-Tndta witb Bishop Foss PUBLISHED BY THE PHILADELPHIA LAYMEN'S ASSOCIATION OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH PHILADELPHIA, Pa., U.S. A. 1698 ryan ts ae J am x as iy ee tan Amat) Tey ae “ pane re vat pet ae me Fuge ve, Lee 7 Ny jan é a ney en) ihe vee REV. BISHOPsCYRUS*D.EOSS,, D; D.,, LED, RESIDENT BISHOP OF PHILADELPHIA Public Reception given to the Rev. Bishop Cyrus D. Foss, D.D., LL.D. on his return from India and Malaysia by the Ministry and Membership of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and Vicinity In the Arch Street Methodist Episcopal Church Philadelphia Thursday Evening, April 21, 1898 Published by The Philadelphia Laymen’s Association of the Methodist Episcopal Church Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. A. PRESS OF TIMES PRINTING HOUSE 725 CHESTNUT STREET PHILADELPHIA, PA., U. S. A. Digitized by the Internet Archive In 2023 with funding from Columbia University Libraries https://archive.org/details/publicreceptiongOOunse I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Committee on Reception to REVeebishOr CYRUS Dar OSS “D.b, ales On his return from India. Bishop Foss. Hon. Robt. KE. Pattison. C@] Ce Hiancock. Hon. John Field. Jno. W. Boughton. F. W. Tunnell. Clarence D. Antrim. Arthur M. Burton. 9 Rev. T. C. Murphey, D.D. 10 Rev. S. W. Thomas, D.D. THOR EV. Osis GEHteLt.. DD: 12 Charles Scott. 13 Jno. K. James, M.D. 14 Wm. H. Heisler. 15 Rev. J. G. Bickerton. Philadelphia, April 21, 1898. 16 Rev. T. B. Neely, D.D., LL.D., Chairman. T7eReval. Ba wyuch Dab: 18 Rev. J. S. J. McConnell, D.D. I9 Rev. J. R. T. Gray, D.D. 20 Avery D. Harrington. 21 Rev. J. S. Hughes, D.D. 22 Rev. W. L. McDowell, D.D. 23 Rev. W. W. Ramsay, D.D. Introduction he Board of Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church selected the Rev. Bishop Cyrus D. Foss, D.D., LL.D., the Resident Bishop of Philadelphia, to visit officially the missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church in India and Malaysia. In pursuance of this appointment Bishop Foss started on his tour in the month of October, 1897, and returned in April, 1898. During his stay in India the bubonic plague continued its ravages among the people of that empire, but the Bishop passed through the dangers, endured the fatigue, and, in good health, completed his work. In view of his expected return to Philadelphia, the Preachers’ Meeting of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in the. City of Philadelphia and vicinity, appointed a Com- mittee to extend a welcome to the Bishop. The Committee was composed of the following minis- tets; I. B. Neely, J. 8. J... McConnell, S. W. Gehrett) S.w. Thomas, F. B. Lynch, T. C. Murphey, J. G. Bickerton, J. S. Hughes, J. R. T. Gray, W. L. McDowell, and W. W. Ramsay. The Philadelphia Laymen’s Association appointed the following laymen as a Committee to act in conjunction with the Committee from the Preachers’ Meeting: C. C. Han- cock, John Field, John E. James, Arthur M. Burton, Clarence D. Antrim, William H. Heisler, Robert K. Pattison, Charles Scott, J. W. Boughton, F. W. Tunnell, and Avery D. Harrington. The Combined Committee met and organized by electing the Rev. T. B. Neely, D.D., LL. D., Chairman, and the Rev. F. B. Lynch, D. D., Secretary. The Committee decided to give Bishop Foss a public reception in the Arch Street Methodist Episcopal Church, on Thursday evening, the twenty-first of April. It adopted a written address of welcome, prepared by the Rey. Dr. T. B. Neely, and arranged the programme of exercises for the reception. On the evening designated the Arch Street Church was beautifully decorated, in harmony with the spirit of the occasion and the auditorium was filled by a magnificent and representative audience. Programme President, REV. Ws Wo-RAMSAY, DP Di: Pastor of the Arch Street Church. Vice-Presidents, Cc. C. HANCOCK, Ex-Governor R. E. PATTISON, and the Hon, JOHN: FIELD. SINGING— “‘ All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.” Announced by Rev. J. S. Hughes, D. D. Presiding Eider of the West District. PRAYER— By Revo il C, Murphey), Dib: READING OF THE SCRIPTURES, by Rev. J. R. T. Gray, D. D. Presiding Elder of the North District. SINGING— “ FRrom Greenland’s Icy Mountains.” Announced by Rev. W. L. McDowell, D. D., Presiding Elder of the Northwest District. READING AND PRESENTATION OF ADDRESS OF WELCOME To BisHop Foss—Rev. T. B. Neely, D. D., LL. D., Pastor of the Union M. H. Church. RESPONSE AND ADDRESS— By Bishop Cyrus D. Foss, D.D., LL. D. SINGING— “My Country! ’tis of Thee.” Announced by Rev. H. A: Monroe, D. D., Presiding Elder of the Philadelphia District of Delaware Conference. BENEDICTION— Byikeviels Bs Lynehy(D: D:, Presiding Elder of the South District. Prof. William G. Fischer, Precentor. 5 OPENING REMARKS— In opening the meeting Dr. Ramsay said : ‘We have come from all parts of this great city that as ministers and members of its more than one hundred Methodist churches we may manifest our devout gratitude to our Heavenly Father for the kindly providence which has returned to his home and friends, after his circuit of the globe, our greatly loved Bishop Foss, to whom we would extend a cordial welcome and cheerful Sieeting. PRAYER— By Rev. i.C,) Murphey, (obs A PRAYER FOR THE NATION. Dr. Murphey offered a prayer, in which he besought the blessing of God upon the country in the midst of its present anxieties and perplexities. ‘‘O Lord God Almighty,’’ he said, in part, ‘‘ Thou art the all-wise, the all-mighty, and we plead with Thee for peace. Thou understandest the condition of our nation, and the condition of the neighboring nation, and the nature of their differences. We earnestly pray for Thy divine interposition. But if it is necessary that war should prevail, we beseech Thee for mercy. Grant wisdom to the President of the United States and a clear and true perception of the difficulties which beset his course, and moral courage for his duties. Bless his counsellors. Bless our soldiers and sailors. May God prepare them for whatever may be awaiting them in the future.’’ Dr. Murphey closed his prayer with a reference to Bishop Foss and the occasion which had brought the large congregation — together. Address of Welcome The formal address of welcome, read by Dr. Neely is as follows : To the Reverend Bishop Cyrus D. Foss, D. D., LL. D. Greeting: ‘‘Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.’’ The undersigned Committee of the ministers and laymen of the Methodist Episcopal Church’ in Philadelphia, voicing the sentiments of the clergy and the churches in Philadelphia and vicinity, desire to extend to you a cordial welcome on your return from your episcopal visitation to the missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the vast empire of India and Malaysia. For almost ten years you have been the Bishop of our denomi- nation resident in the City of Philadelphia, and, during these years, the Church has respected and honored you not only for your high office, but also for what you were and are in yourself and for the noble work you have done in the pulpit, and in the various executive departments of church activity. Your lofty Christian character and your manifested interest in the affairs of our denomination in this great City and in its imme- diate vicinity, while at the same time you were occupied with the presidency of other and widely scattered conferences and with the general work of the denomination in this and other lands, has greatly impressed us, and your sympathy manifested toward individuals in time of sickness or other calamity has steadily strengthened the feeling that you were one of us as well as one with us. When last October, under appointment of the Board of Bishops, you started from this City on your long journey to distant India, you were followed by the fervent prayers of preachers and people of our churches that you might have a safe journey, and that having discharged your supervisional duty in that expansive field, you might be brought back to us in health and strength. During the period of your absence, which covered more than six months, you have traveled many miles by sea and by land. You have made the circuit of the globe and in addition have traveled as many miles as more than equal the diameter of the earth. Notwithstanding the perils by sea and the dangers by land, and the fact that your duties carried you through a great section where a terrible epidemic was raging, yet through a Gracious 8 Providence you have been kept in health and strength, and now that you have returned after this long journey of thirty-three thousand miles, and this long absence, we greet and welcome you on your return, and come with thanksgivings to Almighty God that He has answered the many prayers that have been offered by our ministers and members, in that He has sustained you in the discharge of your episcopal duties, defended you from danger, and returned you to us in safety and in health. In addition to this brief and formal address of welcome, we call your attention to this assemblage of preachers and people who have convened to-night to greet you and to extend to you their glad welcome, and these are but the representatives of the more than thirty-six thousand members and probationers in the one hundred and fifteen Methodist Episcopal Churches in the City of Philadelphia, to say nothing of those of adjoining sections. One and all, both ministers and people, we welcome you, and pray that God may continue to bless you, that he may preserve your life and strength for many years, and that he may still make you a wise leader in the Church Militant and ultimately reward you in the Church Triumphant in heaven. With great respect we present this address. The address was signed by the following : From the Ministry. From the Laity T. B. NEELY, C; C HANCoCcE, J. S. J. McCoNNELL, JOHN FIELD, S. W. GEHRETT, JOHN KE. JAMES, S. W. THOMAS, ARTHUR M. BuRTON, F. B. LYNCH, CLARENCE D. ANTRIM, T. C. MURPHEY, Wo. H. HEISLER, J. G. BICKERTON, RoBT. E. PATTISON, J. S. HUGHES, CHARLES SCOTT, J. R. T. Gray, J. W. BOUGHTON, W. L. MCDOWELL, F. W. TUNNELL, W. W. RAMSEY, AVERY D. HARRINGTON, keception Committee. After reading the address of welcome, Dr. Neely, on behalf of the committee, presented to Bishop Foss a beautifully engrossed copy of the address in album form and bound in seal. THE RESPONSE OF. BISHOP FOSS. Bishop Foss then arose and gave the following response and address on his recent travels; the audience rising and greeting him with the ‘ Chautauqua Salute.” Address of Bishop Foss Mr. President and Christian Friends : : Before I utter a single word in glad and grateful acknowledg- ment of this very cordial and honorable address, I must be allowed to indulge my heart for an instant in recalling those beloved and lamented fellow-workers of ours who were with us last September and are not visibly present now. ‘‘ They rest from their labors and their works do follow them ;’’ and our hearts follow them in high congratulation on the triumph which they have attained, and in solemn sadness on account of our sorrow. Mr. President, I can find no words to utter the high apprecia- tion which I feel in my heart of hearts for this welcome which has been so admirably voiced in the address of the Committee of Ministers and Laymen,—men whom I am glad to honor,—and also has had expression to my eyes in the presence of this great con- course, and in the smiling faces and gleaming eyes of this multitude of the picked Methodists, and other Christians as I perceive, of Philadelphia and its vicinity. SOME GENERAL REMARKS. Permit me, before addressing myself to the chief purpose of my standing here to-night and of your coming here to hear me, a few observations of a general sort such as would occur to any tourist, relating to matters which must arouse the attention of every intelligent observer who travels widely in the East—matters confessedly not of the highest moment, but of very curious and often of greatly delighted interest to men who have the opportu- nities which I have thus enjoyed. In making the circuit of the earth I have traveled 33,000 miles —21,000 of them by sea—sixty-six days on almost all the seas and oceans in the north temperate and northern part of the torrid zones, with no hurricanes, no storm at all until I had been forty days on many seas, then two or three days and nights a little exciting to a landsman, but nothing to a sailor, not an hour of fog, and not a minute of that grievous central disturbance which makes the sea such a terror to multitudes of my fellow-men. On reaching Bombay I was furnished at the outset with abundant knowledge concerning I2 that great scourge which devastated that city and some other places in India in the winter of 1896-7, the bubonic plague. It is chiefly a winter disease ; last summer it almost disappeared. When I was in Bombay in November and December the death-rate from the plague ranged from four to fourteen a day, touching no Europeans at all; in January and February it rapidly increased ; and I have just received this week a letter from Bishop Thoburn in which he states concerning it some particulars such as I have not lately seen in print, which I give you very briefly. The letter bears date Bombay, March 8th. He says: ‘‘I find all well, but the plague has not abated in the least. The deaths yesterday were 193; and the daily death- rate has been in the neighborhood of 200 for two weeks past. Europeans still escape, for the most part.’’ So that, although the efforts to stamp out the plague have been partially successful, there is deep apprehension and fear that it may spread to other great cities in India on the eastern coast, whose filthy condition certainly invites it. No words can well express the admiration which the British Government and the India department of it deserve for their heroic efforts, with unstinted use of money and of all available scientific skill, to limit, and, if possible, to destroy this awful scourge ; and the same may be said of the efforts to relieve the famine, which had pretty much ceased when I reached India last November. A great many deaths have occurred during the winter as the indirect conse- quence of the famine, and the statements made by Mr. Julian Hawthorne in the ‘‘ Cosmopolitan’’ magazine, which were so severely criticised, according to the best information I could get in India did not exaggerate the dreadful consequences of the famine. BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. I referred to the British Government. One of the marvels otf history—one of the most striking series of events in it, in any generation and in any land, may be summed up in the phrase, ‘‘ British Rule in India.’’ How it came to pass that a nation having its chief seat of empire on a little island, on the west coast of Europe, should have been able to subjugate a territory as large as the United States east of the Mississippi River, and to bring almost all the native rulers under its authority, and since to hold disarmed a population of two hundred and eighty-seven million people, and give them the best government by far that they have ever had, and to do this with only eighty thousand British soldiers, and with British residents (men, women and children all put together), less than one hundred and ninety thousand,—surely this is one of the greatest marvels recorded in authentic history. It sounds like the 13 wildest romance; but is the solid and magnificent achievement of one of the great governing and colonizing nations of the globe— bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh ; and I want to add this, in this time when I will not say we greatly need (for any other reason than a sympathetic reason) the friendship of the mother country : I want to say this, that, traveling around the globe, I have met with Englishmen—a great many of them—of all ranks of society, several earls, more lords, officers of the army and navy and of the merchant marine, merchants and barristers, missionaries and their critics, clergymen and mechanics; and have talked with them or heard them talk ; and I have not met a single Englishman, even in the freedom of the conversations on board vessels where we were together many days, which are sure to loosen men’s tongues if anything can, I have not met a single Englishman who said in my hearing, at any time, any word concerning our country that was not a word of respect and friendship. [Applause.] And when, on board English ships, called to conduct religious services, I prayed in the same breath, more than once, for the Queen Empress of India, and for the President of the United States, the rustle of satisfaction and gladness amounted almost to applause ; and Iam sure you will all heartily join me in saying ‘‘God save the Queen ’’ and ‘‘ God bless Old England.’’ [Applause. ] CURIOUS THINGS. Among the curious things which I am to speak to you about, in a few words, in this introduction to the graver speech which is to come later, I cannot pass by the striking and very disgusting spectacles which I saw in Bombay, in the methods employed in disposing of the bodies of the dead, in the Burning Ghats and the Towers of Silence. Imagine, if you can anywhere outside the heathen world, a vast enclosure as large as one of the largest blocks in this city, surrounded by a stone wall fifteen feet in height and within it, every day fifteen, twenty or one hundred corpses burned to ashes on separate piles of wood, right in the heart of the city ; so that as you drive along the fine boulevard most disgusting smoke and odors offend your senses. The Towers of Silence, used by the Parsees only, are great circular walls twenty-five feet in height and one hundred feet in diameter, with iron gratings near the bottom on which the bodies of the dead are laid ; while hun- dreds of vultures hover around in expectation, pounce down upon them from their roost on the wall or from their flight in the sky, and in about ten minutes every particle of flesh is gone from the bones. From the windows of Bishop Thoburn’s house I first made 14 the acquaintance of the omnipresent—friends (shall I say?) of humanity in India (because of their service as scavengers)—the crows ; which gather by the thousand in the most populous quar- ters of all the larger cities of India—tens of thousands—with their perpetual ‘‘caw! caw!’’ so that you can scarcely hear another sound, morning and evening. They are not quite so big as our crows and wear a kind of light gray sash around their necks ; they will come to the window ledge close by you, and leer at you and scold you and call you names till you get up and drive them away, and then come back in a few minutes and repeat the process until you really feel mean and wonder whether you are such a scoundrel. They snatch the bread and butter out of the hands of the children ; they rob the cook going from the cook-house to the dining-room of the victuals on the plate; in many ways they are a perpetual annoyance. But not more so than the monkeys in some of the cities of northern India, (which are more disgusting still), and are worse thieves, by far. Many atime a demure monkey, apparently asleep, only waits until some passer-by comes with food to their taste, carelessly carried, when, with a sudden stroke of his long hand, he will bring it all down upon the street, and twenty mon- keys, which have been notified to be on hand, will at once grab it up and run away with it. Then there are the flying foxes, those enormous bats, of which I saw thousands flying over the parks in Lucknow and Cawnpore, weighing about one pound and a-half each, with the head, shoulders and body of a fox, as perfect as you can imagine, and with wings that spread four feet from tip to tip (I measured some after they were dead). I will tell you of a more pleasing sight, the ‘‘ pigeon orchid’’ of Malaysia, an inch and a- half in length, whiter than the whitest lily, with the perfect form of a white pigeon with its two wings spread and its tail raised. The remarkable fact is that myriads of these blooms, which grow wild, come out once every month in the year in the torrid zone, absolutely on the same day—every one of these millions—and the next day they fade. And now, what is still more surprising, in the islands near by the same beautiful flower blossoms monthly in the same way, every one on the island simultaneously, but on a different day from the blossoming day in Singapore. No man can go to Rangoon, Burmah, without being told that one of the greatest sights there is the working elephants. There are very great lumbering interests in Rangoon. I went to one of the large saw-mills where I saw nine working elephants, which carried the logs to the saws and brought away the slabs, then brought away the timbers and piled them up. I saw two of them T5 piling bridge timbers thirty-five feet long, from sixteen to twenty- two inches square, weighing from two to three tons each; making them into piles twelve feet high, that were never touched by any human hands; but these beasts, with intelligence superior to that of many of the human natives of the country, under the direction of drivers sitting on their necks, raised the great timbers and slipped them to their places as deftly as you can imagine. MISSIONARY PROGRESS. Let me now address myself to the condition and progress of the Christian religion, and especially the Methodist type of it, in the British Empire in India. I wish first to make a general state- ment—a very brief one—and then to impress it upon your minds by a few vivid pictures. This is the total plan of what I shall now say ; and I know that the rhetoricians would criticise me at once, some of them, for turning the subject round, and beginning where I ought to end, but I will tell you frankly my reason; I am so sure that I can make good to you the thesis with which I begin this part of my remarks that I do not hesitate to tell you at the outset my deliberate conclusion on the subject of which I speak. Now although I have some notes before me, you will see I am not going to read you an essay ; these sheets are simply the chains by which I am trying to hold myself, so that I may not trespass unduly on your patience to-night. The collective judgment I have formed is about this, that Christianity, and the Methodist type of it, in India, have brought forth in this generation a volume of Christian evidences of greater value to the world than all the volumes of Christian evidences that can be gathered from the libraries of the theologica] seminaries of both hemispheres ; that in our time, in the lifetime of the younger men here before me now, the Christian religion has so taken hold in the vast empire of India, among almost three hundred million people, as almost to enable the careful observer to see the very foot-prints of the ever-living Christ all over that land; and I shall hardly exaggerate my sense of the truth on this subject if I should add that if the too laggard church could but come a little nearer to her divine-human Leader, his fresh foot-prints would be seen everywhere among the nations. The difference between the books and the sight of such evidences of Christianity as I have had the privilege to witness in the recent months, is all the difference between reading a treatise on the expansive power of steam and walking the deck of a mag- nificent six thousand ton steamer plunging through the billows in the midst of the ocean, and feeling the constant throb of its hot 16 heart, until in twelve days it has crossed the great Pacific. I find not how, in any words which I have been able to frame with tongue or pen, to make any statement strong enough to voice my own burning conviction that the Lord Jesus Christ is taking India. Call to mind, if you please, Judson in Burma, toiling, praying, fearing, hoping for many a weary year before he had asingle con- vert, and Maclay similarly waiting in China; and then hear the facts which Iam about to state, that only forty years ago, under appointment and advice of those two great missionary leaders of the church, both whose names are especially sacred in this City of Brotherly Love, John P. Durbin and Matthew Simpson, William Butler went out to plant Methodism in India; and then consider well what I now tell you; I wish these figures might be burned into your memory; that we now have in India and Malaysia seventy-seven thousand nine hundred and sixty-three communi- cants of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of whom thirty-eight thousand seven hundred and fifty were baptized within two years ; one thousand two hundred and fifty-nine schools, with thirty- one thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine pupils; two thousand four hundred and eighty-five Sunday Schools, with eighty-three thousand two hundred and twenty-nine scholars; two hundred and nine Epworth Leagues with ten thousand three hundred and thirty-seven members; two hundred and twenty-six Foreign Missionaries, including the ministers, their wives and the missionary teachers of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society ; and native laborers in various ranks of employment, making a staff of three thousand five hundred and thirty-seven paid workers ; and that the total value of our church, school and other properties is three million six hundred and seven thousand nine hundred and eighty rupees. SOLID FOUNDATIONS. The foundations of our work in India have been broadly and solidly laid in both the great departments of missionary labor, the educational and the evangelistic. Some missionary societies devote themselves almost entirely to education, and the missionaries are little more than schoolmasters; some, almost entirely to evangel- istic work. Our Church does both, and does both strongly and well; and makes the two co-operate with and reinforce each other. Some ten years ago, when that little bunch of consecrated and sagacious optimism called James M. Thoburn (just then elected to the Missionary Episcopacy), began his first tour among the churches in America before he went out to India and Malaysia, he startled 17 the Church by saying that he hoped to live to see the day when there would be ten thousand converts under the care of our Church in India alone ina single year ; and we heard it with wonder—some of us raising the question whether he was the wildest of fanatics or a courageous and veritable prophet of the living God. Iam thankful to say that I was one of those who at the time chose the latter horn of this dilemma; the events of the last ten years have abundantly justified that belief, and instead of ten thousand there have been twelve thousand, thirteen thousand, one year eighteen thousand converts in a single year, brought to Christian baptism under the labors of our missionaries in India and Malaysia! And these numbers might be vastly augmented if only—as one of our native pastors said in my hearing—we could provide ‘“‘ holders up”’ of the converts, that is, plain, comparatively illiterate but genu- inely converted, pastor teachers, who should train them in Christian knowledge and guard them against the temptations sure to assail them. NAINI TAL. I cannot get on with these chains. (And the Bishop flung his notes to the floor.) Let me show you one picture I have to draw. After only four days in Bombay, by a slow three days’ journey on cars where you have to provide your own bed, bedding and towels,—I reached a beautiful spot among the mountains—itself 6,000 feet above the level of the sea,—Naini Tal, which means the ‘‘ Lake of the Goddess Naini.’’ It is a wonderful lake—I know of nothing in this country to suggest it, unless it be Lake Mohonk. Ninai Tal is twice as green and ten times as big, and is surrounded by mountains 1,500 feet in height, on whose steep sides, embowered in the greenest foliage, are seen the elegant palatial homes of summer residents and English officials, and sanitariums for mission- aries, and Christian schools and churches. From one of the near heights I got my first glimpse of ‘‘ The Snows,’’—as they call them all over India,—a very diminutive name for the snow-clad Himalaya Mountains ; and there I saw, one night before sunset, and the next morning at sunrise, sixty-three peaks—the highest of them 25,700 feet in height and the lowest, 20,000 feet. As the setting sun withdrew its rays from them, one after another, they seemed to withdrew themselves almost, and to turn into sullen heaps of gray ashes, as darkness quickly covered them ; but out of it, the next morning, at break of day, they rose before my eyes in glorious resurrection and majestic state. It was a sight, never to be described nor forgotten. But when I came down from that vision,— 18 which can never be equaled for me in this world,—I had a still profounder impression. Ihad just seen, on a slope of the Himalayas the glacier from which one of the fountains of the Ganges bursts forth. I then saw at Naini Tala grander sight, the spot where Wil- liam Butler had stood in God’s naine when he smote the rock of heathenism, and lo! India Methodism !—and the rill had become a river. For four days I was there, watching its wondrous flow, at a District Conference, in which were included an Epworth League meeting, a temperance meeting, and various other meetings. Some fifty native teachers and local preachers and stewards and class leaders were present ; and also,—and I cannot mention it without a quick heart-throb,—one of the teachers of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society,—Miss Budden, of Pithoragarh, with her forty-nine girls and women—native Christians, brought to Jesus largely by her instrumentality, whom shehad led nine days’ march over the rough mountain paths, twelve miles each day, carrying on their heads their tents and their food and their blankets—twenty-five pounds on the head of every woman,—ten pounds on the head of every girl,—nine days’ march, to be with us four days in the corner of our humble little church, and listen, and wait, and wait and listen, and sing and get blessings from God,— as they did in rich abundance; and nine days back again over rough mountains and along weary marches to their work again. That was my first strong impression of the river flowing in India ; but I stood on its banks in many other places, presently. A CAMP-MEETING IN INDIA. A short time after, with the Rev. Dr. Goucher, who was my constant attendant and helper in all this visitation, and with Bishop Thoburn, I spent four days at the Hathras camp-meeting in northern India. At the railroad station we found a line of our native Christians and of our children from the schools, with a few of our American missionaries at the head of the line, drawn up on each side of the path, a third of a mile in length, to receive us with a band of native music, with the sound of fire-crackers and other explosives, and with lofty songs; because we came as the repre- sentatives of the great mother Church, which had made possible to them the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I can- not describe the scenes of those four days, as under the spreading banyan trees we joined these people in their religious services. We tried to get at the questions whether the converts were converted, and whether this was really Christianity that we saw, and the genuine Methodist type of it. In our daily attendance of the 19 meetings we had interpreters sitting beside us to keep us posted. On the Sabbath morning several of the recent converts were bap- tized. There was among them an old gray-haired man who for many years had been a fakir, but had forsaken his idolatry, and was sitting at the feet of Jesus. When I was about to administer the rite of Holy Baptism to him, after he had been closely ques- tioned by Bishop Thoburn, the old man, as his last break from idolatry, took off his rosary (I have it here) and cast it down at my feet as though to say, ‘‘My heathenism is at an end; tell my ‘friends in America that my only trust is in the precious blood of the Lamb.’’ I prize this fine rosary, not only because of its intrinsic value, but because of its associations with the religious superstition of its pagan owner almost from his boyhood. j A HEATHEN MELA. A few weeks later while attending one of our conferences— the Northwest India Conference—at Allahabad, I had the oppor- tunity to visit one of the great heathen melas. A mela is any festival—generally a religious festival—and we have wisely adopted the word for our camp-meetings. This heathen mela is fixed at Allahabad for certain weeks of January and February every year ; and tens of thousands of pilgrims (sometimes as many as ninety or a hundred thousand in a single day), from anywhere within fifty or a hundred miles, come with their blankets and with a little food, to bathe at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna Rivers, the most sacred place in all India, believing that to bathe in those waters gives better promise of release from sin than anything else that they know of. Numberless thousands, I suppose five, ten, or twenty thousand gather ina few hours. Between a great bluff on which the city is situated and the junction of these rivers, there is a vast stretch of sand, a mile and a quarter in width, traversed by sprinkled paths. On both sides of the broad avenue are many hundreds of beggars, the most filthy and disgusting you can con- ceive of, exposing every manner of physical deformities, nine- tenths of which are simulated, and among them scores—I think there were a hundred or more, especially ‘‘ holy men’’ (as they call the fakirs) ; one I saw who had his left foot securely planted above his right knee, and held there for years. His penance was to be twelve years standing on his right foot, with a little board under his breast and a cord attached to that fastened to a post behind him, supporting one-third of his weight; he was esteemed especially holy because for eleven years he had not had his left foot on the ground. Another had one arm extended perpendicularly until it 20 had grown as stiff as iron—could not by any possibility be brought down. Others were buried in dust so that nothing but the nose and mouth protruded ; and every expiration of the breath blew a cloud of dust into the air. There were several on beds of spikes. One had been on his spike bed for five years ; another for more than six; another for nine; twelve being the maximum penance. Dr. Goucher, who was with me, is a great collector ; somehow he is a sort of magnet to which things come. He came back from one of those beds of spikes with three or four of the spikes; he had tried to get the man lying on one of them to sell him some, but the answer was that he could not possibly do that. ‘‘ Well,’ said the doctor, ‘‘ let me take some ;’’ and catching the gleam of some copper coinsin the doctor’s hands the devotee turned his head the other way while the doctor took some and gave him.a handful of coin. The spikes are three inches in length, sharpened at both ends, driven into the board about an inch, and on several hundred such spikes the poor fellows lie until their callous backs and legs become somewhat accustomed to them ; but it isa matter of twelve years, or else the thing is a failure. (Here is one of the spikes.) Do you think I can put into words the impressions with which I left that place (after some hours of wandering about) concerning the disgusting and ruinous heathenism in which hundreds of mil- lions of my fellow-creatures are held in India? Beside the great pathway was a little booth in which four or five native preachers (two of whom understood English) were preaching the gospel ; and I stopped and found one who could interpret for me. Presently there came up an old man ; a little crowd gathered ; he heard with them the singing, and then the plain preaching, and he put now and then a question which the missionary would stop and answer. When the talking stopped and there came a little lull I had a half- hour’s chat with the old man through an interpreter. He had one of his sacred books wrapped up carefully, which he unwrapped and showed me, and read me something from it; and then he put it aside awhile. I noticed while he was talking to me he had his hand in this little bag—a prayer-bag in which, with that hook so hung to his girdle, and with a place for his thumb on one side and the fingers on the other, he was busy moving his hand all the time. J asked him what he was doing. ‘‘Why, I am counting off my beads—saying my prayers.’’ Said I, ‘‘ You don’t want them ; let me have them.’’ He smiled and said, ‘‘ They don’t do me any good.’’ So presently he handed me over the string of beads and I gave him half a rupee of silver and told him I would be glad if he would take that and I would take his treasure ; and he said it was 21 no longer of any use to him. I pointed him to Jesus; and he listened to me and tried to upset me by quotations from his book ; and then listened and listened and wanted to know more of my Master ; and when my time was up and I arose to leave, and he gave me his hand, he said, ‘‘I will be your disciple.’’ ‘0,’ I said, ‘‘I don’t want you; I will turn you over to my Lord, Jesus Christ ;’’ and I came on my way. ““RAW HEATHEN,”’’ Look now at a very different picture, which I saw in the imme- diate vicinity of a little village called Bahlaj, where two years and a-half before we had only fifteen converts, the overflow from Bombay ;—and that shows you how missions propagate them- selves; you can’t keepthem in fences. We had a field assigned us in northern India—you might as well assign limits to the rising tide of the Atlantic Ocean as to assign a narrow field to James M. Thoburn and his fellow-missionaries and the Methodist Church anywhere on the face of the earth. John Wesley told an everlasting truth concerning it when he said ‘‘The world is my parish.”’ Well, pardon this Pauline digression! Fifteen of these Gujerati converts from Bombay got up into the region of Baroda; of course our missionaries followed them, and in two and a-half years they had become fourteen hundred. I wish we had such success as that all over Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. The missionaries extem- porized a little camp-meeting under the banyan trees for Dr. Goucher, _ Bishop Thoburn and myself to meet these converts ; we went there and found them gathered from scores of little villages. When I speak of villages, I do not mean what you call a village here ; I mean simply a little collection of mud huts—perhaps, ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred of them—in which human beings live and from which they go forth to their daily toil in the fields. In villages of that sort, within twenty miles, these fourteen hundred Christians lived ; and twelve hundred of them got out to see the American strangers ; and they had a morning and afternoon of holy song and delightful addresses and the utterance of Christian experiences and exhortation ; and then in the afternoon, as we drew near the close of the services, Dr. Goucher and I had the honor and the pleasure to baptize two hundred and twenty-five persons, mostly recent con- verts, including twenty-five or thirty children of those converts, many of them four or five years old, running around the grounds clad in nothing except the brown silk in which they were born. Bishop Thoburn strictly questioned all the adults before we baptized them. They were arranged in rows, sitting on the ground, 22 and they were closely questioned somewhat thus: ‘‘ Do you believe in one. God?’ Douvyou believe in)-Jésus-Christ'??’. ‘* Do. you forsake your idols—have you put away every token of idolatry ?’’ ‘‘ Will you forsake’’ this and that and the other? ‘‘ Will you give up especially Ghali ?’’ which is the Hindostanee word for the obscene abuse of your mother and your grandmother. They do not swear; their swearing is the obscenity of abusing each other's ancestors, and especially female ancestors: ‘‘ Will you break away from all that and every other wicked thing?’’ And when they had answered many such searching questions I said to one of the missionaries: ‘‘ Do these poor fellows and these poor women know anything about the Apostles’ Creed?’’ He took the question forward and said ‘‘Our American bishop wants to know whether you know anything about the Apostles’ Creed ;’’ and then said to the interpreter, ‘‘ Ask them and let them try it;’’ and then those adults repeated the Apostles’ Creed from beginning to end better than I have often heard it repeated in America, unless it was read from the book ; and could have done the same with the 23d Psalm, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer. ‘‘Raw heathen,’’ I have heard said of these peoplein Europe andin America. ‘‘ Raw heathen.’’ Yes, such they were; such ¢hey were. How, then, did they come to know these things? Because for four or six months pastor teachers, converted men, knowing almost nothing but Jesus Christ, went through these villages every evening when the laborers came home from the fields and held village prayer services, in which the New Testament was read and plainly expounded, and the Apostles’ Creed was taught, and the Lord’s Prayer was taught, and the Ten Commandments were taught; so that I say although they had all been ‘‘raw heathen,’’ when we visited them they were penitent Christian believers. I said to Dr. Parker—(you know his stalwart form and noble face and excellent work, many of you; if there had been a missionary Bishop elected by the last General Conference it would have been he;) I said to him, ‘‘Dr. Parker, tell me frankly, when you thus win twenty, or one hundred, or two hundred of these raw heathen and baptize them, how many are steadfast after a few years?’’ He answered: ‘‘ We have done that again and again; and where they are properly cared for by their pastors, after a year or two years you will find ninety-five per cent. of them every time with their faces toward the cross, leading good lives and doing their best to break away from their habitual sins.”’’ ‘‘Raw heathen ?’’ God send us more of them, and send us the grace to strengthen and uphold them, and to present them at last before Him with exceeding joy. na) WOMAN’S FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. I cannot speak fully now of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, but must give you one brilliant picture of its work which must ever abide in my memory. Iam bound to say that its repre- sentatives, no less’ than the missionaries sent out by the parent society, gave us perpetual opportunities for talk, talk, talk, with unlimited tea, tea, tea. In Madras, the first morning, before we got through our Chota- haziri or little breakfast, (just simply a cup of tea and two very little bits of toast served before we got out of bed in the morning), a saintly lady who is in charge of our Woman’s Foreign Missionary work in that city, sent us word that we must surely come over at 11 o’clock and see some of the work of her teachers; and there, in the humble missionary home in which she lives, we saw forty dusky little maidens'of the higher castes of that city, sent at good prices for tuition to this school, because it is the best school to be found in Madras; and those little maidens were dressed in the finest silks that India could produce ; and jewels—they had jewels in the tops of their ears and in the bottoms of their ears; they had them in their noses; they had them on all the joints of their fingers and even on their thumbs, on their wrists and on their elbows and on their ankles and on their toes, so that they fairly jingled with jewels whenever they stirred; and they stirred a great deal, because they went through some very striking calisthenics and some very lively singing. Beside these, and somewhat younger, were, per- haps, twenty little girls without a jewel, in the plainest clothing— waifs of society, picked up by saints of the living God, out of the dust of heathenism and out of the deepest poverty—trained in the orphanage and brought to the knowledge of the blessed Christ ; and there was also there that wonderful personage whose biography I wish every Christian before me might read, and that it might be in every Sunday School library and in every family in the United States—Sooboonagam Ammal—a high caste woman, with all her privileges and wealth of jewelry three years ago, taught of Jesus in the Zenana until she wanted to come to him; but how could she break away, and have her death celebrated by her friends (as it was celebrated afterwards)? But two years ago she came to Miss Stephens, cast herself down at her feet, and said, ‘‘I am your Christmas present ;’’ and from that hour she had broken utterly away from all her old connections. I saw her again and again, with no jewels, going forth daily into the Zenana, and to the scrub- bing of floors and the humblest of work—a true, noble, consecrated 24 saint—bound to get to the bottom of society, and if she can, also to the top of it, and to be a faithful missionary among her own people. I saw also a Zenana woman who, until that day, had never seen the face of a white man—had seen no man’s face near at hand excepting the face of her husband and son and of the servants about her house; but having been converted some years ago, ina quiet way in the zenana, and having learned to love Jesus, she at last persuaded her husband (having laid by all her jewels) to let her come to that house, and see the little children, and hear them sing, and see these American strangers. She had holes in her ears almost as big as a copper cent—the lower lobe being as large as the upper, to hang large jewels there to please the eyes of her husband and her son. She sat there hardly daring to cast her eyes around ; and yet she gathered courage, and when the meeting went on, and was almost over, with sweet voice she sang ‘‘ All the Way Along it is Jesus.’? The next day we laid the corner-stone of the new orphanage which Miss Stephens is building. And now let me tell you a strange fact. The great pavilion in which we met, which was twice as large as this audience room, was adorned with beautiful tapestries and hangings; flags were suspended along the main street of the city a half-mile each way, and lights at night along the same street for the same distance; great bamboo towers were built, fifty feet high, hung around in the evening with hundreds of lights, and all this was done by a native heathen gentleman, because he had come to believe that this school work which these blessed Christian women are doing is philanthropic and excellent work. This high government officer, this solid merchant and man of wealth, did all this with a cheerful heart, as a kind of unconscious testimony on his own part to the way in which the kings of the world and the wealth of the world (when Isaiah’s splendid visions are fulfilled) are to be brought and laid at Jesus’ feet. One-third of the pavilion was shut off by a curtain behind which were three hundred Zenana women who, until that day, had never been out into the world and seen the faces of white men ; and we noticed, as the exercises of speech and song went on that the bamboo curtain was raised six inches, and long rows of brilliant eyes were peering out and keen ears were listening ; and when the service ended, our benefactor, Mr. P. Vencatachellum who had done all this work of preparation, including ample refreshments, leaving Miss Stephens nothing in the way of expense that day except to pay for the corner-stone itself, took us there to that curtain and introduced us to his wife, who shrank and drew back as though from pollu- tion, and yet did touch the white man’s hand, as did a few others of 25 the women there. We saw the bright-eyed, saintly Sooboonagam Ammal moving around among them, getting the frowns of some and the indifferent greeting of others, and the wondering looks of many. They knew what she had left; and only a few months before had had a great public meeting for the reprehension of the rich woman who could break her caste and leave her friends and have her funeral publicly celebrated by them before she died. O, my friends ! do not such facts open a rift into darkest India? MAGNIFICENT OPPORTUNITIES. Now let me add, if only our beloved church were able, (nay, we are able), were so awake as to be welling to lay such gifts on the altar of the Foreign Missionary Society, that we might add twenty- five per cent. only for the work in India next year, and as much the year after, I tell you my sober conviction, (which is as clear as any- thing which I have profoundly studied and about which I know the facts), we might double the number of our communicants and pupils, and our influence for good, in India, in forty-eight months ; © and in the early years of the century to come, if the dear Lord shall only give us reserved energies of the Holy Spirit, for which my praying heart often lays claimin humble faith—in the opening years of the coming century I see nothing to prevent a million converts in India ina decade. The people are forsaking the old religions and are disgusted with them. The British Government carries with it all around the globe the Bible, and Protestant Chris- tianity, and the form of sound words in the English liturgy, and is a savor of good on these lines; and I, for one, am glad and grateful for this influence of the nation from which we sprang. THE GOUCHER SCHOOLS. A final word—I beg your pardon for detaining you so long—a final word. I have said that my traveling companion in this long tour was Rev. Dr. Goucher, President of the Woman’s College of Baltimore. Many of you may not have known until you saw my account of it in our church papers recently, that for fifteen years Dr. Goucher had been supporting more than a hundred primary village schools in India, at an aggregate cost of more than a hun- dred thousand dollars, (it only costs thirty or forty dollars a year to get a Christian teacher). These schools flowered out into a fine high school in Moradabad, for both girls and boys. Will you take this sober statement and put it into your memories? These schools have educated pastors and presiding elders and pastor-teachers and 26 local preachers and day-school teachers, through whose influence, as the reports of the presiding elders distinctly show, in these fif- teen years 27,000 converts have been added to our church. That is the sort of school we believe in. I met a minister of another branch of the Christian Church—I will notname it—I do not mean to criticise it—every church must judge for itself—who had been, with six other university graduates for about fifteen years teaching a great school with a college course in it; and now it has six hun- dred pupils. I heard him say that in all those fifteen years he was not aware that a single one of those students had been converted. Our beloved church in every land believes that when the Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘‘ Go ye, teach all nations,’’ He did not mean simply to send out schoolmasters ; because, in another form of that same commission, it runs, ‘‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature’’: and so our teachers are missionaries and our missionaries are teachers; their prayers and their lessons and their love for souls all work together; they lead their pupils to Christ. I will not take time to tell of the awful famine; that dreadful scourge of India was made directly the means of putting under our care thousands of children and young women; and many who a year ago were immersed in heathenism and ready to perish for lack of bread, under our care have within one year been taught and con- verted and brought to a happy Christian life; and we see how the great power of God is able to bring good out of evil. HOME AGAIN. I am glad to be back again ; I am glad to have rested for three weeks in flowery Japan; I am glad to say that on the last Sunday IT spent in Tokio, riding six miles through a fierce rain in a little narrow jinrikisha, with two bare-legged Japanese to draw me— when I got to the little church in a heavy rain I found one hundred and thirty native Japanese, and through an interpreter preached to them the simplest gospel I could command; and, having closed, I sat down ; but, during the singing, said to myself, ‘‘Why hadn’t you the courage, here where the Japanese are too Frenchy and polite to put religious experience straight to men, why hadn’t you the courage to ask if anybody wanted to be a Christian?’’ And so, before they rose to sing the doxology, I gave a brief exhortation and invited any who wished to come to Christ to rise and stand ; seven arose—five young men, some of whom are students in the Imperial University, and two middle-aged women. ‘Then I asked them forward and they came and sat down, and I tried to tell them a] the simple way of faith. And somehow or other, I felt as though my license to preach had been renewed; and I am ready to go around the globe again if only I may be God’s voice to bring seven sinners—especially seven heathen sinners—to the mercy-seat. I am very glad to be back here. ‘‘ There’s no place like home ;’’ and, next after that dear spot where your wife and children are, there is no place like a great Christian community in which you elbow up against like-minded, hearty, sympathetic fellow-workers in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. I am back again. How long I shall be back Icannot tell. You speak your word of welcome; I thank you; it shows that you cordially appreciate my return; though, as one of the wide-ranging itinerants of the church, I cannot command very much time in the city I love so well. Next after my official duties I am here again to lend a hand of help to our City Mis- sionary and Church Extension Society, of which I am one of the officers. I am here to help Methodists in Philadelphia to under- stand a little better how much they need, for their own sakes, a good strong Christian school for their girls; I am here to resume my place among the managers of our general Board of Church Extension. Iam here to lend at least a heart of sympathy to our local Methodist philanthropic institutions and to our numerous. churches. I cannot be with you constantly. I am here and there and everywhere on my official errands. I hope to run with you a little longer in this pilgrim path, and trust that through God’s infinite mercy we shall meet at length on the golden streets with our loved and lamented ones at the right hand of the Father, and cast our starry crowns at our enthroned Redeemer’s feet with immortal rapture. At the conclusion of Bishop Foss’ address, the audience individually engaged in a warm handshaking with the honored guest of the evening. 28 NOTE: Information relative to additional copies of this pamphlet can be had by addressing Clarence D. Antrim, Secretary of the Phila- delphia Laymen’s Association of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church, 1011 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. A. BISHOP FOSS WELCOMED A Cordial Reception to Celebrate His Return From India, CLERGY AND LAYMEN AS HOSTS Dr. Foss Gives an Interesting Account of Work Being Done in India by Methodist Episcopal Missionaries. As a welcome home after his travels in India, Rey. Cyrus D. Foss, Methodist Episcopal Bishop of Philadelphia, was tendered a reception by the ministry and laity of the churches of this city at the Arch Street M. E. Church, Broad and Arch Streets, last night. The edifice, decorated with plants and flowers, was crowded. Over the pulpit was the word “Welcome” in flowers, above that was ‘“‘ Christ is Risen,’ in letters formed by lighted gas jets,and above all two large American flags were draped. * * After the Bishop hed concluded his address the | audience sang “ My Country ‘Tis of Thee” and then a large number of people extended a per- sonal welcome to the Bishop. Philadelphia Record, April 22, 1898. 30 GLADLY GREETED ON HIS RETURN BISHOP FOSS GIVEN AN ADDRESS BY MEMBERS OF HIS CHURCH. WAS ABROAD FOR SIX MONTHS) The Methodist Episcopal Dignitary Gives an Interesting Account of His Experiences in India—Warm Praise for British Rule | in That Country. Some Wonderful Hle- phants. Bishop Cyrus D. Foss, D. D., LL. D., Resident Bishop of Philadelphia, was given a hearty recep- tion last evening in the Arch Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Broad and Arch streets, on his return from India and Malaysia, by the ministry and laity of the Methodist Episcopal Churches of the city. The Rey. Dr. W. W. Ramsey, pastor of Arch Street Church, presided. An address of welcome was read by the Rey. Dr. T. B. Neely, of the Union Methodist Episcopal Church.