recently; "To a lot of our 
 people, giving to the cause of 
 foreign missions is like pouring water 
 into a rat hole—the hole never gets 
 
 yr a minister to a missionary 
 
 filled up." So you have heard! 
 
 Now a number of 
 persons havebeen 
 insidethe foreign 
 missions "hole,"and 
 the writer, as one of 
 
 them, can con- fidently state 
 that while it is capacious, it is not 
 bottomless. Even a casual look will 
 show that although not enough has 
 been poured in thus far to make the 
 hole overflow, yet what has been 
 supposedly lost is there, and in 
 addition a good deal that the com- 
 plainants did not pour in. 
 
 In one corner of the "hole" lies 
 Singapore, at the center of the 
 Malaysia mission field. There are 
 
twenty-seven missionaries in that 
 city, counting wives and missionary 
 teachers in the schools. Of this 
 number, two are supported by the 
 Board of Foreign Missions, and five 
 by the Woman's Foreign Mission- 
 ary Society. The other 
 
 twenty are support- 
 
 ed on the field. 
 
 The An- glo-Chi- 
 neseSchool employs 
 in its day and boarding de- 
 
 partments eleven of the entire num- 
 ber, besides thirty-five local teachers. 
 Not one cent of the funds of either 
 Board goes to their support. But 
 that is not all! Some of these mis- 
 sionary teachers, in addition to do- 
 ing a full day’s work in their class 
 rooms, are in charge of native 
 churches, or do some other form 
 of voluntary work, which, if it were 
 not for them, could only be main- 
 
tained by pouring more funds into 
 the "hole." Nor is that all! Two 
 native young men -—one an Indian, 
 the other a Chinaman — who teach 
 with high acceptability in this same 
 school, serve as pastors, without 
 
 The Meth- 
 
 odist -Pub- lishing 
 House supports 
 four white workers 
 and a staff of about 
 
 seventy Asia- tics without 
 aid from home. Two of our eight 
 churches are self-supporting, and 
 the others partly so. 
 
 Pass on to Penang. The sup- 
 erintendent of the district is a man 
 who preaches in English, Malay, 
 Tamil, and Chinese. His Sunday 
 work is as heavy as that of the 
 average preacher in America, and 
 in addition is principal of a school 
 of nearly a thousand boys, not 
 
merely holding down an office chair, 
 but teaching his classes as well. 
 None of the money poured into the 
 "hole" supports him. But the half 
 has not been told. This same mis- 
 sionary'’s wife cap_work in English, 
 
 Malay, Telegu, 
 Tamil, an two dia- 
 lects of Chinese. 
 She super- vises and 
 accompa- nies her 
 Biblewoman. She has 
 
 founded, procured land and build- 
 ing for, and maintained for some 
 
 years, a Rescue Home for Fallen 
 Women, unaided by "hole" funds. 
 Most of us like to have certain def- 
 inite hours in each twenty-four, 
 when we can count on entire relax- 
 ation from our work, devoting our- 
 selves to personal affairs or recrea- 
 tion. But this good sister, with the 
 appetite for activity of half a dozen 
 
hearty men, and the devotion of an 
 apostle, has gathered together in a 
 building adjacent to her own house, 
 a score or more of needy native 
 girls, whom she clothes, feeds, and 
 educates while teaching them home- 
 ly arts. And, that indo- 
 
 lence an even lei- 
 sure may have 
 final notice to keep 
 off the premises, 
 she superin- tends in a 
 
 big house next door, a boarding 
 school for Chinese boys who pay 
 their own way. All the money 
 that finds its way from America into 
 her manifold activities is a few 
 dollars each for some of the girls 
 she is supporting. 
 
 Now for a quick trip to Borneo. 
 Seven churches and eight schools 
 are supported, not by the inrush of 
 funds through the capacious mouth 
 
of the "hole," but by a rice mill, 
 donated by a good friend in Amer- 
 ica, and kept self-sustainng and 
 ever-giving by its own energy in 
 devouring hundreds of bags of rice 
 raised by non-gambling, non-opium- 
 
 using Chi- nese farm- 
 ers. Our investi- 
 gation of the cor- 
 ners of this J particu- 
 lar "hole" ends in 
 Java—not be- cause thelast 
 
 word has been said, but because "a 
 word to the wise is sufficient." In or 
 near Java,some half dozen well-train- 
 ed, efficient, devoted American men 
 are teaching the English language 
 and the love of God to the Chinese 
 and other folk. At whose expense? 
 Wholly at the expense of the en- 
 evangelized, the not-yet-Christian- 
 ized Chinese business man, to whose 
 heart, if there has not yet penetrated 
 
the love of God, at least to his head 
 has come the conviction that the 
 American missionary is a safe man 
 to whom to entrust both the mind 
 
 and the morals of his sons. 
 We admit there is a big "hole." 
 
 God has set before us 
 an open door 
 which no man can 
 shut. We admit 
 that a loto consecrat- 
 
 ed time and money have 
 been poured in. But in Malaysia 
 probably not more than one-fourth 
 of the inpouring has been done by 
 the home church, and not a particle 
 of the apparently lost giving has 
 been wasted. 
 
 W. T. CHERRY, 
 
 Singapore. 
 
Board of Foreign Missions of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church 
 150 Fifth Avenue, New York 
 
 25 cents per hundred 
 
vas 
 
 ements 
 
 i 
 
 The: returns rors Malaysia 
 e for 1912 indicate that 
 
 the 6 hole” has the following f 
 
 4 
 ay oreign Mason adie a 5 4 ‘ 
 
 a _ Native Preachers and i - i ” Ts 
  Menbes and Probationers - - 3482 
 
 | Educational Institutions: - . | le mut Ss 
 Number of Pupils - ube a 6616 
 
 4 Churches and ah i mt _ mle (28 
 Value. of all Property - $5 i} 4, 851 
 Am t SOS ERE on e ld Sh. 3, 425 ‘