs of
India and China, or the massacre orphans of Turkey, had not Christian
missionaries considered their need a call to new and more difficult
service, and had not Christians in Europe and America heard and
answered the call for more funds to support the new work.

[Sidenote: Statistics.]

The World Atlas of Christian Missions, published in 1911, gives the
statistics for Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands as follows:

  Missionary Orphanages                       266
  Inmates                                  20,303
  Homes for Untainted Children of Lepers       21
  Inmates                                     567

[Sidenote: Armenian massacre orphans.]

The Armenian massacres in 1894-96 cast some fifty thousand children in
Turkey without warning onto the care of the missionaries, who had to
face the alternative of letting these children die or drift hopelessly
into lives of wretchedness and vice, or else of caring for them in
some adequate, systematic way. Many pages might be written to show how
Christian missions rose to the occasion, but one instance must suffice
as an illustration of the task, how it was met, and its consequences.
We quote from a letter written in 1912 by Rev. George C. Reynolds, M.
D., for forty-four years a missionary in Van, Turkey.

“In 1896 occurred the great massacre, when for a week our premises
became the place of refuge for the Armenians, of which from 10,000 to
15,000 availed themselves. And then our streets became filled with
helpless orphans, whose plaintive cry for help we tried to voice as an
appeal to Christian philanthropy in America and Europe. Thank God, the
appeal brought response, and we were enabled to gather in a few of
these helpless waifs to feed and shelter and clothe and educate in
books and trades. For fifteen years this God-given work was continued,
and several temporary buildings were erected for its accommodation.
When our German friends withdrew their part of the institution to
separate quarters, promising sufficient orphanage provision for the
province, the American Orphanage was allowed to pass into history; but
we feel as we review this history, that this effort at least was worth
while. Nearly a thousand children were rescued from the streets to
find a loving Christian home, and the elevation which it gave them
over the mass of even well-to-do villagers from among whom most of
them were taken might almost make them thankful for the massacre.
Forty-five of the five hundred and seventy-five boys have graduated
from our high school, thirty-nine of whom have given some years of
their lives to teaching. A good number have continued their studies
in higher institutions in this country or abroad. Two have secured the
degree of M. D. in America, and are engaged in successful practice of
their profession there, while others are on their way to the same
goal. One has just taken his M. D. degree from Edinburgh University,
and another is soon to graduate from London University, while three or
four are successfully pursuing university studies at Harvard. Three
have graduated from colleges in Turkey. Political and economic
conditions in this land not being attractive, many have emigrated, of
whom fifty are now in the United States, and two in South America.
Most of these are fully making good. This orphanage episode of my life
brings me much of joy and satisfaction.”

[Sidenote: Mohammedan children in need.]

Seventeen years pass, and the scene changes. _Then_ it was Christian
children, helpless and starving because the Mohammedans had killed
their parents. _Now_ it is Mohammedan children homeless and suffering
because Christian nations have devastated their land by war. Then and
now it is the Christian missionary who sees the need and realizes that
“it is not the will of our Father that _one_ of these little ones
should perish.” “Some of these children are simply irresistible,”
writes Professor Arthur Reed Cass of the International College,
Smyrna, “The stories they tell are sad indeed. Hundreds of Moslem
babies are being born on transport ships and in schools where lessons
have been suspended to make room for homeless folk. Here is a chance
for American Christianity to prove its recognition of need regardless
of lines of race and creed.”[43]

[Sidenote: The “Polishing Jade Establishment.”]

Reports full of thrilling interest come to hand concerning the work of
Christian orphanages in non-Christian lands,--institutions founded and
maintained by those who consider it their privilege to act as the
human agents of Him who is the “Father of the fatherless.” We are told
that St. Mary’s Orphanage maintained in Shanghai, China, by the
Episcopal Board of Missions has been dubbed by the Chinese, “The
Polishing Jade Establishment,” which is a reference to their own
classic teaching that as jade must be cut and polished to be of value,
so children must be taught and trained.

[Sidenote: Orphanages in India.]

The plan of establishment of orphanages in India under the Methodist
Episcopal Mission dates back to 1857, and is a fine example of how
Christian missionaries are on the lookout for suitable openings for
work, and how to them is apt to be granted the far vision that labors
for the present and future generations and for eternity.

    The orphanage for girls was first established in the city of
    Lucknow, but up to the close of 1860 only thirteen orphans had
    been received. Owing to the famine that spread over the land after
    the great mutiny, it became an easy matter to secure girls, and
    the following year the number increased to forty-one.... At the
    close of the mutiny, Dr. Butler made application to the government
    for a number of girls to be placed in the orphanage, to be cared
    for by the mission. The government was very willing that the
    children should be thus provided for.... Dr. Butler says:

    “Upon reaching the city we found that the Mohammedan officers
    connected with the magistrate’s court, at whose disposal the
    girls had been placed, had distributed many of them in houses of
    infamy throughout the city to be brought up to a life of sin.
    This matter was presented to the governor, and the children were
    ordered to be immediately recovered and forwarded to the mission.
    They were sent in large carts, each containing twenty girls. The
    oldest was probably twelve or thirteen years, the youngest a mere
    babe; but three-fourths of them were under eleven years of age.
    Each driver had his list for his load. He lifted out the largest
    one first and laid her down, then the rest, placing them around
    her as if building them into a bee-hive shape. Then the heaps
    were counted and the signature affixed to each list, and the
    carts moved out.

    “The children were all untidy, and their countenances bore the
    traces of the hunger through which they had passed.... But these
    were girls, and the glad thought was that they were our own to
    save and train and elevate. We accepted them as a trust from God.
    All hands were soon at work in loving labor to change the aspect
    of things. The missionary women and their native helpers before
    the sun went down had accomplished a delightful transformation.
    Bodies were washed, clean clothing put on, and a hearty meal of
    wholesome food banished the gloomy looks and brought forth the
    first smiles on those little faces.”[44]

[Illustration: BASKET OF BABIES FROM THE ORPHANAGE, GUNTUR, INDIA]

[Sidenote: Famine waifs.]

Not only are orphanages established, but missionaries use many other
means to provide for helpless, dependent, or neglected children who
are thrown on their care. After one of India’s great famines the Rev.
Rockwell Clancy of Allahabad formed a distributing station for famine
waifs and collected and placed hundreds of them in various schools and
institutions throughout the land. A new missionary to China after only
a month’s study of the language had rather an interesting trip with
his collection of famine orphans. He writes:--

“The trip to Nanking, including a ten-mile trip on the Presbyterian
motor boat to the railroad station and the one hundred miles by rail,
was full of wonders to these little country lads. On the cars when
eating our slim lunch, consisting of a bun and a boiled egg for each
boy, one of the boys who was a little older than most of them politely
offered part of his share to the people who were occupying the same
seat with him, and this in spite of the fact that he had been going
hungry for weeks or months.

“After entering the city wall at Nanking we drove the seven miles to a
rented Chinese house where I was living, which was to serve as their
home for the time being. One of the drivers told the boys that we were
going to dig out their eyes and cut out their stomachs. This awesome
news, coupled with a little homesickness, was probably the cause of
two of them running away the very next day. We had to send four or
five to the Methodist hospital to be treated, and two of the older
boys who were allowed to go along ran away. But their places have been
filled by three others, two of whom I had to leave in the hospital at
Hwai Yuan.”[45]

[Sidenote: A Persian “Helen Keller.”]

What provision is there for the blind, the deaf and dumb, the crippled
children in non-Christian lands? Would you care to know the number of
children whose fate is like that of the Mohammedan girl who was
brought by her grandmother to the missionary dispensary in Persia? She
was deaf, dumb, and blind, and her grandmother pleaded with the lady
physician to do something to cure her. The girl shrank in fright as a
strange hand touched her and then every tense muscle in her body
showed amazement and relief when the hand proved to be gentle and
loving. Again the grandmother brought her, saying, “You _must_ find a
remedy. There is nothing we can do with her. Must I kill her?” and the
missionary’s heart was broken because she could not cure and there was
absolutely no institution to which to take the girl. Some years later
a younger deaf and dumb girl was brought to the dispensary by a woman
whose face seemed familiar and who turned out to be the despairing old
grandmother. “Where is the older girl?” asked the doctor. “Oh,”
exclaimed the old woman, while the tears rained down her face, “I had
to kill her. There was nothing else to do!”

Who knows what there was behind that wall of blindness and
deafness,--who knows what might have been the result had the
Mohammedan Helen Keller had her fair chance? Which members of the
“organized motherhood for the children of the world” will see to it
that there are means and workers enough to give these children their
inalienable rights? The work is barely begun, but is full of promise.

[Sidenote: Blind children in India.]

“According to the last census, the number of blind persons in the
Indian Empire is 600,000. Little was done for them until Miss Asquith,
superintendent of the school for Tamil girls in Palamcotta, founded a
school for blind children a few years ago. Her success was so great
that she resigned her lucrative position and gave herself and all her
time to the care of the blind. Now the English Government will aid her
in the erection of two substantial school buildings, one for boys, the
other for girls, that she may give both a more complete
education.”[46]

[Sidenote: Work for the deaf.]

“The Martha A. King Memorial School for the Deaf has been started as a
department of the work of the Woman’s Board of Missions at Marsovan.
The oral method is used, and it is the intention to teach each pupil
the language of his own home. The present year the Greek department
has been opened, an Armenian department will be opened in September,
1911, and one in Turkish as soon as there is a demand for it.

“Children (both boys and girls) will be received at from six to eight
years of age. Older children may be accepted, but it is important for
the attainment of the best results that pupils begin the work within
the age limits named. Miss Philadelpheus, the teacher, has spent two
years at the Clark School for the Deaf, Northampton, Mass., in
preparation for this work. Both the home and school life of the
children are under the most careful supervision.”[47]

[Sidenote: Deaf and dumb school in China.]

One in every five hundred of China’s vast population is estimated to
be deaf and dumb. The _only_ school in China for such unfortunates is
in Chefoo and was started in 1898 as an independent work by Mrs. A. T.
Mills, for many years a member of the Presbyterian Mission, which
heartily approves of the school, but has no funds with which to
support it. Boys and girls are taught in this school to read, write,
and speak, and are given as much elementary knowledge as is possible,
while being trained to useful occupations by which they may hope to be
self-supporting. Such constructive work for children who are
handicapped is considered absolutely necessary in America and Europe.
Is there in your opinion any necessity for multiplying such agencies
in non-Christian lands?

Does it pay to help in Christ’s name even one of _these_ little ones?
Are they worth helping? Which one of us could do the work of the blind
reader of Amritsar in India?

[Sidenote: The blind reader of Amritsar.]

    “A peculiarly bright, happy-looking girl of about eighteen,
    sitting down at the beginning of the morning in one of our
    Amritsar dispensaries, with her large Gospel of St. Matthew, in
    Dr. Moon’s system of raised characters for the blind, open on her
    knees; she can see nothing, but her fingers move swiftly across
    the page, and she begins to read better than some persons who have
    the use of their eyes! As the morning goes on, all the sick who
    come for medicine will listen with astonishment and pleasure, and
    she will have opportunities of witnessing for Jesus to those who
    ask her a reason for the hope that is in her. She was once herself
    in the darkness of Mohammedanism, and in the Blind School found
    Christ. She is now a rejoicing and consistent Christian. Do you
    think that, as we stood and watched her delight in reading the
    comfortable words of our Saviour Christ, we asked ourselves if to
    bring such to the Lord were work worth doing? Rather, is it not a
    service which angels might envy?”[48]

[Sidenote: A leprous mother.]

A leprous mother, outcast of society, doomed to spend the rest of her
life in a leper village and to drag out a miserable existence among
those who are afflicted and suffering like herself! What, oh what,
shall she do with her children, as yet untainted by the frightful
disease, but sure to develop it if they too go to the leper village?
And yet who is there in the wide world to care for her little ones?
Her husband is up at the village, hands gone, sightless eyes,
disfigured face,--he cannot help. No relatives or neighbors will be
bothered with the children of the outcast, and yet that mother heart
beats with an intense, despairing mother love as yours or mine
might,--with a love that can bear all suffering and even slow death
for herself if only her children are safe. Hark, a neighbor calls to
her from a safe distance,--“Do you know that those foreign Jesus
people have a place where they take the children of those who are
accursed of God like yourself? They take them and feed them and teach
them their Jesus religion and train them to earn their living.” Oh, it
is the one word of hope and courage, the one ray of light in utter
darkness, and the little children are left on the threshold of the
Home for Untainted Children, and the leper mother learns of a Home
where she herself may go and where she and her husband may receive
loving care and unheard-of comfort, and where the years of suffering
are illumined by the knowledge of another Home where she may meet her
darlings once more, and “where the inhabitant shall not say, I am
sick.”

[Sidenote: Homes for untainted children of lepers.]

“Twenty-one Homes for the untainted children of leprous parents in
which about five hundred boys and girls are being brought up to
healthy and useful lives and saved from adding to the terrible total
of diseased outcasts,”[49] this is the record of the work of
Christian missions thus far. Compare with it the record of what in
this modern day has been done in the name of an attempt at
civilization which leaves Christianity entirely out of account.

[Sidenote: In the name of civilization, but without Christianity.]

“Wellesley G. Bailey of Edinburgh, the superintendent of the Mission
to Lepers, has received authoritative information concerning the
terrible massacre of lepers by government soldiers which was
perpetrated at the city of Nanning, the remote capital of the province
Kwang-si in southern China. The massacre was instituted under the
direct orders of the governor general of the province.... In this case
the offense of his cruelty is aggravated by the fact that, taking
advantage of the trend to modern ideas in China, the vicious old
general pretended to be acting in the interest of scientific hygiene.
The excuse he has made for the massacre is that leprosy is a great
menace to humanity and the destruction of those afflicted with it is
the surest way of stamping out the scourge....

“The English Missionaries had been anxious for some time to build a
leper hospital, but could not spare the energy for it from their other
work. And for a long time the Catholics seemed entirely indifferent to
the needs of lepers. But finally, there arrived in the latter mission
a very earnest and sympathetic priest, whose attention was early
attracted to the collection of miserable hovels outside the city,
where the community of suffering had drawn together a larger group of
outcast lepers. The priest determined that something must be done for
them....

“But it appears that the intrusion of the French into the matter
angered General Luk so much that he took measures immediately to
dispose of the question in another way. Soldiers were sent out to dig
a deep trench near by the leper village, and early on a Saturday
morning soon after a large body of troops completely surrounded the
lepers’ wretched huts. Shouts brought them out of the door of their
hovels, and immediately the soldiers opened fire, shooting
relentlessly until the whole community--men, women and children--were
dead or helplessly wounded. Then the whole mass, many still living,
were dropped into the trench, kerosene poured over them and the pile
set alight. The victims at this one point numbered fifty-three. Of
course there was immense excitement in the city, and to defend himself
the governor general issued a proclamation urging that all lepers
should be put out of the way, and advising that those who did not
voluntarily kill themselves should be killed by their friends and
relatives. How many more died in this way is not known.

“Many crimes have been committed in the name of civilization, as of
liberty, but perhaps never one quite so monstrous as this in the name
of ‘hygiene.’ Certainly the incident illustrates how keenly China
needs not civilization simply, but civilization based upon Christian
religion.”[50]

[Sidenote: “The child in the midst.”]

“The child in the midst,” playful, trustful, loving, helpless, exalted
by our Saviour into a type to be admired and copied if one would enter
into the Kingdom of Heaven! The Master placed him in the very midst of
His disciples, where he might find shelter, protection, and love. But
today we find the little ones, thousands, millions of them, in the
midst of suffering, neglect, vice, crime, torture, despair, danger to
body and soul. And ever and anon the Master’s voice echoes in our
ears, “Whosoever shall receive _one_ such little one in My name,
receiveth Me.”


QUOTATIONS

FEAST DAY, ARABIA

What Christmas Day, with its toys and sweets and merry-making, is to
the Christian child, the Moslem Feast Day, at the close of the
Ramadhan Fast, is to the little men and women of Arabia. At that time
every child must have a new gown of some bright color. On that gay
day, in the bazaar, are sold delicious sweetmeats made only on this
one occasion in the whole year. Every one is happy, for the weary
month of fasting is at an end. Friend meets friend with the greeting,
“May your feast be blessed,” and is answered, “May your day be happy.”

Out on the edge of the town, where the houses end and the desert
begins, some enterprising Arab, who has “seen Bombay,” has constructed
the crudest and most dangerous of Ferris Wheels, and a merry-go-round
to match. Here the youthful inhabitants congregate, with their
precious coppers, eager for a ride on these wonderful machines. There
are big boys and little boys and middle-sized boys. There are little
girls with their faces uncovered, and a few older ones with their
faces veiled, but most of the larger girls must stay at home, as it
would be a shame for them to appear in public. There are the proud
sons of the rich Arab merchants, and the children of the wild
Bedouins. What better opportunity could one have to study the rising
generation?

If a Westerner, wearing a hat, passes through the crowd, he is
immediately followed by a mob of impudent, mischievous boys, calling
out in Arabic:

   “The English, the English!
    They don’t pray!
    Even the chickens
    Are better than they!”

The Moslems say that the chickens are praying when they raise their
heads before swallowing water. (Letter from E. T. Calverley.)

[Illustration: THE MERRY-GO-ROUND AT AN ARAB FAIR]

PLAY, AMONG THE LAO

We have 110 girls in school this term, over half of them boarders, and
they are so gentle and tractable it is a pleasure to work with them.
It is pitiful to see how little they know about playing. Their
greatest pleasure is watching us play tennis. A few evenings ago I
heard an unusual noise under my window, and, looking out, saw a towel
tied across the walk between the hedges. On either side of this stood
a girl with a flat stick in her hand, and they were knocking across
the towel a bundle of rags which they had tied up in some semblance of
a ball. Later we took them out, and let each one have a few minute’s
real play with real racquets and balls, and, when I put the racquet in
a girl’s hand, she would gasp, as if to say, “Can this be really true,
or am I dreaming?” (Miss Lucy Starling in _Foreign Post_, May, 1910.)

DOLLS, CENTRAL AFRICA

The first two dolls that arrived in Toro met with a very mixed
welcome; the children howled and fled in terror, but their mothers
showed a most profound admiration for them. At first they held the
doll very gingerly, but finding that nothing happened to either one or
the other, and the doll still smiled at them like the Cheshire cat,
they became great friends, and begged that they might borrow it for a
few days to play with.

Whether it was the large circulation that those two dolls got, or the
gradually increasing confidence of the Toro children in the white
ladies, the fact remains that in a few months all childish prejudice
had disappeared, and often a little voice was heard asking for “a
child that causes play.” When this was known in England, over one
hundred dolls were sent to me from two working parties. I never saw
such a wonderful doll show as they made. They were all displayed on
our verandah, and the house was literally besieged with men, women,
and children for some days.

A bride, beautifully dressed in white satin and kid shoes, who even in
her wedding attire cried “mamma” and “papa,” was sent to little
Princess Ruth, but the report reached me that King Kasagama had
constituted himself guardian, and kept it locked up in his study for
slack moments!

Apolo, our faithful native deacon--confirmed bachelor--asked me in
secret if men ever played with dolls, and beamed with satisfaction as
he most triumphantly carried one off, peacefully sleeping.

The others were given out to the little girls who had been most
regular at the school, and were noted for having come with clean faces
and bodies.

When the boys saw that the dolls were only given to girls, some
borrowed their sisters’ garments to try and appear eligible! I did not
know till then they were versed in such cunning! It was so pretty to
watch the joy and even playfulness that those dolls brought into the
lives of so many little ones who had scarcely known what this meant
till then. Christianity has completely revolutionized child-life in
Toro.

SAVING A BOY, CHINA

Rev. F. E. Lund, of Wuhu, tells this incident in connection with a
visit to the out-station at Nanking:

“On going back to the school about ten o’clock at night I found in a
dark corner on the street a poor boy, half frozen to death. His
piteous groaning attracted my attention. His legs were already numbed
and his feet swollen and covered with chilblains which made him quite
unable to move. He told me he had been driven out from his home a few
days ago, as his father and younger brother were on the point of
starvation. His mother died last year in the famine. I knew that it
was up to me to save him. There was no one else to do it. The cold
night would have finished him. So I had him carried to our school,
where we gave him a warm bath and put him into new wadded clothes.
During the night he was in great pain and delirious, but in the
morning he seemed hale and hearty, and proved to be a most
straightforward and clever little man. He is ten years old, but very
small for his age. It was most interesting to see how heartily our
Chinese neighbors endorsed this little bit of charity. One gave me
$2.00 to help pay for the clothes. Another brought two pairs of socks.
Some one sent a hat, and an innkeeper sent bedding. If we only had a
trade school to put such boys in, we could do a little work along this
line and it would certainly meet with the approval of the best class,
who would be sure to give substantial help. At any rate, it would be a
work that the best Chinese would appreciate and understand.” (_Spirit
of Missions_, April, 1913.)


SCRIPTURE READING

“The Child in the Midst,” Matthew, 18:1-6, 10-14.

Christ commends the humility of the little child and the spirit of
those who receive a child gladly, whether into the home, the school
room, or into any part of their sphere of influence. There is no place
in Christ’s Kingdom for the one who “does not want to be bothered with
children” or who provokes, injures, neglects, despises, or causes one
little one to sin.

“The feature of child-nature which forms the special point of
comparison is its unpretentiousness. What children are unconsciously,
that Jesus requires His disciples to be voluntarily and deliberately.”
(A. B. Bruce.)


PRAYER

Grant, O Heavenly Father, that as Thy holy angels always behold Thy
face in heaven, so they may evermore protect Thy little ones on earth
from all danger, both of soul and body, through Jesus Christ, our
Lord.

Father of the fatherless, let the cry, we pray Thee, of the orphan and
the destitute enter into Thine ears; rescue them from the perils of a
sinful world and bring them to the refuge of Thy Heavenly Home, for
the sake of Thy Holy Child Jesus, our only Saviour and Redeemer. Amen.


BIBLIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER III.

BOOKS

Christian Missions and Social Progress, Vol. ii, J. S. Dennis,
(Revell.)

Centennial Survey of Christian Missions, J. S. Dennis, (Revell.)

Gloria Christi, Chap. v, “Philanthropic Missions,” Anna R. B. Lindsay,
(Macmillan.)

Children at Play in Many Lands, Katherine Stanley Hall, (Missionary
Education Movement of the United States and Canada.)

The Chinese Boy and Girl, Isaac T. Headland, (Revell.)

Village Life in China, A. H. Smith, (Revell.)

Japanese Girls and Women, Alice M. Bacon, (Houghton Mifflin & Co.)

The Happiest Girl in Korea, Minerva L. Guthapfel, (Revell.)

Village Life in Korea, J. R. Moose, (Smith & Lamar.)

The Laos of North Siam, Lilian Johnson Curtis, (Westminster Press.)

The Jungle Folk of Africa, R. H. Milligan, (Revell.)

Congo Life and Folklore, J. H. Weeks, (Religious Tract Society.)

Home Life in Turkey, L. M. J. Garnett, (Macmillan.)

Children of Persia, Mrs. Napier Malcolm, (Oliphant, Anderson &
Ferrier.)

Topsy-Turvey Land, E. A. & S. M. Zwemer, (Revell.)

Recreation.--A World Need. C. M. Goethe in _Survey_, Oct. 4, 1913.

LEAFLETS

  The Bareilly Orphanage          Woman’s Foreign Missionary
  Ai Mei’s Busy Fingers             Soc. of the Methodist
  As They Play in China             Episcopal Church.
  O Kei San, the Child With
    No Hands

  St. Mary’s Orphanage,           Board of Missions
    Shanghai.                       (Episcopal).

  March Third in Japan            Board of Missions of
                                    Pres. Church.

  Home Life in Africa             Woman’s Foreign Missionary
  Other Children                    Soc. of the Presbyterian
                                    Church.

  Autobiography of a              Woman’s Bd. of Miss.
    Successful Life                 of Interior.
  My little Blind Neighbor

  Chinese Slave Girls             Woman’s Board of Foreign
  Of Such is the Kingdom            Missions of the Reformed
    of Heaven                       Church of America.


FOOTNOTES:

[28] George B. Mangold in “Child Problems.”

[29] Jane Addams, “The Spirit of Youth.” Macmillan.

[30] E. P. St. John, “Child Nature and Child Nurture.” Pilgrim Press.

[31] Alice Mabel Bacon, “Japanese Girls and Women.” Houghton Mifflin & Co.

[32] _The Foreign Post_, May, 1910.

[33] “Other Children,” Jean McKenzie. Wom. For. Miss. Soc. Pres. Ch.

[34] “On the Education of Backward Races,” E. W. Coffin, _Pedagogical
Seminary_, Mar., 1908.

[35] _Spirit of Missions_, Feb., 1911.

[36] “Village Life in China.” Revell.

[37] “Children of Persia.” Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier.

[38] George B. Mangold, “Child Problems.”

[39] A. E. and S. M. Zwemer. Revell.

[40] Dr. Ira Harris in _Over Sea and Land_, Dec., 1912.

[41] Rev. R. H. Nassau, D.D., “Home Life in Africa.” Wom. For. Miss.
Soc. Pres. Ch.

[42] “Children of Persia.” Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier.

[43] _The Congregationalist_, May 8, 1913.

[44] Mrs. J. T. Gracey, “Bareilly Orphanage.” Wom. For. Miss. Soc. M.
E. Church.

[45] John Magee in _Hotchkiss Record_, Jan. 21, 1913.

[46] _Missionary Review of the World_, Feb., 1911.

[47] _Missionary Review of the World_, April, 1911.

[48] Barnes, “Behind the Pardah.”

[49] _Missionary Review of the World_, May, 1911, John Jackson,
F.R.G.S.

[50] _The Continent_, March 27, 1913.




CHAPTER IV.

THE CHILD AT SCHOOL

“Come, ye children--I will teach you the fear of the Lord.”

    The call for schools from Mission Lands--Is missionary educational
    work still needed in the awakening East?--Divergent views on
    education--Reasons why missionary education should be
    continued--Comparative illiteracy--Testimony from Japan--From
    China--From India--From Mohammedan lands--Can we refuse the united
    demand?--Kindergarten Union in Japan--The impressionable years of
    childhood and the call for Christian Kindergartens--Inventive and
    adaptable missionaries--Primitive education among backward
    nations--Lack of power of concentration--Evils of the memorizing
    method--Old methods hard to discard--Education of girls--Early
    marriage a barrier--Now is the time to educate the future
    mothers--Mission schools and physical training--Building up a
    “great personality”--The need for good literature--Industrial
    training in mission schools--Extent of American missionary
    education--Where shall we put the emphasis?--How mission schools
    lead children to Christ--Mission school-children in after life.


[Sidenote: The call for schools from mission lands.]

Four little boys less than ten years of age came trudging over the
muddy Korean road three long miles to school. In their chilly, little,
bare hands they carried bowls of cold rice for dinner. But cheerfully
they marched along, for the daily six-mile walk took them to and from
the mission school, and oh! what a wonderful privilege it was to be
able to study,--a privilege not enjoyed by all the boys of their
village.[51]

The closing session of a school for Jewish children in the heart of
Asia was being held, and many mothers listened with awe and admiration
as child after child took part in the simple exercises. “See,” the
mothers exclaimed to each other, “see how our daughters are learning
to read, instead of growing up to be like donkeys as we have done!”

A woman in the capital city of Persia, head of a Bahaist school,
insisted on sending her little daughter to the American mission
school, paying all tuition charges gladly. “Lady,” she said to the
teacher in charge, “whenever I come into this school my life is
renewed.”

Over the African trail came a young man who had given his heart to
Christ and was now ready to enter the Bible Training School in order
to fit himself for a life work that no foreign missionary could hope
to accomplish. Earnestly he pleaded with the missionaries to let him
bring his little eleven-year-old wife to be taught and trained so that
she might some day be a true help-meet in his work. But there was no
boarding school for girls, no available place for the child. Think
what that future home and work might have been had the little wife
received a Christian education!

A missionary was returning from an evangelistic tour over one of the
lonely roads of Palestine. Suddenly he was accosted by several armed
men in disguise, who demanded that he should promise to grant their
request before it was stated to him. He naturally demurred, but,
becoming convinced that they were not robbers, he finally consented,
realizing that his journey could not otherwise be continued. Whereupon
they demanded that certain mission schools which had been closed for
lack of funds should be re-opened, promising to give as much as
possible towards the necessary sum. “It is like depriving our
children of bread and water and air,” they exclaimed, “to deprive them
of the opportunity for religious teaching and useful education.”[52] A
peaceful missionary held up by a set of masked bandits in a Mohammedan
land, who demanded, not his money nor his life, but a Christian
education for their children!

Loud and clear and insistent are the voices from country after
country. In many tongues they call to us Christian women,--“Give us a
chance to learn, let us children have what our parents never had, put
books into our hands, train our hands and eyes and ears and hearts as
well as our minds, show us how people who love that Jesus whom you
tell about may read of Him and may make their lives good and happy and
useful!”

[Sidenote: Is missionary educational work still needed in the
awakening East?]

It may be the honest conviction of many that with advancing
civilization and the great political, social, and educational
awakening in many lands, there is no further need for mission schools
or for pushing missionary educational work. Japan has her public
school system with six years of compulsory school attendance, and
higher courses combining cultural with practical education in a way
that Western nations might well follow. China has done away with the
old educational regime and is patterning her new system after those of
Christian lands. In India we hear that “Mr. Gokhale’s bill for
universal primary education has stirred the whole country and will be
a constant issue until it is an accomplished fact. Already the
government has voted to increase immediately the number of primary
schools from 120,000 to 210,000.”[53] The demand for education of
girls as well as of boys in Persia, Turkey, and Egypt has caused a
marvelous overturning and re-arranging of custom, prejudice, public
opinion, and government action. In view of all this and much more in
the same line, has the time come when the matter of education can be
left in the hands of the awakening East, and does our obligation to
the little ones of non-Christian lands cease at the door of the school
room?

[Sidenote: Divergent views on education.]

In order to arrive at a fair answer to these questions it might be
well to study and discuss some divergent views on education and then
to learn how these questions are answered by those who were born in
non-Christian lands or who have lived and worked there for many years.

    Some Views on Education

    “To educate a girl is like putting a knife into the hands of a
    monkey.” Hindu Proverb.

    “The hope of our country is in the education of our girls, and we
    shall never have statesmen till the mothers are educated.” A
    Persian Nobleman.

    “Men are superior to women on account of the qualities with which
    God has gifted the one above the other.” The Koran, Sura 4.38.

    “No scheme of education for primitive races can succeed that
    neglects the woman’s influence in the family and the tribe.” E. W.
    Coffin.[54]

    “When a man does not ask, ‘What shall I think of this and of
    that?’ I can do nothing with him. Learning without thought is
    labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.” Confucius
    Quoted in “Oriental Religions,” Samuel Johnson.

    “Education should lead and guide man to clearness concerning
    himself and in himself, to peace with nature and to unity with
    God.” Froebel.

    “The aim of female education is perfect submission, not
    cultivation and development of the mind.” Confucius.

    “Not knowledge or information, but self-realization is the goal.
    To possess all the world of knowledge and lose one’s own self is
    as awful a fate in education as in religion.” John Dewey.

The Head Master of an English school declared it to be his ideal of
education to create an atmosphere of loyalty that should teach the
pupils to adapt themselves to the sphere in which their lives should
be cast, at the same time giving them self-reliance through the
knowledge that they are responsible for doing the things that are
worth while, and arousing their ambition to achieve that which is
highest and best.

As a practical basis for the study of our topic, “The Child at
School,” write out if you will your own definition of the scope and
ideals of education, drawing up a list of those members of the human
family who would benefit by such an education.

[Sidenote: Reasons why missionary education should be continued.]

Referring again to the question of whether our missionary obligation
ceases when the child’s education begins, we must first of all realize
clearly how recent has been the awakening in most of these lands, how
appalling is the illiteracy, how long it will take the most advanced
government to meet the need without assistance, and how infinitely
more a _Christian_ education will do for the little ones than a merely
secular education can possibly accomplish.

[Sidenote: Statistics of illiteracy.]

From the new Cyclopedia of Education[55] the following latest
available statistics are taken:--

  Country             Illiterate       Basis           Year

  America                7.7 %     Pop. over 10 yrs.   1910
  England & Wales        1.8 %     Marriage            1901-1910
  German Empire          0.03%     Army Recruits       1904
  Ceylon (all races)    78.3 %     All ages            1901
  India                 92.5 %     Over 10 years.      1901
  Cape of Good Hope
    (Other than
    European.)          86.2 %       „   „   „         1904
  Egypt                 92.7 %       „   „   „         1907

Quoting further from the Cyclopedia we learn that “in Turkey, India,
and China we find a high illiteracy among the males, and an almost
complete illiteracy among the females. The least illiteracy today is
to be found among the people in the countries to the north and west of
Europe, and of Teutonic or mixed Teutonic stock. It was in these
countries that the Protestant Revolt made its greatest headway and the
ability to read the Word of God and to participate in the church
services were regarded as of great importance for salvation.”

[Sidenote: Sir J. D. Rees on illiteracy in Asia.]

Sir J. D. Rees, an official of high position and distinction in India,
makes this significant statement in his volume on “Modern India,”
dated 1910--“While it is true that only half the boys of school-going
age were following a course of primary education when the last census
was taken, it is extremely improbable that in any other part of Asia
anything approaching that number has been ever attained, or in any
Oriental country under European control.”

[Sidenote: Education in Japan.]

Let us go back to Japan as to the one of all non-Christian lands that
has made the greatest advance along educational lines. After a visit
to Japan with many opportunities for observation and study of the
subject, Miss Kate G. Lamson says:[56]

    Education for the masses has long since justified itself to the
    Japanese. That education is universal and compulsory is
    abundantly proved by the crowds of school children seen in every
    part of the country. This naturally leads the observer to question
    the need of outside help, especially missionary help, along
    educational lines, and outside of two or three large centres our
    Board has applied itself largely to the development of church
    organization and evangelistic work. Yet the experience of years
    has revealed an imperative need of the missionary even in the
    ranks of education in Japan....

    With schools everywhere, under an able and full staff of
    instructors, with up-to-date appliances for every branch that is
    to be taught, moral and religious training are not provided for,
    and the well-polished husk of educated manhood and womanhood
    without the inner life is the result. The dangers attending
    non-religious education have not failed to make themselves
    apparent to the watchful Japanese....

    In every land we believe the hope of the nations lies largely in
    the training of little children. Christianity in Japan has laid
    hold upon this and has set the pace in the establishing of
    kindergartens....

    Although education in Japan is compulsory, it is a fact that it
    is beyond the reach of the poorest people. This anomalous
    situation is caused by the charges for tuition and books imposed
    upon all scholars. These charges are so high as to be prohibitive
    for the very poor, and the result shows in the absence of their
    children from school. In this lies a direct invitation for
    missionary effort.

[Sidenote: Opinions of a leading Japanese.]

These words from a Christian observer and student of missions find an
echo in the remark of a leading Japanese, himself a non-Christian, to
one of the team of workers of the Men and Religion Movement:--“I am
convinced that Japan must become Christian or she will never become a
great nation.”

[Sidenote: Educational awakening in China.]

[Sidenote: Where shall the teachers be trained?]

So much is being said and published about the wonderful developments
in China and the new system of education that is taking the place of
the old, time-honored memorizing of the “Four Books” and the “Five
Classics,” that we need not here go into the subject in detail. But we
must stop to query:--Where is China to procure the hundreds and
thousands of teachers who are needed to train not only the children at
present but the teachers of future generations of children? For many
long years she must look largely to missionary schools to prepare her
future educators. From a report on the Educational Work of the
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions we quote the following:

    The wisdom of the West in matters of courses of study, together
    with methods of teaching, discipline, etc., are brought directly
    from our best institutions and freely offered upon the altar of
    Chinese regeneration. The results of these years have also proven
    that these best things are adapted to the young Chinese minds, and
    that they appreciate them when they once come to know them. The
    products of these years show that our Christian schools have been
    getting hold of some excellent material, and that there is such
    true worth and high possibility that all effort to develop these
    bright minds and sincere hearts is well worth while, and that in
    doing so a great service is rendered to China.... A number of
    young women of fine type have been educated in the schools for
    girls, who are proving themselves apt to teach and work for their
    own people in the conduct of boarding and day schools and women’s
    classes.

[Sidenote: Indian grants to mission schools.]

So highly does the Indian government prize the work of the missionary
schools that each of them which is held to the required standard of
efficiency receives a grant for partial support. The American Board
Bulletin says, “Our tremendous school system in Ceylon of more than
ten thousand pupils is carried on practically at government expense.”

In a village in India the parents’ request for a school was answered
by the statement that if such a school were opened, the Bible would be
taught in it. Quickly the reply came, “Teach your religion, but
educate our boys.”

[Sidenote: New demand for education in Persia and Turkey.]

When the century opened, Persia and Turkey were asleep. Suddenly came
the awakening, the reaching out for something new and different, and,
as in the case of China, one of the first thoughts was,--Our children
must be educated. Instinctively they turned to the missionaries who
for long years had quietly, steadily, sown the seed, prepared
literature, set up printing presses, trained preachers and teachers.
Boys _and girls_ began to flock into the mission schools.

[Sidenote: Messages from Persian parents.]

“Fathers sent pleasant messages,” wrote a missionary in Teheran in
1911. “One said, ‘Your girls make better wives and mothers and in
every way better women, than others.’ Another, ‘I wish my wife had
been educated, but I am determined my daughter shall be.’ An Armenian
of wealth and influence is reported to have answered to a remonstrance
against sending his little daughter to us instead of to their national
school: ‘Did I ever refuse to give you money? I will continue to help
support our national schools, but I must send my daughters (he has
five) where they can really obtain an education. They can learn in one
week all you can teach them about going to theatricals and dances.’ A
friend was telling us that her sister would send her girls to us.
‘Why?’ ‘Because every Moslem in this city understands that your school
is the only one where girls really learn. Why should my sister be the
only fool?’”[57]

[Sidenote: New schools for girls in Teheran.]

These messages are significant in view of the fact that in a brief
time seventy girls’ schools were reported to have sprung up suddenly
in Persia’s capital city, with an enrolment of five thousand
pupils.[58] But scarcely half a dozen of those at the head of the
schools had ever been to school themselves, and the testimony from all
over Persia was the same as that at the capital,--“The missionary
schools are the best.”

Here is the eager call from Turkey:[59]

[Sidenote: The call for teachers in Turkey.]

    The gradual awakening of the villages to the need of better
    schools increases yearly the calls for teachers. The Sivas Normal
    School reports that the work of the past summer was very hard. “We
    were obliged to refuse calls for more than forty teachers, not a
    few of them from places to which we had never supplied teachers.
    The following quotation from a letter from the Armenian Bishop of
    one of our large cities is a fair sample: ‘We wish to call for the
    Armenian schools of our city the following teachers: a principal,
    a lady principal, teachers for Armenian, Turkish, and French, and
    three teachers for scientific branches. If you have among your
    experienced teachers or among the new graduates persons to
    recommend, please inform us at once in order that we may invite
    them.’”

[Illustration: KHATOON

Who walked a month’s journey to get an education, and returned to
teach these children in this Turkish Schoolhouse]

[Sidenote: A Kurdish father.]

One hardly knows whether to laugh or to cry over the Kurdish father up
in the wild mountains of Kurdistan who brought his boy to the little
school taught by a native helper, whacking him with a stick to make
the reluctant youth walk in the paths of learning, while he declared,
“I am not going to let _my_ boy grow up in the street.”

[Sidenote: Can we refuse the demand?]

When great governments, ecclesiastical authorities, wealthy noblemen,
and fierce warriors from the mountain fastnesses all clamor for what
the missionary schools can do for their children, have we a right to
refuse their request? Can we claim freedom from responsibility?

Rather let us glory in the unparalleled opportunity for giving to the
needy children of non-Christian lands that which has proven to be the
only true source of mental preparation for life-work,--a Christian
education. Hear the testimony of Dr. F. W. Foerster, author and
special lecturer in Ethics and Psychology in the University of Zurich,
a man who began his educational work with sympathies strongly
socialistic and entirely aloof from all forms of religion. In the
author’s preface to his book, “Marriage and the Sex Problem,” he
speaks with no uncertain sound of his own experience and conviction.

[Sidenote: Dr. Foerster on Education and Christianity.]

    The author of this book comes from the ranks of those who dispense
    with all religion. But as the result of long experience,
    theoretical and practical, in the difficult work of
    character-training, he has been led to realize for himself the
    deep meaning and the profound pedagogical wisdom of the Christian
    method of caring for souls, and to appreciate, through his own
    experience, the value of the old truths.... He has absolutely no
    doubt that modern education, in discovering the extraordinary
    practical difficulties of character-training, will be increasingly
    cured of its optimistic illusions and led back to an understanding
    and appreciation of Christianity.

How about the children themselves? Do they enjoy and appreciate school
privileges offered them by the missionaries, and does the work show
results that are worth while?

[Sidenote: Kindergarten work in Japan.]

If, as Miss Lamson claims, “the hope of the nations lies in the
training of little children,” there is hope for Japan in the
ninety-eight mission kindergartens that are maintained by fourteen
Protestant Boards and have an enrollment of four thousand and
sixty-eight children. The report of the Kindergarten Union of Japan is
a most fascinating volume, with its presentation of opportunity, need,
method, and the result of teaching the tiny children who are to be the
future parents, teachers, and leaders of thought and action in that
Empire. A few extracts will give a little idea of what is being done
for the children and through them for their homes and friends.

[Sidenote: A Japanese teacher on Christian kindergartens.]

    The kindergarten in our country today is at its most critical
    stage, and therefore needs the best and most profound thinkers who
    can put their ideals into practice most tactfully. This must be
    accomplished by native Christian kindergartners. Education without
    religious foundations is like an egg without the germ of life in
    it. Most of our public and government kindergartens, which have
    the purely so-called educational views of today, are leaving the
    very springs of child life untouched, and therefore are not
    fulfilling the real meaning of education. They are not disciples
    of Froebel, because he based his philosophy on the Christian
    faith. (Fuji Takamori of Holy Love Kindergarten, Methodist.)

[Sidenote: Results of sending the children to kindergarten.]

    A teacher writes, “A little girl whose father and mother were
    Christians entered our school. At first a little nursemaid brought
    her, then her grandmother came with her. This grandmother was a
    devoted Buddhist. She would not even look at the foreign teacher,
    much less listen to anything being taught, but at last she began
    to listen, and eventually became convinced that she needed Christ
    for her Saviour. Today she is a truly converted woman.”...

    The blessing asked at the noon lunch seemed to make a deep
    impression on some children, and doing it at home attracts the
    parents’ attention, so that a number of them have been known to
    come to the church services to hear more about the meaning of
    prayer and praise. (Mrs. A. D. Gordon.)

    We are told that the songs, the games, the stories, and sometimes
    the prayers, are household exercises in many homes. On a recent
    morning, which we spent by invitation of the wife of the Governor
    in her garden, the little son of the family, not yet of
    kindergarten age, took an active part with the other children.
    His mother told me that the older sister comes home and “plays
    kindergarten” with her small brother, and that, when they have
    guests to entertain, the children are often called in to give
    some kindergarten exercise. I did not tell her how strongly I
    disapprove of “showing off” children before company. I only
    prayed that “a little child might lead them.” (Mrs. Genevieve F.
    Topping, of Morioka Kindergarten, Baptist.)

    An amusing incident happened one day when the children were off
    on an observation trip. They had to stop to let a detachment of
    soldiers pass, and spontaneously burst out singing “Soldier Boy,
    Soldier Boy,” to the great amusement of the soldiers. Then they
    all saluted the officer in proper fashion, but he only smiled.
    “Sensei, we saluted politely, why didn’t he return the salute?”

    Later as the soldiers were drawn up in circular formation on the
    parade ground, the children said, “Oh, now they are going to play
    just as we do in kindergarten, let’s watch!” So the expedition
    which started out to study insect life changed into a lesson on
    soldiers and their absolute obedience to orders. (Alice Fyock of
    Sendai Aoba Yochien, American Episcopal.)

[Sidenote: The call for missionary kindergartners.]

A similar Kindergarten Union is being formed in China, and from all
missionary lands comes the urgent cry for trained kindergartners who
can not only start schools, but, far more than this, can train native
kindergartners to take up the work. It would be hard to overemphasize
the importance of this particular service which missions are
rendering.

[Sidenote: Dr. Balliet on the early years of childhood.]

Dr. Thomas M. Balliet of New York University voices the opinion of
modern educators when he says, “All the more recent studies in child
psychology emphasize the great plasticity of the early years of
childhood. The habits which the child then forms, and the attitude
both intellectual and emotional which is then given him, are more
lasting and more determining for his adult life than was even
suspected some years ago.”[60]

[Sidenote: Why is the Christian kindergarten needed?]

After a hasty mental review of what has been studied in earlier
chapters regarding the home life and training of little children in
non-Christian lands, it is surely a mild statement to make that the
Christian kindergarten is an _absolute necessity_ if these little
ones, so cunning and capable and helpless, are to have any chance at
all for proper development. The words “Christian kindergarten” are
used advisedly, and agree with utterances of experts such as Elizabeth
Harrison, who says,--

“The foundation of the kindergarten is based upon the psychological
revelation that, if man is the child of God, he must possess infinite
possibilities, and that these possibilities can only develop as he,
man, makes use of them--that in other words, man is a self-making
being, that his likeness to the Divine Father consists in this power
within him to unfold and develop his divine nature.”[61]

[Sidenote: Children of backward races respond to early training.]

Students of primitive and backward races tell us that the small
children show as much promise and as many signs of undeveloped
capability as do children of civilized lands, but before many years a
cloud seems to overcast their minds, while selfishness and sin and
passion take possession of their moral natures. Never again is there
the same chance to make them _what they might have been_, as there was
during those first early days when the kindergarten should have opened
wide her doors to receive them. This argument would in itself seem
sufficient to urge missionary Boards to speedy, thorough action in
this matter, but there is another far-reaching argument to be
considered. All through the East, wherever there are missionary
kindergartens, mothers come to them to learn how to train their
children, and countless homes have caught and passed on a reflection
of the Christ life because of what the mothers have heard and observed
and what the children have taken home with them. Make a flying trip to
the Fuchow Kindergarten and watch “the irrepressible John.”

“This little lad’s father died, after a period of faithful service in
Miss Wiley’s kitchen, and when the widowed mother came back to Miss
Wiley from her country home to earn a living for herself and John and
baby Joseph, John was already master of the situation and of his
mother, and enforced his will on that by no means weak-minded woman by
kicking, biting, pulling her ears, and similar methods. Now Miss Wiley
is a famous trainer of boys, and she soon taught the young mother that
the masculine will is not necessarily law at the age of two plus; the
kindergarten carried out the same idea, and now John devotes vast
energy and determination to the shaping of inanimate clay into pigs
and other fascinating things, and treats animate nature as a
well-mannered and kindly little gentleman should.”[62]

[Sidenote: Kindergartners must be inventive and adaptable.]

It would be most interesting and instructive to make a tour of
missionary kindergartens for the purpose of seeing how ingenious our
missionary teachers are, how they adapt Froebel’s ideas and methods to
the most extraordinary circumstances which would have made that great
educator gasp, how they must not only translate and adapt songs and
tunes and games, but compose and create and invent,--all in an
acquired language which has perhaps been only recently reduced to
writing by some pioneer missionary. It might be pertinent to ask if
all Women’s Boards provide the kindergartners and other teachers whom
they send to the foreign field with a first-class outfit of all needed
material, and if they remember that such an outfit needs to be
replenished at least as often as a similar one does in the home land.
It is not fair to require a missionary to make bricks without straw.

[Sidenote: A West African kindergarten.]

A visit to a West African Kindergarten will show an inventive and
adaptable missionary in charge.

    We have a new primary Sunday-School room which will be my
    kindergarten. It is a low wall covered by a round thatched roof
    high enough to leave a good big space for air. The floor is mudded
    and marked in squares. It looks very nice, but I shall take pains
    to get the cracks filled up, for they catch too much dirt and
    jigger seeds. The benches are not yet made, so the children who
    were cleaned up for Sunday went after leaves to sit on. The
    classes have to go out under trees to separate, but it is a great
    improvement upon the dirty and dangerous saw pit where they have
    met for so long. The only advantage about the saw pit was the roof
    for shade and pieces of wood and logs to sit upon. The big folks
    have been getting most of the attention and all of the advantages,
    but we feel that the children should have most because they are in
    the future. They do not show such shining results at once, but
    work with them will lay a foundation which is greatly needed here
    for really effective work....

    I have a box cupboard, a sand table, two long low tables marked
    with squares, and strong benches. I have not much kindergarten
    material, but I do not need more at present. My first “gift” is a
    basin of water. They march in singing “Good morning, kind
    teacher” (only I am thankful to say the Umbundu words leave out
    the “kind”). Then we sing another song or two, and the prayer
    with bowed heads. I have no music, so I have to learn the tunes
    myself before I come to school. The children are the dearest,
    cunning things and they do want to learn.[63]

[Sidenote: Primitive education among backward nations.]

There are lands such as large sections of Africa and many of the
Pacific Islands where no education whatever existed, where the
language was not even reduced to writing, until Christian missionaries
began their work. Other countries gave a certain so-called education
to their boys or to the sons of certain privileged classes, leaving
the girls absolutely illiterate. They agreed in principle if not in
expression with that man in the mountains of Kurdistan who was asked
by a missionary to send his bright little daughter down to the mission
school at the beginning of the fall term. “Do you want my girl?”
questioned the man in amazement and disgust. “Why don’t you take my
cow?”

Again in other sections girls have a brief chance to learn, but are
not expected to keep pace with their brothers or to attain to anything
beyond the rudiments of book learning.

[Sidenote: Lack of concentration.]

A missionary educator from Turkey says that one of the greatest
difficulties in school work arises from the fact that the children
have no power of concentration, no idea of how to think and study on
one line for any length of time. It often takes five or six years for
a child really to learn how to study. Obviously, the earlier these
preparatory years occur in a child’s life, the more benefit may he
hope to derive from his education.

[Sidenote: Evils of the memorizing method.]

Then again, if children learn their first lessons in the native
schools of Turkey, Persia, Korea, and various other countries, they
will become fixed in the habit of memorizing without giving any
intelligent thought to what they learn. Dr. S. M. Zwemer says:

“A Moslem lad is not supposed to know what the words and sentences
mean which he must recite every day; to ask a question regarding the
_thought_ of the Koran would only result in a rebuke or something more
painful. Even grammar, logic, history, and theology are taught by rote
in the higher Mohammedan schools.... Thousands of Moslem lads, who
know the whole Koran nearly by heart, cannot explain the meaning of
the first chapter in every-day language. Tens of thousands can ‘read’
the Koran at random in the Moslem sense of reading, who cannot read an
Arabic newspaper intelligently.”[64]

How utterly this differs from the theory and practice of Dr.
Montessori, who “calls a child disciplined who is master of himself,
and therefore able to dispose of or control himself whenever he needs
to follow a rule of life. The liberty of the child must have as its
limit only the collective interest. To interfere with this spontaneity
is, in Dr. Montessori’s view, perhaps to repress the very essential of
life itself.”[65] How can a child be master of himself who is not even
allowed to inquire into the meaning of what he reads and studies?

[Sidenote: Old methods hard to discard.]

It is not always easy for the missionary suddenly to introduce changes
of method and practice, and many a missionary school which is
infinitely superior to the native institution might shock an American
school superintendent beyond recovery. A missionary from China
wrote,--“I found I must still keep many old methods or the Chinese
would not send their children. I have found it necessary to let them
_learn_ portions of Scripture and classics and shout them at the tops
of their voices, then gradually work in music, geography, and
arithmetic.” Another argument for beginning as early as possible with
the children who can so easily adapt themselves to ideas of a quiet,
orderly school if they have never enjoyed exercising their lungs in
one of the other kind!

[Sidenote: Education of girls in Persia.]

In speaking of primitive education among backward nations, mention was
made of the scant attention given to girls as compared to boys. The
London Times not long ago stated in commenting on the women of Persia,
“As a matter of fact, probably not one girl in a thousand twenty years
ago ever received any education. When the parents were rich enough,
tuition of a sort was given at home, but in the case of poorer persons
it was enough if their sons were taught to read and write.”

In contrast we learn that in the spring of 1913 about one thousand
children from Moslem homes were in attendance at Protestant missionary
schools in Persia, over two hundred of them being girls.

[Sidenote: Early marriage a barrier to education.]

In Mohammedan and other lands the custom of early marriage is an
almost insuperable barrier to an adequate education for a girl. That
this custom _must_ be changed, if men are to have worthy wives and if
children are to be properly trained, is a truth that is beginning to
be realized. The recent great awakening and desire for education is
creating a marvelous change in age-long customs.

[Sidenote: Lord Cromer on conditions in Egypt.]

    Lord Cromer says: “The position of women in Egypt, and in
    Mohammedan countries generally, is a fatal obstacle to the
    attainment of that elevation of thought and character which should
    accompany the introduction of European civilization, if that
    civilization is to produce its full measure of beneficial effect.
    The obvious remedy would appear to be to educate the women....
    When the first efforts to promote female education were made, they
    met with little sympathy from the population in general.... Most
    of the upper-class Egyptians were not merely indifferent to female
    education; they were absolutely opposed to it....

    “All this has now been changed. The reluctance of parents to send
    their daughters to school has been largely overcome.... The
    younger generation are beginning to demand that their wives shall
    possess some qualifications other than those which can be secured
    in the seclusion of the harem.”

    In 1912 Lord Kitchener states that “There is probably nothing
    more remarkable in the social history of Egypt during the last
    dozen years than the growth of public opinion among all classes
    of Egyptians in favor of the education of their daughters. The
    girls’ schools belonging to the Ministry of Education are
    crowded, and to meet the growing demand sites have been acquired
    and fresh schools are to be constructed, one at Alexandria and
    two in Cairo. Very many applications have, however, to be
    refused.”[66]

[Sidenote: Mission schools in the lead.]

To these quotations Dr. Sailer adds the significant words,--“The
missionary schools for girls are yet in the lead in their moral
atmosphere. The government officials were prompt in acknowledging that
missionary teachers brought to their work a spirit which money could
not buy.”

[Sidenote: Now is the time to educate the future mothers.]

Scant justice can be done in these few pages to the whole vast subject
of the education of girls in the East, and the rapid changes that are
taking place in regard to it. A careful study of the subject will well
repay the thoughtful woman. As all roads lead to Rome, so all reading
and observation along this line will lead the candid student to one
conclusion:--_Now is the time to determine the character of the
mothers of the next generation of children in non-Christian lands._
What those little bright-eyed baby girls of Africa and India, Turkey
and Korea are to be and do, what their homes are to be like, what
start in life their children are to have, will be largely determined
by what we Christian women do or fail to do for them today. If it is
too late to do much for their mothers before these children have left
their homes, why not gather the children into kindergartens and
primary schools, why not teach the little ones _now_ while their minds
are plastic and impressionable? Why not do our share toward bringing
Christian civilization into darkened lands by educating in Christian
schools today the mothers of tomorrow?

[Sidenote: Teaching children to play.]

In the preceding chapter great emphasis was laid on the necessity for
teaching the children of many mission lands how to play, not only for
the benefit of their health and to bring joy and brightness into their
lives, but also in order to teach them what “fair play” and
co-operation mean. It is the missionary school, from kindergarten up
to university, that gives the golden opportunity for this teaching, as
is shown by the testimony of a missionary from Tientsin, China:--“We
believe that such games teach them to be honest in business dealings
later, to be truthful, unselfish, quick-witted, and self-controlled.
The change which I have seen in these little, un-taught, ill-cared-for
children after five years in the mission school is due in part, I
believe, to the lessons of ‘fair play’ learned in their games.”

But the school must go even further than this and include in its
curriculum physical education of a very definite kind if it is to meet
_all_ the needs of the children it is serving. Taking as an example of
all mission lands, China, whose system of education antedates by many
centuries all our western civilization, let us observe through the
eyes of the former physical director of the Shanghai Y. M. C. A. what
the real situation is.

[Sidenote: Physical training.]

    Physical training should be dignified by giving it an equal place
    with the sciences, philosophies, and languages in the curriculum,
    and the same careful provision of means and trained men to direct
    it. No educational system is adequate which does not aim at the
    whole man, which does not recognize the physical basis of
    intellectual and spiritual efficiency. Professor Tyler of Amherst
    says, “Brain and muscle are never divorced in the action of
    healthy higher animals and in healthy men. They should not be
    divorced in the education of the child.”...

    It is clear that physical training, in the largest sense, must
    play an important part in the making of the “New China.” The
    questions involved in her uplift are most largely physical
    questions. The personal, domestic, and public observance of the
    laws of health and life is a physical question; the combating of
    that terrible scourge, tuberculosis, is a physical question; the
    checking of the fearful infant mortality is a physical question;
    etc....

    The progress which has been made in physical training in China
    must be viewed in the light of the fact that physical exercise
    for its own sake has had no part in the national life of China
    for centuries. It has been considered improper for a Chinese
    gentleman to indulge in it. The popular conception of a Chinese
    scholar has been that of a man with a great head, emaciated body,
    and hollow chest, sitting and contemplating the problem of life
    by thinking dissociated from doing. Until ten years ago athletics
    were almost unknown. When foreigners were seen playing football
    the Chinese were greatly puzzled, and wanted to know how much
    these men were being paid for cutting up such foolish antics,
    conceiving it as out of the question that any one would work so
    hard without being well paid for it. All that is rapidly being
    changed. Physical training is changing China’s conception of a
    gentleman. The ideal of all-round manhood, well-balanced in its
    physical, mental, and spiritual aspects, is rapidly gaining
    ground.[67]

Could all China’s children today be taught this ideal, the task would
be far easier than it will be when they have reached adult life.

[Sidenote: “The athletic method in Kashmir.”]

The story of the Missionary School for Boys in Srinagar, Kashmir, is
as thrilling as a novel, and illustrates to a remarkable degree how
body, mind, and soul must be trained and disciplined and developed in
order to realize the ideal of the Principal, the Rev. C. E.
Tyndale-Biscoe, who says, “We are making citizens, of what sort
remains to be seen. But we hope without wavering that these citizens
will be Christian citizens, for Christ is our ideal.” Some of the
difficulties are thus described:

“To teach the three R’s in Kashmir is easy work. The boys are willing
to squat over their books and grind away for as many hours a day as
nature makes possible. To get an education means sedentary employment
_cum_ rupees. And that to the Kashmiri is living.

“But to _educate_ is a very different matter. To make men of a
thousand or more boys who care nothing for manliness; among whose
ancestors for hundreds of years, chicanery, deceit, and cruelty had
been the recognized and honored paths to success, while generosity and
honesty had been the mark of a fool; to try to quicken and develop the
good in such boys,--boys coming from impure homes, squatting in
unclean rows, with bent backs and open mouths--was flatly pronounced
folly by many a visitor to Kashmir.”[68]

The story tells how boxing, swimming, rowing, and gymnastics are
required of the students as a most necessary and vital part of their
education, and how they are trained to be proud of using these
accomplishments in helping others. By the time a Brahmin boy,--they
are almost all Brahmins in this school,--has saved a child from
drowning, rescued a family of despised sweepers from the roof of their
flood-swept house, delivered a poor woman from being beaten, and
helped clean up the streets and alleys of a city during a cholera
epidemic, he has received an education such as no books in the world
can give him, and Kashmir is one step nearer to the Kingdom of Heaven.

[Sidenote: Building a “great personality.”]

“Train not thy child,” says Emerson, “so that at the age of thirty or
forty he shall have to say, ‘This great work could I have done but for
the lack of a body.’” Elizabeth Harrison, after quoting Emerson, adds,
“Is not this carelessness as to health one of the ways in which we are
not conserving the forces that make for righteousness and truth, one
of the ways in which we are neglecting to build up ‘a great
personality’ in our children?”[69]

Up to this point our study of The Child in non-Christian lands has
shown that the missionary must touch the home life, the customs and
ideals handed down from remote ancestors, the play and work and
education and physical development of the child, in order to give
him his inalienable rights, while in the next chapter we shall dwell
on his right to know of Jesus Christ, the children’s Friend. It may
seem to the reader (as it does to the writer) that the chapters
overlap one another in spite of the heroic effort to treat each
subject by itself. But most of us find,--do we not?--that it is a bit
difficult to attend to the spiritual culture of our boys when they are
clamoring to go out and play ball, or to get our little girls to tell
what they learned at school, when they are hungry for their dinner.
The mother must train _all parts_ of her child’s nature by attending
to the need that is uppermost at the time,--the missionary must do the
same for her foster children, and the woman at home, behind the
missionary, has to recognize the same inseparable inter-relation of
body, mind, and soul in the little ones of whom she is studying. Our
divisions into “subjects” must be more or less artificial. However, to
this particular subject of “The Child at School” belong naturally two
more matters which must be touched on briefly.

[Sidenote: The need for good literature.]

When the Turkish girl has learned to read, when six thousand boys have
annually been trained in that great chain of Anglo-Chinese schools
started by the Methodists in Malaysia, when Korean children have
acquired a taste for reading and study, where are they to find
suitable, interesting books? The Cyclopedia of Education pays a
wonderful tribute to what _one_ Book has done for Korea, saying that
“the translation of the Bible into Korean and its rapid distribution,
and revivals marked with habitual study of the Bible, compelled many
to learn the alphabet to master a sacred library so rich, and has
constituted a national school of intelligence and culture.” But other
books than the Bible must be translated and written in order to give
clean, interesting, wholesome literature to the children of countless
thousands who never had any use for a literature for themselves. As
Miss Lilian Trotter of Algiers says,--“Those who have been patiently
toiling over the schooling of Moslem girls and women begin to feel
that the powers of reading gained in school days should be used as a
means to an end, not left to lapse in the first years that ensue for
want of following up. Letters from the whole reach of the Moslem world
give the same refrain,--the girls drop their reading largely because
there is nothing published that interests them. The few upper class
women who read, read little but newspapers and French novels. Could
not some one who understands child minds work out bright beginnings
for the use of their waking powers in stories and pictures with
colored lettering and borders? Easterns _must_ have color to make them
happy!”[70]

Here is a call to missionary work for some one who never dreamt that
her particular literary and artistic talents are absolutely needed
today by the children of the East.

[Sidenote: Industrial training in mission schools.]

The second matter mentioned above is the need for industrial training.
Great progress has been made in this respect in recent years, but much
more progress is needed, and trained teachers and suitable equipment
are required. As a missionary in Persia says when urging that more
industrial training be given the school girls,--“A woman may be able
to read, but, if unable to bake or prepare a good meal, her husband
will not care if she reads about the Bread of Life. She may play the
organ, but, if she cannot wash, mend, make the children’s clothes, and
make a happy home, he will have little interest in hearing her play or
sing ‘The Home over there.’”

[Sidenote: Extent of American missionary education.]

There is abundant testimony to prove that America is already doing
great things in the line of missionary education. Here is the
testimony of a traveler and newspaper man.

    The number of mission schools and colleges supported by Americans
    with American money is nearly as large as that of all the schools
    conducted by the missionaries of all other countries combined. We
    have approximately 10,000 schools in lands that are not under our
    flag and from which we receive not a cent of revenue.

    If a man in quest of material for an American educational exhibit
    were to sail out of San Francisco Bay with a phonograph recorder,
    he would come up on the other side of Sandy Hook with a polyglot
    collection of records that would give the people of the United
    States a new conception of their part in the world’s advance
    toward light. His audience might hear a spelling class recite in
    the tuneful Hawaiian tongue or listen to Moros, Tagalogs, and
    Igorrotes reading from the same “McGuffey’s Reader.” A change of
    records might bring the sound of little Japanese reciting
    geography, or of Chinese repeating the multiplication table in a
    dozen dialects. Another record would tell in quaint Siamese the
    difference between a transitive or an intransitive verb, or
    conjugate the verb “to be” in any one of the languages of India.
    One might hear a professor from Pennsylvania lecturing on anatomy
    to a class of young men in the ancient kingdom of Darius; or a
    young woman from Massachusetts explaining the mysteries of an
    eclipse to a group of girls in Constantinople; or a Princeton man
    telling in Arabic the relation between a major and a minor
    premise. And when the audience had listened to all this and to
    “My country, ’tis of thee” in Eskimo and in Spanish, the exhibit
    of American teaching would have only begun.[71]

[Sidenote: Languages used.]

One American Mission Board alone (the Presbyterian) uses the following
languages and dialects in its educational institutions:--Arabic,
Armenian, Beng, Bulu, English, Fang, French, German, Hainanese, Hakka,
Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Laos, Mandarin (and many dialects in
our eight China missions; the dialects of China are as diverse as the
languages of Europe), Marathi, Mpongwe, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi,
Sanscrit, Siamese, Spanish, Syriac, Tagalog, Turkish, Urdu,
Visayan.[72]

[Sidenote: Where shall we put the emphasis?]

But in spite of all that is being done, we continue to make our plea
for the _little children_. Whatever emphasis may be laid on the need
for boarding schools, colleges, normal, and industrial training
schools, let us remember that those who are taught while small will
make the most hopeful students in these more advanced schools, and the
best workers in the future.

[Sidenote: How missionary schools lead children to Christ.]

How quickly and easily and naturally the little ones learn of Jesus,
the children’s Friend, and their relation to Him, we have already seen
illustrated in the kindergarten work of Japan. A little six-year-old
Greek boy in Syria, who had attended the missionary kindergarten,
spent the summer in the mountains and became dreadfully wild and
profane. On his return to school the teacher asked why he had been so
naughty. He replied, “I didn’t pray during the summer. Now I’m going
to pray and be a good boy.”

To Mrs. Pitcher of Amoy we owe the following incident:--

    A scholar in one of our schools, whose relatives were all idol
    worshippers and very ignorant, was led to give her heart to Jesus,
    and became a most active little Christian; but one day she was
    taken very ill with plague, and during her last hours she was so
    happy singing hymns she had learned at school and telling her
    parents and old grandmother about the Home beyond, where she would
    soon be with the Lord, that all that heathen family were led by
    this dying child to believe in a God of love, who could so comfort
    His little child, and save her from the terror and dread of the
    many evil spirits in whom they had blindly trusted.[73]

[Sidenote: Mission school children in after-life.]

This chapter cannot end before we follow into their later life some of
the children whose early and perhaps whose only education was received
in missionary schools.

“The home in Syria whose mother was taught in a school can always be
distinguished at a glance, whether it belongs to the Protestant
community or to one of the old Christian sects. Neatness and good
taste prevail, the children are more carefully trained, the members of
the family work for each other’s benefit. One of our school girls, who
was married to an uneducated man, told us years after: ‘Letter by
letter I taught him to read, figure by figure I taught him arithmetic,
and then I drew him down upon his knees and word by word I taught him
to pray.’”[74]

[Sidenote: Boys of West Africa.]

From the _Spirit of Missions_ we quote the following about the boys at
Cape Mount, West Africa:--

“These people can be reached by Christianity best in their childhood,
before superstitions, belief in the Gregre, or the influence of the
life of a Mohammedan has become grafted into their lives. If allowed
to grow up in their native villages they often become leaders of
tribal wars, and, unknowingly, men of the vilest character. In one
tribe from which several boys are at the mission, the mother tattoos
curious marks on the forehead of her babe, in order that if during
war he is captured and in after years she becomes able to redeem him
from slavery, she may be able to recognize her own child. With the
influence and training of a Christian mission, even though the boys go
back to native life, they do not go back to all of its vileness, and
one can soon distinguish between them and the un-Christianized
heathen.”

It takes faith and hope and love and a vision far into the future to
teach boys like these. But it pays, and the “bread cast on the waters”
is often found again in most unlikely places, such as those described
in a letter from Mr. W. C. Johnson of West Africa:--

“Everywhere I find in the village schools sources of Christian
influence. In one village where I stayed all night, all of the boys
and all but two of the women were Christians. This was entirely the
work of Christian school boys. In another place a young man told me
that there were only two young men in the community who were not
trying to lead Christian lives. This too was the work of the Christian
school boys.”

[Sidenote: A few months at school and what they accomplished.]

A little Mohammedan girl attended for a very few months the mission
day school in a near-by city street. Her cruel step-mother persecuted
her bitterly, throwing her school books on the floor and trampling
them under foot to show her contempt of Christian learning. Some kind
friend at the school gave the child forty cents,--unheard-of wealth to
the little one,--and the missionary suggested that a teacher should
help the child spend it for something she greatly needed before the
mother could take it away. “No,” said the little girl, “I don’t want
to spend it in that way. I want to give it all to the Lord and then I
shall have treasure in heaven. I learned that at school.” She was
married,--without any choice in the matter,--to a man who had known
Christians and was favorable to them, and the little wife lived a
consistent Christian life and died trusting in Christ as her Saviour.

Only a few months at school for a few hours of each day, but they made
all the difference for time and for eternity! How many children are
having such an opportunity because of us and our missionary society?
How many are deprived of the opportunity because it is “not our
business” to help them realize the truth of what was said in days of
old,--“Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom. The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”


QUOTATIONS

EDUCATIONAL WORK IN SIAM

American missionaries were the pioneers in true educational work in
Siam. They gave to Siam its first real school. They aided Siam in
establishing the Government Educational system, and encouraged the
Department of Education to establish normal training schools. They
introduced the printing press into Siam, made the first Siamese type,
and taught Siam the art of printing.

American missionaries gave Siam its first newspaper in the Siamese
language, and gave the first Geography, Astronomy, Anatomy, and
Physiology, Chemistry, Arithmetic, and Geometry in the Siamese
language.

When the King of Siam made the first move for the establishment of a
school system over Siam, he placed an American missionary at the head
of the work. The present Minister of Education was at one time pupil
of a missionary, later on he became fellow student of one of the
missionaries in Sanscrit, and still consults the missionaries on
educational questions and literary subjects.

In the past twenty-five years the Presbyterian Mission at Siam has
received more money from the Siamese king, princes, nobles, and common
people for the maintenance of educational work, than it has received
from the Presbyterian Church in America. (Educational Work of the Bd.
For. Miss. of the Pres. Ch.)

PERSIAN SCHOOLS

An English boy learns to read his own language first, and does not
always go on to a foreign language. A Persian boy learns to read a
foreign language first, and does not always go on to his own language.
When a little Persian boy goes to school he is given a big Arabic
book, with a great many long words in it, and he is not taught how the
words are spelt, but is told what they are, and made to repeat them
from memory, pointing to each word in the book as he says it, and
gradually he gets some idea of which word is which.... The Mohammedans
think that reading the Koran, quite apart from understanding it, is a
very good action, so the little Persian boys work away at it, and they
do not think it hard lines because all men and big boys began in the
same way, so it seems the natural thing to do. And perhaps it is a
little consolation to know that when they reach certain points they
will be given sweets. One little boy who was asked how far he had got
in the Koran, said that he had just got his first sweets.

Having finished the Koran, our little Persian boy goes on to Persian
books. These, too, he studies in much the same way as he did the
Koran, but it is more useful, because now he understands what he
reads. After plodding through the Koran it is a pleasant change for
little Ghulam Husain to turn to the “War between the Cats and Mice” or
the “Hundred Fables.” Later on he reads the poems of Hafiz and Sa’adi,
and other great Persian poets.

The Persians do not apparently think much of their own system of
education, for they are always laughing at their schoolmasters. They
have a story of a charvadar, or muleteer, one of whose mules strayed
one day into a school. It was quickly driven out, and the muleteer
claimed damages to the extent of half the value of a mule. The
schoolmaster indignantly asked on what he based his claim. The
muleteer turned to the crowd which had gathered to listen to the
argument. “My beast,” said he, “went into his school a mule and it has
come out a donkey.” You see, a donkey counts half a mule in caravan
traveling, just as child counts half a person in train traveling.

When a boy is caned in punishment he lies on his back and holds out
his feet instead of his hands. Sometimes his feet are held in a kind
of stocks while he is caned across the soles. They call it “eating
sticks” or “eating wood.” (Mrs. Napier Malcolm in “Children of
Persia.”)

[Illustration: A PERSIAN BOYS’ SCHOOL AND THE FAVORITE MODE OF
PUNISHMENT]

EDUCATION, BULU TRIBE, AFRICA

There is no more extraordinary feature of the work among the Bulu than
the readiness with which this little forest creature submits himself
to the discipline of school. From a heritage of liberty he comes to
knock at the Mission door and to set his little jiggered feet upon the
new way of order. He who came and went at will keeps the commandments
of the school drum. He who has been bred to inter-tribal hatred eats
out of the pot with his hereditary enemy. He earns his food in all
honor under the Mission law of labor. He permits himself to be “tied”
with “ten tyings” to a standard of conduct which is the reverse of his
racial standards.

In the rude school house, with his alphabet before him, or in the
open, cutlass in hand, he performs daily acts of order and discipline,
and these little tasks are regenerative. His little sister is beside
him and subjected to the same process. The presence of the Mission in
a Bulu community is a great blessing to a little girl. It is a kind of
sanctuary and a police patrol. I cannot think that you would like to
know from what perils it saves her.... Such little girls, following in
the paths after their brothers, have come to own a slate, to own a
primer, to ply a needle, to sleep at night in peace under a Christian
thatch and in innocent company. (“Other Children” by Jean Mackenzie,
Wom. For. Miss. Soc. Pres.)

A GIRLS’ SCHOOL IN THE KURDISH MOUNTAINS

Ever since coming here I have talked to both men and women, as
occasion offered, about the folly of not allowing girls to learn
anything. When I felt pretty sure of two little girls, I announced one
Sunday to the women who were gathered in my room that on Thursday I
should begin a girls’ school for any who cared to come. What was my
surprise and delight on Thursday to have one of the Kashas (Old Church
pastors) come bringing, not two but _four_ little girls who promptly
walked up to me and kissed my hand. The next day another, who had not
heard of the school the first day, came. After three days one girl
disappeared. On Saturday I visited her home and found they were
keeping her to work, and this, according to my idea of the
circumstances, seemed very unnecessary, for I keep them only two hours
a day at present. When I expostulated with the father, he said, “Why
should I take the trouble to let her go to school, when after a
little time I’ll marry her into some other family?” Here girls are
married very young, at twelve years, many of them. All I could say was
of no avail. During all this conversation poor Rachel sat between us,
the tears running down her face, and saying repeatedly, “Father, let
me go.” The father was too selfish to be moved by her pleadings.
(Letter from Mrs. E. W. McDowell.)


BIBLE READING

TEACHING THE CHILDREN

Deut. 11:18-21 with 2d Tim. 1:5 and 3:14-17.

The natural, constant teaching of God’s commandments in the daily life
of the home by parents and grandparents will prepare the children to
lead prosperous, successful, useful lives. What is learned in
childhood “furnishes” the man or woman for life.

“Therefore if to the goodness of nature be joined the wisdom of the
teacher in leading young wits into a right and plain way of learning,
surely children, kept up in God’s fear, and governed by His grace, may
most easily be brought well to serve God and country both by virtue
and wisdom.” (Roger Ascham in the year 1570.)


PRAYER

O Lord Jesus Christ, Thou Child of Bethlehem, bless, we beseech Thee,
the children gathered in Christian schools; may they be truthful,
pure, obedient, and ever ready to do their duty in that state of life
to which Thou shalt be pleased to call them, Who livest and reignest
with the Father and Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.


QUESTIONS

1. Give five reasons for multiplying kindergartens and primary schools
in non-Christian lands.

2. In the missionary Forward Movement in China, should the emphasis in
advance educational work be put on primary or on secondary education?

3. Give the reasons for and against an increase in Missionary
educational work in Japan. What is your personal opinion on the
subject?

4. Should the missionary teacher aim to secure a large number of
scholars, or to give more time and personal attention to a few? Give
your reasons for your answer.

5. If you were facing a school of fifty little children who had
absolutely no idea of education, cleanliness, manners, morals, or
Christianity, what would you try to teach them during the first week?
How would you go about it? (This takes it for granted that you know
their language.)


BIBLIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER IV.

The School and the Child, John Dewey.

Stages in Missionary Education, T. H. P. Sailer, _Woman’s Work_,
Sept., 1912.

Christian Missions and Social Progress, J. S. Dennis. (Revell) vol. ii.

“On the Education of Backward Races,” E. W. Coffin, _Pedagogical
Seminary_, March, 1908.

Report on Educational Work of Bd. For. Miss. of Pres. Ch.

Daylight in the Harem, Van Sommer and Zwemer, (Revell.)

Children of Persia, Mrs. Napier Malcolm, (Oliphant, Anderson &
Ferrier.)

Education of Girls in Persia, _Moslem World_, Oct., 1912.

The Education of the Women of India, M. G. Gowan, (Revell.)

Modern India, Sir J. D. Rees, (George Allen and Sons.)

The Athletic Method in Kashmir, Henry Forman, _Outlook_, Sept. 24,
1910.

Village Life in China, Arthur H. Smith, (Revell.)

The Education of Chinese Women, Margaret Burton.

Possibilities of the Kindergarten in China, L. Pearl Boggs, _Child
Welfare Magazine_, Feb., 1913.

“The Opportunity and Need for the Mission School in China.” F. L.
Hawks Pott, D.D., _Intern’l Review of Missions_, Oct., 1912.

Report of the Kindergarten Union of Japan.

Fifteen Years among the Top-Knots, Mrs. Underwood, (Am. Tract Soc.)

The Land of the White Helmet, Edgar Allen Forbes, (Revell.)

LEAFLETS

  Into a New Life                 Woman’s Board of Missions
  Kwuli, a South Sea Maid           of the Congregational
  The Story of Aghavnitza           Church.
  The Children’s Gardens
  The Story of the Imadegawa
    Kindergarten
  The Cesarea Kindergarten
  Coral Island Brownies

  Ling Te’s Letter                Woman’s Foreign Missionary
                                    Society of the Presbyterian
                                    Church.

  The New Persia                  Board of Foreign Missions
                                    of the Presbyterian Church.

  Our Investments in India        Woman’s Board of Foreign
  Schools in the Arcot Mission,     Missions of the Reformed
    India                           Church in America.
  Hindu Girls’ School in Arcot
    Mission
  Key to Hindu Homes
  Educational Work in Japan

  From Kindergarten to College    Woman’s Foreign Missionary
  A Peep into Yokohama              Society of the Methodist
    Day Schools                     Episcopal Church.
  A School Day at Aoyama
  Luchmi

  How Orthodox Mohammedans        Board of Foreign Missions of the
    Educate a Child                 Reformed Church in America.

  Messages to Mass. from          Woman’s Universalist Missionary
    Blackmer Home, 1912             Society of Massachusetts.
  Story of Matsu Koyama
  Midori Kindergarten

  Concerning the Blackmer         Woman’s National Missionary
    Home                            Association, Universalist.


FOOTNOTES:

[51] Told in “Among the Top-Knots,” Mrs. Underwood (Am. Tract Soc.)

[52] Told in _Missionary Review of the World_, Nov., 1911.

[53] “Foreign Mail Annual,” 1913, For. Dep. Int. Com. Y. M. C. A.

[54] _Pedagogical Seminary_, March, 1908, “On the Education of
Backward Races.”

[55] Edited by Paul Monroe, 1912. (Macmillan.)

[56] _Life and Light_, Oct., 1912.

[57] _Woman’s Work_, Aug., 1911. Cora C. Bartlett.

[58] Told by Miss A. W. Stocking in _Moslem World_, Oct., 1912.

[59] _Congregationalist and Christian World_, Dec. 26, 1912.

[60] “Kindergartens and ‘Near Kindergartens,’” _Child Welfare
Magazine_, Sept., 1912.

[61] “Mountain Tops and Valleys of Humanity,” _Child Welfare
Magazine_, Dec., 1912.

[62] “The Children’s Gardens,” Woman’s Board of Missions, (Cong.)

[63] _Life and Light_, March, 1912. Janette E. Miller.

[64] “How Orthodox Mohammedans Educate a Child.” Bd. of For. Miss.
Ref. Ch.

[65] “The Montessori System,” Theodate L. Smith. (Harper.)

[66] “Education of Girls in the Levant.” T. H. P. Sailer in _Woman’s
Work_, Aug., 1912.

[67] “Physical Training for the Chinese.” M. J. Exner, M.D.

[68] “The Athletic Method in Kashmir,” Henry Forman in _Outlook_,
Sept. 24, 1910.

[69] “Mountain Tops and Valleys of Humanity,” _Child Welfare
Magazine_, Jan., 1913.

[70] “Daylight in the Harem.”

[71] “The Land of the White Helmet,” E. A. Forbes. (Revell.)

[72] “Educational Work of the Bd. For. Miss. of the Pres. Ch.”

[73] “A Little Child Shall Lead Them.” Wom. Bd. For. Miss. Ref. Ch.
Am.

[74] “Home Life in Syria,” Elfreda Post, Wom. Pres. Bd. For. Miss.




CHAPTER V.

THE CHILD AT WORSHIP

“Suffer the little children to come unto Me.”

    Children worshiping--The child at worship in Thibet--In India--In
    Mohammedan Lands--In Africa--Religious needs greater than all
    others--The place of the child in non-Christian religions--In the
    Koran--In the Hindu Vedas and Shastras--Confucianism and
    Christianity--Failure of non-Christian religions to influence
    lives for righteousness--Religious acts and their results to
    children--Temple girls of India--Heathen mothers and their dead
    children--Only the Bible gives the child a place--The motive for
    teaching the children about Christ--The means to be
    used--Sunday-Schools--Christian Endeavor Societies--The power of
    God’s Word--Christian hymns--Obstacles to bringing children to
    Christ--“After many days”--Our great privilege.


[Sidenote: Children worshiping.]

What wonderful pictures flash before the mind as one repeats the
words, “The Child at Worship”! The picture, familiar to childhood, of
the boy Samuel, kneeling in the temple with folded hands and uplifted
eyes; the picture on the nursery wall of vested choir boys or
earnest-faced children singing praises in the sanctuary; the bowed
heads of little ones in the primary room at Sunday-School, while with
hushed voices they sing their prayer song; the hour far back in
childhood when you knelt at your mother’s knee; or the sweet moment
when your sleepy baby cuddled in your arms and learned to lisp, “Now I
lay me.” All that is sweetest, purest, holiest in childhood seems to
find full expression and highest reality as we see the child at
worship, for “except ye turn and become as little children, ye shall
in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven, ... for their angels do
always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.”

[Sidenote: The Child at Worship in Thibet.]

The Child at Worship! Far off in distant Thibet today thousands of
children are praying morning, noon, and night, joining their parents
in the constant repetition of one six-syllabled sentence, “Om mani
padme Hum” (“Om! the Jewel in the Lotus! Hum”!) This prayer they are
taught from earliest childhood to use as “a panacea for all evils, a
compendium of all knowledge, a treasury of all wisdom, a summary of
all religion.” It is engraved on the outside of metal cylinders,
written on rolls within rolls of paper inserted into the cylinders,
which are held in the right hand and whirled round and round like a
child’s toy,--each revolution storing up merit to the worshipper. But
alack! if the careless boy whirls the prayer cylinder in the wrong
direction, i.e., not with the sun, he is adding to the debit side of
his account, and the more zealously he “prays,” the less good will his
prayers do him.[75] “They think they shall be heard for their much
speaking.”

[Sidenote: The Child at Worship in India.]

The Child at Worship in India! “All the way up the bank they are
killing and skinning their goats. You look to the right and put your
hands over your eyes. You look to the left, and do it again. You look
straight in front of you and see an extended skinned victim hung from
the branch of a tree. Every hanging rootlet of the great banyan-tree
is hung with horrors,--all dead most mercifully, but horribly
still....

“We see little children watching the process delightedly. There is no
intentional cruelty, for the god will not accept the sacrifice unless
the head is severed by a single stroke. But it is most disgusting and
demoralizing. And to think that these children are being taught to
connect it with religion!

“With me is one who used to enjoy it all. She tells me how she twisted
the fowls’ heads off with her own hands. I look at the fine little
brown hands, and I can hardly believe it. ‘You, _you_, do such a
thing!’ And she says, ‘Yes; when the day came round to sacrifice to
our family divinity my little brother held the goat’s head while my
father struck it off, and I twisted the chickens’ heads. It was my
pleasure.’”[76]

Truly, “the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of
cruelty!”

[Sidenote: The Mohammedan Child at Worship.]

The Mohammedan Child at Worship! From the minaret of the Sunni Mosque
or the roof of the Shi’ite Mosque sounds the call to prayer. Children
of seven or older are supposed to join their elders in obeying the
summons five times a day,--in the early dawn, at noon, two hours
before sunset, at sunset, and two hours later. The religious law,
however, provides that no child shall be beaten for neglecting his
prayer until he is ten years of age.

Praying, however, is not as easy a task for the Mohammedan lad as for
his Thibetan cousin. He must first wash his face, hands, and arms,
feet, and legs, learning which side of the face, which hand and foot
to wash first, whether the arms should be stroked from the wrist to
the elbow or in the opposite direction. His prayer will not count
before the great “Allah” if the ablutions are not correct. Then he
must learn the words of the prayers, and these are in Arabic, which
three-fourths of the Mohammedan children of the world cannot
understand. Turning toward Mecca, he must stand, kneel, and bow
himself with his forehead to the ground, at just the proper intervals
during the prayer. At the age of twelve he begins to observe the month
of Ramazan, and his nine-year-old sister must do the same, when from
sunrise to sunset no morsel of food or drop of drink may cross their
lips. “Is such the fast that I have chosen? wilt thou call this a fast
and an acceptable day unto Jehovah?” With deep insight into the truth
has Mrs. Malcolm said:--

“Here again we see Mohammed giving his people what we may call
‘nursery rules,’ treating them as children, while our Master expects
us to grow up so that we can arrange these matters for ourselves. The
very fact that the detailed rules of Mohammedanism are binding through
life shows that the Mohammedan is not expected to grow up as we
understand growing up.”[77]

[Sidenote: The African Child at Worship.]

Once more the Child at Worship, this time in the African jungle!
“Ancestor-worship is the highest form of African Fetishism,--the usual
fetish is the skull of the father, which the son keeps in a box. The
father occasionally speaks to the son in dreams, and frequently
communicates with him by omens. He helps him in all his enterprises,
good and evil, and secures his success in love, in hunting, and in
war. All those who have skulls are a secret society, which is powerful
to rule and to tyrannize over others. Young boys are initiated into
this society by rites and ceremonies that are revolting.... In the
mild ceremony of the more civilized Fang towns, the boy who is to be
initiated is made very drunk and taken blindfolded to the bush, to a
place set apart for the use of the society. The ceremony continues
several days. In one part of it the bandage is removed from his eyes
at midnight, a low fire is burning, which gives a feeble light, and he
finds himself surrounded by members of the society with faces and
bodies frightfully distorted, and all the skulls of their ancestors
exposed to view, together with the heads of persons who have recently
died. Some one asks him what he sees. He replies that he sees only
spirits, and solemnly declares that these are not men....

“Further up the river, a boy during initiation is usually placed for
several days in a house alone, after being made to look so long at the
sun that sometimes he faints, and when he is taken into the house he
cannot at first see anything. Meantime the door is closed, and they
all go away. Gradually he sees things around him, and at length
discovers opposite him a corpse, in an early state of decomposition.
He is kept there day and night during the ceremony. The men visit him
and subject him to all sorts of indignities, in order to impress him
with the necessity of absolute obedience to the society.... They
believe that the skull of the father or other ancestor, when it has
been properly prepared, becomes the residence of the ancestor. The son
... will keep the skull comfortably warm and dry, occasionally rubbing
it with oil and red-wood powder, and will feed it bountifully.”[78]

[Sidenote: Religious needs greater than all others in non-Christian
lands.]

Our hearts are touched by the child in its helplessness, by the
suffering and sorrow of neglected little ones, by the agonies of child
wives and widows, and the yearning cry for teachers and books, but how
can we endure it when all that is sweetest and holiest and best in the
beautiful child heart is defiled and polluted in the name of religion;
when senseless repetition in an unknown tongue takes the place of the
trustful words, “Our Father”; when sticks and stones, ancestral
tablets, spirits and devils are worshipped by those to whom the Christ
cries out in yearning love, “Suffer the little children to come unto
ME”? If our hearts are touched, not to the breaking point, but to the
_acting_ point, then these horrors must cease, and the children will
be taught to worship aright, and Christ “shall see of the travail of
His soul and shall be satisfied.”

[Sidenote: The place of the child in non-Christian religions.]

“The people in the country from which you have come have a religion of
their own, is it not good enough for them? Why should you insult them
by trying to foist your religion upon them?” These and many similar
questions meet the missionary on furlough, and cause her more woe than
does many a hard experience on the mission field. The best answer to
such questions is to induce the questioners to study carefully what
the non-Christian religions have to say regarding children, and the
direct result of their systems on child life.

[Sidenote: In the Koran.]

A careful search in the Koran, the sacred book of the Mohammedans, is
rewarded by finding several passages strictly enjoining kindness and
justice to orphans, and a set of minute regulations regarding
inheritance in which children, parents, husbands, and wives shall
share, prefaced by these words: “God hath thus commanded you
concerning your children,” and followed up later by the remark: “Ye
know not whether your parents or your children be of greater use unto
you.” (Sura IV.)

“Children,” says Rev. S. M. Zwemer, “are scarcely mentioned in the
Koran; of such is not the Kingdom of Islam.”

[Sidenote: In Hindu Vedas.]

“The Hindu Vedas enjoin that by a girl, or by a young woman, or by a
woman advanced in years, nothing must be done, even in her own
dwelling place, according to her mere pleasure; in childhood a female
must be dependent on (or subject to) her father; in youth, on her
husband; her lord being dead, on her sons; a woman must never seek
independence.” (Manu V, 158.)

[Sidenote: In Hindu Shastras.]

“The Hindu Shastras have made no provisions of affection and regard
for a daughter. She is viewed by them, as far as her parents are
concerned, merely as an object to be ‘given away,’ and that as soon as
possible. She is declared by them to be marriageable, even in her
infancy, to a person of any age; and of course without her own choice
or intelligent consent.... According to the letter of the law, the
parents are not to sell their daughters, but they may receive valuable
gifts, the equivalent of a price, on her behalf.” (Manu III, 51.)[79]

The code of Manu further teaches that by honoring his mother a son
gains the terrestrial world, by honoring his father, the
ethereal,--intermediate,--and by assiduous attention to his preceptor,
even the celestial world of Brahma.[80]

How different are the words of the Apostle Paul regarding the relation
between parents and children. “Fathers, provoke not your children
that they be not discouraged. Children, obey your parents _in the
Lord_. Honor thy father _and thy mother_, which is the first
commandment with promise.”

[Sidenote: Confucianism and Christianity.]

The Right Reverend Logan H. Roots, Bishop of Hankow, has illustrated
so forcibly the difference in the practical working out of the
precepts of Confucianism and Christianity, that it is well worth while
to quote him at length.

    In conversation with a group of Chinese gentlemen some time ago, I
    made the remark that outside the Jewish and Christian religions
    there was no serious recognition of the inherent dignity of
    children, and that no sage had ever made a statement comparable to
    that of our Lord.--“Suffer the little children to come unto me and
    forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Such a
    remark as this on my part would have elicited scarcely any
    interest a few years ago. The warm discussion it aroused this time
    was a sign of the new life that is now stirring among the Chinese.
    The keenest of these gentlemen were in sympathy with Christianity,
    but they were all inclined to look upon Confucianism as a real
    preparation for Christianity, and one after another brought forth
    sayings of the Confucian sages which they thought could be
    reasonably compared to that of Christ.

    They quoted the praises of King Wen in the “Great Learning,”
    where it is said, “As a father he rested in kindness”; the
    sayings of Confucius himself in the “Analects” as to his own
    wish: “In regard to the young, treat them tenderly”; the advice
    to a ruler in “The Great Learning”: “Act as though you were
    watching over an infant”; and the fine saying of Mencius: “The
    great man is he who does not lose his child’s heart.”...

    The eagerness of these gentlemen in discussing the question with
    me, to find a place for their worthies in the ample folds of
    Christian teaching is far from unwholesome or blameworthy,
    especially when there is such readiness as they showed to appeal
    to Christian teaching rather than to the sages as their standard,
    and to prove the greatness of their sages by their agreement with
    the Christ....

    My purpose, however, is not to give an exposition of these
    classical gems, but rather to contrast them briefly with certain
    popular Chinese conceptions of childhood which are foolish or
    cruel, but which these lofty sayings of the sages have been
    powerless to correct.

    Should a child fall ill, his relatives or friends very likely
    remark, “His spirit has gone seeking another incarnation.” Or
    some one suggests, “Some ghost has frightened the child to the
    point of losing its soul.”... Should the child die, the parents
    will grieve as surely and as sorely as parents any where; but ...
    they will be told, “Never mind, the child was misguided to your
    home, and was not intended for you.” Or, “It was only a creditor
    collecting a debt you owed in a former existence.” Or, “Don’t
    grieve, it was but one of those demon spirits that always die
    young.”...

    I put these popular sayings beside the exalted sentiments of the
    Chinese Classics, not to disparage the sages, but to show how
    utterly dark the popular mind is, in spite of these sayings which
    seem so full of light. Is not the difficulty that the sages after
    all could not go to the root of the matter? They knew nothing of
    God as Father.[81]

[Sidenote: Failure to influence lives for righteousness.]

What is here illustrated of the failure of Confucianism to influence
lives toward righteousness and faith is true of the other
non-Christian religions. Even the young Mohammedan girl realized the
power and claim of Christianity as she was a chance listener to the
Gospel story while a missionary toured in central Persia. “Why,
lady,” she exclaimed, “if one understands clearly that Book, there is
nothing left but to obey!”

The direct results of the way children are taught to worship in
non-Christian lands deserve careful, unprejudiced study, with the
question constantly in mind, “Is this religion good enough for _my_
children, or for those in whom I am interested?” If the study results
in a negative answer to the question, it is fair to ask further, “Is
it good enough for _any_ children in the whole wide world?”

[Sidenote: Result to the child of religious acts.]

What should be the results, physical, mental, moral, and spiritual, of
a child’s religious acts? Which of all the world religions produces
these results? Study Mohammedanism, for instance, of which we have
already noted some of the religious acts expected of the child. These
must necessarily inculcate formalism, thoughtless repetition,
deep-rooted superstition, and the idea that God can be appeased and
sin can be forgiven through certain acts unconnected with life and
character.

“When I die,” said a poor, blind Mohammedan girl, “I shall be visited
by two angels, the chief of whom will make an examination of my deeds,
and remind me of everything I have done, and left undone; he will then
cut off a piece of my shroud and record upon it my good and bad deeds,
and attach it firmly to my neck with a piece of rope. If my good deeds
outweigh my bad ones, I shall go straight into heaven. If my bad
deeds outweigh my good deeds, my intercessor Mohammed will easily get
permission for me to enter heaven, so it does not much matter how I
live.”[82]

[Sidenote: Mohammedan month of mourning.]

The annual month of mourning of the Shi’ite Mohammedans is observed by
children as well as by adults, and little ones with their heads
covered with straw or ashes, or wearing chains, are borne on horseback
in the processions that close the series of passion plays. A
missionary in Persia saw a mother carrying her boy of five or six
years in the bloody procession, cutting his head with a curved sword,
while blood streamed from five or six gashes. Poor, eager, zealous
mother, trying to store up merit for her baby boy against the day of
wrath!

[Sidenote: Fear and horror in idol worship.]

Fear, dread, and horror are inseparably associated in the minds of
thousands of children with the worship of their gods. From earliest
childhood others grow so naturally into the forms of ancestor, idol,
and spirit worship that this becomes one of the most difficult factors
in leading them into Christianity. From the _Mission Day Spring_ we
quote a few words about “how Chinese children worship.”

    We must go up a flight of wide stone steps at the entrance of the
    temple, and as we enter we shall see two tall images with very
    ugly faces and brilliantly painted coats, which are called
    “Guardians of the Gate.” The mothers bring their little children
    forward, and teach them to clasp their hands and bow down,
    knocking their heads to the ground as they worship the image. If
    it is the first time, the children are afraid and often say, “Oh,
    I can’t do it, I never can do it!” Then they have to watch closely
    while their mothers once more show them how to worship. Afterwards
    they are sometimes rewarded with little presents, which they are
    told have been given them by the idol. If they are still too
    afraid to worship, stories of the terrible things that happen to
    people who do not ask the protection of the idols are repeated to
    them.

Up on the mountain slopes of the Hakone District in Japan, is the
great children’s god, Jizo, carved centuries ago out of the solid
rock. The heathen mother has been taught that, when the souls of her
little children pass over the sullen stream of death, they must be
saved from the clutches of a cruel hag residing on the banks. She
steals their clothes and forces them to the endless task of piling
stones at the river side. In order to induce Jizo to save them from
the hag, the weary heathen mother climbs the steep paths leading to
the children’s god, and there makes her supplication. And the little
one tied to her back or led by the hand, with highly strung nerves and
weary limbs, shrinks in terror at the sight of the ugly idol, and at
the stories of dire vengeance which will befall her unless she
worships properly.

[Sidenote: Death from fright and exposure.]

Many children die from the effects of fright and exposure connected
with religious rites, as in the case of some of the African boys whose
initiation into ancestor worship was described above.

[Sidenote: Soul-stains.]

[Sidenote: Temple girls.]

Worse than all the results yet mentioned are the deep soul-stains, the
utter ruin of all moral and spiritual character, which fall to the lot
of countless thousands of innocent children through the direct
influence of their religion. One longs to turn away from scenes like
these, but we mothers, sisters, and daughters of Christian homes
cannot be honest with ourselves and with our God, unless we are
willing to know things as they really are, in order to help to make
them as they really ought to be. Such conditions exist to a larger or
smaller degree in many lands, but to be really understood in their
baldest, most revolting form, it is only necessary to visit India.
Bishop Caldwell says that “the stories related of the life of the god
Krishna do more than anything to destroy the morals and corrupt the
imaginations of Hindu youth.” The temple girls, nautch girls, and
muralis are living witnesses to India’s need of a pure and holy
religion.

    The nautch-girl often begins her career of training under teachers
    as early as five years of age. She is taught to read, dance, and
    sing, and instructed in every seductive art. Her songs are usually
    amorous; and while she is yet a mere girl, before she can realize
    fully the moral bearings of her choice of life, she makes her
    debut as a nautch-girl in the community.

    Khandoba is the deity of the Marathi country and is popularly
    believed to be an avator, or incarnation of Shiva. Muralis are
    girls devoted to him by their parents in infancy or early
    childhood. Outside the main entrance of the temple court, a stone
    column stands on the wall on the left side. It is about three
    feet high, and on the head of it is cut a filthy design. The
    column is called by the name of Yeshwantrao.... He it is who
    gives children to barren women.... It is to this image the poor
    deluded women promise to sacrifice their first-born daughters if
    Khandoba will make them mothers of many children. Then after the
    vow, the first-born girl is offered to Khandoba and set apart for
    him by tying a necklace of seven cowries around the little girl’s
    neck. When she becomes of marriageable age she is formally
    married to the Khanda or daggar of Khandoba, and becomes his
    nominal wife. Henceforth she is forbidden to become the wedded
    wife of man, and the result is that she usually leads an infamous
    life, earning a livelihood by sin.[83]

The stories told by Amy Wilson Carmichael and many others corroborate
and emphasize the facts stated by Mrs. Fuller, and tell of what the
British Government and Christian missions are trying to do to
counteract and stop the monstrous evil. From the _Missionary Review of
the World_ for February, 1913, we quote:--

[Sidenote: Legislation to abolish young temple girls.]

“A bill lately introduced into the viceroy’s legislative council by
Mr. Dadabhai, the Parsee member of that body, touches upon some of
oldest and darkest social evils of India. It proposes to make it
criminal for a parent or other lawful guardian to dedicate a girl
under sixteen years of age to ‘the service of a deity,’ which always
means dedicating her to a life of infamy, and to make the crime
punishable with ten years penal servitude. It prohibits under very
severe penalties, the practice which obtains whereby priests enter
into temporary alliance with young girls thus dedicated, in order to
initiate them into the life of professional profligacy.” To this we
may add from an authoritative source that in 1913 the native state of
Mysore had already abolished dancing girls from all its temples.

While the British Government is trying to prevent any of India’s
daughters from being hereafter ruined, body and soul, in the name of
religion, what is being done for the thousands who through no fault of
their own have already become “the servants of the gods”? Is it
possible to do anything to redeem the lives of these children whose
earliest memories cluster about the most hideous forms of evil?

[Sidenote: Rescuing the servant of the gods.]

    Another picture. A group of women lounging within the temple
    enclosure in the cool shade of the fragrant cork trees. A
    beautiful little girl of five years is running up and down the
    great stone steps of the tank, laughing and playing. Now and then
    one of the women calls the child to her and tries the effect of
    some article of jewelry against the bright little face. Little
    Moothi, the Pearl of the Temple, as she is called, is full of life
    and happiness. Too young to understand the sin and wrong about
    her, she loves the bright jewels and silken garments, the
    excitement of the dancing and singing. The daily exercise on the
    whirling wheel is only fun for her. She never grows dizzy and
    falls off as do her stupid companions, to be beaten by cross old
    Ramana, their teacher. “She will bring plenty of money by and by,”
    said one of the women to Moothi’s mother. “You had better let her
    go to the Christian school in the village. She will be taught to
    read and sing without any expense to you, and there is no danger
    of her remembering what she hears of that foolish religion.” But
    the mother’s face did not light up in response. Sitting in her
    little hut she has listened to the Gospel as it was told to a
    group of outcast women who had gathered weekly in the village
    palim on the other side of the wall. The wonderful story had
    penetrated her dark heart. But it is too late for her. She is too
    old to change, but oh, that her little Moothi, her beautiful one,
    might be spared the life of sin and shame to which she is doomed
    as a dancing girl devoted to the service of the temple. What can
    she do? Through the long nights she thought and thought, until
    finally she came to the decision to part with the little one
    though her heart break. One night she took the child with a little
    bundle of clothing and stole away. After weary miles of travel she
    appeared at the home of a missionary and begged her to take the
    little girl. “I give her to you,” she said, “to be taught your
    religion, and to be your child, but she must never know who her
    mother was.” She laid down twenty rupees which she had saved
    toward her support, and disappeared, leaving no clue to her name
    and village.

    There was consternation among the women of the temple when it was
    discovered that Moothi was gone, but the mother gave no sign, and
    it was finally concluded that some one had stolen her because of
    her beauty, and such things are too common in a heathen land to
    cause a disturbance. As Moothi grew and developed into a
    beautiful Christian woman and earnest worker, the missionary
    often wondered whence came the God-given trust so strangely sent.
    Now and then, but less frequently as the years pass on, a woman,
    growing increasingly old and bent, was seen near the school, whom
    they associated with Moothi, but no one knew until upon her
    deathbed she sent for the missionary and told her story. Only a
    heathen mother, degraded and heart-broken, parted from her only
    joy in life, watching hungrily in the distance for a sight of the
    loved face. Can we not believe that the Christ of love was
    revealed to her heart also?[84]

What Christian mother will make it possible that some other
heart-broken heathen mother may hear the Gospel message, and may find
a place of refuge for her sweet, innocent child?

[Sidenote: Heathen mothers and their dead children.]

While our hearts go out in tenderness to the heathen mother deprived
of her living child, what can we do or say to comfort the mother whose
little one is cold in death? Our statistics of infant mortality in
Chapter I give some slight idea of the vast multitudes of mourning
mothers for whom there is no hope, no knowledge that,--“around the
throne of God in heaven, thousands of children stand;” no vision of
Him who “shall gather the lambs with His arm and carry them in His
bosom.” Nowhere but among Christians do hope and faith and
self-control and comfort abide in the house where death has come, and
none but the Christian cemetery is a place of order and beauty and
peace. Among the Thonga Tribe of South Africa, the mother who loses a
baby is considered deeply contaminated with the defilement of death.
She must bury the child alone, not even her husband helping her. Mrs.
George Heber Jones said recently that in all her many years of life in
Korea she had never seen any funeral service for a child of
non-Christians. The baby is buried anywhere at the back of the house
as a dog would be, or put up in the branches of a tree for the
vultures to find. Do the mothers have hearts and feelings? Listen to
the experience of Mrs. U. S. G. Jones of India, and answer the
question for yourselves.

“I went into a Brahmin home where several widows were gathered. One
old woman with eyes that were dimmed from much weeping said, peering
into my face, ‘Yes, it is the same, I was sure of it. You came here
some ten or twelve years ago, and told us how when your beloved were
taken from you, you did not mourn and wail as we did. When my daughter
died, I tried to recall what you had said about another life and hope
beyond the grave, but I could not remember. Tell it all again now.’ So
I told her again of our glorious hope and of the resurrection. How
earnestly they all listened! Poor, poor things!”[85]

[Sidenote: Only the Bible gives the child a place.]

“The Child for Christ” must be the watchword of our “organized
motherhood for the children of the world.” The Bible is the only
sacred book that gives the child a place of importance. Christ was the
only founder of a religion who raised childhood into a type of those
who were fit to enter His Kingdom. As E. G. Romanes says, “Tenderness
toward child life, appreciation of the simplicity and the helplessness
of children, affection of parents for their children, and children for
their parents;--all these are features of the Bible which the most
superficial reader cannot fail to observe.”[86]

[Sidenote: The motive for teaching the children of Christ.]

In his “Challenge to Christian Missions,” R. E. Welsh utters these
significant words,--

“Why is it a matter of urgent duty and concern on a parent’s part to
teach his child the story of Christ and train him in Christian truth
and life?... What is the parent’s motive?... Simply the sharp sense of
the value of Christ to every human being, young or old--the perception
of the child’s need and peril if he does not get the saving power of
Christ upon him; the sense of the native worth and value of being a
Christian in soul and character; the desire to lift him out of ‘the
natural man’ to ‘the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.’
If that motive be not strong enough to inspire us with zeal for taking
the blessing of Christ to the heathen, then Christ has still much work
to do upon us to make us Christian in mind and spiritual sympathy.”

[Sidenote: The means to be used.]

If it is our duty and privilege to win the children of the world to
Christ, how is it to be done? What special means are our missionaries
using to bring about this result? All missionary work for children, in
the homes, in day school and boarding school, in church and
Sunday-School, in hospital and orphanage, must have the great two-fold
aim ever in view,--to win the child to Christ, to train the child for
Christ. It remains for us to study briefly several agencies not yet
touched upon, that have been greatly blessed in their effect upon
children of many lands.

[Sidenote: Sunday-School statistics.]

First in the list of these child-winning agencies stands the
Sunday-School. From a series of statistics appearing in the January,
1913, number of the _Missionary Review of the World_, we take the
following figures, concerning Sunday-Schools conducted by the
Protestant Missionary Societies of the world.

                                  Miss. Soc’s      Of other
                                 U. S. & Canada   Countries

  No. Heathen Children baptized
    1912                            27,997          68,567
  No. Sunday-Schools                19,230          11,375
  No. Pupils in same               908,007         580,012

Would that every Christian woman who glances at these figures could
dimly realize what they stand for,--the efforts, the time and energy
and love expended, the disappointments and trials, the encouragements
and victories. One must _never_ be discouraged, one must _never_ lose
faith and hope, one may _never_ stop sowing seeds in little hearts,
even though the work seems as small and insignificant as it did in the
Japanese Sunday-School at Kawazoe.

[Sidenote: Japanese Sunday-School.]

    Every Sunday at twelve o’clock the children begin to clatter up on
    their wooden shoes to a Sunday-School which does not begin till
    two o’clock.... When it begins they sing hymns vigorously if not
    tunefully, and listen as patiently as any children of the same
    age. The nurse girls, aged ten or eleven, come with babies on
    their backs, and, if the babies remonstrate too vigorously, they
    are trotted out in the sunshine for a breathing space. An average
    of forty children come every Sunday to hear the Christian
    stories, and often, passing on the street, one hears the familiar
    tune and unfamiliar words of “Jesus loves me.” One, two, or more
    Sunday-Schools seem like but a drop in the bucket in a town of
    twenty thousand people, but we can only hope that through hymn, or
    story, or picture, or card, the good news of the love of God may
    be spread more widely.[87]

But many “drops” fill a bucket, and some day Japan is going to feel
the mighty power of the children who have been taught in mission
Sunday-Schools. Here is a prophetic instance:--

[Sidenote: A Sunday-School rally in Japan.]

    The teachings which produce the sweetest and most beautiful things
    in the lives of children, and will make them the truest and best
    “soldiers and servants” are those given in the Sunday-Schools
    which are multiplying in Japan. Therefore there is no work better
    worth doing than that in the Sunday-Schools, and no service more
    valuable than that of the missionaries who teach the children of
    Japan.... On the Campus of the Reformed Church College, Sendai,
    there was held last summer a union gathering of the Sunday-Schools
    of the city. Some of them were Saturday Sunday-Schools, as there
    were not hours enough on Sunday for the Christian teachers to
    instruct all those who are eager to learn, and it is not
    unprecedented for two or three Sunday-Schools to be taught by the
    same persons. When the pupils in the Christian schools of Sendai
    came together they were one thousand seven hundred strong. An
    eye-witness says:--

    “I wish you could have seen them! Our own four Sunday-Schools
    furnished one hundred and fifty of the number. It did my heart
    good! Do missions pay? Oh, my, no! One of our students in the
    training school is the direct result of the Sendai Sunday-School,
    and another from that Sunday-School enters next year. And to
    hear those one thousand seven hundred children sing! And back of
    that great gathering was the story of long and patient labor,
    days of constant effort, and nights of discouragement.”[88]

[Sidenote: A Sunday-School with practical results.]

With such a view of the value of the Sunday-School to Japan, it is
interesting to note that in May, 1913, there were one thousand seven
hundred Protestant Sunday-Schools in Japan, with an enrollment of
about 100,000 pupils. If the question is asked, Do the Sunday-Schools
have any effect on the lives of the children? it is a pleasure to
answer with a brief extract from the personal letter of a new
missionary to Japan:--

“This afternoon a lady called whose mother belongs to the nobility and
has older ideals, but her father is American. She is a most earnest
Christian and has done a great deal. She has access to the nobility’s
children and is forming a Sunday-School, but she has many
discouragements. At one village they had started a school of two
hundred, and the children were showing its influence, but the
schoolmaster feared just this and so managed to frighten the parents
that all were withdrawn. This village was built in terraces with a
long flight of stairs, down which many blind people went. The boys
used to hang cords across so as to trip them. But now they have begun
to take these poor people by the hand, and lead them down.” A
Sunday-School that can teach such practical Christianity to
mischievous boys must be a power in the community.

[Sidenote: A Sunday-School Parade in Peking.]

In October, 1911, the city of Peking, China, witnessed a Sunday-School
parade in which two thousand children took part. With banners flying,
and led by the Methodists with six hundred children and a band, the
parade passed through the most important streets of the city to a
large church where a children’s mass meeting was held.

A noteworthy “forward movement” was undertaken by the Methodist
Episcopal Church in 1913, when the Rev. Wallace H. Miner, son of a
missionary, sailed for China, to become a Sunday-School worker and
organizer in that new republic. His work will be to assist the
missionaries in promoting the work of the Sunday-Schools, to instruct
native preachers in methods of Sunday-School organization and
administration, and to train local teachers and native field workers,
introducing modern methods into Chinese Sunday-Schools as far as they
are adapted to Chinese conditions.

[Sidenote: A Sunday-School Union in India.]

Would that India had more men like the rich coffee planter who gives
his services to Christian work, and who travels from end to end of
India organizing Sunday-Schools. The statistics of the Sunday-School
Union of India are deeply significant, as is also the fact that there
_is_ such a Union. “The Sunday-School Union of India has a membership
of 458,945, being an increase of 37,866 on the previous year. The
Union stands for the very best in Bible instruction, equipment, and
management. It publishes 10,000,000 English and vernacular pages of
Scripture illustrated expositions, nearly all of which are based on
the international syllabus. To meet the needs of Sunday-Schools in
fifty languages, there are about fifty editions of ‘helps’ in twenty
languages. A prominent feature of the Union is that it stands for
salvation through Jesus Christ, and membership in the church to which
it belongs.”[89]

[Sidenote: An African Sunday-School.]

It would be fascinating to visit the Sunday-Schools in various lands,
and to hear the same dear children’s hymns sung in many languages by
black children and white, red, and brown. We have time for only a peep
at an Egyptian Sunday-School, but even this glimpse shows how
naturally and inevitably the love and power of Jesus Christ can change
the heart and life of a little child.

    At 2 P. M. the beating of the bell has the desired effect, and
    presently there rises up from the edge of the river a crowd of
    some of the dirtiest and yet some of the prettiest little boys and
    girls you ever saw. Nearly every little girl carries perched on
    her shoulder a baby brother or sister. They rush without ceremony
    into the compound, but there they are intercepted, and made to
    walk quietly and orderly into the classes provided for them.

    A kind Syrian nurse from the Hospital takes her place in a class
    of some thirty or forty girls, and, if only you could peep behind
    the scenes, you would hear such sad stories connected with the
    lives of several of her girls. Some have been married and cast
    aside by their husbands for some trivial fault, and then how glad
    they are once more to find their way back to school, where they
    know they are loved and cared for.

    A blind girl sits among a class of the very naughtiest but
    sweetest little folk, who try her patience to the utmost. A kind
    missionary takes another class, and I am sure that, although she
    is accustomed to teaching all through the week, she has never
    taught such pieces of humanity as those before her. Still another
    class of mischievous little boys is taught by one of the
    day-school boys, who sometimes has to appeal to the
    superintendent to restore order.... Now the bell has to be
    beaten, gently too, and, after much noise, all shaggy heads are
    bent in prayer, then sentence by sentence, the Lord’s Prayer is
    said, and a very elongated “Amen” comes in at the end. Now three
    rooms are occupied instead of one, for if all the classes were
    kept in one room the noise would be deafening. What are all those
    dirty little bags hung around the children’s necks? Ah! those
    bags contain the most precious thing the children have, viz., an
    old Christmas card which serves as a register. If by some
    unfortunate chance that ticket gets lost, genuine tears form a
    streamlet down the troubled little face of the owner, for he or
    she knows it is just a mere chance if the superintendent will
    relent so far as to provide another, and yet without it
    admittance to the yearly Christmas tree is a thing impossible.

    These registers are marked and a tiny box handed around to
    receive many little widows’ mites, for although the children are
    of the poorest, we try to teach them that it is more blessed to
    give than to receive. And now we are all in the room again, and a
    time is spent in catechising the whole school so as to make sure
    they have been listening to their lesson. The story had been told
    of the ten lepers, and the ingratitude of the nine, who went away
    without saying “thank you.” Z., a very regular member, looked up
    with glowing eyes, and said, “I would very much like to say thank
    you to Jesus for all He has done for me, but I am afraid He would
    not care to bend His hand from heaven to let a little girl like
    me kiss it.”... Another little girl is all eagerness to speak.
    Her name means “Cast Out,” and when her turn comes she says, “I
    love pickles, oh! so much, and when my mother said, ‘Go to the
    market and bring back pickles in vinegar,’ I used to dip my
    fingers into the vinegar all the way home,--they would creep into
    the basin in spite of myself,--but now since my teacher has told
    me it is like stealing, I try not even to look at the basin, but
    run all the way home with it to my mother.”[90]

[Sidenote: Junior Christian Endeavor Societies.]

It would take pages to tell what Junior Christian Endeavor Societies,
Epworth Leagues, and similar organizations are doing for the children
of Asia and Africa, and how through them the children of Christian
households are being trained to live and work for Christ,--a training
which most of their parents lacked in childhood. A missionary from
Japan tells how a little fellow prayed at the Christian Endeavor
meeting, “Oh God, I just want to thank you for the good time we had
last Saturday, I can taste it yet; help us not to forget what we
promised then.”

[Illustration: JAPANESE CHILDREN AT WORSHIP]

A Junior Endeavor Society in the Madura District in India helps to
support a Sunday-School in a near-by village, the children bringing
their offerings of one pie each (one sixth of a cent) with noble
regularity. In one boarding-school in Persia, four or five Endeavor
Societies flourished some years ago, and, when the girls went home for
their vacations, they led the singing in the village churches,
teaching the congregations new hymns learned at school. Each girl saw
to it that a Christian Endeavor Society was formed in her village
during the long summer vacation. Often the school girl would be the
only member of the Society who could read, but she gathered the
village children about her, and taught them to repeat Bible verses,
sing hymns, and offer simple prayers, and a great deal of training and
teaching can be accomplished in one summer vacation!

[Sidenote: The power of the Bible.]

What marvelous power there is in the Word of God! A Mohammedan boy in
a fanatical Persian city, which had often been visited by colporteurs
and missionaries, went one day to the bazaar where he saw a New
Testament being torn up to serve as wrapping paper. He remonstrated
with the shopkeeper, and finally bought what was left of the Book.
Through its influence both he and his mother were led to Christ. In
another Persian city, the missionary holds a Bible lesson for boys
under fifteen every Friday, when they do not have to be at work.
Picture cards sent by thoughtful friends in America are earned by boys
learning the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, or verses from the
Sermon on the Mount. Some of the boys always repeat the lesson at
home to their mothers, and some say openly, “If what the Bible says is
true, the Mohammedan religion is vain and useless.” Truly, “the
entrance of Thy word giveth light.”

Do American children prize their Bibles as does this Korean boy?

[Sidenote: A Korean boy and his Bible.]

    Every day in the village of Nulmok there is an exodus of small
    boys to the mountain for fuel. Wood being scarce, it becomes
    necessary for each household to furnish a fuel gatherer. This army
    of boys is winding its way to the mountains some five miles off.
    Each boy has tied to his jikcey, or rack carried on his back, a
    small package of rice. This is his dinner, for it is an all-day
    job. As they make their way up the well-nigh barren slopes, one
    boy notices that his friend Kaiby has a second little bundle tied
    to his jikcey, and so he hails him to know why he is carrying two
    dinners.

    “Oh, one is for my body, and the other is dinner for my soul,” he
    replies.

    After a morning spent in raking over a small area of the
    mountain, each boy has succeeded in getting together his bundle
    of dried grass, and all sit down beside a mountain brook to eat
    of their dinner of cold rice and a relish of greens or pickled
    cabbage in season. Soon Kaiby has finished his meal and is
    untying his second bundle; taking out a book he begins to read
    aloud, slowly, while the other boys gather around to hear. It is
    about a great Man, who, when the people wanted to make him king,
    went to the mountain to pray.

    Day after day at rest time Kaiby got out his book and read from
    it, and the other boys were interested. About this time, Ki Mun
    Ju, the Bible Society agent, came again to the village with
    Bibles. After supper, Kaiby, accompanied by several other boys,
    asked if there was not a smaller copy of the New Testament, as a
    number of the boys wanted to buy a Bible, but their only
    opportunity to read was at rest time on the mountain, and a
    smaller copy would be more easily carried. Needless to say, the
    colporteur did not fail to bring some on his next trip, and now
    many of the boys have their own, and frequently the hymnbook
    which they treasure next is tied up with it.[91]

[Sidenote: Hymnbooks and singing.]

Korean boys are not the only ones who treasure the hymnbook and love
to learn and to sing Christian hymns. The missionary who can play and
sing, and the one who knows enough about music to translate hymns and
adapt tunes, has marvelous opportunities to work effectively among
children. Miss Ford’s experiences in Palestine illustrate the truth of
this:--

“I should like to say a word about the use of the organ. We are able
sometimes to have very large Moslem audiences in the villages. Scores
of boys will gather around to hear. When we propose to teach them a
hymn or chorus they eagerly agree to learn. The subject of the song is
always salvation in Jesus Christ, and the way of life is pointed out.
We often hear the children afterward singing these hymns in the
streets.... God has given us large numbers of little children to bring
to Him. They learn hymns and psalms, chapters of the Gospels, and
verses from the Bible with great facility, and they love to sing the
hymns. Now also we can use with profit, large, illustrated, highly
colored pictures of the life and teachings of our Lord, as well as Old
Testament stories.”[92]

[Sidenote: Obstacles to bringing children to Christ.]

Lest anyone be tempted to think that the work is always easy, that one
has but to sow the seed in order without further work and prayer to
reap a bountiful harvest, it is but fair to mention a few of the
obstacles that missionaries must constantly meet while trying to win
children to Christ. Heredity, age-long custom, superstition, fatalism,
the shackles of caste and prejudice, the home influences that so
quickly counteract what a child learns during a few brief hours at a
mission compound,--all these and many other hindrances must be
reckoned with and overcome. Miss Carmichael graphically describes some
of these experiences of effort and disappointment in India.

[Sidenote: Miss Carmichael on discouragements in India.]

“Often we hear people say how excellent it is, and how they never
worship idols now, but only the true God; and even a heathen mother
will make her child repeat its texts to you, and a father will tell
you how it tells him Bible stories; and, if you are quite new to the
work, you put it in the Magazine, and at home it sounds like
conversion. All this goes on most peacefully; there is not the
slightest stir, till something happens to show the people that the
doctrine is not just a creed, but contains a living Power. And then,
and not until then, there is opposition. In one village there was a
little Brahmin child who often tried to speak to us, but was never
allowed. One day she risked capture and its consequences, and ran
across the narrow stream which divides the Brahmin street from the
village, and spoke to one of our band in a hurried little whisper,
‘Oh, I do want to hear about Jesus!’ And she told how she had learned
at school in her own town, and then she had been sent to her
mother-in-law’s house in this jungle village, ‘that one,’ pointing to
a house where they never had smiles for us; but her mother-in-law
objected to the preaching, and had threatened to throw her down the
well if she listened to us. Just then a hard voice called her and she
flew. Next time we went to that village she was shut up somewhere
inside.”[93]

[Sidenote: “After many days.”]

Sometimes God grants that bread cast on the waters with loving, lavish
hand, is found again after many, many days. Often a Bible verse or the
words of a hymn, or the recollection of what was seen and heard in a
missionary home, has not been forgotten, and has borne fruit in after
life. “A rich Japanese silk merchant sent for the missionaries in his
town, and entertained them most hospitably. He told how as a child he
had attended a Sunday-School. ‘Very often,’ he said, ‘right in the
midst of my business the words of the hymn, “Jesus loves me, this I
know,” come to me, and, try as I may, I can’t get them out of my
mind.’ He then repeated the hymn from beginning to end, and added,
‘Though I have lived my life without religion, I feel that it is the
most important thing there is, and I want my little girl to be a
Christian; and it is for that purpose,’ he added emphatically, ‘that I
have placed her in the mission school, that she may become a
Christian.’”

[Sidenote: Ours is the greater privilege.]

Do we realize the privilege and opportunity that is ours to pray and
give and go, to send our money and our sons and daughters, that the
children of many Christless lands may learn to know and love and serve
the children’s Friend while they are young, and hearts and minds are
plastic and teachable? Have we as keen an insight into the great
truths of Christian privilege as had the little Chinese girl, who,
after being publicly baptized, was asked by her teacher, “Are you glad
of the privilege of attending a school where you can hear of the Lord
Jesus?” Quickly she responded, “Are _you_ not glad, teacher, that you
are in China, where you can teach of the Lord Jesus?”[94] Yes, ours is
the greater privilege, and we must see to it carefully that we do not
miss any part of the joy that the Master has in store for us. Our own
children are so cunning and lovable, so full of wonderful
possibilities, and in need of so much care and watchfulness, that it
is easy to forget the other children who also need our love and help.
In the Saviour’s eyes there is no difference,--He loves and cares for
_all_ children. Shall we imitate Him in this respect?

[Sidenote: A missionary’s dream.]

A weary missionary fell asleep, and as she slept she dreamed a dream.
A message had arrived that the Master was coming, and to her was
appointed the task of getting all the little children ready for His
arrival. So she arranged them on the benches, tier on tier, putting
the little white children on the first benches, nearest to where the
Master would stand, and then came the little yellow and red and brown
children and far back on the farthest benches sat the black children.
When they were all arranged, she looked, and it did not seem quite
right to her. Why should the black children be so far away? They ought
perhaps to be on the front benches. She started to rearrange them, but
just as all was in confusion, the children stirring around, and each
trying to find his proper place, footsteps were heard, and lo! it was
the Master’s tread, and He was coming before the children were ready.
Overcome with shame and confusion she hung her head. To think that the
task entrusted to her had not been accomplished in time! So she stood
while the footsteps drew nearer and nearer, till finally they paused
beside her, and she was obliged to look up. And lo! as she did so, and
her eyes rested on the children, all shades of color and difference
had vanished,--the little children in the Master’s presence were all
alike!


QUOTATIONS

A HEATHEN BABY

An English missionary in Swatow, China, heard sounds of bitter weeping
by the wayside one night. Looking for its source, he found a heathen
woman bowed over a child’s grave, upon which, according to the local
custom, lay an overturned cradle.

    A heathen baby,--that is all;--
      A woman’s lips that wildly plead;
    Poor lips that never learned to call
      On Christ, in woman’s time of need!

    Poor lips, that never did repeat
      Through quiet tears, “Thy will be done,”
    That never knew the story sweet
      Of Mary, and the Infant Son.

    An emptied cradle, and a grave--
      A little grave--cut through the sod;
    O Jesus, pitiful to save,
      Make known to her the mother’s God.

    O Spirit of the heavenly Love,
      Stir some dear heart at home today,
    An earnest thought to lift above,
      For mother-hearts so far away.

    That all may know the mercy mild
      Of Him who did the nurselings bless:
    The heathen and the homeborn child
      Are one in that great tenderness.

    (Clara A. Lindsay in _Woman’s Work_.)

CASTE IN INDIA

In the village of the Wind a young girl became known as an enquirer.
Her Caste passed the word along from village to village wherever its
members were found, and all these relations and connections were
speedily leagued in a compact to keep her from hearing more. When we
went to see her, we found she had been posted off somewhere else. When
we went to the somewhere else (always freely mentioned to us, with
invitation to go), we found she had been there, but had been forwarded
elsewhere. For weeks she was tossed about like this; then we traced
her and found her. But she was thoroughly cowed, and dared not show
the least interest in us.... Take a child of four or five, ask it a
question concerning its Caste, and you will see how that baby tree has
begun to drop branch rootlets....

The young girls belonging to the higher Castes are kept in strict
seclusion. During these formative years they are shut up within the
courtyard walls to the dwarfing life within, and as a result they get
dwarfed, and lose in resourcefulness and independence of mind, and
above all in courage; and this tells terribly in our work, making it
so difficult to persuade such a one to think for herself. It is this
custom which makes work among girls exceedingly slow and unresultful.

A few months ago a boy of twelve resolved to become a Christian. His
clan, eight thousand strong, were enraged. There was a riot in the
streets; in the house the poison cup was ready. Better death than loss
of Caste. In another town a boy took his stand and was baptized, thus
crossing the line that divided secret belief from open confession. His
Caste men got hold of him afterwards; next time he was seen he was a
raving lunatic. The Caste was avenged! (Amy Wilson Carmichael in
“Things as They Are.”)

SPIRIT-WORSHIP AMONG THE LAO

Spirit-worship, as existing among the Lao, is not reduced to a system
as is Buddhism. It has no temple, but it is enshrined in the heart of
every man, woman, and child in the country.... Children are seen with
soot marks upon their foreheads. These are placed there by
spirit-doctors and are to ward off evil. They also wear around their
wrists charm-strings. This belief is by no means confined to the
peasantry.

Every person is believed to have thirty-two good spirits pervading his
body, called kwan. As long as these kwan all remain as guardian
spirits within, no sickness or mishap can befall the person. But alas!
these kwan are freaky, vacillating spirits, and may leave the body
without a moment’s warning, and at once sickness or accident befalls.
Much time and money are spent trying to keep these kwan in a good
humor, so that they will not desert the body....

The folk-lore of this people is pregnant with this belief in magic and
spirit-worship, and so the children at the knee learn to reverence and
fear both, and in after years when the saner reason of maturity would
assert itself, this belief has become a habit too deeply ingrained in
the mind to be cast aside. (Lillian Johnson Curtis in “The Laos of
North Siam,” Westminster Press.)

SUNDAY-SCHOOL--NINGPO, CHINA

I wish some of you might be here tomorrow to go with me to my
Sunday-School for heathen children. This is a school which had to be
discontinued for some time, and I re-opened it on Easter Sunday, with
the assistance of nine of our older girls and pupil teachers. One
hundred were present last Sunday, including some girls from our two
mission schools, and a few visitors. The majority of the children are
very poor and dirty, and they are learning to sing “Jesus loves me,
this I know,” with as much gusto as though they were as clean as
pinks, and they carry away with them a lesson leaf and a picture card,
to try to tell at home what they have learned that day. I quite forget
they are Chinese children, for their human nature is very like that of
the children at home. One Sunday, two little girls from our mission
school, clean and comfortably dressed, were sitting on the front
seat, when I brought in three little heathen girls, soiled and untidy,
to sit beside them. Whereupon one of the clean little girls drew
herself off in one corner, gathering her clothes close about her for
fear of touching the others; while the second clean little girl moved
toward the soiled children and shared her hymnbook with them, pointing
out each character as we sang. Did you ever know any little children
at home who acted as did these two Chinese children? (Edith C. Dickie
in _The Foreign Post_.)


BIBLE READING

“Suffer the little children.” Mark 10:13-16.

Various ways in which Christ’s disciples hinder the
children,--consider them too young,--too irresponsible,--feel that
adults have the first claim to Christ’s time and attention.

How different was Christ’s attitude! “In His words over the little
children, Christ has lifted childhood into a type of character, and
has given children their share in the Kingdom of God.” (Shailer
Mathews.)

The touch of Christ on a little child’s life brings blessing. Are we
bringing the children to Him or forbidding them? “The place for the
lambs is in the fold.” (Woelfkin.)


A CHILDREN’S LITANY

  Dear Heavenly Father of all the children of the earth;
         Have mercy upon us.

  O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst become a child to redeem
     all nations;
         Have mercy upon us.

  That in all the families of the world parents and children
    may learn to have a fear and love of Thy Holy Name;
         We pray Thee, dear Lord.

  That a blessing may rest upon the homes of all missionaries,
    and that protection may be granted to all missionary
    fathers and mothers;
         We pray Thee, dear Lord.

  That we may earnestly desire to bring some child who does
    not understand, into the light of the Star of Bethlehem;
         We pray Thee, dear Lord.

  That homes and hospitals which minister to the needs of
    children may be blessed, and their number multiplied;
         We pray Thee, dear Lord.

  For Christian nurture, Christian homes, and Christian parents;
         We thank Thee, dear Lord.

  For the Babe of Bethlehem in the manger, and the Christ-Child
    in the carpenter shop;
         We thank Thee, dear Lord.

  (_Spirit of Missions._)


QUESTIONS

1. What would be the moral and physical effects on a boy, of the
religious rites of ancestor worship as practiced among the Fang tribe
of Africa?

2. What can we learn from Mohammedan methods in teaching their
children the Koran, and establishing them in the doctrines and usages
of their faith?

3. What are the principal difficulties met by representatives of
Christianity in efforts to come in contact with and influence
Mohammedan children?

4. Suggest methods best adapted for overcoming these difficulties.

5. What methods have been most successful in reaching the children in
the missions of your denomination?

6. What estimate should be placed on the Sunday-School as a factor in
the evangelization of mission lands?

7. What are the greatest needs for better equipment in Sunday-School
work in the lands where your Board is at work?

8. What can American children be trained to do in meeting these needs?


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Children of Persia, Mrs. Napier Malcolm, (Oliphant, Anderson &
Ferrier.)

Children of Egypt, Miss L. Crowther, (Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier.)

“Little Wednesday,” _Everyland_, June, 1913.

“A Social Settlement in the Slums of Okayama,” _Missionary Review of
the World_, Dec., 1912.

Sketches from the Karen Hills, Alonzo Bunker, (Revell.)

On the Borders of Pigmy Land, Chaps. 9, 10, 19-25, Ruth B. Fisher,
(Revell.)

The Light of the World, Chap. 6, R. E. Speer, (Mission Study Series.)

Lotus Buds, Amy Wilson Carmichael, (Geo. H. Doran Co.)

Things as They Are, Amy Wilson Carmichael, (Revell.)

Overweights of Joy, Amy Wilson Carmichael, (Revell.)

The Call of Moslem Children, _Missionary Review of the World_, Oct.,
1913.

LEAFLETS

  Ought-to-have-been-a-boy        Woman’s Baptist Foreign
  Sorrows of Heathen Motherhood     Missionary Society.

  How Chinese children learn      Woman’s Foreign Missionary
    to worship idols                Society of the
  Boys and Girls in Korea           Methodist Episcopal
  Christmas in India                Church.
  How Koharu learned to worship
  A Little Girl and the Lions
  A Sunday-School picnic in
    India

  The god of Hindu children       Woman’s Board of Missions
  Three in a Temple                 of the Congregational
  How a bamboo helped to            Church.
    overthrow idol worship
  Ping-ti’s discoveries

  A Road and a Song               Woman’s Board of Foreign
  I come to stay                    Missions of the Presbyterian
                                    Church.

  Pen notes and pictures          Woman’s Board of Foreign
  Story of Ozeki San                Missions of the Reformed
  How we do evangelistic work       Church in America.
    in Japan


FOOTNOTES:

[75] Told in “Buddhism,” by Monier-Williams. (Macmillan.)

[76] “Things as They Are,” Amy Wilson Carmichael. (Revell.)

[77] “Children of Persia,” Mrs. Napier Malcolm. (Oliphant, Anderson, &
Ferrier.)

[78] “The Jungle Folk of Africa,” R. H. Milligan. (Revell.)

[79] “The Wrongs of Indian Womanhood,” Mrs. Marcus B. Fuller.
(Revell.)

[80] Quoted by E. Storrow in “Our Sisters in India.” (Revell.)

[81] _Spirit of Missions_, Feb., 1912.

[82] “Children of Egypt,” Miss Crowther. (Oliphant, Anderson &
Ferrier.)

[83] “The Wrongs of Indian Womanhood,” Mrs. Marcus B. Fuller.
(Revell.)

[84] “The Sorrows of Heathen Motherhood,” Helen D. Newcomb.

[85] _Woman’s Work_, July, 1912.

[86] Hastings Bible Dictionary.

[87] _Spirit of Missions_, March, 1906.

[88] _Spirit of Missions_, February, 1911

[89] _Missionary Review of the World_, January, 1911.

[90] “Children of Egypt,” L. Crowther. (Oliphant, Anderson, &
Ferrier.)

[91] _Over Sea and Land_, April, 1913.

[92] Miss M. T. Maxwell Ford in “Daylight in the Harem.”

[93] “Things as They Are,” Amy Wilson Carmichael. (Revell.)

[94] Told in _Missionary Review of the World_, December, 1911.




CHAPTER VI.

THE CHILD AT WORK FOR CHRIST

“I must be about my Father’s business.”

    Christ needs all the children of the world--Work for the children
    in awakening lands, Japan, China, India--Work for the children in
    lands convulsed by war and revolution, Turkey, Persia--Work for
    the children in lands asleep--The world’s tragedies--What a slave
    boy accomplished--Need for trained workers--How Bishop Selwyn
    obtained and trained them--Children at work for Christ--Children
    from mission lands helping to save America--Missionary children at
    work--American children have a share in the working and giving and
    going--The world needs the Holy Child.


THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD NEED CHRIST.

CHRIST NEEDS THE CHILDREN,--ALL THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD.

[Sidenote: Christ needs the children.]

Unless the children of today are brought to the Master and trained for
His service, the outlook is dark indeed for coming generations. If
every child now living could be brought under Christian influences,
receive a Christian education, and be sent out to live and work for
Christ, what a marvelous transformation this world would experience!
In a conspicuous place on the wall at a recent Sunday-School
convention hung a banner with the words “Childhood is the Hope of the
World,”--the same thought that was embodied in the remark of a
prominent Japanese Christian, who said to a missionary, “The grown-up
people are so ignorant and set in their ways, they will not become
Christians, but _the hope is in the children_.”[95]

“He who helps a child,” says Phillips Brooks, “helps humanity with a
distinctness, with an immediateness, which no other help given to
human creatures in any other stage of their human life, can possibly
give again.” Here is a challenge to all who believe that the world
needs hope, that humanity needs help, that God needs human agents to
carry out His plans, that Christ needs the child!

[Sidenote: Work for the children in awakening lands.]

What is there for the child of today,--the man and woman of
tomorrow,--to do in countries that are awaking out of age-long sleep?

[Sidenote: Changes in Japan.]

Sixty years ago Japan was in darkness. What great transformations have
taken place since Commodore Perry sailed for Yedo Bay in November,
1852! As a commercial, military, and naval power Japan has been taking
her place with the important nations of the earth. We have already
learned that her educational system contains much that might well be
copied in Western lands. The manner in which Japan is “catching up”
with nations that have had centuries of advantage over her reminds one
of the educational experimenters who claim that a child need not be
bothered with mathematics until he is ten or twelve years old, and
that he will then speedily “catch up” with children who have toiled
over their mathematics since they were of kindergarten age. During the
serious outbreak of bitter feeling in Japan regarding the proposed
Alien Land Holding Bill pending in the California Legislature, a
large reception was tendered in Tokyo to Dr. John R. Mott, Hamilton
Wright Mabie and Dr. Peabody. In the course of his address, Count
Okuma, who is not in any sense a Christian, remarked that diplomacy,
the courts, and commercial interests were alike helpless to maintain
peace on earth and good will among men. “The only hope,” he said, “is
in the power of Christianity and in the influence of Christians to
maintain peace and righteousness in the spirit of brotherly love.”[96]

[Sidenote: Religious census in Imperial University.]

Not only from a political point of view, but far more from an
intellectual and religious point of view, is Japan in great, urgent
need of what Christianity can give her. “It seems from the figures of
a religious census recently taken in the Imperial University of Japan
at Tokyo, that of the students in attendance, three-fourths of them
declare themselves agnostics, while fifteen hundred are content to be
registered as atheists. That leaves only five hundred of the whole
student body to be accounted for: and of these, sixty are Christian,
fifty Buddhist, and eight Shinto.... The educated classes of Japan
have practically broken with Shintoism and Buddhism, and are looking
around for some better basis for ethics and faith. The issue in Japan
is no longer between Christianity and Buddhism, but between
Christianity and nothing.”[97]

[Sidenote: Kindergarten children in after-life.]

Side by side with this pregnant statement we place a few sentences
from the Sixth Annual Report of the Kindergarten Union of Japan.

“What influence has the kindergarten on the lives of its graduates in
later years? From many churches we hear of them as church members
doing active service, like one young man who has a class of
twenty-five boys in Sunday-School. As teachers, as mothers, in many
walks of life, they are showing the power of Christ in their lives,
and all, whether Christians or not, are better men and women for their
training in Christian schools.”

The inference is so obvious that we need not comment upon it. Rather
let us do our share to multiply the agencies that can embody in their
reports such incidents as the following from the American Church
Mission Kindergarten at Sendai:--

“More than ever before have we emphasized Christianity as the center
of our thought and life, and feel much encouraged to go much farther
next year. Yearning over our graduates, who, when they leave us, may
be separated for a long time from Christian teaching, we earnestly
desired to see Christianity move definitely forward in their hearts,
so far as may be for little children. So we based the last month’s
work on Phil. 2:6-11. This seems deep, but was found helpful by the
teachers.... Just before graduation, in the free talk at luncheon hour
one day, a boy whose parents were about to move to Akita said most
disconsolately, ‘There won’t be any God to take care of me when I go
to Akita!’ ‘Oh, yes, there will,’ said Taguchi San, who, seeing his
need of a broader understanding of the Omnipotent God, told of the God
of all the earth, and that He cared for us wherever we go, even when
farther than Akita.”[98]

[Sidenote: China’s awakening.]

China’s awakening has been so sudden and so rapid that even while the
Christian women of America were studying “China’s New Day,” many facts
in that up-to-date text-book became ancient history. A few of the
startling contrasts between the Old China and the New were indicated
in the _Congregationalist_ of April 24, 1913.

    Associated Press despatches from Peking on Thursday of last week
    reported that the Chinese Government has made an appeal to all the
    Christian churches in China to set aside April 27--next Sunday--as
    a day of prayer for the Chinese National Assembly, for the new
    Government, for the President of the new Republic yet to be
    elected, for the constitution of the Republic, for the maintenance
    of peace and for the election of strong and virtuous men to
    office. Representatives of provincial authorities are instructed
    to be present at these services....

    Thirteen years ago this coming summer the Imperial Government of
    China hunted and slew her Christian subjects like wild beasts and
    brought all of the resources at her command to aid in driving the
    hated religions of the “foreign devils” from her shores. Today
    the new Republic solemnly and officially sets apart a day and
    urges all her Christian subjects, as well as foreigners, to
    assemble and, in the presence of the officials, intercede for
    those things which Christian nations seek and supremely value.

    In 1900 a despatch was sent from the throne to all viceroys of
    all the provinces to exterminate all foreigners, and the streets
    of Peking were placarded with posters threatening with death all
    who provided them refuge. A few weeks ago the President of the
    Republic, Yuan Shi Kai, addressing in Peking an assembly of
    delegates to the Annual Convention of the Y. M. C. A., said:

    “You, my friends, who are members and delegates to this Christian
    Association from every province of the Republic, are examples for
    the men of every class of society. By the help of your guiding
    light and uplifting influence, millions of young men, well
    equipped, morally, intellectually, and physically, will be raised
    up in this nation to render loyal service to the Republic in her
    time of need, and lift her to a position that shall add to the
    civilized world an undying luster.”

    China is doing her part to make amends for the past and to
    demonstrate to the entire world the sincerity of her purpose.
    Undoubtedly this is the first time in history that such an appeal
    has been made by a non-Christian nation. With commendable
    promptness both the Federal Council and Committee of Reference
    and Council of the Foreign Missionary Societies of North America
    have asked the churches to intercede for China.

    Was there ever a more striking proof of the presence of God in
    the life of the world and of His purposes for men in Jesus Christ
    the universal Saviour? Was there ever greater encouragement to
    use the mighty enginery of united prayer for a specific end?

[Sidenote: Sun Yat Sen.]

Listen to the testimony of the son of a prominent Christian official
in China:--

“Where did the Chinese Republic ever come from? You say from the
reformers and revolutionists. You don’t go back far enough. Dr. Sun
was in a large measure responsible for it all, but where does he come
from? Where did he get his principles of freedom and equality? These
were instilled into his heart by a missionary, and who was he? He was
a follower of Jesus Christ, and in China for the direct purpose of
teaching how Jesus came to save the world.... Blot out of China today
the education which owes its origin to Jesus Christ, and where will
China be? In the depth of deepest ignorance.”[99]

Sun Yat Sen, by many considered “the first citizen in the hearts of
his countrymen,” spoke with no uncertain sound of China’s greatest
need in this time of her crisis. “Brothers,” he said, when addressing
a number of Chinese students, “applied, practical Christianity is our
true need. Away with the commentaries and doubts. God asks your
obedience, not your patronage. He demands your service, not your
criticism.”[100]

[Sidenote: Applied Christianity in China.]

“Applied, practical Christianity,” is what the missionaries are trying
to give China, and can any part of their work be more practical or
more important than what they are doing for the children who are soon
to be the statesmen and educators, the military and social leaders,
the fathers and mothers of the great new Republic of the East?

[Sidenote: Dr. Li Bi Cu.]

Many pages might be filled with true tales of how Chinese children,
won to Christ in early life, have brought blessing and uplift to
hundreds in their land. The story of Dr. Li Bi Cu and her mother is a
wonderful illustration of what _might_ be multiplied many thousands of
times if there were always some one ready to rescue girl babies and to
give them a fair chance.

    Dr. Li Bi Cu is one of China’s new women. A forceful speaker,
    using perfect English, with a charming personality, Dr. Li Bi Cu
    never fails to win the hearts of her audiences. Those who heard
    her at Northfield can never forget the appeal made by the little
    woman in Chinese dress, to the women of the United States to come
    to the help of her countrywomen. The mother of Dr. Li Bi Cu was
    rescued from the street, where she had been thrown to die, when
    only a day or two old, and taken to a mission school, where she
    was cared for, educated, and trained as a Bible woman. She married
    a Methodist minister, Mr. Li, and her daughter, Li Bi Cu, grew up
    in a Christian home. One of the missionaries, seeing unusual
    ability in the young girl, brought her to America for a more
    thorough education than China afforded. She studied in Folts
    Institute, and later entered the Women’s Medical College in
    Philadelphia. Graduating with honor, she returned to China after
    eight years’ residence in the United States and was sent to the
    Fukien Province, where the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of
    the Methodist Episcopal Church had opened a hospital, and where
    she has cared for the souls and bodies of thousands of
    patients.[101]

A charming sequel to the story shows how this splendid Chinese woman
is ready at a moment’s notice to do her duty as a Christian citizen of
the world. She was passing on her return to China a point not far
from Chicago, when the train struck a track laborer and suddenly
stopped. The injured man, a Russian by birth, was brought aboard, and
Dr. Li, hearing of the accident, volunteered her help. Then was seen
the curious combination of a Chinese Christian woman physician caring
for a wounded Slav in an American baggage car![102]

[Sidenote: Chinese mothers in council.]

“Applied, practical Christianity” is being taught to the mothers of
China, and some of them are responding in a way that augurs well for
the future of their children and their land. Mrs. T. N. Thompson of
Tsining writes of a recent women’s convention to which Christians came
from far and near, some from a distance of sixty miles. Women spoke
from the platform with ease, spirit, and eloquence. Some of the
subjects discussed were:--Equal authority of husbands and
wives--Partiality between sons and daughters--Duty of sending girls to
school--Cleanliness and order of the home as taught in mission
schools--Dedication of children to the Lord. The subject of marriage
engagements was thoroughly canvassed, and many laughed heartily at
reminiscences of old heathen days when children were betrothed in
babyhood.”[103] “Old heathen days!” And yet it is but one hundred
years since Robert Morrison baptized his first Christian convert, and
but fourteen years since the great Boxer uprising tried to rid the
land of all Christians. Thus it was ordained long centuries ago when
God “appointed a law in Israel, when He commanded our fathers, that
they should make them known to their children; that the generation to
come might know them, even the children that should be born, who
should arise and tell them to _their_ children.” (Psalm 78:5, 6.) From
father to son, from mother to daughter, the knowledge of God’s love
and Christ’s salvation is to be transmitted, and those who gain that
knowledge in early childhood are the ones on whom China can surely
depend in the important years to come.

[Sidenote: Work for the children in India.]

“The children born of Christian parents in India,” says Rev. E. A.
Arnett in the Sunday School Times, “are probably not more than half a
million, but upon the thorough and systematic character of the
religious work done among these depends the hope of the future of the
church of India. These are to be the army for India’s conquest. The
day of opportunity is soon to come to India as it has come to Japan
and to China. A great crisis is approaching when there will be a
death-grapple in the open between Christianity and the opposing
forces. Then will be needed as never before an Indian church, rich in
men and women able and fit for the fight.”

[Sidenote: An Indian girl redeemed.]

That India’s children with all their handicaps are capable of being
made “fit for the fight” can be abundantly proven. A letter from a
missionary friend tells of a little Indian protege, now a grown
woman, who was the child of a drunken father and a half crazy,
evil-tempered mother, who, in a brawl, lamed her poor baby for life.
The child was sent away to school after her father’s death, and it
seemed as if it were to prove her salvation. But at the age of
fourteen the old evil propensities broke forth. She became
foul-tongued, irreverent, disobedient, and diseased. She was sent to
visit her mother, then an inmate of an insane asylum, where the girl
was placed under observation and declared to be a moral degenerate.
The fact that she was perfectly satisfied to stay at the asylum was a
cause of great distress to her missionary friend, and soon a number of
earnest workers banded themselves to pray for her “literally night and
day.” A wonderful change came over the girl; the seed sown in earlier
years sprang up and bore fruit. She asked to be allowed to leave the
asylum, and soon after taking a position she gave her heart to Christ.
Far out on the western frontier of India, a woman, growing in grace
and character, is compounding medicines, and otherwise helping in a
mission hospital, occupying a difficult and trying position. Oh! was
she not worth saving,--that little, lame, degenerate baby, born in the
degradation of darkest India, and accomplishing a work today that you
or I could not do?

[Sidenote: Work for the children of Turkey and Persia.]

What is there for the children to do in lands that have lately been
convulsed with war and revolution? Who will fill the places of
able-bodied men, maimed and slain in battle? Who is to reconstruct and
upbuild and guide through long years to come the countries that have
been shaken to their very foundations? The only hope of Turkey and
Persia is in their children, and what is done by Christians for these
children today will determine very largely the course of history in
the “near East.”

[Sidenote: Persian school boys.]

The boys’ school at Teheran, Persia, has won the name of a “factory”!
Among the Mohammedan boys brought here, is a little fellow whose
father said to the missionary, “I hear this is a factory where you
manufacture men. Do you think you can turn out a man from my
boy?”[104] Such “factories” are needed throughout Turkey and Persia,
and those who know the boys of these countries will assure you that
they are capable of turning out to be _men_ if they have the proper
opportunities. When the self-supporting Christian boarding school for
Mohammedan boys was started in Teheran, the missionaries naturally
felt a good deal of concern as to the results of such an experiment.
The actual results are thus reported,--

“Not only has it been somewhat more than self-supporting financially,
but, thanks to the co-operative plan initiated from the beginning,
into which the boys entered with enthusiasm, and in which they showed
a most admirable spirit throughout the year, a good share of the
management and government was taken by the boys themselves in a most
efficient manner,--of course under the close supervision of my wife
and myself.”[105]

[Sidenote: Testimony of Wm. E. Curtiss.]

The following testimony of William E. Curtiss, the world-famous
correspondent of the Chicago Record Herald, written after an extended
visit to the Orient, would seem to be convincing proof that
missionaries can give and Turkish children can profit by that which
will re-mould and upbuild the remnants of the Turkish Empire.

“The influence of the American schools has been carried to every
corner of the Empire. Every student leaving these American schools has
carried the germ of progress to his sleeping town. He has become a
force for the new order wherever he has gone. This influence has been
working for a half century or more, and has been preparing the minds
of the people for the great change that has recently come over them.
The missionaries do not teach revolution, they do not encourage
revolutionary methods; but they have always preached and taught
liberty, equality, fraternity, and the rights of man.”[106]

[Sidenote: Syrian girls at work in summer.]

It is well to remember that the children under missionary influence
are being trained not only for what they can be and do in the future,
when they are grown up, but are being taught to use _now_ what they
have learned, for the benefit of others. Listen to the report of what
some Syrian girls did during a summer vacation.

    “An hour ago I came home from Sunday-School which we are having
    this summer. We began it the first summer we came to K. ... and
    twenty children attend. We are teaching them lessons from the Old
    Testament, and I think I can say that our school is a real success
    this year.”

    “I am teaching some children Bible stories and have given one of
    the boys two papers to make a study of some chapters which I have
    appointed for him.”

    “I brought a new Bible with me, and I try to teach our servant to
    read it.”

    These few extracts are from letters which I have received this
    summer showing how Beirut school-girls are trying to give
    expression to the pass-it-on spirit. All over the country they
    are busy according to their opportunities. I know of one little
    girl who last year was in the lowest class of our Preparatory
    Department, but this year has a school of seventeen every Sunday
    afternoon during the vacation. One of her older brothers and a
    boy cousin taught classes, but she was both organizer and
    superintendent.

    One of the pleasantest gatherings we shall have this fall will be
    the Report Meeting, when we shall hear from all the pupils about
    results of their summer efforts for others. Fourteen took certain
    Bibles home with them, promising to use them in teaching others
    to read.[107]

Is there anything for children to do in countries where as yet no
great awakening or startling political upheaval has taken place, but
where missionary influence has been quietly, steadily at work? What
about those “unoccupied mission fields” where not even a beginning has
been made toward giving the Gospel message? Does Christ need the
children of these lands to be at work for Him?

[Sidenote: The World’s Tragedies.]

“Some one thus summarizes ‘The World’s Tragedies’:--

  207,000,000 bound by caste--from Hinduism.
  147,000,000 permeated with atheism--from Buddhism.
  256,000,000 chained to a dead past--from Confucianism.
  175,000,000 under the spell of Fatalism--from Mohammedanism.
  200,000,000 sitting in darkness--from Paganism.”[108]

[Sidenote: What a slave boy accomplished.]

Let us try to realize that each unit of these vast figures stands for
a life that was once an innocent little child, born into conditions or
surroundings similar to those of which we have been studying in this
book. Think of the future tragedies that may be averted if each little
child today is redeemed and begins to work for Christ. Why should
there not be thousands of averted or transformed tragedies like those
surrounding the life of the little black boy, born in 1806 on the West
Coast of Africa? Because of certain peculiar circumstances at his
birth it was prophesied that he was not to be a devotee of any idol,
but one “celebrated and distinguished to serve the great and highest
God.” At one time when the house of his prosperous father caught fire,
the little boy rushed in and saved the idols. Whereupon it was
commonly said,--“This child will be a great worshiper of the gods; he
will one day restore the gods to our nation.”

When the child was about fifteen, a raid was made upon the village by
Mohammedans, and a large number of women and children were led away
captive with ropes around their necks, young Ajayi and his mother and
grandmother among the number. Sold from one person to another, often
bartered for rum or tobacco, he finally fell into the hands of
Portuguese traders. He and his fellow slaves were rescued by an
English man-of-war from the Portuguese vessel, and he was educated by
the Church Missionary Society. He became a school-master, then
preacher, and finally Bishop of the native Church on the Niger. Fourah
Bay College, where he pursued a part of his studies, was founded as a
result of the conviction forced upon the Church Missionary Society
that, if Africa were to be evangelized, it must be done chiefly
through native agency, because of the devastating effects of the
climate on foreigners. In other words, _Christ needs the children of
Africa_, to be trained for Him in places where no one else in the wide
world can accomplish the task.

[Illustration: THE HOPE OF AFRICA

A WEST AFRICAN BABY

A GROUP OF FANG BOYS, AFRICA]

On the beautiful white monument, erected over the grave in Lagos,
Sierra Leone, can be read these words that give a brief outline of the
noble life work of the little slave boy whom some one thought worth
saving and training for Christian service.

          Sacred to the memory of

  THE RIGHT REV. SAMUEL AJAYI CROWTHER, D.D.

  A Native of Osogun, in the Yoruba Country;
          A Recaptured and Liberated Slave;
  The First Student in the Church Missionary Society’s College,
          At Fourah Bay, Sierra Leone;
  Ordained in England by the Bishop of London, June 11th, 1843;
  The First Native Clergyman of the Church of England in West Africa,
          Consecrated Bishop, June 29th, 1864.
  A Faithful, Earnest, and Devoted Missionary in Connection
  With the Church Missionary Society for 62 Years,
  At Sierra Leone, in the Timini and Yoruba Countries
          And in the Niger Territory;
  He Accompanied the First Royal Niger Expedition in 1841;
  Was a joint founder with others of the Yoruba Mission in 1845,
          And Founder of the Niger Mission in 1857;
  And of the Self-Supporting Niger Delta Pastorale in 1891.
  He fell asleep in Jesus at Lagos, on the 31st December, 1891,
          Aged about 89 Years.

  “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, ... Enter
  thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Matt. 25:5.

          “Redeemed by His Blood.”[109]

[Sidenote: Trained native workers necessary.]

Our story of The Child will not be complete unless we pay close
attention to one of the great fundamental policies of Christian
missions,--alluded to above,--that the work of world evangelization
must be accomplished chiefly through trained natives of the countries
where the Gospel is not known. And these agents, in order to be most
efficient and successful should be won to Christ in early life. The
methods used by Bishop Selwyn in the New Hebrides were so successful
and interesting and illustrate this point so thoroughly that it will
pay us to study them.

[Sidenote: Methods of Bishop Selwyn in the Pacific Islands.]

    Bishop Augustus Selwyn, of the Episcopalian Church of New Zealand,
    proposed to secure children of the natives in the new fields,
    educate these children in schools of a Christian country, and send
    them as pioneer missionaries to their own peoples. He proposed,
    also, that, after these children had overcome the pagan
    opposition, white missionaries should be introduced for
    co-operating with them. “The white corks,” he said, “were for
    floating the black net.”

    With this in view, in 1848, he made a voyage of exploration in H.
    M. S. Dido as far as to the Loyalty Islands. Observing that the
    Fijis, the Southern Hebrides, and several other groups were
    occupied by other religious denominations which were doing
    successful work, he chose for his field the groups not thus
    occupied. These were the Northern Hebrides, Banks, Santa Cruz,
    Torres, Reef, and Solomon Groups....

    Over these islands the trail of the Serpent has extended. A
    wilder, more besotted, and fiercer people than their inhabitants
    it would be hard to find. With the exception of the natives of
    the Santa Cruz and Reef Islands, they all were formerly
    cannibals, and those of them in the Solomon Group were also
    head-hunters....

    The work of procuring boys proved to be difficult and perilous.
    By great tact and a kind and courteous manner the Bishop secured
    in his first trip five. In process of time he was able to employ
    the boys, who had been some time in his school, to do the
    soliciting, and then he was more successful. Each succeeding year
    the natives received him with greater cordiality, and more
    readily supplied his vessel with stores of taro, yams, and fruit.
    The number of boys in the school has been one hundred and fifty
    to two hundred.

    On Norfold Island a thousand acres of land were purchased for the
    school at a cost of ten thousand dollars. In this tract a
    beautiful chapel was built, and around it houses for the teachers
    and pupils. The land was very fertile, and was easily made to
    produce almost all the food the school needed. The boys were
    taught the gospel of work. They were trained in the mechanic
    trades, the cultivation of the ground, and the care of livestock;
    and to each of them was committed a small garden for him to
    cultivate for himself. They were kept in the school six to ten
    years, and then taken, as teachers, to their homes or to other
    islands.

    In 1854 Rev. John Coleridge Patteson joined the mission. He had
    been moved when fourteen years of age, by a sermon of Bishop
    Selwyn, to devote himself to the missionary cause. In 1861 he was
    consecrated as the First Bishop of Milanesia....

    The Milanesians who have embraced Christianity have ceased from
    their cannibalism, their head-hunting, and their warfare, and
    have become an humble, upright, and peace-loving people. In 1905
    the number of baptized persons in the groups of the mission was
    2,811, of white missionaries, 41, of native teachers, 689, of
    mission stations, 200.[110]

[Sidenote: Children at work for Christ in Korea.]

The Child at work for Christ! Would that it were possible to give to
the women of our American Missionary Societies and to the young women
of our schools and colleges a vision of the children of many lands who
are today at work,--realizing as did the Christ Child that they must
be about their Father’s business. In Korea, we shall find that a
question asked of each man, woman, and child who wishes to become a
church member is,--“Have you tried to win a soul for Jesus Christ?”
Not long ago the children in one section of Korea demanded a half
holiday, and in the leisure time thus obtained the five hundred
children won eight hundred others into the church.[111]

[Sidenote: In Burma.]

Away up in the Karen Hills of Burma the first mission tour of
exploration to a certain point was made with a company which included
a number of school boys, among whom were some sweet singers. On
associating with the Red Karen children, they quickly made
acquaintance and were valuable workers. Great was the enthusiasm among
the little Red Karens when classes were formed in reading and singing,
and with surprising quickness they learned from their eager young
teachers, who were glad to pass on to other children what they had so
recently acquired themselves.[112]

[Sidenote: Generous givers in Japan.]

Not only are the children under missionary influence trained to
_work_, but they are also taught the joy and privilege of giving. Here
is the method employed by Mrs. McCauley of Japan.

    The Sunday-School children in Keimo No. 1 and No. 2, Tokyo, under
    Mrs. McCauley, take up a collection every Sabbath.... The children
    coming from heathen homes cannot ask their parents for money to
    put into this collection, so must practice self-denial to be able
    to give. The money for a boiled sweet potato purchased near the
    school building from a vendor, two rin, is saved by taking a
    smaller potato, and the lunch is none the less palatable because
    the child has made a little sacrifice, and these two rin, as they
    rattle in the collection box, are music in his ears and joy--the
    joy of giving,--in his heart. I happen to be one of the Auditors
    of the accounts at the Leper Home, and this year we closed the
    books with deficit,--a debt of two hundred and sixteen yen,--and
    we were troubled, having no resources. I looked over the
    Sunday-School collections, and found we had in the treasury nearly
    twenty-five yen, and I told the scholars about the dear little
    girl just thirteen, who is a leper and can never again be well,
    but is the light of the Home. When the women get discouraged and
    cry, this little angel puts her arms about them and says, “Auntie,
    dear Auntie, don’t cry; we will soon, all of us, have new bodies.”
    Two boys of fifteen are there--their companions like themselves
    are lepers. “Now, children, we need money; you have some; will you
    give it there, all or some part of it? How many say all? Let us
    see the hands”: and every little hand, kindergarten and all, went
    up, and we made it twenty-five yen to send to the Treasurer of our
    Leper Home. I then told them to tell their parents of how we spend
    the money given by the little ones, and we reviewed the places we
    had helped from our mite: For five years an Ainu School; Red
    Cross Society, two years; Charity Hospital, two years; Okayama
    Orphanage, two years; destitute soldiers, one year; comfort bags
    during war; famine sufferers, one year; flood sufferers, one year;
    earthquake sufferers, one year; Lepers’ Home, _this year_;
    medicine for sick pupils, often; help at funerals for poor
    families of school.

    These children when they grow up and enter the church will be
    systematic givers and know what benevolence is.[113]

[Sidenote: Missionary gifts in mission lands.]

It brings tears to the eyes and joy to the heart to see how eagerly
children of one mission land devote their little gifts to sending the
Gospel to children of some other land. It seems the most natural thing
in the world to lead them into missionary giving, and many a
children’s band in America might be put to shame by the joy and
spontaneity of those who are themselves objects of missionary giving.

    “One day early in the fall,” writes Miss Alice B. Caldwell of
    Marsovan, Turkey, “while walking in the school garden I noticed
    two little girls strolling up and down the path arm in arm. They
    were chattering in their vivacious way, and one of them was making
    her crochet needle fly as fast as her tongue. On my inquiring what
    she was making, she held up a dainty bag, and several little
    interpreters informed me that it was for the Christian Endeavor
    Bazaar. After that day I saw many busy fingers on the playground
    making the most of the hours out of doors.

    “The Junior Endeavorers help to support a little girl in a
    Chinese school, and they were getting ready for a bazaar to help
    make the money for their adopted child.”[114]

[Sidenote: Children from missions fields helping to save America.]

If we are touched by such stories as the above, which can be
multiplied many times over, what is our feeling about those who are
serving and helping our own Christian land because they were won to
Christ in childhood on the mission field? We are thinking of one young
woman whose parents became Christians under missionary influence, and
who grew up in a Christian home among many persecutions and adverse
circumstances from without. When, in the course of time, her widowed
mother immigrated to America, the girl, already a devoted Christian,
entered a training school in this country. Today she is working in six
languages for thousands of immigrants in a New England city,--doing a
work that few Americans could ever hope to accomplish. Merely as a
business investment or a patriotic effort, the money contributed to
the Mission Board, which brought about this result, has been more than
profitable.

Here is the record of another good investment made in China:--

    Some years ago there entered the True Light Seminary a bright
    little girl of thirteen, who, under the wise and gentle training
    of Miss Noyes, gave her heart to Christ and united with the
    church, becoming thereafter one of the best pupils in the school.
    Her great desire was to become a teacher, but since three years of
    age she had been betrothed by her father to the son of a heathen
    family--the betrothal by Chinese law being almost equivalent to a
    marriage--it became her duty to fulfil the promise made for her,
    and at the completion of her course of study she married the man
    of her father’s choice. The marriage did not prove a happy one;
    the husband’s business took him much away, leaving his wife alone,
    and at the end of three years he died suddenly of plague. The
    young wife, thus unexpectedly set free for service, at once took
    up her desired work, and after teaching for three years in
    Hongkong was called to a position in a Congregational school in
    Canton....

    In the spring of 1910 it came about that one of the benefactions
    of Mr. Andrew Carnegie came to the Occidental Home in San
    Francisco, and when the question arose as to what should be done
    with the gift it could but seem that the long-sought opportunity
    had come to secure a Chinese teacher to live with the girls in
    the Home and to train them in their own tongue.

    So it came to pass that Yeung Mo Owen, or Mrs. Yeung, as she is
    known in America, led in these various ways, became an inmate of
    the Mission Home in San Francisco, teacher of Chinese to the
    girls, both in the Home and in the Occidental Board Day School,
    and incidentally a blessing not only to the Home and to the
    Chinese Church, but also to Chinatown, and to the Board
    itself....

    “I have never seen such a lovely face, never been so impressed by
    a Chinese woman,” said one long in the work in California. “Now
    you see what our native Christian women are like,” quickly
    responded a missionary who was present.[115]

[Sidenote: Missionary children at work.]

The story of the Child at Work for Christ would not be complete
without making mention of the missionary children who in such large
numbers are trying to do their share toward bringing the Kingdom of
Christ to this world. “If one life shines, the life next to it must
catch the light,” and the joy and privilege of mission service in all
its beauty,--and in all its trial and discouragement as well,--are
well known to the missionary boy and girl. Even little four year old
Annie had her share of discouragement when her parents returned to
their field of work after a furlough during which Annie had forgotten
all languages but English. When she heard her mother speaking of
women’s meetings and various forms of work as she took them up, one by
one, Annie decided to do her share also. Picking up her dolly, she
trotted down to the gate to be a missionary to the little Turkish
girls next door. Sadly she came back again to report, “Mother, the
children cannot speak the American language.”

Let no one think that because missionary children are “used to” the
country and the language, the climate and food and presence of the
“natives,” it is always easy and natural for them to return to their
parents’ field of labor. Just because they have been familiar with it
all from childhood, the surroundings and opportunities of the
homeland,--their own rightful heritage,--seem desirable beyond words
and hard to relinquish. To the missionary children who return to the
field, the halo of romance surrounding the step is non-existent,--they
go with open eyes to what they know about. And yet they go, large
numbers of them, and it might be well to ask of your Mission Boards
whether their services are valuable to the cause or not. A newspaper
clipping a few years ago gave these statistics:--

“Nearly one-third of the missionaries of the American Board of India
and Ceylon are the children or grandchildren of missionaries who were
sent out by the Board two or three generations ago. In the three India
missions, including Ceylon, there are now ninety-five American
laborers, nineteen of whom were children and eleven grandchildren of
missionaries.”

It would be interesting to get the statistics of other Missions and
Boards on this subject and to compare the results of their work with
some of the psychological statements quoted in the early chapters of
this book regarding heredity and early training.

[Sidenote: American children at work for Christ.]

What part are our own precious children in Christian America to have
in this great subject,--the Child at Work for Christ? Are they alone
to be left out, or to have but a paltry share in the glorious work of
giving the Gospel of Christ to the whole world? If the work is worth
doing, if the result justifies the effort, _if the children of the
world need Christ_, then it is unjust, unfair, un-Christian, to deny
_our_ children a share in the labor and the reward. Nor may we deny
them the training and teaching that will make them realize not only
the need, but--the one only adequate way in which that need may be
satisfied. A few words from the pen of Dr. William Adams Brown
emphasize very practically the need of this “only adequate way.”

[Sidenote: The one great need of the world.]

    There are many persons today who are ready to recognize the
    beneficent work done by foreign missionaries for the social
    welfare of the peoples among whom they have been working, who have
    no sympathy with the religious motives which animate them. Why,
    they ask, can we not have the hospital and the school without the
    doctrines that go with them? They forget that it is faith in the
    realities which the doctrines express which alone has made the
    missionary enterprise possible. Had it not been for the belief
    that man is an immortal spirit capable of communion with God, and
    meant for fellowship with Him throughout all eternity, we should
    have had no Livingstone or Moffatt or Paton. James Russell Lowell
    saw this clearly when he spoke the striking sentences which have
    often been quoted, but which will bear quoting again:--

    “When the keen scrutiny of skeptics has found a place on this
    planet where a decent man may live in decency, comfort, and
    security, supporting and educating his children unspoiled and
    unpolluted, a place where age is reverenced, infancy protected,
    womanhood honored, and human life held in due regard,--when
    skeptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe,
    where the Gospel of Christ has not gone before and cleared the
    way and laid foundations that made decency and security possible,
    it will then be in order for these skeptical literati to move
    thither and there ventilate their views. But so long as these men
    are dependent on the very religion which they discard for every
    privilege they enjoy, they may well hesitate to rob the Christian
    of his hope and humanity of its faith in the Saviour who alone
    has given to men that hope of eternal life which makes life
    tolerable and society possible, and robs death of its terrors and
    the grave of its gloom.”[116]

[Sidenote: Children trained to systematic giving.]

Is there anything more beautiful and spontaneous than the generosity
of a child who has learned to give to others because of its love for
Christ? The churches that are systematically training their children
to give have a great future before them.

    Says _The Spirit of Missions_: “There is an old Scotch proverb
    that ‘Mony a mickle maks a muckle.’ Nowhere is this more
    effectively demonstrated than in the Lenten offering given each
    year by the Sunday-Schools of the church. This movement was begun
    thirty-five years ago in the diocese of Pennsylvania, and almost
    at once it spread throughout the church. Year by year the volume
    of gifts has grown, until for the whole period they have reached
    the amazing sum of $2,618,290.86. The gifts which have produced
    this result have come from all quarters of the earth and from all
    manner of children. Youngsters in Alaska have shovelled snow and
    others in California have raised flowers to earn their money for
    this purpose. The negro boys and girls of Africa, the peons of
    Mexico, the Igorotes of the Philippines, and the brown and yellow
    children of Japan and China have gathered the odd coins of their
    several countries in common with the children of the mountains and
    prairies, the small towns and the great cities of the United
    States.”[117]

One who had spent some years in India tells of an experience in
Chicago that brings the quick tears to one’s eyes.

[Sidenote: From Chicago to India.]

“I had been telling the children at Olivet Institute in Chicago of the
little girls in Fatehgarh who called Christmas the Great Day and who
had never had any Great Day to look forward to at all until they had
come to the mission school; of Gunga De, who had worked so hard to
deserve a doll on the Great Day and learned the Beatitudes and her
psalms and prayers, only to have her Hindu father take her away to
bathe in the Ganges so that she would miss the prize giving, and of
her joy when she found the doll waiting for her the next day.
Afterwards as I stood waiting for the car on a dreary sordid Halstead
Street corner, a little stranger who had wandered into the meeting
came and stood beside me. A thin shawl was over her head, and the hand
that held it together under her chin was thin and blue with the cold.
There were dark circles under her eyes, and the little face had no
look of childhood about it.

“‘Say, missus,’ she began, ‘you forgot something.’

“‘What did I forget?’ I asked, puzzled.

“‘You forgot to tell us how we could send things to those children out
in India. I’ve got a doll--she has no head--but I like her--and two
picture cards. Maybe I will get some more, so I would like to send
those.’”[118]

We can almost hear the Master say of the little, pitiful, weary-eyed
child, “Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same
is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

[Sidenote: Giving our children.]

Perhaps some mother may fear that if she trains her child to feel a
personal responsibility for the children of far-off lands the day may
come when the dear one will look into her face and say, “Mother, I
must go. I hear the call to tell others of the Christ whom I love!”
Blessed is that mother who can answer, though there may be a sharp
catch of the breath and a tightening of the heart strings, “If He call
thee, thou shalt say, ‘Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.’” A
mother can never afford to let her child lose out of its life the very
best and highest possibility, and when God calls to a service, there
is nothing greater that can come to a life than the blessing found in
the pathway of obedience.

  What do the children of the world most need?
  Who is going to supply that need?
  How is it to be accomplished?
  How quickly shall it be done?

In the name of the little Child of Bethlehem let every Christian woman
answer these questions honestly and prayerfully, opening wide her
heart of hearts to love and care and work for The Child in the Midst.

[Sidenote: The world needs the Holy Child.]

A traveller was visiting several missionary lands, and while in Korea
had the joy of training twenty-four missionary children for an
exercise in the Gospel of Luke. She says, “As one little boy stood
before an audience to repeat the lines quoted below, it seemed a call
to the Christian world for the children:

   “The world was dark with care and woe,
      With brawl and pleasure wild;
    When in the midst, His love to show,
      God set a Child.

   “The sages frowned, their heads they shook,
      For pride their heart beguiled.
    They said, each looking on his book,
      ‘We want no Child.’

   “The merchants turned toward their scales,
      Around their wealth they piled;
    Said they, ‘‘Tis gold alone prevails;
      ‘We want no Child.’

   “The soldiers rose in noisy sport;
      Disdainfully they smiled;
    And said, ‘Can babes the shield support?
      ‘We want no Child.’

   “Then said the Lord, ‘O world of care,
      So blinded and beguiled,
    Thou must receive for thy repair
      A Holy Child.’”[119]

[Illustration: THE CHILDREN OF TUNIS ARE WORTH HELPING]


QUOTATIONS

PRAYING CHILDREN IN KOREA

Sometimes little children learn about Jesus in some way and become
Christians before their parents do. Three years ago, after a meeting
in the country at a place called Top Chai, in Korea, two small boys,
each nine years old, came up and told me that they were friends and
had been believing in Jesus for a year, but that none of their parents
had been Christians. They said, “We want you to pray every day with us
that our parents may believe in Jesus.” I wrote their names in a
little book and did pray as they asked me to, and every time I met the
boys after that I would ask if their parents had become Christians
yet. “No,” they would say, “not yet, but they are going to.” Last
spring, just before I left Korea, I went to Top Chai to say good-bye,
and one of the boys came to me with the brightest smile you ever saw
and said, “My father has been sick for a long time but is better now,
and has promised to come to church just as soon as he is able.” And
back of him stood the other boy holding a smaller boy by the hand.
“Pastor,” he said, “this is my younger brother, who has become a
Christian, and my father has been coming to church all winter.”

A bright, manly little fellow in my church in Pyeng Yang had been a
Christian only about a year when he succeeded in getting his mother to
come to church with him. Soon after the mother decided to be a
Christian, this boy became very sick and his mother was very angry at
God about it. “See,” she said, “this is what I get for being a
Christian.” He plead with her not to feel that way about it, and tried
to get her to pray with him; but she refused, saying, “I will never
pray again.” One day, just before he died, he held out his hands to
her, saying, “Mother, come pray with me now,” but she turned her face
away and sat down in a corner, and he began praying alone in Korean,
“Hanale Kai sin, uri abage,” “Our Father who art in Heaven,” and, as
he was praying, he died. The next day his poor mother came to our
house and told my wife all about it and cried as if her heart would
break because she had let him die without praying with him. I think
God will let this boy know in some way in heaven that his mother did
repent after he went away. (W. N. Blair, _The Foreign Post_, May,
1910.)

TRAINING THE CHILDREN OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

In 1888, Rev. W. Wyatt Gill, in a meeting in London, gave a statement
of his work as a missionary in the Hervey Islands since 1851. “He
spoke of the former condition of the people, of their love of revenge
and of their human sacrifices, of the bloody feuds that existed among
them, of the rule, followed by all, of keeping alive only two children
in the family, and of the whole aspect of their lives as something
fearful; and stated that all this had been changed through the
influence of Christianity. He remarked that to see a people who were
once cannibals partaking of the Lord’s Supper has been most
delightful. Looking around upon the assembly gathered for this purpose
he had seen the bread administered by one to a man whose father that
man had murdered, or the reverse. He stated that the work of
evangelization in many of the South Pacific Islands had been done
almost entirely by natives trained in the Avarua School; that hundreds
of these natives have sacrificed their lives to carry the Gospel to
their brethren, and that sixty of Mr. Gill’s own church have been
killed while acting as missionaries.” (Alexander, “Islands of the
Pacific,” p. 121. Am. Tract Soc.)

INFLUENCE OF A PICTURE CARD

Once a month we give each girl a picture card. These were sent to us
by children in American Sunday-Schools, and each time we explain to
the child that the card was sent by a little boy or girl in far-away
America. One day on our way home we stopped at a shop, and two of our
little girls seeing us drew near with the cards in hand. A man sitting
by asked one, a clever little girl, where she got her picture. She
didn’t say, “My teacher gave it to me,” but answered, “A little girl
in far-away America sent it to me.” His next question, “Why did she
send it to you?” To which she replied, “Because she loves me!” Then,
as he continued to question her, she began to explain the picture. It
happened to be Christ delivering the Sermon on the Mount. It was only
a child-like explanation given by a child of seven or eight years, but
the man was really interested. As we wended our way I thought of the
hundred and twenty-seven cards we had given out that day, and the many
hundreds that had been given in days past, and wondered how many real
Christian sermons had been preached by little Hindu and Mohammedan
girls by means of these small cards. (_Woman’s Work_, April, 1912,
Bessie Lawton, Fatehgarh.)


BIBLE READING

Revealed unto Babes--Expressed by Babes.

Luke 2:41-49. Matt. 11:25, 27. Matt. 21:14-16.

The things that are hidden from the wise and prudent are understood by
children. How near a child is to the Heart of the Great Infinite; how
naturally he expresses his love and praise. As the twelve-year old Boy
in the Temple understood His connection with His Father’s work, as the
children in the Temple comforted the sorrowing Saviour with their
praise, so the children of today may understand and do for Christ what
the wise and prudent cannot.

“We are facing tremendous problems and great contests which our
children have got to settle. Can we not educate these men and women of
tomorrow in the world brotherhood that goes back through all the
centuries and finds its beginning in the heart of the Boy of Twelve?”
L. W. Peabody.


PRAYER

We beseech Thee, O most merciful Father, for all Thy little children
who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of evil that is in the world;
that it may please Thee to have pity on them, and to gather them by
the kindly hand of Thy true servants, into the light of the Christian
fold, that they may sit at the feet of Jesus and learn of Him. So let
Thy truth be manifest from generation to generation, and the whole
family of mankind rejoice together in Thy mercy, through Jesus Christ,
the Saviour of the world. Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer.)


QUESTIONS

1. What are some of the problems that must in all probability be
confronted fifteen years hence in China? in Japan? in India? in
Thibet? Turkey? in Central Africa?

2. What agencies, native and foreign, are preparing children to solve
these problems?

3. How are the children of your home and church and community being
trained along missionary lines?

4. What are you doing to help them?


BIBLIOGRAPHY

A Little Child Shall Lead Them. Wom. Bd. For. Miss. Ref. Ch. in Am.

The Black Bishop, Jesse Page. (Revell.)

The Islands of the Pacific, Alexander. (Am. Tract Soc.)

See current newspapers and magazines for up-to-date material for this
chapter.


FOOTNOTES:

[95] _Woman’s Work_, July, 1911.

[96] Told in _Missionary Review of the World_, June, 1913.

[97] Told in _Missionary Review of the World_, June, 1913.

[98] Sixth Annual Report of the Kindergarten Union of Japan.

[99] “Testimony of a College Student,” Wom. For. Miss’y Soc. Pres. Ch.

[100] Rev. C. R. Mayes, M. D., in _N. American Student_, May, 1913.

[101] _Missionary Review of the World_, March, 1913.

[102] _Record of Christian Work_, March, 1913.

[103] _The Continent_, June 12, 1913.

[104] Told in _Foreign Post_, Dec., 1906.

[105] Rev. S. M. Jordon in “The New Persia,” Pres. Bd. For. Miss.

[106] _Missionary Review of the World_, August, 1911.

[107] _Missionary Review of the World_, August, 1911.

[108] _New York City Mission Monthly_, May, 1913.

[109] “The Black Bishop,” Jesse Page, p. 379. (Revell.)

[110] “Islands of the Pacific,” Alexander. Am. Tract Society.

[111] Told in _Over Sea and Land_, April, 1913.

[112] Told in “Sketches from the Karen Hills,” Alonzo Bunker.
(Revell.)

[113] J. K. McCauley in _Foreign Post_, October, 1908.

[114] _Life and Light_, April, 1912, p. 168. Alice B. Caldwell.

[115] _Woman’s Work_, June, 1912, p. 144. Mrs. E. F. Hall, Berkeley,
Cal.

[116] “The Christian Hope,” W. A. Brown, p. 200. (Scribner.)

[117] _Missionary Review of the World_, April, 1913, p. 315.

[118] _The Continent_, March 27, 1913, “Dolls from Chicago to
Fatehgarh, India,” Louise Atherton Dickey.

[119] Miss Caroline L. Palmer in _Missionary Review of the World_,
Jan., 1918.




APPENDIX

CHAPTER VII.

THE MOTHER AND THE CHRIST-CHILD

“Behold the handmaid of the Lord.”

    It is suggested that at some convenient time during the Christmas
    season a mass meeting be held for the mothers of the community.
    Special efforts should be made to gather _all_ mothers, as far as
    possible; carriages might be sent for the old mothers, for special
    love and deference is due to them; and arrangements should be made
    for care of babies, so that young mothers may be free to attend.

    If so desired, the program may include selections of stories and
    quotations from the foregoing chapters, and some of the prayers
    may be used. Let all Christian mothers gather to pray and plan
    for the children of the world, in the Name of the little Child of
    Bethlehem.


BIBLE READING

Luke 1:26-35, 38, 46-55 & 2:19, 51.

The angel addressed the holy mother as “highly favored,” “the Lord
with thee.” God’s presence in her life was a reason why she could be
trusted with the greatest responsibility ever given to a woman, to
bring up, to teach and guard the most wonderful child ever born.
Contrast how royal princesses are seldom entrusted with the care and
training of future kings and emperors.

Vs. 46-55. Mary’s appreciation of what God had done for her
personally,--her wider vision of what her experience was to mean to
the world. She accepted the trust and believed the amazing promise,
(v. 38) but realized that the present and future generations were to
share in the blessing (vs. 48, 54, 55.)

Ch. 2:19, 51. Mary kept in her heart all the strange, wonderful
occurrences, pondering them, trying to understand God’s dealings, and
to bring herself and her actions into line with them. She realized
that hers was an unusual task, and set herself to watch and understand
its meaning.


PRAYER

Oh Lord, our Heavenly Father, we pray for Thy rich blessing upon this
gathering of mothers, and upon the mothers of this community. Grant to
each one of our children those blessings of body, mind, and soul which
Thou seest they most need. Grant to each father and mother the wisdom,
love, and courage, and, above all, the personal acquaintance with Thee
that shall enable them to train their children for useful, happy,
Christian manhood and womanhood, and to love and serve Thee for time
and for eternity.

We beseech Thee, in the name of the Holy Child of Bethlehem, to
remember our homes and the homes of the whole earth with Thy Fatherly
blessing. Guard little children throughout the world from sin and
sorrow and suffering, from cruel neglect and oppression, from growing
up in vice and ignorance. Stir the hearts of Thy servants at this glad
time of the Children’s Festival, to take the knowledge of the blessed
Christ-Child to the remotest corners of the earth, that all children
may learn to know Him, and may grow up into His likeness.

We ask it in the name of Thy Holy Child Jesus. Amen.


   “Holy night! peaceful night!
    Through the darkness beams a light
    Yonder, where they sweet vigils keep
    O’er the Babe, who, in silent sleep,
    Rests in heavenly peace.

   “Silent night! holiest night!
    Darkness flies and all is light!
    Shepherds hear the angels sing--
    ‘Hallelujah! hail the King!
      Jesus Christ is here!’

   “Silent night! holiest night!
    Wondrous Star! oh, lend thy light!
    With the angels let us sing,
    Hallelujah to our King!
      Jesus Christ is here!”

What a significant fact it is that, of all religions, Christianity is
the only one which lays emphasis on the childhood of its Founder!
Mohammedan tradition weaves the most marvelous and fantastic tales
about the infancy and childhood of the man who founded it, though none
of these are mentioned in the Koran. But how different are these
extravagant and often disgusting stories, from the wonderful Gospel
story of the Christ-Child.

No other child ever born into this world has had such honor done to
the event of his birth, or has been able to inspire in millions of
hearts through generation after generation the joy of remembering
others, the delight of expressing love by gifts, the glory of
“goodwill among men,” that mark the Christmas time.

Few of those who live in a Christian land can realize the effect of
the mere observance of the Christmas festival on those who never heard
of Christ. Christmas Day, although of course not celebrated by
non-Christians, is nevertheless called in India “the _great_ day of
the year,” by thousands of Hindus and Mohammedans. Dr. Badley of
Lucknow, in commenting on the fact, says:--

“The heathen people of course do not celebrate Christmas; they know
that Christians do, however, and this simple fact, so constantly
observed, causes them to think about the power of Christianity. Many
are led to ask, ‘Who was Christ? What did He do? Why do the Christians
observe His birthday?’ These inquiries call forth various answers,
discussion follows, and thus the whole nation with its many millions
of people, is thinking and talking about the world’s Saviour.”

Would that every mother in America might have a vision today of a
Christless home in a Christless land, and then of that home
transformed, and taking its share in the festival of the Christ-Child!
When once the spirit of the blessed Christ has touched a heart or a
home or a community, there is a transformation. Is there any other
anniversary that inspires the blessed joy of giving that belongs to
the Christmas season? The _Missionary Link_ gives a sample of what
Christmas has come to mean to some Japanese children in Kyoto, and
the consequences of their celebration:--

“Last Christmas the children used the money they had collected in
Sunday-School to buy charcoal for the poor. As they did not know to
whom they should give it, they asked the policeman to give it to the
poorest people he knew. They did not hear any more about it for some
time, when one Sunday an old woman came to Sunday-School, and asked if
this was the place where poor people were helped. She then thanked the
children for the charcoal, telling them it had kept her warm most of
the winter. She told them she lived in a tiny room with another old
woman, and, although she worked very hard sewing, she could only earn
about three cents a day. She had no money to buy charcoal to keep her
warm, and about Christmas time thought she would throw herself into
the river, as she was of no use to any one. Just at that time the
children sent her the charcoal, so she felt that some one really cared
for her. She helped in the heathen temple for a little while, but said
the people were so unkind to her she could not stay. Now she is
studying about Jesus, and goes every week to the Sunday-School.”

If such effects follow when little heathen children are taught the
story of Christmas and its significance, why, oh why, should not we
mothers send the beautiful message to every little child in the
world?


MOTHERHOOD

    I see them come crowding, crowding,
      Children of want and pain,
    Dark sorrow their eyes enshrouding,
      Where joy’s touch should have lain.

    They stand in silence beseeching,
      Gaunt faces lifted up,
    And wan little hands outreaching
      For Love’s forbidden cup.

    Their hearts are restless with yearning,
      The hearts of my own are stilled,
    Their lips are parched and burning,
      The cups of my own are filled!

    I cry in love unsatisfied
      For these without the fold,
    My mother’s arms are open wide
      These weary ones to hold.

    What though my arms are open wide,
      Only mine own lie near,
    Without still stand those long denied,
      Compassed in want and fear.

    Bowed with the crown of Motherhood,
      I seek that Shepherd of old;
    “How can mine own receive the good
      With some left out of the fold?”

    (Isabel Kimball Whiting in _The Survey_. By permission.)

Is it enough for us to plan that our own children and those near and
dear to us shall be made happy by our Christmas tokens of love and
remembrance? Truly it is such a busy, rushing time that even our
regular church work must often be set aside that the Christmas
obligations may be met. But a true mother heart is big enough to take
in more, and ever more, and the blessing of growth is bestowed on each
heart that opens to admit new objects of love.

“Recently,” says the _Outlook_, “a tender, gentle, refined woman who
has identified herself with those movements which seek to improve the
conditions of child life, said, ‘I have had a new thought come to me
that has made me accept the loss of my little girl with patience,
almost with resignation. God never meant that a woman should be the
mother to just one little girl. He meant that every woman should be
mother to every child in the world.’”

“How I wish I could give a Christmas present to Jesus!” said a loving
little girl, her eyes dancing with Christmas joy as she surveyed the
small gifts, so long planned and carefully prepared for her dear ones.
For her the very essence of Christmas was its expression in visible
tokens to those whom she loved. If we mothers long to “give a
Christmas present to Jesus,” what could be more acceptable to Him,
than the dedication of an hour of this busy, happy Christmas season to
loving prayer and thought for the mothers and children in our own
community and throughout the wide world? Thus shall we be drawn near
to the heart of the great Father, and, if during this hour some angel
messenger whispers to our hearts of a special task which He is
willing to entrust to us, may we be ready to answer with Mary of
old,--“Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy
word!”

What blessings shall we ask for the mothers of the world? What do we
need for ourselves? Unselfish love, infinite patience, wisdom and
insight, tact and sympathy, health to bear the daily strain, quiet
nerves, a sense of humor that smooths rough places, a sweet, strong
cheerfulness, a likeness to Christ that shall be reflected in the
lives of all the members of the household. “According to the _riches_
of His grace,” He is waiting to bestow His blessings on the mother
hearts waiting here, before Him, and through their intercession, on
the mother hearts of the world.

What blessings shall we ask for the children of the world? The same
that we ask for our own as we kneel at their bedside, and our eyes are
dim with tears of yearning love, while we pray that our darlings may
be kept from harm and accident, from all soul stains, that they may
“grow in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.” Is there
any blessing you ask for your boy and girl that is not needed by the
other children of the world?

“Prayer is cheap,” some say, “it costs nothing to say a prayer for
missions.” _Real_ prayer is not cheap,--it costs the deepest,
strongest thought one can expend; it costs time; it costs the
willingness to help to answer one’s own prayers in terms of interest
and gifts and service. In Christ’s name, then, let us pray, and let us
not rest nor be satisfied until every mother in the world, clasping
her child to her bosom, is truly a holy mother, and every little child
is a holy child.




INDEX


  Addams, Miss Jane, p. 92.

  “Age of the Child,” p. 4.

  American children at work, pp. 248, 251, 252.

  Anti-foot-binding movement, p. 33.

  Applied Christianity, p. 17.


  Bathing, pp. 22, 23.

  Bible, place of the child in, p. 197;
    the power of, pp. 207, 208.

  Bible reading, pp. 41, 82, 128, 172, 216, 256, 261.

  Bibliography, pp. 42, 84, 128, 173, 218, 257.

  Blind children, pp. 118, 120.

  Bunker, Alonzo, p. 6.

  Burma, a home in, p. 55.

  Burma, Christian children in, p. 242.

  Burnett, Mrs. Frances Hodgson, p. 9.


  Caste, India, p. 213.

  Childbirth, China, p. 39;
    suffering during, pp. 13, 14.

  Child labor, among Bedouins, p. 104;
    in Africa, p. 104;
    in Persia, pp. 105, 106;
    in many lands, p. 105;
    need of public sentiment concerning, p. 103.

  Child marriage, India, pp. 68-72, 79.

  Child slavery, pp. 107-110.

  Child training, Persia, pp. 58, 59.

  Child wives, Persia, p. 81;
    India, p. 10.

  Child welfare agencies, p. 5.

  Child at worship, Thibet, p. 180;
    India, pp. 180, 181;
    Moslem lands, pp. 181, 182;
    Africa, pp. 183, 184.

  Children, of India, needs of, p. 3;
    of Persia, p. 4;
    of Syria, p. 3;
    importance of, p. 8.

  Children’s pavilion, Beirut, p. 38.

  China’s awakening, p. 227.

  Chinese, mother ideal, p. 57;
    mothers, p. 10;
    mothers in council, p. 231.

  Christ needs the children, p. 223.

  Christianity, in the home, p. 78;
    place of child in, p. 263.

  Christmas, in India, p. 264;
    in Japan, p. 265.

  Clothing, p. 23-24.

  Cochran, Mrs. James, p. 21.

  Confucianism, attitude towards girls, p. 21;
    and Christianity, pp. 187, 188.

  Conservation of human resources, p. 8.

  Contagious diseases, pp. 34-37.

  Curtis, Wm. E., p. 235.

  Crowther, Bishop Samuel A., pp. 237-239.


  Dale, Mrs. G. F., p. 38.

  Deaf and Dumb children, pp. 118, 119.

  Defective and dependent children, pp. 110-124.

  Death of children, pp. 196, 197.

  Discipline, lack of, p. 58.

  Devine, Dr. E. T., pp. 6, 31, 52.

  Dolls, in Central Africa, p. 126.

  Dying child’s doll, pp. 101-103.


  Education, Africa, pp. 170, 171;
    divergent views on, pp. 136-138;
    Japan, pp. 139, 140;
    China, p. 141;
    India, pp. 141, 142;
    Persia, pp. 142-144, 154, 234;
    Turkey, pp. 142-144;
    Siam, pp. 168, 169;
    extent of American Missionary, pp. 163, 164;
    among backward nations, pp. 151-153;
    of future mothers, p. 156.

  Egypt, Lord Cromer on, p. 155.

  Eugenics, pp. 9-11.

  Evil Eye, pp. 15-16.

  Evil spirits, p. 17.

  Exner, Dr., p. 28.


  Family life, foundations of, p. 65.

  Famine waifs, pp. 116, 117.

  Fathers, position of, pp. 61-64;
    Egyptian, p. 62;
    African, p. 62;
    transformed by Christianity, p. 63.

  Feast day, Arabia, p. 124.

  Feast of dolls, Japan, p. 93.

  Feast of flags, p. 94.

  Feeding, pp. 26-28.

  Foerster, Dr. F. W. on education and Christianity, pp. 144, 145.

  Foot-binding, pp. 32, 33.


  Games, pp. 95-99.

  Girls, mothers of, pp. 64, 65.

  Giving to missions, pp. 243, 244, 251;
    systematic, p. 250.


  Harrison, Elizabeth, p. 148.

  Health, pp. 31-32.

  Heathen baby, A, p. 213.

  Heredity, pp. 9, 10.

  Hindu Vedas, p. 186.

  Holy Child, The, pp. 252, 253.

  “Holy Night,” p. 263.

  Home, the center of a nation’s life, pp. 52-54;
    a transformed, p. 79;
    a Mohammedan in Persia, p. 47;
    a heathen in Africa, p. 49;
    a Christian in Zululand, p. 51.

  Homes, disorderly, p. 54;
    how to bring Christ to, pp. 72, 73.

  Hygiene, pp. 28-29.

  Hymns, p. 208.


  Idol worship, pp. 190, 191.

  India, infanticide in, pp. 19-21;
    work for children of, pp. 232, 233.

  Industrial training, p. 163.

  Infant mortality, pp. 24, 25.

  Infanticide, pp. 18-21.

  Influence of a picture card, p. 255.

  Influences, moral and immoral, pp. 56-58.

  Illiteracy, statistics, pp. 138, 139;
    Sir J. O. Rees on, p. 139.

  Innocence, absence of, p. 55.


  Japan, changes in, pp. 224-227.

  Japan, Imperial University, p. 225.

  Junior Endeavor, pp. 205-206.


  Kashmir, the athletic method in, pp. 159, 160.

  Kindergarten children grown up, p. 226.

  Kindergartens, need of Christian, pp. 147-149.

  Kindergartners, qualifications of, p. 150;
    a West African, pp. 150, 151;
    Union, Japan, pp. 145-147;
    China, p. 147.

  Koran, p. 185.

  Korea, praying children in, pp. 253, 254;
    Christian children in, p. 242.


  Languages used in Presbyterian schools, p. 164.

  Li Bi Cu, Dr., pp. 229-231.

  Literature, need for good, pp. 161-163.

  Lepers, pp. 120-124.

  “London Bridge” in Africa, pp. 96-97.


  Mary, the slave child, pp. 109, 110.

  Marriage, early, a barrier to education, pp. 154, 155.

  Medical practice in non-Christian lands, pp. 34-36, 39.

  Milligan, Robt. H., p. 11.

  Missionary children, p. 77;
    at work, pp. 246-248.

  Missionary’s dream, A, p. 212.

  Missionary education, reasons for continuing, p. 138;
    is it needed, pp. 135-136.

  Missionary homes, pp. 74-77;
    wives, pp. 73, 74;
    mothers, pp. 29, 30.

  Mothers, ignorant, pp. 26, 36.

  Mothers’ meetings, p. 78.

  Motherhood, protection of, p. 11;
    suffering of, p. 13;
    the burden of, pp. 64, 70, 71.

  “Motherhood” (poem), p. 266.

  Mpongwe, a dying tribe, pp. 12, 13.

  Mohammedan girls, pp. 66, 67.

  Mohammedan month of mourning, p. 190.

  Montessori, Dr., p. 153.

  Moslem lands, need of women doctors, p. 14.


  Needs of childhood, pp. 3, 4.

  Need of the world, the one great, p. 249.

  Non-Christian religions, place of child in, pp. 185-188.


  Obstacles, pp. 209, 210.

  “Organized motherhood for the world,” pp. 5, 54.

  Orphans, Armenian massacre, pp. 111-113;
    Mohammedan, p. 113.

  Orphanages, India, pp. 114, 115.


  Pacific Islands, pp. 240, 241;
    training children of, p. 255.

  Persian girls, education of, p. 154.

  Persian “Helen Keller,” pp. 117, 118.

  Persian schoolboys, p. 234.

  Physical training, pp. 157-160.

  Play, teaching children to, p. 157;
    among the Lao, p. 125;
    importance of, pp. 90-93;
    stops early in non-Christian lands, pp. 99, 100.

  Playground Movement, p. 90;
    America leading in, p. 95;
    in Japan, p. 94.

  Prayer, pp. 41, 83, 128, 172, 216, 256, 262.

  “Polishing Jade Establishment,” p. 114.


  Questions, pp. 41, 83, 89, 172, 217, 257.


  Rights of every child, p. 7;
    of every mother, p. 7.

  Rite of the broken pot, p. 15.

  Religious acts, results of, pp. 189-193.

  Religious needs of children, p. 184.

  Rescue homes, for slave children, pp. 108, 109.

  Rescuing the servant of the gods, pp. 194, 195.


  Saving a boy, China, p. 127.

  Schools, the call for, pp. 133-135;
    missionary, pp. 165-168;
    Persia, pp. 169, 170;
    Kurdish Mountains, pp. 171, 172.

  Sunday schools, statistics, p. 199;
    Japan, pp. 199-202;
    China, pp. 202, 215;
    India, pp. 202, 203;
    Africa, pp. 203-205.

  Schoff, Mrs. Frederick, p. 8.

  Selden, Dr. Chas. C., p. 10.

  Sex instruction, pp. 60, 61.

  Soldiers and babies, p. 40.

  “Spirit of Play,” need of, pp. 100, 101.

  Spirit worship, p. 214.

  Starvation diet, pp. 30, 31.

  St. John, Prof. E. P., pp. 59-60, 92.

  Stuart, Dr. E. M., p. 14.

  Superstitions regarding infants, pp. 15-18.

  Sun Yat Sen, pp. 228, 229.

  Syrian girls at work, p. 236.


  Teachers, where to be trained, pp. 141, 143.

  Teething, p. 16.

  Temple girls, pp. 192, 193;
    legislation concerning, pp. 193, 194.

  Training children for service, pp. 240, 241;
    Christian wives and mothers, pp. 66-68.

  Twins, superstitions regarding, p. 18.


  Underwood, Mrs. H. G., p. 27.


  West Africa, boys of, pp. 166, 167.

  “World’s Tragedies, The,” p. 237.


  Yeung, Mrs., of China, pp. 245, 246.

       *       *       *       *       *

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Obvious typographical errors repaired. Punctuation, spelling,
hyphenation and stylistic presentation standardized when a predominant
preference was found in this book. Otherwise left as printed.

Italicized text is denoted by _underscores_.

Where possible, illustrations have been moved next to the
corresponding text, otherwise placed at section breaks.

In the original book, outlines of each chapter were printed on
separate pages, preceded by chapter headings. These chapter headings
were then repeated before the chapter text proper. In this electronic
book the repeated chapter headings are not preserved.

Page 80, ‘Tyer’ changed to ‘Iyer’ (Mr. Justice Moothoswami Iyer).

Footnote 34, ‘Caffin’ changed to ‘Coffin’ (“On the Education of
Backward Races,” E. W. Coffin).

Page 134, ‘plead’ changed to ‘pleaded’ (Earnestly he pleaded with the
missionaries).

Page 147 (sidenote), ‘year’ changed to ‘years’ (Dr. Balliet on the early
years of childhood).

Page 189 (sidenote), ‘religous’ changed to ‘religious’ (Result to the
child of religious acts).

Page 192, ‘then’ changed to ‘than’ (Worse than all the results).

Page 194, ‘jewlery’ changed to ‘jewelry’ (some article of jewelry).

Page 272, ‘American’ changed to ‘Armenian’ (Orphans, Armenian
massacre).

On page 231, there is an orphaned double quotation mark after
‘babyhood’. The opening mark should probably be before ‘Women spoke
from the platform’ etc.





End of Project Gutenberg's The Child in the Midst, by Mary Schauffler Labaree