1 CHINESE ROBBERS. HERE are perils everywhere, but in some places the danger is very great. Christian workers often have to engage in their work at the risk of their lives, but they are willing to do this for Christ's No. 12.-DECEMBER, 1869. N sake, and are happy when they can say, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." One such worker in China has met a danger which has ended in death-a death which was "dying unto the Lord," and has ended in his having a martyr's crown. The Rev. James Williamson has been for several years one of our beloved and honoured missionaries in Tientsin, and God has given him much acceptance and success in his good work of preaching Christ to the natives. A short time since, he and the Rev. W. B. Hodge started in a boat up the Grand Canal to visit the out-stations of the mission, and after a passage of about thirty miles, they arrived at the market town of Chang-Kwantun, where the people were most friendly. To pass a quiet night, they pushed away from the surrounding boats and anchored near the opposite bank. Before retiring for the night, they sang a hymn together having these striking lines as the chorus: "My rest is in Heaven, my rest is not here; Then why should I murmur when trials are near ? The "worst" did come, for in the dead of the night the boat was attacked by robbers-lawless men who sought for plunder, and cared nothing about human lives; so while Mr. Hodge, after being knocked about, managed to escape, Mr. Williamson was assaulted, and knocked overboard and drowned. The body was not found for four days, but the authorities and people did all they could to recover it, as well as to find these robbers and murderers, and they are still seeking them. The body was brought to Tientsin and buried in the little Christian cemetery, amid the loving sympathy and fast-flowing tears of the native converts and missionaries, who committed it to the ground in sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection. "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord." M Good Words From Bristol. ANY of you who are looking out from month to month for news of your little fellow-workers, and how they manage their work, will be glad to learn the way in which some of us in the West of England have been able to raise £42 this year to help in sending the "good news we know and love so well to the heathen. There are thirty-five collectors among us, all of whom collect with their little books, chiefly in their own homes, from their brothers and sisters, their cousins, and sometimes from their fathers and mothers, and uncles and aunts, though these older relations and friends generally give more largely to the older collectors. Every quarter we meet at the home of the Secretary, when we bring in our money to our beloved minister, who tells us how the missionaries have been working; and sometimes he has to tell us of how they have been suffering too for Jesus Christ. Once he had to tell of the John Williams, our own missionary ship, being wrecked and lost; and then again of the building and equipping of another vessel sent out entirely by British children, to carry God's servants and God's Word to the heathen. We have heard, too, of the erection of the children's me morial church in Madagascar, part of which we count our own. And so, from time to time, through what we hear, we try more earnestly to do our part in this glorious work, as we feel "How many deeds of kindness I must tell you that lately we have thought of collecting the little coins that roll away so easily into the sweet-shops and into the toy-shops; and we have taken the advice of the "Children's Missionary Magazine," and caught some of them, just as they were rolling away, in our tiny missionary boxes. But these little nets we have not peeped into yet, and do not intend until our next anniversary services, when we hope to find how much we have saved that would otherwise have been worse than lost, because badly spent. You know, dear little friends, do you not, that God has given us all we have, that we may, through our unselfish way of using these gifts, realise that largest joy of all-the power of blessing others by our gifts, as He blesses us by His? The Lord Jesus Christ taught us this when He said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive;" and by His wondrous life, when He became poor for our sakes, that we through His poverty might be rich. So you see we are anxiously striving to work in our work that we should love to teach you how you can be so happy too. The first Wednesday in every month we meet at our Secre tary's house to make little frocks for the heathen children who are being taught in the Mission schools. We sing as we work (there are often thirty of us present, some as young as five years old), and then the lady reads, while two other younger ladies arrange the frocks and jackets, and the little picture pocket handkerchiefs and bags which are going out for rewards. Last year we sent twenty frocks to Africa. At the end of the meeting our minister comes in to read and sing and pray with us; and then, before we leave, we all have a bun and some lemonade. I have heard that many of the children look out very eagerly for their "working party notice," and as soon as one party is over begin to count the weeks till the next. We should be very glad if some of you could see how happy we all are together. I am sure you would wish to go home and do likewise." S. T. Redland, 1869. |