CHINA INLAND MISSION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5176, 7 November 1895, Page 3

CHINA INLAND MISSION.

VISIT FROM THE REV. G. NICOL.

A most interesting and instructive 'address was given by the Rev. G. 1 Nieol (one of (he China Inland Missionaries, at present touring the ' Australasian Colonics), lo a very ! representative though not large } assemblage, in the Mastorton Presbyterian Church, last evening, Mr Nicol, who is a pleasant speaker, gave a very appealingaccount of the' Inland Mission of China, which he declared was carried on by prayer and voluntary help alone, both of which had advanced the cause of Christianity in that dark, heathen land. Although, in his opinion, there was no more honourable calling than that of the Missionary, very few had, as yet, gone out to labour in the vast field for mission work before them in this Great Empire, where so many countless millions of inhabitants were livingand dying in total ignorance of Christianity. Since the Moravian Missionaries, who visited China and her people somewhere about the 7th century, the next to take the field were the Revs. Morrison and Milne, Presbyterian Missionaries, who went out in the early years of the second half of the present century, since which time a number of other Missionary Societies had sent out representatives, by whom groat work had been done.

11l the year 187"). the Rev, speaker said, an appeal was made by Ihe few Missionaries then in China, for another eighteen representatives to be sent out. The Rev. Mr Nicol was one of the eighteen young men who voluntoered to leave Great Britain and take up the work, and with a Mr Cameron and ut Mr Clarke, (the latter still being in China, whilst the former gentleman had since died in that laud), he went to his allotted station, which was populated by some 67,000 inhabitants At that time the South Western Provinces could not tell of a single convert; yet twenty years after, being our present year of 1895, they converted no less than 1,500, which inconsidoration of the many drawbacks to the peoplo becoming Christians, (move especially the curse of the opium drug), meant it great deal of trying and patient labour.

1 In 1882, in a province the people of which were addicted to opium-smok-ing, only thirty eonvertions were recorded, and yet the same year, in a part where it was not so greatly used, no fewer than 10,000 of the peoploembrncedChristianity. From an experience of fifteen years of life among the Chinese people, he could say with assurance that people were grossly misled by the statements of newspapers supplied with mission information from globe-trotters and others who were in their hearts opposed to the work. Some went so far as to state that the cost of a Chinese convert was somewhoro about £SOO, whereas in reality the amount was only some £47. .Some people reckoned all good work by cost; and yet it was a common occurrence to read of the flowers provided for a large banquet at Home, costing as much as £SOO, and an instance was recently recorded of where the flowers for a Royal Wedding cost no less than £2,000. Nobody murmured against this, and what was it compared to a convert to Christianity ? In the year 1853, there were only '350 converts, 2,000 in 18C3, 8,000 in 1873, 22,000 iu 1883, 50,000 in 1893, and somo 70,000 at the presont time, which under existing couditions,spokc volumes in praise of missionary work in China with her populationof3so,ooo,oooinuabitants, so many of whom are idolaters, slaves to customs and usages, and crushed down by the opium vico, a curse for which wo ourselves are both lawfully and morally responsible, He believed it to be by Divine judgment that the Kucheng and other massacres were perpetrated, in order to awaken Christians to a sense of their duty in regard to the Chinese people, and new missionaries were at the present time on their way to till the places of those who had died so nobly for so great a cause; amongst other volunteers being three Christchurch ladies, who leave with their Australian sisters, for that straugo land, to which he was anxious to return as soon as possible. The missionaries who had been already in the field many years, exercised a full amount of faith in prayer and whether it was a dozen or a hundred new helpers they prayed and appealed for, it was granted in every caso without exception, the same with all works in connection with the Inland China Mission, but there was more help wanted yet. Were Now Zealand to have as many preachers in the Held, in proportion, as China lias to-day, she would have to be content with the services of a solitary missionary and his wife. He (Mr Nicol) wondered how often they would see him. It was a shame that Christians had so sadly neglected what was their bouuden duty, to spread the Gospel iu all lands. The Rev. Mr Nicol was pressingly invited to extend his stay in Masterton, when he would have an opportunity of addressing tho people again and awakening interest in tho Mission work, under more favourable ciroumslauces, and though anxious to push on his mission northwards to Auckland, be decided to give the request due consideration.