HISTORY OF OUR CHINA MISSION. 183 They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; they have ears, but they hear not; noses have they, but they smell not; they have hands, but they handle not; feet have they, but they walk not; neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them," Well may we say with the writer of that Psalm, and rejoice when we say it, "Our God is in the heavens," “O Israel, trust thou in the Lord; he is their help and their shield." Cry earnestly to the Lord to hasten the time He has promised will come, when the "idols he will utterly abolish," and will bring in an everlasting reign of righteousnoss. A BRIEF HISTORY OF OUR CHINA MISSION. Extracted from one of the Juvenile Prize Essays. NEARLY nine years have now elapsed since the Rev. William C. Burns, the first missionary of our church to China, arrived at that distant country. On the 16th November, 1847, the ship in which he was a passenger, entered the pleasant and sequestered inlet of Hong Kong, surrounded and hemmed in by what he himself describes as quite the reverse from what he had pictured in his mind. The town of Hong Kong situated upon such a calm and pleasant bay was in a manner quite homelike and invigorating. He met with a hearty reception. Having been requested to officiate in a church, formed about a month after his arrival, till they could obtain a permanent minister, his time became occupied on the. Sabbath in preaching to a congregation of English settlers 184 HISTORY OF OUR CHINA MISSION. and soldiers who were steadily increasing in numbers. In order to acquire the peculiar and complex language with something like facility, he engaged a Chinese teacher, with whom, along with his two servants, he had retired to a house which he had taken in a central part of the town, that he might mingle more with the native Chinese and be as free from intercourse with the English as possible; having for the first two months after his arrival resided in an Engligh family. A very small portion of his teacher's time being occupied with himself during the day, he had engaged this house with the idea of causing him to employ his spare time in teaching a few Chinese children, either as boarders or day scholars, and also as a means of getting more into intercourse with the inhabitants. He had the privilege also of ministering to the spiritual wants of the prisoners in the jail, with whom he often read and prayed. In nearly all of his letters he speaks much of the advantages of sending sowers to the almost boundless harvest field, where dwell, not such ruthless savages as inhabit the Edens of the southern seas, but the civilised subjects of a dynasty which has stood for ages an example of secular attainments, and yet the Saviour of our sinful world is unknown among them; these are the tidings which our missionary asks for others to assist him in spreading. In the January of 1849 Mr. Burns discontinued ministering to his English congregation, after having preached fourteen months, that he might direct his efforts exclusively to the objects of his mission, in whose language he had attained such proficiency as to be intelligible in some places, having had twelve months' exclusive application to it. His first movement in the carrying out this resolution was to the village of Tseen-Wau, then HISTORY OF OUR CHINA MISSION. 185 from it to Pat-Haung, or "Eight Villages," about thirtyfive miles distant from Hong Kong, and several others, in which he was encouraged by good reception and much success. After being on the continent seven weeks, during which time he had visited several villages but no large towns, he returned to the Chinese hospital at Hong Kong, where he had lodged for some time, that he might change his English for the Chinese costume, and so evade the inconveniences attendant to a foreign dress. After a few days, relaxation he again returned to the continent, where he visited the village of Paw Teen in the province of Canton, thirty-five miles north of Hong Kong. He remained more than a month but was necessitated to return earlier than he had at first intended, from the circumstance of the messenger who carried his correspondence having been attacked by plunderers and seriously injured. Placing himself under the protection of the omniscient eye of Him who had hitherto protected him in all his wanderings, he returned to Hong Kong with his maimed assistant. Eleven days after his premature return he again embarked for the continent, but after being buffeted about nine days on the water he was compelled to return without effecting a landing. About three months elapsed after this illsuccess before he again essayed to cross the surface of the Chinese Sea, which interval he employed in studying their complex hieroglyphical language. On the 4th of September he engaged a passage to Amoy, and in certainty thereof his luggage, &c., had been carried on board, but through the interposition of the Divine will, he was prevented from prosecuting his design, for the anxieties of the altered duties in prospect had laid him on a bed of sickness, smitten with a fever from which in two weeks he had so far recovered as to enable him to be out of doors. 186 THE JUVENILE REPORTER. After returning to and remaining upon the coast fourteen days he was compelled to make a hasty return, their lodging having been broken into and pillaged by robbers, leaving them scarce anything. On the 23rd February, along with Mr. James Young, the medical missionary appointed by the Synod in June, 1849, Mr. Burns went to Canton, but their search for suitable premises was for the time fruitless, and Dr. Young returned to. Hong Kong, while Mr. Burns remained in Canton to study the dialect, for which purpose he engaged a suitable lodging along with another missionary, till he could find some other place. Dr. Young, on his return to Hong Kong, was just in time to join a party of missionaries bound for Amoy, which place they reached on the 18th May, and to Dr. Young's agreeable surprise he found the people kind and affable, and an open field for educational operations. He obtained from Mr. Doty, an American missionary (and which that gen. tleman had not time properly to attend to), a school of thirty scholars, into which Dr. Young was formerly inducted on the 27th May; he found the children interested and even anxious to be taught. (To be concluded in our next.) THE JUVENILE REPORTER. SUMMER, with all its warmth, and love, and joy, and beauty, is away. The dark, hazy clouds of damp, dull winter hang all around us; or, if they ever disappear, it is before the wild, howling, wintry winds, that rush so relentlessly through the dwellings and hearts of the poor. Ah, me! how dreary is winter; it is always scowling or sighing; scarcely ever does a warm gleam of summer gladness light up its cold dull heart. THE JUVENILE REPORTER. 187 But your poor old reporter is becoming "poetical " without knowing it. The chief thing he intended to say was, that as Christmas is so near at hand, he will report no more this year; and, therefore, before saying "Goodbye," and wishing a happy Christmas, he has a word to say for himself, a word for the editor, and another to you. He is not going to scold, because, if he did so, he would have to begin with himself, and that might not be quite convenient at present. He looks back on the year (which is now sinking in the socket) with a not very easy conscience, because he has done so much evil and so little good; lived so much for himself and sin and Satan, and so little for God. What a terrible waste there has been of opportunities and privileges-of means of doing good, and of getting good, but for this year the chances are all away. With the new year he is going to adopt a new plan. Instead of sometimes a page and sometimes less, he is going to have two whole pages for himself; and these he intends to fill with all sorts of news and all sorts of things; about missions and missionaries, Sabbath schools and day schools, prisons and prisoners, heathens abroad and heathens at home; in short, he means to have his eyes about him at all times and on all occasions; and he hopes the result will be a treasury of news that every boy and girl will be glad to read, And he is requested to say that the Editor has also some new plans for the next year's work. Among other things, beginning with the new year, there will be a number of Chapters called "Walks in London," written by a gentleman, under the name of Old Allan Gray; who says he is quite sure that the "one half of the world does not know how the other half lives." |