y 
 
Austria 
 
 and 
 
 America 
 
 By Rev. John S. Porter 
 
 of Prague 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THE ENVELOPE SERIES FOR 
 JANUARY, 1918 
 
 THE AMERICAN BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS 
 FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 
 14 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 
 
ifamuorli 
 
 The smallest of the American Board Mis¬ 
 sions is that to Austria, with one station and 
 two missionary families. But from that one 
 station, Prague, and under the guidance of 
 these few missionaries have gone forth evan¬ 
 gelical influences that have reached many 
 centers in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and 
 even in Russian Poland. 
 
 Moreover, this mission has done a large 
 service to the United States through its con¬ 
 tributions to the life of the Bohemian peo¬ 
 ple of this country. 
 
 No mission of the Board has been more 
 directly affected by the war or more heavily 
 hit by it than this to Austria. The story of 
 its experiences in these war times is full of 
 interest and appeal. Mr. Porter has writ¬ 
 ten of it as an eye witness and a fellow suf¬ 
 ferer with the people of those stricken 
 churches. 
 
 w. e. s. 
 
 Entered at the Post Office, Boston, Mass., as second-class matter. 
 The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 14 Beacon 
 Street, Boston, Mass. Annual subscription, ten (10) cents. 
 
Austria and America 
 
 By Rev. John S. Porter, of Prague 
 
 The War in Embryo. 
 
 “Bohemian Paradise” so-called was our outing place for 
 the summer of 1914. There we heard the first mutterings 
 of war. We went down the hill to see the trainloads of 
 soldiers going to the front. The little city nearby quickly 
 filled with uniforms. Schools and other public buildings 
 were suddenly overflowing with soldiers whose temporary 
 beds were simply a little straw laid on the floors. Portable 
 war-kitchens, military wagons and horses were every¬ 
 where. All incoming trains brought new men reporting 
 for duty. All was confusion and excitement. 
 
 Prague, our home, was only eighty miles or thereabouts 
 distant and was ordinarily reached in upwards of three 
 hours. It then seemed five hundred miles away. Duty 
 called me thither almost every week’s end; and once I 
 rode all night on the return trip from Prague. I was 
 glad, indeed, even thus to reach the place of our summer 
 sojourn. To avoid the possible throwing of bombs from 
 the train all windows were ordered closed as we ap¬ 
 proached bridges and tunnels. Tearful and heart-break¬ 
 ing good byes were the order of the day. People were 
 afraid for their hoarded savings in banks. Uncertainty 
 was in the air. We began to understand the meaning of 
 war. 
 
 3 
 
September found us all again in Prague. Some of our 
 fellow members in the church had already left for the 
 front; others were going. From our windows we could 
 see soldiers drilling in four different places. We heard 
 
 the “pop pop” of the machine guns in drill practice. The 
 “golden city of Prague” that has witnessed so many bloody 
 wars was again alive with soldiers, munitions, implements 
 
 4 
 
of warfare, and military supplies. Patriotic pictures, war 
 maps and illustrated postal cards grew in the windows 
 like mushrooms. Every mail brought new problems. 
 Preachers were leaving for war camps. Money was not 
 easily forthcoming. Checks from foreign countries could 
 not be cashed. Bills must for a time remain unpaid. 
 People were laying in supplies of all kinds. Without 
 leaving our home we could see the soldiers marching to the 
 sound of music toward the railway station to fill the long 
 lines of waiting transports. 
 
 And the war was still in swaddling clothes when the 
 same cars come back from the front with sick, mutilated 
 and dying humanity. Our fair city to quote a newspaper, 
 seemed “one huge hospital.” From time to time many 
 of our street cars put on the Red Cross instead of their 
 usual designation and helped carry the sick and wounded 
 to nurses and doctors. 
 
 Later came the drafts, ever more inclusive, until all 
 from eighteen to fifty years of age capable of military 
 duty had been pronounced “tauglich,” “serviceable” and 
 had left. The men’s side in many of our chapels was al¬ 
 most vacant. All sorts of adjustments were made to 
 keep up our usual quota of services in the absence of one- 
 half of our preachers. For in war, if ever, the regular 
 ministrations of the gospel are needed. 
 
 The Question of Food. 
 
 Supplies came gradually to be the prevailing subject 
 of conversation. People bought what they could, where 
 they could and as much as they could. For a time salt 
 
 5 
 
% 
 
 was more than a luxury. Bread tickets and other tickets 
 came into vogue. We studied attentively the public sign 
 boards to find when those under our house number could 
 purchase potatoes of the city. 
 
 And here is a long line of men and women. What 
 does it mean? They are waiting for kerosene oil. Farth¬ 
 er along, the street is black with a crowd arranged by 
 policemen in ranks of four. They are waiting for milk. 
 Similar lines stand for hours to buy a little sugar, tobacco 
 or soap. Coal, too, is very scarce. The country is 
 settling down to grim war. Refugees from Galicia, 
 Bukovina and elsewhere are being brought in to help les¬ 
 sen the supplies for our homes. Some school buildings 
 are given up entirely to the wounded and sick soldiers. 
 Others are doing double duty, that all the children may 
 have school privileges. Canes and crutches appear in 
 ever-increasing numbers on our streets. War is with us. 
 We hope his stay will be short. 
 
 Whomever we meet and wherever we meet, war and 
 supplies are the theme of conversation. New foods are 
 introduced. We hear of new ways of cooking. An 
 American paper that “gets through” has recipes. “Sev¬ 
 enteen ways of cooking—.” Some one remarks “yes; 
 seventeen ways of cooking what you haven’t got.” We 
 learn that a farmer friend will sell us some flour. We 
 make the long journey, willing indeed to take time and 
 spend money to increase our store of supplies. Some one 
 from the country, sends us a ten pound loaf of rye bread. 
 It is better than gold. 
 
 6 
 
War Ministrations. 
 
 But the days pass quickly. Our hands are full of work. 
 Soldiers everywhere need a word of encouragement. 
 Widows and lonely families crave a call. Notes of sym¬ 
 pathy must often go here and there, as news comes of the 
 wounded, sick, missing and dead. Letters come from 
 our men at the front and elsewhere asking for testaments 
 and gospels in different languages for comrades. And 
 the city hospitals and lazarettoes have ever some of our 
 soldiers that need cheer. Pastors and others from the 
 country unite asking us to visit members and friends in 
 Prague hospitals. And with so many ministers in the 
 war, there are many and urgent calls to preach near and 
 far, to baptize and to administer the Lord’s Supper. And 
 never was there a more hearty response to the gospel 
 message. Soldiers on furlough are present. Others 
 quartered nearby for a time are invited. Often men come 
 in who speak a strange tongue to whom we can minister 
 only by a handshake and by the message that love com¬ 
 municates without the use of words. Some that long ago 
 heard the gospel and remained careless or became hard¬ 
 ened are now driven by the exigencies of the war to God. 
 
 Never were we happier in the Lord’s work; and never 
 seemingly more needed. Then came the diplomatic 
 break between Austria and America. There was a 
 hurried consultation resulting in a decision to leave with 
 the American Embassy. A few last things were done. 
 Our faithful maid promised to do all that we could not. 
 She is to be trusted fully to wisely distribute our supplies, 
 
so laboriously gathered and carefully hoarded, to the 
 needy in the church. She will occasionally air our apart¬ 
 ment and serve elsewhere until we return. Our land¬ 
 lord, an American Bohemian, is perfectly willing to wait 
 for rent until the war is over. And within thirty-six 
 hours after we really know we are going, we are on the 
 train for Vienna. We are off—can it be!—Off for Ameri¬ 
 ca ! 
 
 Austria Breaks With America. 
 
 Austria severed diplomatic relations with America at 
 Easter time, 1917. And America declared war on Austria 
 almost exactly eight months later. Few words suffice to 
 tell all this. And yet these acts have had, and doubtless 
 will still have, far-reaching results. 
 
 One of the immediate results of the diplomatic break, 
 was the special train chartered by the Foreign Department 
 of the Austrian government, which steamed out of the 
 South Station in Vienna, April fourteenth of this year, 
 with sixty-seven Americans on board. Members of the 
 American Embassy, consuls of the United States and 
 their families from all parts of the Austro-Hungarian 
 Empire, physicians, Red Cross nurses, Y. M. C. A. work¬ 
 ers, a representative of the Associated Press, and the two 
 missionary families of the American Board made up the 
 party. 
 
 As the train was leaving the station, there was subdued 
 cheering on the part of the friends of the Americans, who 
 were so suddenly leaving homes and work. Farther 
 down the platform stood a group of Austrian officials, 
 
 8 
 
grim, non-committal, with their black and silver uniforms. 
 
 What thoughts were in the minds of the people on the 
 cars? And of what were those thinking who were left 
 behind ? Who can tell ? 
 
 Work in Austria. 
 
 It is now just forty-five years since our missionaries 
 made their first acquaintance with the people of Austria. 
 The work was begun in both the northern and southern 
 provinces. Gradually, however, it has been confined more 
 to Bohemia and Moravia at the north, although the work 
 in the south has never been abandoned. Hence, our cen¬ 
 ter is the hundred-towered, golden Prague, “the Rome 
 of the north,” the capital of Bohemia, a city with suburbs 
 of nearly five hundred thousand inhabitants. 
 
 Austria is a papal country. Upwards of ninety per cent, 
 of the people are more or less—many of them less—con¬ 
 nected with the Roman Catholic Church. Infidelity is 
 rampant. Formalism is everywhere. Immorality blights. 
 Beggary flourishes. Truth telling is all too rare. The 
 Bible is little known. The people are “dead in trespasses 
 and sins.” 
 
 And yet it was not always thus. We think at once of 
 John Huss, the great Bohemian reformer and martyr, 
 who was burned at the stake in Constance, Germany, in 
 1415. Luther, one hundred years later, bore him this 
 testimony, “In my opinion” said he, “John Huss bought 
 with his own blood the gospel which we now possess.” 
 D’Aubigne calls Huss “the John the Baptist of the Refor¬ 
 mation.” He was surely “a burning and a shining light.” 
 
 9 
 
Execution of Nobles, 
 
His ashes were thrown into the Rhine; but his spirit still 
 lives in Bohemia, and in the world. 
 
 Bohemia, the birthplace of Huss is a land of martyrs. 
 Even Armenia cannot excel Bohemia, with its long and 
 shining list of those who have suffered exile and martyr¬ 
 dom for their faith. We in America are soon to celebrate 
 the three hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pil¬ 
 grims. Bohemia lost her freedom just after the Pilgrims 
 set foot on American soil. Her nobles were executed on 
 the Public Square in Prague. The flower of her people 
 went into exile or perished. The Bible was a forbidden 
 book. The pall of Romanism fell upon the land. And 
 for nearly three hundred years, Rome has held undisputed 
 sway in Bohemia as well as in Austria. 
 
 Bohemia lost her freedom three hundred years ago. A 
 longing for liberty has burned in the hearts of Bohemians 
 for all these succeeding years, and centuries. And no 
 wonder there is a hope that out of this world conflagration 
 may come again a day of rejoicing to Bohemia, the heart 
 of Central Europe. 
 
 Neither the American Board nor its missionaries go any¬ 
 where to mix in politics, national differences or animosities. 
 We go to preach Christ and him crucified and risen again. 
 Such has been our aim and purpose in Austria.' We would 
 simply help Christ carry out his program of love and mercy 
 as he himself proclaimed it. 
 
 The Breaking of the Storm. 
 
 And the “gospel is the power of God unto salvation” in 
 Austria even in war time. The war came suddenly, al¬ 
 ii 
 
though long presaged. The storm burst upon us with aw¬ 
 ful fury. People awoke that Sunday morning, July 26, 
 1914, to rush to bill boards to learn if their regiments or 
 those of near relatives were already mobilized. I bap¬ 
 tized that morning the sixth child of one of our Prague 
 families. The father went immediately after the service 
 to join his regiment. In the afternoon of the same day, 
 I preached in another of our four Prague churches. On 
 the way down in the street car, I met one of our members 
 who was leaving his wife and seven small children. He 
 had his Bible open even as he sat there in the car, to the 
 ninety-first Psalm. As he read, “I will say of Jehovah, 
 He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I 
 trust,” he rested down on his God and was calm and con¬ 
 fident. I have never seen a more quiet trust in God. That 
 picture has strengthened me during all the months of the 
 war. 
 
 We used to sing with our soldiers as they were to leave 
 us: 
 
 “The Lord’s my rock; in him I'll trust. 
 
 A shelter in the time of storm.” 
 
 We prayed with them. According to Bohemian custom, 
 we kissed them good bye. And away they went in the 
 strength the Lord Christ gives. In their breast pockets 
 they carried at least a Testament for their daily food. 
 And often they had in their knapsacks, gospels and tracts 
 for their comrades. For they went also as soldiers of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 12 
 
Trial of John Huss 
 
From the Birthplace of John Huss. 
 
 We have spoken of John Huss who laid down his life 
 on a battlefield where the forces of the Church and State 
 were arrayed against him. Not far from his birthplace, 
 some years ago, a boy was born of humble Christian 
 parents. He travelled the same long road to school as did 
 Huss. After studying in Germany and completing his 
 theological course in Scotland, he was finishing the re¬ 
 quired year of military duty and anticipating the active 
 work of the ministry, when the outbreak of the war forced 
 him into the army as an officer. He was twice severely 
 wounded, once on the Serbian, and again on the Russian 
 fronts. He has risen in rank. His breast is adorned 
 with medals. We are still hoping that he will survive the * 
 war to preach the glad tidings to his fellow-men as did 
 Huss. 
 
 Another young man, born in the same town as Huss, 
 was in Russian Poland preaching the gospel, when the war 
 came. His lot was that of all the other Austrian subjects 
 in that section of Russia. He was interned in faraway 
 Siberia, while his wife and child were left behind. He is 
 doubtless a center of light in that great land. 
 
 And still another from the birthplace of Huss deserves 
 mention. He moved thither from a nearby town for the 
 express purpose of hearing the gospel. He soon accepted 
 Christ; was drafted a few months later and went to 
 the front. Everything has seemed against him, even wife 
 and relatives. He was weak in body, often sick and worn. 
 The Church and the One “that sticketh closer than a broth- 
 
 14 
 
er,” stood by him, and he has been a “faithful witness” 
 everywhere. I found him in the hospital trying his best 
 to communicate his joy in Christ to the Hungarian soldier 
 who lay on the next cot. If you could have seen his face 
 as I gave him a pocket Bible that he could hardly buy for 
 himself! 
 
 Spreading One Good Seed. 
 
 Our people were planning even before the war, to cele¬ 
 brate the five hundredth anniversary of the martyrdom 
 of Huss. We hoped as a part of such celebration to carry 
 the gospel in some way to all parts of Bohemia and 
 Moravia. But the war came. Our .hopes seemed blasted, 
 but God answered our prayers better than we even 
 dreamed. Men even from the very birthplace of Huss, 
 have carried the gospel all up and down Austria and across 
 Russia into Siberia. 
 
 And not only the aforementioned, but many others of 
 our upwards of two thousand members of American Board 
 churches have helped carry the gospel throughout Austria. 
 And as war-captives in Russia, Italy, Servia and other 
 parts of Europe, they have done far more for Christ than 
 we could have imagined. 
 
 Soldiers from all parts of Bohemia, even from the re¬ 
 motest hamlets, were mustered into service in Prague and 
 other centers where they were given gospels and Testa¬ 
 ments by their fellow-soldiers or by Christian workers 
 who came in contact with them in hospitals, barracks, or 
 on the street. There has never been any such dissemina¬ 
 tion of the good seed of the Kingdom possible in Austria, 
 
 15 
 
as has been seen during the war. Doors, long shut tight 
 and fast, have all at once opened to the gospel of the 
 printed page; and also to living testimony from God’s 
 children. Again and again have we received letters from 
 our soldiers asking for copies of the Scriptures in va¬ 
 rious languages for comrades in arms. 
 
 One of our colporteurs conceived an unusual plan of 
 action. He obtained a permit for two weeks, the like of 
 which had never before been granted in Austria; viz. to 
 sell and give away gospels and Testaments on the mili¬ 
 tary trains that passed through the railway center, where 
 he had his home. The long trains to and from the front 
 halted there for a longer or shorter time. The Red Cross 
 workers went through the cars with hot tea and coffee. 
 Right behind them was the messenger of the Cross of 
 Christ with the Word of Life. Eager hands of sick, 
 wounded and well were stretched from all sides for the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 . Then the colporteur, too, was drafted, but he was provi¬ 
 dentially given a place as a nurse and has had unusual 
 opportunities to be a witness to men of all ranks and 
 nationalities and to circulate the Word of God among 
 officers and privates. 
 
 Women and the War. 
 
 Women make up more than half of the church mem¬ 
 bership in many countries, and Bohemia is no exception. 
 We often wonder if women are not the greater sufferers 
 in the war. Be that as it may, no account of Christian 
 work and suffering in Austria can leave out women 
 
 16 
 
There is Miss J. who has given her life to orphans and 
 neglected children. You can imagine that her hands are 
 more than full. The day of miracles has not passed. 
 No, indeed. When food was lacking and there was no 
 help in view, the workers and the orphans cried unto the 
 God of the fatherless. And he heard, and answered. 
 A whole bag of wheat was sent from an unexpected 
 quarter. Supplies came in wonderful ways. Coal was 
 scarce everywhere, but especially in the villages. A whole 
 load was sent all the way from the city to the orphanage. 
 
 Miss V., a convert from the Jewish faith, is another 
 worker in the orphanage. When the Jewish refugees 
 from Galicia poured into Prague and the surrounding 
 towns with all their filth and microbes, they were very 
 unwelcome. Miss V. befriended them and devoted much 
 time to their welfare; found them employment, circulated 
 the Scriptures among them and gathered them to hear the 
 gospel sung and preached. 
 
 Mrs. W. has worked and prayed and prayed and worked 
 to pay the debts incurred by her unworthy husband before 
 he left her. The debts are all paid; the large family of 
 children clothed and fed, and last winter in the intense 
 cold, she ministered to many hungry and cold soldiers. 
 She invited them to her humble home and gave them hot 
 soup and bread, and while they ate and drank, she sang 
 tovthem of Jesus and told them of the Prince of Peace 
 and gave them gospels and tracts. 
 
 Our pastor’s slender wife in B., must, in her husband’s 
 absence as a soldier, .care for the church, do the calling, 
 
 17 
 
 
and occasionally go four or five miles on foot and bring 
 home on her back some flour to eke out the scanty supply 
 furnished by the city. Mrs. M., another pastor’s wife, 
 had just recovered from a severe illness when her hus¬ 
 band was drafted. She is left with eight small children 
 and the heavy end of the church work. Cheery and 
 bright she is in spite of all. When we last saw her, she 
 was just leaving for Moravia for supplies. The round 
 trip would require twelve hours of journey by train and 
 two on foot, and all this to get food for her family, to 
 add somewhat to the all too little forthcoming in the city. 
 
 Our round of calls brings us in touch with families of 
 ours who are living in wearing uncertainty. No reliable 
 news has come from a father or husband or brother for 
 months. Some one reports that he saw him fall in battle. 
 But experience teaches that such news is to be taken with 
 caution. “Is he dead? Is he still alive?” They wait 
 and wait. They start with hope whenever the postman 
 stops at their door. “No, nothing.” They hope on. Our 
 God is a “God of all comfort.” 
 
 Foundations Sure. 
 
 The foundations of all mission work the world over, are 
 seemingly tottering. Have we spent money and lives in 
 vain? No; the war is deepening and broadening these 
 foundations for a more spiritual structure, and the same 
 is true in Austria. 
 
 Before the war, the Bible was almost the one book in 
 many Christian homes. Our people usually have family 
 prayers twice, if not thrice daily. But the war-experi- 
 
 19 
 
ences have planted their feet more firmly on the Word. 
 Verses often read, now have a new meaning. A handful 
 of soldiers gathered outside some barracks or behind the 
 lines at the front, meet and read the Testament with new 
 faith. The foundations have deepened. The wife and 
 mother at home has through her tears come closer to 
 Christ. The old Bohemian fathers, three hundred years 
 ago, left all, lands and estates, and with their Bibles and 
 hymn books went into exile or to death for their faith. 
 Will Bohemia become once more the land of the Book? 
 Is the war the harbinger of better days? 
 
 The foundations are only seemingly shaken. Reports 
 from the battlefields confirm this statement. A careless 
 backslider was rarely in church; was cold and bitter. 
 In the army he came to himself and back to God. A 
 soldier returning from the front with bandaged head, re¬ 
 marked: “Out there,” pointing away toward the Russian 
 front, “one learns to prize the Bible.” A member who 
 had given us concern when at home, wrote in a new vein 
 from a place of great danger. Letters from the front 
 stimulated our faith and that of our churches. God is 
 building better than we know, even when the great guns 
 shake the hills. 
 
 “Faith of our fathers, living still 
 In spite of dungeon, fire and sword.” 
 
 War drives many a man farther from God. War, also 
 helps bring many a man nearer to God. Thousands in 
 Europe are reading Bibles today that would have spurned 
 the thought before the war. Scoffers, before the war, are 
 
 20 
 
today seekers or at least willing listeners. Soldiers were 
 coming to our services, who understood only the “Amen.” 
 They wanted to be where the gospel was preached. A 
 young man went to the army a Romanist. He had never 
 attended the gospel services near his home. Someone 
 sent him while in the army, a Testament, and he returned 
 home on furlough to welcome the first opportunity to 
 worship with the people of God. 
 
 Our people had their eyes on a little city with the great 
 desire to give it the gospel. All efforts seemed unavail¬ 
 ing. Far away in Hungary, a soldier from that city was 
 convalescing. As he went one day in the garden back of 
 the hospital, he accosted a comrade reading a Bible, with, 
 “What are you reading?” 
 
 “God’s Word,” was the answer. 
 
 “I would like to read it too.” 
 
 “All right, take off your cap, throw that cigarette away. 
 We must reverence God’s word.” 
 
 This was the beginning, and the man with the Bible 
 led his comrade to Jesus. Then the doors were wide 
 open, through this soldier, for the gospel to enter into the 
 city so long closed. These are but illustrations of the way 
 the Kingdom is coming in spite of war and through the 
 war. We are sowing in tears; but we shall reap with joy. 
 
 Austria in America. 
 
 Austria is debtor to America, and America is also deep¬ 
 ly indebted to Austria. The two countries are inseparably 
 linked. No diplomatic break can sever the ties that bind 
 
 21 
 
the people of these so diverse countries together. Chil¬ 
 dren are laborers here; their parents are across the sea, 
 or vice versa. Even in the time of the Civil War, Bo- 
 hemians were among the first who left Chicago to do ser¬ 
 vice for our country under the name of “The Lincoln 
 Riflesand hundreds of our Bohemian and Slovek Ameri¬ 
 cans are now in training to fight our battles for us. 
 
 Christian Slavs, too, are doing valiant service in our 
 warfare with sin and infidelity, as well as anarchy through¬ 
 out America. Our Northwest has a progressive Slavic 
 worker who is battling for better schools and more self- 
 sacrificing loyalty in his section. This, aside from preach¬ 
 ing the gospel in two languages. The daughter of one of 
 our pastors in Bohemia wears the badge, “Travellers’ Aid” 
 at one of our great western railway stations in America. 
 She ofifers timely aid to women and girls, native and for¬ 
 eign, who might otherwise fall into the hands of the Red 
 Light district. 
 
 One of the most wide-awake evangelistic churches, in 
 almost our largest American city, is Bohemian. . Around 
 this church are hotbeds of sin and ignorance, anarchy and 
 infidelity, mixed with throttling superstition. In that 
 church are many awakened and converted in Bohemia. A 
 social settlement worker in a godless city in the heart of 
 America, hails from Bohemia. Several of our former 
 workers in Bohemia are doing valiant service in the coke 
 regions of Pennsylvania. The “big brother” to the immi¬ 
 grants of all nationalities in a great manufacturing city of 
 the Lhiited States is a Christian Bohemian. 
 
 22 
 
Our Christian schools for training young women to work 
 among all our foreign-speaking peoples here in America 
 are ever looking to our churches in Bohemia for recruits. 
 Here and there all over America are workers who 
 look over the seas when speaking of their spiritual birth¬ 
 place. The work among the five million Slavs of Ameri¬ 
 ca would be largely at a standstill were it not for the 
 workers who have come from Austria. 
 
 China has a missionary trained in Bohemia. Africa 
 has claimed one of our Prague young women. South 
 America has its quota from the churches of Bohemia, and 
 Canada as well. Russia and Bulgaria have profited from 
 Bohemia. 
 
 Bohemia is indeed, a little country. But as in the past, 
 so now, streams of living water flow thence to water and 
 refresh many a parched and desolate field, the wide world 
 around. Bohemia is in the heart of Europe. Bohemia 
 is fitted by location as well as by language and race to be 
 a prime factor in carrying the gospel to the one hundred 
 and fifty million of Slavs in Europe, Asia and America. 
 
 23 
 
U>nme Ammrait Hoard Publtratinna 
 
 Missionary Herald 
 
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 Year Book of Missions for 1918 
 
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 of Missions and the Prayer Calendar under one cover. Artistic, 
 informing, interesting. Is much admired. Price ten cents; by 
 mail, twelve cents. 
 
 Envelope Series 
 
 A quarterly issue of handy size; each number contains a fresh 
 interesting article on some aspect of the foreign missionary world. 
 Usually illustrated. Price ten cents a year. 
 
 Maps of the Missions 
 
 In booklet form; four color maps of all the Board’s missions, 
 with location of mission stations indicated. Up-to-date; in¬ 
 valuable for reference. Price, fifteen cents. 
 
 Story of the American Board 
 
 By Secretary William E. Strong. An account of the Board’s 
 first hundred years. Three editions: Library, $1.75; Popular, 
 $1.00; Paper Cover (without map), 50 cents. 
 
 Literature and Leaflets of the American Board may be 
 
 had by addressing: 
 
 John G. Hosmer, Congregational House, 14 Beacon St., 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Or at the District offices: 
 
 Rev. Edward Lincoln Smith, D. D., 4th Avenue and 
 22nd St., New York City. 
 
 Rev. A. N. Hitchcock, D. D., 19 So. La Salle Street, 
 
 Chicago, Ill. 
 
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 San Francisco, Cal. 
 
Start the New Year 
 
 
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