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Library

Universi
of

Florida

A
in

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“S

The Baldw:

oS

Reo







Al [Missionary [dools

LONDON
CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY
SVAIGIS ISOM SOUUNRIE; Iles
1896

WET UTE I a eee Ch eee



LONDON:
PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIViNGTON, LD,
ST. JOHN’S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL, E.C,





PREFACE.

LDLSSSLSIIN

HAT can be the meaning of such a title
as “ Boys and Boys”? We talk of
“Boys and Girls,” but why ‘“ Boys
and Boys”? Would not the one
word ‘“‘ Boys” be enough?

Well, sometimes we repeat a word in this way
in order to express contrast. You know the differ-
ence between one bat and another, or between one
boat and another. I may have a bat that is
sprung, and that jars my hands as I use it; or I
may have a bat which can drive. If I want an
hour or two on the river, I turn from one boat
because it is a “great tub of a thing,” and I choose
another because it looks light and swift. So we
may say there are ‘‘ bats and bats,” ‘‘ boats and
-boats.”

In the same way there are “‘ boys and boys.”
There are tall boys and short boys, clever boys and
stupid boys, active boys and lazy boys, amiable
boys and quarrelsome boys. In this book the
differences that one notices first are differences of
race and colour and language. You will read
about African boys who are black, and Arab boys
who are brown, and Bengali boys who are darker
brown, and Chinese boys who are yellow, and
Red Indian boys whose colour we know by their

A 2





4 Preface.

name. So that the book might properly be en-
titled, “‘ Boys and Boys and Boys and Boys and
Boys and Boys and Boys and Boys and Boys ’—
nine sorts in the nine chapters.

But the title is right after all. For the book
really tells of two great divisions of boys—boys
who are not Christians and boys who are. It
reminds us that Jesus Christ, who was Himself a
Boy, who died for all boys, and who lives now to
bless all boys, has never even been heard of by
more than half the boys in the world! And its
chapters have been mostly written by men, young
men, who have gone out to Africa and India and
China and other lands to tell those boys of the
Saviour they have never heard of, and who there-
fore have seen and felt the tremendous difference
between “‘ boys” and “ boys.”

But this tremendous difference may be seen

and felt here at home. There are “ Boys and
Boys” at Eton and Harrow. There are ‘“ Boys
and Boys” in a village school. There are Eng-
lish boys who are proud and happy to have the
Lord Jesus for their Captain and their Friend;
and there are English boys who dislike His
.nhame and His word and His service, and don’t
want to have anything to do with Him. Yes,
there are ‘‘Boys and Boys” everywhere. In
which division are you? Remember, the boys
who have ranged themselves on Christ’s side are
on the Winning Side.

Now read away! And then see if you boys who
do know Jesus Christ cannot take your part in
telling those other boys who don’t.

EUGENE Srock,



CHAP.

II.

III.
IV.

VI.
VII.
VIII.

IX.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
Boys AND Boys. By the Rev. W. E. Bur-
ROUGHS : 3 : 5 : Seg ari],
Boys :OF West Arrica. By Mr. T. E.
ALVAREZ : : ; : : ; Nelo

WAGANDA Boys. By Mr. G. L. PILKINGTON. 29
Boys OF PALESTINE. By Mirek th HELIS fa40
BENGALI Boys. By Mr. P.H.SHAUL . dt
Boys or CEYLON. By Mr. SYDNEY SIMMONS 64
CHINESE Boys. By Mr.C.T.STupp . a 3
JAPANESE Boys. By a Missionary in Japan ao

AMERICAN-INDIAN Boys. By the Rev. H. W.
G. STOCKEN . : : 5 : 6 QS

CONCLUSION. By Dr. C. F. HARFORD-

BATTERSBY . 5 ‘ : x 3 Reo

APPENDIX. — THE CHURCH MISSIONARY
SOCIETY ; ; : : j : paket



ISIE OF TELUS RNAIIONS:

Crows building their Nest .

One of our great Public
Schools

Calling the Roll .

Krooboys in their Canoes

Making for the shelter of the
Water

Waganda Boys .

Main Entrance to King’s
Palace, Mengo . :

A Muganda Boy carrying a
load :

The Bishop Gobat Shuicolt
Jerusalem.

The way Noratan was
dressed before he came to
the School

Esa with his Violin

A Street in Jerusalem .

View of Calcutta .

Bengali Boy cooking his I* Sod

Bengali Christian Boys :

A Bengali Village Street

PAGE

9

12
15

17 |

44

60



PAGE

“ Wabadibe!” . 65
On the beach at Colombo 68
Inside a Buddhist Temple 73
Bungalows in Ceylon 76
Chinese Father and Son 79
Two Chinamen 81
| Kite-flying 84
A group in a Japanese Street 89
Abacus or Counting-board . 92
In the month of May 94
A Temple in Japan 96
Red Indian ‘‘ Papooses’’ . 100
A young Hunter . . 104
| Hunting on Horseback » 105
| A Blackfoot Family » 109
An African Bedstead . . III
Capturing a Slave . 112
A Moslem Boy . 116
Market Scene in Africa . 117
The Church Missionary
House. . : - 121
Miscellaneous 7, 16, 21, 25, 51,
64, 123



BONS AN) BOYS:







——
CHAPTER I.
BOYSj AND BOYS.
“ BY THE
Ain ce) Sa
‘al anh Rev. W. E. BURROUGHS.

FRICA,” wrote a modern
schoolboy, when asked to
say what he knew of the
Dark Continent, ‘is a large
country chiefly composed of
sand and elephants, the

centre of which was unin-

habited until that wicked man Stanley
filled it up with towns and villages.”

It is to be trusted that none of our boy
ar Uf & readers may be so ignorant as_ this

; schoolboy was—or, if they should share



Studying Crows.

his lack of knowledge when they commence this
little book, we do hope they will have parted with
that ignorance when they reach the last chapter.
‘Boys and Boys.” What does our title mean ?
Well, just this—that besides our own boys, our
bright, brave, honest, English boys, who make our
homes here so full of life and restless energy, there
are other boys, not a bit like you in face or feature,
in complexion or habit,—and yet they, too, are
boys, with boys’ hearts, and boys’ lithe, active
bodies, and boys’ big hopes and dreams, and boys’
immortal souls—to be lost or saved. Yes, there
are ‘‘boys and boys”; we know it, and we want
you to know it and remember it too. For xaturally
we do not care to think of more than ourselves. I
have lately been studying crows, as each morning
I must pass under a group of tall elms where is
a colony of these noisy birds busy building their
nests, and I have come to the conclusion that they
are terribly suspicious, and terribly selfish. For
while one of each pair is seeking for fresh twigs ©
for the new house, the other bird sits close by the
bundle already gathered, warning off every brother
crow, lest, haply, another’s nest should be helped
on from the materials which are so. jealously
guarded, and which have been so laboriously
obtained. Evidently up in those elm-tops it is a
case of ‘‘ crows,” and not of “‘ crows and crows.”



A Hurrying Crowd. 9




fRows BUILDING THEIR

Nesr,

And then when I pass on through the street of
a quiet country town which is filled many times a
day with the hurrying crowd of six hundred boys
of one of our great public schools, and so am kept



10 Boy Followers of Christ.

in constant remembrance that there are ‘‘ boys”’
here, I long that they and I should let our
thoughts sometimes wander away to the world’s
other sides—to Africa and China, to India and
North America—and think that there too are
“boys ’—our brothers—‘‘ Boys and Boys.”

It is with a good hope to win your interest and
help for other boys that we have written these
pages. All which you will read there in subse-
quent chapters has been written by those who
have themselves lived in Heathen lands amongst
their boys, and found them so often just as much
to be loved and liked as the dear. boys at home.
Yes, and they can tell us that when these same
boys have learnt to love and serve Jesus Christ,
they have proved themselves, under persecution
and trials such as you have no conception of, to
be noble, true-hearted, devoted followers of their
Lord.

But I must not anticipate in this opening chap-
ter what you may read for yourselves in those
which follow. I would rather suggest two or three
good reasons why we should keep in the front: of
our minds that there are ‘‘ Boys and Boys,” white
boys and coloured boys, boys’ whom we see and
know and love, and boys whom we never have
seen, nor ever shall till we all meet before God’s
throne ; boys who have heard of and learnt about:



England’s Possessions. II

God and heaven and a Saviour’s love, and boys
who have never heard of the God who made them,
of the Saviour who died for them, and of the bright
and blessed home where is room for them, as well
as for you and me.

I. English boys should think of ‘‘ Boys and
Boys,” because England has many of these Hea- ’
then boys under her charge and care. We are
all very proud of England; we look at the map
and see how small these little islands look which
we call ‘‘ The United Kingdom,” and then recol-
lect that that small kingdom rules over one-third
of the population of the world. Our hearts feel
big and our heads are high as we think of our
wide possessions in America and Africa, in Asia
and the Archipelagoes. Great Britain owns a far
Greater Britain, upon which the sun never sets!
Ah! but there is something in this to make us
very solemn, perhaps even very sad. Should we
not think it very wrong if a man had a very big
property from which he derived a large income,
and yet he only cared for the servants in and
around his house and gardens, but entirely neg-
lected the tenants beyond his park gates? This
is just the position of England. She possesses a
vast and’ rich inheritance, and hers would be
eternal shame and disgrace, and loss too, if she
neglected the far-away parts of her possessions ;



12 Strong and Real Bonds.

and, surely, we are bound to give all we deem
best and most needful to those who are, though
far away, united to us by strong and real bonds.
Do we believe that any nation can be truly great
or happy without Christianity—without the Bible?
Then should we not give that Book and all its
blessings to India and to Africa?

II. This would mean a big work, but there is a

Fa
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iy

b, { . fp
ae eat .




g




Vy

One of our great Public Schools ’’ (Harrow.
ne of gi ublic Schools "’ (Harrow.) Xe ere \



Christ's Command. 13

yet bigger one to which we are as much bound as
to the evangelizing of England’s vast possessions
in heathen lands, and that is, the Evangelization of
the World! You are not only Exglish boys, you
are also Christian boys, that is ‘‘you belong to
Christ,” and, unless you are untrue to your name,
His will and command should be obeyed. And
you know that our Lord Jesus ad very plainly tell
_ us (Matt. xxviii. 19, Mark xvi. 15, Acts i. 8) that
this was our duty, the duty of aM Christians, and
so the duty of every Christian ; and, in their own
way, and so far as they can fulfil it, the duty of
all Christian boys. I need not dwell on this,
because when you come to the last chapter of this
volume you will find that Dr. Harford-Battersby
has told you how you may fulfil Christ’s command.

It is nearly 700 years ago since the boys and
girls of France and of Germany were fired with a
holy enthusiasm to plan and carry out a crusade
of their own.* I suppose they could not live in
those wondrous days of splendid though ill-directed
consecration to what was thought to be the cause
of Christ, without catching the spirit of their age,
and resolving to do their little best to rescue-the
Holy Cross and the Holy Sepulchre from the
Infidel. In France 30,000 children, under the
boy Stephen, encamped around Vendéme, and in

* See The Crusades, by G. W. Cox (Longmans).



14 “ Crusaders.”

the same year (A.D. 1212) 20,000 German boys and
girls set out from Cologne under the peasant lad
Nicholas. There is something touching and beau-
tiful in the assembling of those bright boys and
earnest girls, turning their backs on homeland and
kindred, to claim their share in the high and holy
enterprise of those dark ages. No matter if they
were mistaken in what they did, no matter if they
sadly and sorely failed; we think of their so¢cve
and of their az, of their se/f-denzal, and of their
bravery, and we long in these brighter days to see
English boys not ashamed nor afraid to be ‘ Cru-
saders,’’ banded to carry the Cross of Jesus Christ
into those dark lands where as yet the story of the
Love of Jesus and the Death of Jesus has never
come.

To help towards this our little Book has been
written ; and let each boy as he reads remember
and think of that young man who, beyond all
question, did more for the world than any mortal
man before or since, Saul of Tarsus, and with him
ask, ‘‘ Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” And
if God should answer your question in the years
to come, by opening your heart to be willing to go
“far hence unto the Gentiles,” and by opening
the way for you really to be sent—then on you
will have been laid the highest, holiest, happiest
work which even our Master has to entrust to any
servant. You know, dear boys, how prized and



Ready to Die. 15

coveted and honoured is the decoration known as
the V.C.; it is confined to no rank in the Queen’s
army—the little drummer-boy might win it as
soon as the grey-headed colonel. It is reserved
for the man—the boy—who saves another’s life
upon the deadly battle-field, and who is ready
to die by the whistling bullet or the sharp sabre
cut, if only he can carry safely the wounded
comrade from the strife. And when we see our
Missionary bands go forth to India, to China, to
darkest Africa, where God’s battle is deadliest,
and the poor dying ones lie thickly around, we
think of a day coming when the Lord of Hosts,
who has been watch-
ing the conflict and its
heroes, shall not fail to






recognize and reward,—
“Well done, good and
faithful servant ! ”



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16 White Men Welcome.

CHAPTER II.

BOYS OF WEST AFRICA,
By Mr. T. E. ALVAREZ.



OW we are going to take a little
journey, ‘and visit the African boys
in their homes on the West Coast.
Right glad will they be to see us,
for in African villages the arrival of
Europeans is a very rare occurrence,
and there are many, many boys
living in Africa, not very far pon

the cbast, who have never seen a ‘“‘ white -man,”’

much less a “white boy,” in all their lives. So

you must not mind if, as we do our best to get a

good look at them, they too are a little inquisitive

and anxious to learn all they can about us.

A couple of hours before high-tide our journey
begins from Freetown, and soon we are well on
our way up-country, with the sea-breeze filling
the two sails of our mission-boat, and carrying us
swiftly past the Krooboys (see picture) in their







Brave Fellows. 17

frail canoes, hurrying to their homes before the
river-tide begins to ebb. They are brave fellows,
these Kroomen, and manage their small craft
splendidly in the choppy sea; but somehow we
feel safer in our own tight little vessel, and we
admire without envying.

It is a strange journey this—so different from
anything we have known in England: the great



















































































































































































Krooboys in their Canoes.



18 Chattering Monkeys.

estuary, nearly six miles across, gradually narrow-
ing until we can see both sides of the river quite
plainly ; the banks covered with mangrove trees,
the homes of hundreds of chattering monkeys;
now and then a sudden splash in the water
attracts our attention, and we are just in time
to see the tail of an alligator, who has apparently
been sleeping with his weather-eye open, disap-
pearing under the water. We are just looking
at what seem to be small thick logs lying
-in the mud on the river-bank, when suddenly
‘these take to themselves feet, and, as they
waddle down to the water, we see that we
have been disturbing the midday siesta of a
family of little alligators, who, awaking from
their quiet snooze to see their father steadily
making for the shelter of the water, think very
wisely that they cannot do better than follow his
example.

Now the breeze begins to drop and the sails to
flap about, and the order is given to take down
the mast and get out the sweeps. Five men row
at a time, and hard work it is, as the men know,
for off comes all that they can possibly do without
in the way of clothing, and, as every minute with
the tide is precious, in a very short time the boat
is-answering in splendid style to the lusty-strokes
of the rowers; and now we must just settle our-



Uncomfortable Travelling. 19

selves down for five or six hours’ most uncom-
fortable travelling.

When we started all was bright and cheerful
all round us; but now the night is coming on,.
and the splash of the oars gets very monotonous,
to say nothing of the shaking of the boat at every
stroke, and the awful din of the boatmen singing
in chorus within a few feet of us. What are we
to do? Sleep is out of the question, and reading
impossible. Happy thought! we will make some
tea. We have been so busy enjoying all our
surroundings and talking while the daylight
lasted, that we have forgotten to be hungry;







Making for the Shelter of the Water,
B2



20 A Picnic Tea.

but now, closed in from the heavy night-dew
beneath our canvas awning, and able scarcely
_to see one another’s faces by the dim light
of the lantern, Nature—the old schoolboy nature
—reasserts itself, and protests against being so
long neglected.

In the search for the tea-basket all the rowing
has to be suspended, for this little travelling com-
panion has a provoking way of getting below all
the other packages in the boat; but at last the
offender is brought to light, and the stove and
kettle prepared for action. How anxiously we
try to foil the attempts of the wind, which seems
determined to baffle our hopes of tea by putting
out our little spirit-lamp; at last our efforts are
rewarded by the welcome sight of steam issuing
from our kettle. ;

The joyful news is immediately telegraphed
through the boat, for the men have been deeply
interested in our preparations; and though they
have not yet acquired a taste for hot tea, they.
nevertheless have learnt that the ‘white God-
man’ does not like to eat alone, and hope
accordingly.
~ Before they get their biscuits, and as we are
enjoying our meal, shall we take a look at them ?
Bright, ‘strong, merry fellows they are—scarcely
more than boys, three of them. They look some-



No difference in God’s sight. al

how as though they would
have made capital “for-
wards” in the school “‘ pack ”
with us, had they been white
and God had sent them to
the same school with us in

England.
What a wonderful differ-
ence colour makes! Yet



as we sit in the boat with ,
plenty of time to think, I am
thinking how in God’s sight colour makes no
difference—how He loves all men, and “ willeth
not that any should perish.” Many, however,
who go out to this sad coast would regard
our boatmen as belonging to a lower creation ;
and so the natives almost think themselves,
and in their simple manner congratulate us on
the love of God. ‘God loves the white man,”
they tell us often when we go to them for the
first time, “but He does not care about us.”
Oh, what joy tc feel
that we may in the
name of the King
of Kings challenge
this lie of Satan,
and so consecrate
our service unto



cul Lay)



22 Strange Rowing.

«

Him, that through our poor lives of love
they may be drawn to believe in that higher
Love which brought our Master from His
home in heaven to live and die for them
and us!

How strange their rowing must seem to you as
you watch them! and how shocked our ’Varsity
friends would be to see men standing up all
together on the thwarts to row every third stroke,.
and what a ‘‘shock”’ we should have if we tried
to do such a thing on the Thames in a light
“eight”! Yet this is what these men are doing.
The fact is, that they know they cannot row for
five, hours in one position, and this is their
remedy—a remedy which, however, keeps the
boat continually quivering from end to end, and
effectually prevents anyone getting even a few
minutes’ sleep. However, they are very happy,
and we are getting along, so we must not
complain. Saat

And now our long journey is nearly over. A
light in the distance a mile away tells us that
friends are expecting us; and now comes the
boatmen’s turn. Shall we listen to the words of
their Temne song as we approach our destina-
tion? Evidently they are grateful for the relics
of our evening meal, and their gratitude would

seem to be indeed a “lively sense of favours to



Walking the Beam. 23

come,” if the words they are singing have any
meaning :—
“ The God-man is come far over the sea ;
He’s a very fine man, my master, O!
For he wanted to come to our country ;
He’s a very fine man, my master, O !
His boatmen we’re all very glad to be,
And now that we’ve brought him our town to see,
A beautiful present he’ll give to me ;
Such a very fine man, my master, O!”

At.last we are on /erra firma again, and a few
minutes’ walk through numerous intricate lanes
of the little town of Bake Loko bring us to the
mission-house. After very welcome refreshment,
we are soon in the arms of Morpheus, snug within
the sheets; for on the morrow we must be up
betimes, if we would see the African boys in their
homes, away from all missionary influence and
civilization. :

Away we start at 5.30 the next morning, press-
ing on as far as we can before the sun gets hot.
There are no horses, so we must ride on our own
legs, and the porters’ heads will take our baggage.
Now we are putting to the test the skill we gained
at school in walking the beam, for we have to
cross a very primitive bridge, consisting of a long
and slippery trunk of a palm-tree, spanning a
muddy swamp; next we are hauled on men’s,
shoulders over another swamp, where there is not



24 No Windows !

even this convenience. Then, just as the sun-
is getting warm, and you are getting decidedly
hungry, we reach a huge river, to find that the
canoe to cross by is away on the other side, and
we must sit down and wait while one of our men
swims over to bring it. After a very few days’
journey filled with all sorts of exciting adventures
_ —pleasant and otherwise—we shall be able to get
to some large town where no missionary, and
possibly no white man, has ever been before us,
and there we shall be able to study the ‘‘ Heathen
at home” and the African boy among his usual
surroundings.

First, what kind of a house does he live in?
Very different is his home from those we are
accustomed to see day by day here in old
'England. If you can imagine a circular wall of
mud and a cone-shaped grass thatch on top of it,
you will have some idea of an African house.
Windows there are none, but two openings, one.
on each side of the hut, let in just enough light
to reveal all the dirt and dust which abound on
every side.

How well I remember my first evening in one
of these African huts. The first thing I saw wasa
great network of osiers covered with soot hanging
from the centre of the roof, and I suggested to
my servant that I would prefer to have all that



Florrid little Neighbours ! 25

mass of soot removed before I slept in the hut;
but he firmly refused to touch it, explaining that
the “spirit” of the hut would be very angry if we
interfered with it. So there was nothing for it
but to roll myself in my rug, and lie down on the
mud floor of the hut and try to sleep. Not a
very hard thing, you will say, after marching for
between five and six hours.

But unfortunately for me a number of rats had
apparently chosen my hut as a suitable place for
a small evening-party, and, after having races all
over my boxes, began to devote their attentions
to me, and introduced themselves in a very sum-
mary fashion by carrying off my candle bodily,
and then tugging at my hair. How horrid! you
will say; but it is surprising how soon you get
used to rats and cockroaches and mosquitoes
in Africa. They are such constant friends, and
make themselves so very much at home with you
wherever you go, that very soon you do not mind
them a bit.

So much for
the house. . But
you will say, “I
want to know
how the boys
live,” so I must
tell you.





26 No Cricket or Football,

They rise about half-past five in the morning,
and sometimes wash, but generally don’t, when
they get up. Then after a little of something to
eat, most of them go off to the fields to work hard
all day till nearly six in the evening, when they
return for.their evening meal; others will be sent
off with a 60-lbs. load of rice or palm-nuts or
cassada-roots on their heads to the nearest
trading-station, there to exchange their goods for
salt, cloth, matches, or anything they wish to
buy. Others, again, generally the younger ones, ’
will be engaged in bringing water, or wood to
keep up the fires, or looking after the chickens
and goats belonging to their home or village.

Dreary and sad their lives are—day after day
their work is always the same. Any moment an
enemy from a neighbouring town may swoop
down upon them and burn their village, and take
them away to live the whole of the rest of their
lives as slaves. They know nothing of happy
school-days, for they have no one to teach them,
or of jolly picnics and games of cricket and foot-
ball; almost their only amusement is to dance
round the fire at night to some weird tune of
about three notes played on a wooden drum.
Sometimes, it is true, we come upon a merry
party of boys swimming about in some river ; but
this is a rare sight, and we may almost say that



Their Religion. 27

African boys do not know how to play games,
because no one has been to teach them.

“And what,” you will ask, ‘is the religion
of these people?” Needless to say that they have
no Sunday or day of rest as we have; but I do
not want you to think of them as idolaters, for
that they are not. They believe, as-you do, that
God is their Creator, and that there is an Evil
Spirit always seeking to do them harm; but they
know nothing of God’s love, for they believe that
He takes no interest in their lives, but that con-
tinual sacrifices must be offered to appease the
Evil Spirit, whom practically they worship. Out-
side every village you will find a little devil-house,
where sacrifices may be offered at any time.

Many of the chief natives, again, are Moham-
medans, and it is this terrible religion that is
mainly responsible for the continuance of the
two great curses of Africa—the slave-trade and
polygamy. Look with me along this forest-
path at this line of half-starved human beings
travelling—many of them in chains, and several
women and young children—in the dim moon-
light towards the interior of Africa. Many of
them. have been captured by the sword during a
night attack on their villages; others have been
bought from their own parents in exchange for
cattle or cloth.



28 “ Well you take it ?”

_ Look at another group: here is a chief travel-
ling at ease, and behind him follow a long line
of twenty or thirty ill-clad and famished-looking
women—his wives—with heavy loads on their
backs, following their master through the heat
of an African sun. This is the fruit of Moham-
medanism—slavery and polygamy, the great open
sores of Africa.
* * * me

Oh, that God*would lead some of you, my
younger brothers, who will read this, to conse-
crate your bright young lives for Christ and
Africa to the healing of these open sores with
the precious “‘ balm of Gilead ’’—the message of a
Saviour’s dying love. The angels in Heaven have
not the privilege that you may have of witnessing
for Him: to none of them has it ever been given
to brave the dangers of the West Coast and of
African fever to bring the saving knowledge of
Christ to perishing souls; but unto you it is given.

Will you take it? Will you kneel down xow
and consecrate your life to Him for the extension
of His kingdom? claiming the privilege of fellow-
ship in His sufferings—maybe, even in His death.

“For where He died would I also die;
Far dearer a grave beside Him
Than a kingly place among living men,
Tle place which they denied Him.”



“ Jolly” Boys. 29

CHAPTER III.
WAGANDA BOYS.

By Mr. G. L. PILKINGTON.

pee URLY hair, large brown eyes, the
: white with a Pacis
shade of ~ ets



green in it,
broad mouth, thickish
lips, and a good lump.
of a nose, these are
generally the salient
features of a. Muganda
boy. Then as to cha- °
racter, he probably pos-
sesses a good many of ‘




the qualities that go Zi
under the name _ of
Suiolly. jn.tond of. fun
and pleasure (especially
of food and plenty of
it), with a considerable
sense of humour, good-
natured, eager for : :
adventure, with a very * Waganda Boys,



30 Born Sportsuten,

strong feeling of loyalty to king or chiet. In fact,
when you penetrate under the dark skin, you find
that there is very little difference between him and
his paler relations; especially those of them that
come from the country that once was called the
“Isle of Saints.”

Are the Waganda boys fond of games? Yes;
but their chief games have been the stern one of
war, and the scarcely less exciting one of hunting.
Quite small boys of twelve or fourteen accompany
their liege lords to the wars, and carry rifles and
use them, and they are all born sportsmen in the
best sense; the Waganda will surround a lion in
his lair, and kill him with spears, or even some-
times, I’m told, with sticks ; of course, in leopard
or lion hunting a vast number take part, and
death and serious mauling are not uncommon.

But they have some games proper of their own;
one very good one consists in hurling short, stout
sticks with a peculiar twist so that they spin along
the ground like the spoke of a revolving wheel ;
this game has elaborate rules which I can’t give
here, and the knack of hurling properly is ‘not
easy to acquire, as I know by dismal failure after
many attempts. Then they playa sort of hockey,
and prisoner’s base, both introduced, no doubt,
from Europe.

Then for indoor games, they havea game of the



A “ Counting Gane.” 31

nature of—what shall I say ?—draughts or chess.
It is played on a board, and the players move
alternately, but otherwise it is quite different,
except that it requires the same power of looking
ahead and imagining what the board will be like
when several moves have been made. Proficiency
in it implies a great power of counting and
calculating—in fact, it might be called the
“counting game”; and possibly, if introduced
into England, schoolmasters might be induced
to patronize it, as a pleasant way of teaching
arithmetic. Waganda boys of ten or twelve can
beat me hollow at it, in spite of Dr. Colenso and
other wise men at whose feet (metaphorically) I
have sat.

Can they tell good stories? This is their
strong point, I should say. Every African is
blessed or cursed with the “gift of the gab.”
And they can give a vivid account of adventures
through which they have most of them passed,
snapping their fingers in a peculiar way to
emphasize every sentence. Then they have an
unlimited store of beast stories, about Mr. Fox and
Mr. Bear, and so on; and all they say is illus-
trated by proverbs. The Waganda are a most
wonderful people for proverbs: so to say, pro-
verbs were their Bible; the only generally recog-
nized authority and wise judge to whom an appeal



32 Proverbs.

could be made. Nothing so easily convinces an
average Muganda as one of his own proverbs.
“ Akwana akira ayomba,” ‘‘ Friendship is better
than quarrelling”’; how often have I found this
act like oil on troubled waters! ‘Does the
monkey: decide forest cases?”’; how often has
this put an end to an attempt to appeal in some
disputed point to a not impartial umpire? Of
course, the monkey is not a disinterested judge in
any case which affects the forest, his home: the
wolf is no fair judge of the lamb.

Are they truthful? Not at all. They are
absolute masters of the wretched art of telling a
lie as if it were the truth, and sometimes they will
persist even against proof positive. But I need
hardly say that when they are really converted,
that is all changed.

They are very handy, these Waganda boys. If
they have not much book-learning, they have
something much more important, the use of their
hands and eyes. Simple in their wants, they can
clothe, feed, and house themselves fairly well, and
thereby develop a certain independence which
has its advantages and disadvantages.
_ What sort of clothes do they wear? The real

native dress is bark cloth, the bark of a kind of’
fig tree, cut in strips, scraped, and beaten out
with grooved mallets, and then sewn together



Flowing Rodes, 35

with native-made needles and cotton made of
plantain fibre. This is a good dress in many
ways, but has the serious disadvantage of not





Hand taltaagle 2
© To
Knfes Tauace

ab



being washable! So those who can afford it

adopt calico instead, and very well they look

dressed in flowing robes of this material, snow-

white ; for about this those again who can afford
zac






34 Physical Strength,

it are very particular. There is therefore a large
demand for European soap. Don’t adopt the
common error of supposing that an African has no
taste, and only appreciates flaming colours in the
worst possible taste; quite the contrary. A
Muganda, at least, would not be seen in such a
garb; he appreciates just a little quiet colour
in his dress, but that is all. This white cloth
looks particularly well in contrast to their dark
skins.

When a Muganda boy is about five or six years
old he leaves his father’s house and, as a rule,
enters the service of some chief. So their home
ties are not nearly so strong as ours. This is one
of the things which we expect soon to be much
modified by Christianity.

Physically, they are very hardy. No Muganda
boy needs more than one meal a day, although he
makes no objection to four or more if he can get
them. He can travel twenty miles or so a day,
carrying all his belongings in a bundle weighing
about 30 Ibs. on his head, without any great
fatigue, and sleeping in the open, if necessary.
He can wade through rivers and marshes up to
his neck for a great part of the day, and be none
the worse for it. The tropical sun he rather
enjoys, of course, than otherwise.

Now, do you know what has been in my mind



Native Missionaries, 35

while I have been writing these last words? I
havé been half wishing that I had been a Muganda
boy myself! Because, you know, I ama missionary,
and have to do a great deal of travelling; but then
my wretched European body needs a whole lot of
things to keep it in health, and I get fever when
I wade through a marsh or if I don’t get my three
meals a day; and the sun broils all the strength
out of me, and I can’t go about much without a
tent, and a quantity of clothes and tea, and knives
and forks and spoons. Oh, how I’ve envied those
Waganda boys sometimes! But then God gave
me my body, such as it is, and I must do the best
I can with it for Him. But think what good
missionaries these boys that I’ve been telling you
about ought to make! It would not. be so very
difficult for them to travel all over Africa; and,
besides, the people would not be so afraid of them
as they are of us, being black or brown like them-
selves. Well, what chanceis there of any of them
becoming missionaries? Perhaps it will surprise
you to hear that a good many of them have
become missionaries already.

Two of them went off about a year ago to a
place in Uganda, where there was not a single
person who could read the New Testament; after
nine months’ work they had taught a hundred
people to read God’s Word for themselves. I

ae C2







Be N97
he























i

In Uganda,

36





Theory and Practice. 37

wonder if any of us have ever done so good a nine
months’ work as that in our lives!

And many of them are very thoughtful, and read
God’s Word, and study it and act uponit, and
these are the sort that will make missionaries, for
you know knowledge of God’s Word is like skating
or swimming; theory alone is not enough; you
must learn by practice. That is why some people
don’t get very far in their knowledge of the Bible;
there’s too little practice.

Let me tell you about some of these friends of
mine. One of them, a Roman Catholic of about
fifteen, who is a great friend of mine, once said a
thing to me which I shall never forget. I had
asked him whether he would like me to pray for
him. At first he wouldn’t answer; at last he
said, ‘When you love a person, can you help
praying for him?” He had learnt something
about two important things.

Another was sent into the country to teach,
and after spending a fortnight at this place he
came to me to ask a question. ‘‘ The chief of
the place where I am has given me a fowl, and I
don’t know whether I ought to accept it. If
I do, I am afraid the people may think we have »
come here not to teach, but to eat fowls.”
You say, ‘‘ How foolish of him!” perhaps, but I
could put up with a good deal of folly of that sort. .



38 Painful Food.

Rather than run the risk even of dishonouring
the Lord ‘Jesus Christ, he was willing to deny
himself. That you may understand this the
better, let me tell you how they eat their food.
Their staple dish is plantains, steamed in their
own leaves and mashed. The guests sit on the
floor on mats, and baskets are brought in full of
great masses of plantain wrapped in several layers
of leaves; the leaves are first spread out to serve
as table, table-cloth, and hot plates all in one;
then the master of the ceremonies divides the food
among the guests, a great lump for each, using
his hand covered with a piece of leaf (to prevent
burning) to cut it. In eating they use their
fingers, of course, taking a small portion of plantain
and kneading and rolling it in the palm of their
hand, and then digging their thumb into it, and
using the cup-like vessel thus made as a vehicle
for gravy. Now, these plantains are very good
indeed if you have something to eat with them,
but alone they are poor; the Waganda show what
they think by calling a meal of this sort “ painful
food.” Do you think this piece of self-denial only
a little thing? So is a weathercock, but it shows
which way the wind blows.

Then there was another who asked one day to
be allowed to tell the people how ‘God had
conquered his heart’; and he did so next



flow he Spent his Holidays. 39

morning. He told us how he had longed to know
that he was accepted with God, and how he had
taken the verse in St. John which says “ that
whosoever believeth on Him should not perish,
but have everlasting life’; and had claimed this
promise, but had not at that time obtained the
certainty that he wanted; and how, after some
time, he had taken another verse, and pleaded it
in the same way; and after another interval the
words in St. James, ‘‘Let him ask in faith,
nothing doubting,” were the means of bringing
him into the full light and joy of the Gospel.
And then he went on to say, “It was the Holy
Spirit who taught me, and not men; no one can
teach except the Holy Spirit.” His life shows
that God has conquered his heart really.

Then there is a boy of seventeen or so who
spent some nine months teaching in the country,
and came to the capital for a holiday, and spent
the greater part of his time in copying references
out of an English Bible into his Luganda New
Testament. Was this a strange way of spending
holidays ?

The future of a great part of Africa may depend
on those who are now boys in Uganda. This is
the lever to move Africa, and what is to move the
lever? Prayer and effort on our part.



40 «Good Memories.

CHAPTER IV.

BOYS OF PALESTINE.
By Mr. F. T. Ettis.

207 ING-A-DING-DING, goes the bell at
six! patter, patter, patter go the
feet as the boys go down to wash
their hands and faces. Such are
the early morning sounds in Bishop Gobat
School, and have been for the last forty years.

‘But where is Bishop Gobat School?” I hear
someone asking. Do you know where Jerusalem
is? Of course you do. Then Bishop Gobat
School is there.

The boys are all natives of this country—
Syrians, mind, not Jews—and they speak Arabic,
a language not a bit like English. Their skin-is
nearly as white as that of any English boy who
lived beneath the Syrian sun might become, and _
not black as many people think. They have very
good memories, and can learn to speak and recite
English very easily. And how fond they are of





Curtous Customs. 4!











































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































os ENT Se

ri

The Bishop Gobat School.

learning! A boy’s father talks to him just as he
would to a grown-up son, so that the very smallest
of our boys will have the courage to stand up
before the people at the entertainment and say
his piece just like a man.

Many of the things done here are all topsy-
turvy. When a boy begins to write, he does not
begin from the left as we do, but from the right,
and the books begin from our end. In multi-
plication they do not say “seven times six,” but





42 A Boy from the Country.

‘seven in six’’; and for division not “ fours into
twenty,” but ‘twenty on four.” So also a boy
often says, ‘‘Tom has on me sixpence,” when he
means ‘‘I owe Tom sixpence,” because he has
made a literal translation of the Arabic. When
a boy plays at marbles he often says, ‘‘ Abo
talatch,” i.e. “‘ The father of three,’ meaning he
has won three. The boys are very fond of
cricket, and if a boy is “out,” he says, ‘ Out-
side,” and when he wishes to say, “Put him
out,” he says, ‘‘ Kill him.”

Look at the picture of the boy. on page 44.
This shows how one of our boys, Abdullah, was
dressed before he came to school. He has on a
long shirt tied round the waist with a peculiar
girdle and straps acrosseach shoulder. Over that
is a thick woollen cloak, made of sheep and goats’
wool. He has a black handkerchief fastened on
his head, with a very thick band folded twice.
This rope is made of goats’ hair. His knife
hangs from his belt.. A man would also have a
pouch containing tobacco, flint, and a bow of
steel. The last two he carries to strike a light.
This girdle is also his purse, and often it takes a
long time to get the money out. If he is
attacked on the way by robbers, he would do his
best to drive them away with his club. Some-
times the Native carries a gun. The robbers



Olives and Dried Figs. 43

would not stop to take the money out of his
wonderful purse, but would take the purse itself
and all his clothes as well away with them,
leaving him naked, as you remember the poor
man was left who fell among thieves in the
parable of the Good Samaritan. Some men were
once attacked quite near our school and so
stripped. They crawled to the gate of the city
and begged some covering from the gatekeeper
before they could enter. ;

Little Abdullah does not wear shoes in his
home because they make his feet too hot, but
runs about barefooted. The skin on the soles of
his feet gets as hard as leather. There also he
would have to eat a kind of thin cake of bread,
soft and crinkled. This bread is baked fresh for
every meal in a small, rude oven, like a round
bowl turned upside down on the ground with a
hole in the top. The stones on the floor of it are
heated with dried dung burnt. With his bread
he eats olives or dried figs, or perhaps dips it in
sour milk, oil, or molasses. In the evening at
sunset he gets the chief meal of the day, boiled
rice with stew made red with tomatoes. What
do you think he uses for a knife and fork? The
same as Adam did—fingers. Usually a party sits
around a big dish of rice and stew, and when one
is satisfied he gets up and makes way for another.






44

ee oy pA
a uit i | lle? J : of f

Var
Wy”





y 3 ia eS
TY ; If =
MI eh ate:
Ke i i Ta The way Abdullah was dressed
My I" it ‘al i i before he came to the School.
} ) (See page 42.)



A Red Fez Cap. 45

Those still eating say as he leaves, ‘“‘ What is the
matter with you?” meaning, “‘ Why do you eat
so little ?”

At night this little boy curls himself up on a
mat on the floor, covers himself with his big over-
coat, and sleeps as sound as a top till morning.
A boy in a better kind of home would have a
quilt, very thick and heavy, as well as a woollen
mattress underneath.

In school the boys wear a kind of uniform of
grey trousers, blue blouse or smock, and a red fez
cap with a black tassel to it. These caps are
ironed out smooth and round, and if taken off
much they get out of shape. To avoid this they
are worn all day long, and sometimes a boy will
even sleep in one. They have a strong pair of
shoes just like those worn by English boys.

Our boys scarcely ever fight, though they often
quarrel, and the one bears the other a grudge for
a long time after. Fighting it out and forgiving
one another is a thing almost unknown among
Syrian boys—in fact, they don’t know how to box
at all. Very often a great friendship exists
between two boys; they always play together, and
help each other at every opportunity. Like
English boys, they love their own town best. It
is only lately, though, that I have noticed the
boys of one town sticking together. Personal



46 When School-days are over.

liking often goes before love of town or
village.

Is it not a good thing to have a missionary
school on Mount Zion, in the very city where
the Lord Jesus lived and died?

Many of the old boys are now out in the towns
and villages of Palestine among their Native
brethren, teaching and preaching about Christ
their Saviour. Some have become guides to
show tourists the sacred sights where our Lord
lived among men, and these dragomans, as they are
called, surprise people with what they know about
the Bible. Others have become shopkeepers,
carpenters, or servants, and if you ask them they
will tell you of the happy days spent in Zion
School, how grateful they are for the instruction
and kindness received there, and how anxious
they are that their little sons should go to the
old school. Yes, we do try to make every boy a
' missionary. First to get him to give his heart to
Jesus while young, and then to give up his life to
His service. Each boy knows that he can be,
a missionary, whatever he may become and
wherever he may go.

Perhaps you would like to hear about some ot
the boys. Saleem isa little Moslem boy of eleven.
His father and mother both died when he was
very young, and his friends brought him to our



A Mischievous Boy. AT

school. As he grew up he was as full of mischief
as any English boy could be. Once he was very
naughty indeed, and chased some kittens about
the school, and one fell into the well. Another
time he found some eggs in the hen-yard, took
them to the kitchen when the servants were not
there, and fried them. One year when he went to
his aunt’s at Emmaus for the midsummer holiday,
he did nothing but throw stones at the fowls.
His aunt is very poor, and lives in a small, dirty
hut. When Saleem got up the first morning he
asked her for a comb to do his hair, and soap and
water to wash with, as he had been accustomed
to do at school. But when he came back he
hardly looked as though he had been able to get
them. He told his aunt that she was dirty
because she did not wash herself. This last mid-
summer, when he went again, he took a Scripture
picture-book with him to show to his sister and
tell her the Bible stories. But you will be sorry
to hear that a Moslem preacher heard of Saleem
and sent for him. He frightened the poor little
boy’so much that he dare not come back to
school. We are very sorry that Saleem has not
returned, but we pray that when he grows into a
man he may come out as a Christian.

In another picture you see a little Christian
boy holding the violin. His name is Esa, and



48 Bible Class for “ Old Boys.”

his father keeps a
grocer’s shop in Jeru-
salem. He made this
violin out of an old box,
and covered it with
an advertisement paper
about Cadbury’s cocoa.
Esa could play all the
tunes we sing in school.
Often in play hours a
group of boys would
gather round him and
sing while he played.
He has become a car-
“penter now. Some-
times I meet him in the
f{ town carrying his basket
hi of tools upon his head
j and a piece of wood in

Y his hand. His happy
~~ face beams with delight
as I wish him ‘ Good-
day.” Every Sunday
afternoon he comes
with several other old boys to the Bible-class,
held in my room for them. Esa will be a good -
man, because he has been a good Christian
boy.



Esa with his Violin.



Dinner at the Bishop Gobat School.

Morning school be-
gins at half-past eight
and lasts till half-past
twelve, with ‘only a
break of a quarter of
an hour for recreation.
Then comes dinner.
The food. provided
would seem strange to
English boys, but ours
like it. Some of the
favourite dishes are
boiled wheat, stuffed
vegetable marrow, cab-
bage or vine leaves
stuffed with rice and
meat, and lentils
stewed with onions.
After dinner, a number
of the boys stay behind
to clear away the
plates and dishes from
the tables; others
wash them up and
return’ them to the
cupboards ; the re-
mainder rush off to
play at cricket. Work













A Street in Jerusalem.
+51)

49





50 A Favourite Hymn,

finished, the others join them, and all have a
good time until the school bell rings at two.
Afternoon school lasts two hours. At four
o’clock each boy gets a piece of bread and
all go for a walk with one of the teachers.
Supper is at half-past six. Before this and every
meal a verse of an Arabic hymn is sung to some
well-known tune. After supper comes evening
prayers, taken alternate nights in Arabic and Eng-
lish. Their favourite hymn is one which reminds
me very much of home. Here is a verse of it :—
“ Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far away,
In Jesu’s keeping we are safe and they.”

Then comes preparation of their lessons for the
following day. Just let us take a peep into this
big dormitory as the boys are going to bed.
Rows of little beds are ranged along each side of
the room, and the teachers’ bed in one corner.
Each bedstead is made up of two planks resting
on two iron stands. On this is a straw mattress
with sheets, blanket, and quilt. One of the first
things a boy does when he comes to us is to learn
to make his bed properly. On entering the bed-
room each boy walks to his bed, undresses in
silence, and then kneels down to say his prayers.
Almost as soon as his tired head touches the

pillow he falls asleep.

But it is time to go now. ‘‘ Good night,
boys!” ‘‘ Good night, sir!”





CHAPTER 'V.. *

BENGALI BOYS.
By Mr. P. H. SHAUL.

SX URRAH! What an unexpected treat !
4 I have just been asked to take some
of you fellows round our district, and
there introduce you to some of my
chums out there; such bright, jolly, interesting
boys I am sure you will find them, although, of
course, there are ‘‘ boys and boys” in India as
well. as here at home.

I do wish that you had a better guide, for I am
not what is called a ‘‘boy’s man”; but I will do
the best I can, and my all-too-short six years’
experience in the mission-field should help me in
this difficult task.

This will suffice for our introduction, and we

D2





52 In the Future,

shall get to know each other better going round;
so hurry up, all of you, for there is none too much

‘time for just a peep at our “real live” Bengali
boy friends.

Only a peep to-day; but perhaps in the future
some of you will be included among the judges,
magistrates, doctors, business men, and, Jest of
all, missionaries of our vast Indian Empire, so I
do want your first impressions to be good ones,
and that you may to some extent realize the great















































































































































View of Calcutta.



A Large City. 53

spiritual need of these boys; then when you come
out here, you will love them, and by your example,
sympathy, and prayers, do your level best to help
and influence them for good. 3

Our voyage by the ‘imagination route” has
not taken very long, and here we are safely landed
in Calcutta. Is it not difficult to realize the im-
mensity of this country, and to remember that if
it were divided into eighteen pieces, one of these
would be bigger than the whole of our dear old
England? But come along. The first thing we |
will do is to trot round this large city, and have a
look at some of the schools and colleges, where
no doubt we shall see a little of the school-life of
young Bengal—a life very different from that of
the English school-boy.

A Bengali boy usually begins his school-days
in the primary village school. Here he appears
every morning, with his books covered neatly
with paper, and carefully tied up in a duster,
which serves the purpose of strap or satchel.
Under his arm is a bundle of the long split leaves
of the palmyra tree, which he uses for his copy
slips, and dangling from his finger by a piece of
“home-made” string is his earthenware ink-pot,
while his pen, cut from a piece of cane, reposes
gracefully behind his ear.

He soon spreads his little mat on he mud



54 The Matriculation Examination.

floor, and seating himself cross-legged upon it,
begins in monotone, and in chorus with the
other pupils, to repeat his lessons. This practice
quickly assures the passing missionary of the
existence of a village school, and if he turns aside
and enters the little hut, he is sure of a warm
reception. He will be asked to examine the
scholars, and then find many willing to purchase
gospels, while all eagerly beg for a copy of Zhe
Children’s Friend in Bengali. Sad to say, the
missionaries are very few and far between, so that
his welcome visit forms the exception rather than
the rule.

After mastering the elements of Bengali “three
R’s,” the young scholar passes on to an ‘‘ entrance
school” to read English and prepare for the matri-
culation examination of the Calcutta University,
which is essential to Government employment, or
the study of law and medicine, the goal of many a
Bengali boy’s ambition.

From the age of ten and upwards many of the
boys leaving their village homes and rural pursuits
throng into the towns, and here in Calcutta we
shall find scores of them passing us in the street,
crowding the lecture-rooms, playing football on
the “‘ Maidan,” and meeting us “here, there, and
everywhere.”

A Christian boy (shame upon us that there are



Uncomfortable Circumstances. 55

not more of them!) on his arrival here can enter
a boarding-school, where he is well looked after,
and helped morally, intellectually, physically (we
must have a look at one of these schools directly),
but for the Hindu or Mohammedan lad there is
nothing of the sort. He, poor fellow, must live
in the town as best he can; some are quartered
with relations and friends, which often proves no
help to study, as there are many household duties
to be gone through, the young student having
often to cook his own food. Many become tutors
to lads a class or two below them, and thus earn
board and lodging; but the large majority are to
be found in hostels or chummertes, ten, fifteen, or
more boys uniting to keep house together. There
are hundreds. of such clubs in Calcutta, with no
outside discipline or supervision whatever. One
missionary tells us that he often receives school
letters headed ‘‘ The Ideal Mess,” and he doubts
not that this system of indiscriminate chumming
leads to an ‘‘ideal mess” quite other than that
intended to be expressed by the title. Yet not-
withstanding all these disadvantages, many of
these bright, clever boys manage to gain yearly
promotion to higher classes, and get through
fairly stiff examinations. Once, on meeting some
students, I was much amused by hearing several
of them introduced as “‘ fazluves.” “This is Mr.



Dp “ Failed B.A.”

Banerjea, a failed B.A.,” and ‘‘ This is Mr. Bhat-
tacharjea, a failed F.A.,” &c. The reason of this
apparent pride of failure I soon found out. A
student who has passed his matriculation ‘ex-
amination only, and read no farther, is in Bengali
eyes Jelow the student who has passed his ma-
triculation and ¢hez read and failed for his F.A.;
so with the failed B.A., he has not only passed
his F.A., but done his B.A. work.

There! I am afraid that your guide is tiring
you with all this talk. However, he must stop
his yarn now, for here we are at the C.M.S. Boys’
Boarding School. There is no passing it by, for
a large sign-board proclaims the name of the
school in large letters, so that he who runs may
read. i

As we step inside the school compound, a



Bengali Boy cooking his Food.



S price and Clean. 57

number of boys wel-
come us by raising
their two hands
placed together to
their foreheads, the
elder ones saying
“Good-morning,
sit, /a- swhile* the: "
youngsters _ repeat i |
their own native |||
““Namaska.” I am
sure you are struck ||
with the good looks |i
of these lads, looking
so spruce and clean
with their white
jackets and dhutis
(lower cloth), the
folds of which
hang down so gracefully in front.

But here are others with coats off and dhutzs
‘tucked up round their waist, hard at a good game
of football. Someone remarks, ‘I wonder those
fellows do not smash their toes. There! did you
see that chap playing half-back? a splendid kick!
and no boots to kick with.” -They are playing the
Association game—not Rugby (or, as another



Bengali Christian Boys.

puts it, only “socker,” not “rugger”). We see



58 Tops and Marbles.

Mr. Clarke, their Principal (who, I believe, played
for his college at Cambridge), joining in the game.
He has evidently coached them well, for they
play well together; the forwards are quick at
passing, and the backs steady and strong.

You will be glad to hear that in the competition
for the “‘ Elliot Challenge Shield” these boys beat
every Hindu and Mussulman team that opposed
them, and also do as well in their studies as in
their games, four out of five who entered for the
Entrance University Examination having suc-
ceeded in passing well.

We shall never get round at this rate. Why,
here are some of the youngsters playing with their
tops and marbles. See! they fire them in their
own native fashion—of course, far superior to
ours—using the fingers of both hands in cata-
pult fashion, instead of one hand as we do.

Are you not glad to find that the Principal
believes that ‘‘ Mens sana in corpore sano” is as
true in Calcutta as in the Rome of Juvenal, and
that our friends here have plenty of exercise
in the fields, swimming-bath, fives-court, and
gymnasium ?

Perhaps you would like to have a chat with
some of these fellows who are standing watching
the game. Here is one whose father is a
Brahman of the highest caste among the Hindus.



Once Brahman, now Christian, 59

He has had the pluck to leave his father, mother,
home, and relations to be baptized as a Christian,
giving up all for Christ’s sake, counting not the
cost. But he has found friends among us, and we
trust he is preparing for direct work among his
own people.

Why, here comes the head-master! A jolly nice
fellow he is, looking as happy and smiling as our
other friends. How pleased he is to see all you
fellows! Yes! he too was a high-caste Brahman
once, but now is rejoicing in Christian liberty ;
but who is this with him? Why, I do declare it
is an old friend of mine, whose father is an
inspector of police, also a man of high caste.
Well do I remember in my first year, when I was
living with our Christians at Bollobhpur in the
Nuddea district, how, as I was fagging away at
the language one morning, I saw a lad running
into the compound. Coming up to us he lost
no time in avowing his intention to be baptized as
a Christian, as he had given his heart to Christ,
and had learnt to love Him since he had heard of
His love, told simply and well by a Bengali
preacher in his own village.

The news quickly spread round the neighbour-
ing villages that this young Brahman desired
baptism, and day after day relations and friends
crowded in. They pleaded, begged, urged, ex-



60 Pleaded and T yeuiened:































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































A Bengali Village Street.

postulated, stormed, and threatened, but all to no
purpose. The young fellow stood firm, and took
every opportunity of reading with us, and also of
confessing his firm convictions to those who
visited him. Never shall I forget sitting with him
one Sunday morning while the last supreme
effort was made, and everything short of force
(which we could not allow) was tried to get the



A Stirring Sight. 61

young inquirer to return to Home, and Mother,
and Religion.

You can well imagine what a joy it was to us
on another Sunday to escort this dear lad to the
river, and there see him, before the assembled
crowds who lined the banks, descend with our
Native pastor into the water, and be baptized into
the Christian Faith. We then returned to the
church, which was crowded out, and after some
straight words to those assembled, we marched
round the villages, the newly-baptized boy in our
midst, singing ‘Victory to Jesus.” Yes! it
would have stirred you fellows up to think more,
pray more, and do more for our Bengali boys if
you had seen that joyful, happy procession.

Perhaps I have done wrong in showing you
our Christian school first; we certainly ought to
see the C.M.S. school for Mohammedan lads, for
which Jani Alli, himself a converted Mohammedan
boy, laboured and died. But we must pass out of
the light into the darkness, so that you may see
the urgent need of the millions of lads of this
great empire, who are still enthralled in the
bondage of heathendom, living in darkness and
sin, with not a ray of the light of Christ’s teaching
and influence’

As we move among the Hindu and Mussulman
boys, we are at once struck with the difference



62 A Real Friend.

between them and our Christian boys in physique,
expression, manner, and behaviour. I am afraid
these boys often do what you would call low,
mean, and sneakish actions; but before you judge
them, just look at their surroundings and their
teaching. Why, the very deified heroes of the
Hindu sacred books are liars! and hundreds of
years of oppression by foreign rulers in a humid,
enervating climate has much to do with the
inherent timidity of the race.

These boys do so need a friend; they are
trustful and affectionate to those who take an
interest in them, and would be easily led towards
nobler and better things. There are wonderful
possibilities and splendid opportunities in work
among the Indian boys.

In the churchyard at Bollobhpur there is a
monument to an English missionary, on which is
inscribed, ‘‘ The Friend of the Bengali People.’
Mr. Williams had only been out ten years, and
yet wherever I go, all inquire about him; and in
speaking of him, many a sad face lights up with
interest and affection, as they tell of his love and
kindness and the good words he used to tell.
Don’t you long with me to be a real true friend to
these Bengali boys? Don’t you think it was
better that Mr. Williams should be called “‘ The
Friend of the Bengali People,” and have that



All do Something. 63

monument put up by the Christian and heathen
Native friends who were so dear to him, than live
many years in ease and pleasure in Christian
England ; a “‘ carpet knight,” fond of reviews and
manceuvres and sham fights, rather than a soldier
true and tried in the forefront of the battle among
the forts of darkness and citadels of iniquity in
the thick of the fight? I do trust that many of
you will volunteer for foreign service. Surely we
who know what it means to have a Saviour our-
selves will long more and more that those millions
who are living and dying in terrible sin and misery,
“without God and without hope,” should soon
hear of His love and power too. I am sure weall
feel heartily ashamed of ourselves for having left
these Indian boys (subjects of our Queen) so long
in the lurch without doing anything to help them
against Satan and all his host. Let each one of
us who have taken just this peep at our boy friends,
remember the ‘“‘ boys azd boys” of our Indian
Empire, boys who are bright and happy because
they know Jesus, and boys who are sad and
wretched because they have never heard of a
Saviour from the penalty and power of the tyrant
sin. And let us decide that we all will do some-
thing to help, and that we will ask God to help
us to decide what that something shall be.



64 A Familiar Tune.

CHAPEER: Vico
BOYS OF CEYLON.

By Mr. SyDNEY SIMMONS.

ICTURE us on board a great
ocean ‘‘liner,” lying at anchor
in Colombo harbour. The
familiar tune of an English
street song bursts suddenly upon
our ears, and, running up on
deck to look over the side of
our vessel, we espy—just what
you see in our sketch—half a

dozen rickety little craft, made of three or four

logs lashed together, hovering round the steamer.

On the rafts stand dripping lads clothed in their

shiny brown skins only. It is their voices which

have startled us with the chorus we hoped we
had left behind in England. Directly they catch
sight of us their vocal efforts are redoubled, while
they keep time to the tune by clapping their
elbows on their naked sides. Presently they fall





The Sunny Island. 65

to crying, “‘Hab adibe! Haba dibe!” and go
through in mimicry the performance of diving
after the sixpence they hope we will throw into
the harbour. They are very clever in retrieving
any silver coins, and make an impromptu
purse of their mouth for them. One poor little
fellow lately dived after a coin, which he
succeeded in picking up, but a hungry shark,
looking around for a meal, seized his opportunity
and the poor boy’s leg as well. We may be sure
our little friend has never regained his ‘sea legs”’
since, but has had to take to a land vocation.

You see, our first introduction to our brothers
in Ceylon shows that they are just as keen as our
English boys to make an honest penny wherever
they can.

Now, I expect you would like to hear something
about the appearance and customs of the boys of .
“the Sunny Island.” I must begin by telling
you that the
boys I am CLL
speaking
about belong to
the Singhalese
nation. There
are lots of Tamil
people who have
come over from “Hab a dibe!”





66 Connexions of Ours.

India and have settled in Ceylon, but. I shall
not speak about their boys.

You will be surprised to hear that the
Singhalese boys are connexions of: your own.
Centuries and centuries ago our common fore-
fathers lived in North India. From thence our
part of the family migrated across Asia and
Europe, and finally crossed over to Britain, whilst
their ancestors filtered down through India, and
some of them crossed over to Ceylon.

When they landed they took possession of the
island, but they adopted the religion of the people
they had subjugated — namely, devil-worship.
About 400 years B.C. a prince. from North India
came to the Singhalese capital as a missionary
of the doctrines of Buddha. His sister followed
him ; she was the first lady missionary to Ceylon.
These two worked so devotedly that before they
died the whole of the island had professed conver-
sion to Buddhism; and the universal religion of
to-day is a jumble of Buddhism and devil-worship
—a combination of despair and degradation.

When a Singhalese boy first makes his appear-
ance in the family circle, his clothes do not cost
much. They consist of a single thread tied round
his arm as a charm against the numberless evil
spirits, which are supposed to be hanging -about
intent on making themselves generally unpleasant.



One particular Demon. 67

However conspicuous by its absence the rest of
his outfit may be, the charm is never forgotten.
There is one particular demon who has a great
weakness for a good fat boy or girl. One daya
missionary was praising a fine little boy. To his
surprise the lad’s father seemed displeased and
disturbed at the admiration bestowed on his son.
The boy was, unfortunately, not at all well, he
said, and abruptly turned the subject. On leaving
the old gentleman, the missionary asked his
Native companion what was the meaning of the
old man’s strange conduct; and then he learnt
that the anxious father feared lest some demon’s
notice might be attracted to his child by the
expressions of admiration used.

The people attribute all illness and misfortune
_to demons, so that boys early learn to look upon
evil spirits as very mischievous creatures who
must be either cheated or humoured, as the case
may be. This is about the sum total of their
ideas of things spiritual. :

When a boy is old enough he is taken off to
the monastery, where he must lay a tribute of
flowers at the foot of the sacred Bo tree, and
repeat the formula, ‘I take refuge in Buddha,
I take refuge in the Law, I take refuge in the
Priesthood.” If he only appreciated the meaning.
of the words he was saying, what a hopeless,

E 2



68 “ Refuge in Buddha.”

desperate blank they would convey to his mind!
‘I take refuge in Buddha,” who, so they say, has
been resolved into nothingness; who, when he
was alive, said there was no God to love and to
save us, and none to hope in but the sinner’s
self! ‘I take refuge in the Law,” which makes
ita sin even to destroy an ant or aweed! ‘I



On the Beach at Colombo,

take refuge in the Priesthood,” which is one of
the great curses of the land !

How much these poor lads need the Gospel !
No one to help them! while they are taught that
their sins will follow them wherever they may
seek refuge. No sanctifying Spirit to enable
them to keep God’s law of holiness! No one
to teach them but the ignorant, immoral priests !
And all around malignant demons delighting to
annoy and injure them !



In a Misston-school. 69

But there! Let us get out of the close, malarial
atmosphere of this dark and dismal “slough of
Despond”. into a bright patch of Gospel sunlight.

We will have a look at what the missionaries
are doing for these interesting lads. We will go
and have a look at a village mission-school, shall
we? When I was small I was taught that “ chil-
dren should be seen and not heard,” but to-day
we hear the children a long while before we catch
sight of the school. This is because each boy is
learning his particular lesson aloud, while around
him his schoolfellows are all reading their books in
a monotonous, sing-song tone, quite indifferent to
the Babel of voices. But what a curious school-
room! Its walls are only built half-way up to
the roof, which is supported by pillars, and we
see the boys peeping over the top as we come up
the path. (We have to build our schools like this,
as otherwise they would be stuffy and unpleasant
in the hot weather.) There are no doors, so we
step in by an entrance, and all the boys rise and
say, “‘ I-bo-un,” which means, ‘“‘ How do you do.”

You can hardly tell which are boys and which
are girls, can you? That is because the boys
wear their hair long and tie it up in a knot like
their sisters do. And what do you think? In
Ceylon it is the boys who wear combs, and not the
girls. To make it still harder to distinguish boys



70 Result of Work.

and girls, they both wear long, bright cloths,
fastened tightly round their waists.

In these schools the boys have the Gospel
taught them for an hour every morning. The
answers of the elder children generally show a
very thorough grasp of the way of salvation. A
small Sunday-school of Heathen children is also
held here. Many of the boys who learn in our
schools give their hearts to the Saviour. Some I
have known have borne a bright witness to their
faith in their own villages. Numbers, too, who
become Christians in after life, attribute their first
spiritual impressions to their school-days. And
all receive a grounding in Gospel truth which
makes it harder for the weeds of false religion
to find a place in their after lives.

After lessons are over they all go straight home,
as in the villages, they have no one to teach them
English games, and they have no national ones
of their own. The Singhalese people have a
wonderful capacity for doing nothing, and this
feature is shared by the boys. An English boy
must be doing something, even if it be only
mischief, while a Ceylon boy can do that most
difficult thing to be done—namely, to do nothing,
and keep on doing it, too.

In each village there is a wzhdara, or priests’
abode, which consists of the actual dwelling-



Sacred “ Bo” tree. 71

house, and a big building called a digoda, which
has been built as a resting-place for some sacred
relic. The dagoba is like a huge bell, standing on
its mouth with its handle in the air. It is
covered with plaster, and whitewashed. In front
of all and in the middle of a cleared space, is
planted the sacred ‘“‘ Bo” tree-—an indispensable
adjunct of every wzhkava. Here is the national
school of the Ceylon young hopefuls.

Let us go into the priests’ quarters where the
boys are taught. We look in vain for either
teachers or pupils. But yonder is a dirty,
unkempt boy, sprawling on the unswept mud
floor, contemplating the cobwebs hanging from
the smoke-begrimed roof. Another lad is pound-
ing rice in a wooden mortar for the priests’ mid-
day meal. They may not touch food after twelve
o’clock, so they have to lay in a good stock then.

‘* Where are the priests?’ we ask. In answer
we learn that they have gone out begging; for
monks are supposed to eat nothing but scraps of
food given them as alms. After a little further
talk, we offer them a little Singhalese leaflet, but
find that neither of them can read. So we pass
on, having learnt by this peép behind the scenes
why it is that the people so seldom send their
boys to their own village priests to be taught.
If we return later on in the afternoon we shall



72 Yellow-robed Monks.

find things reversed, for two yellow-robed monks
now occupy the verandah, and the boys have -
vanished. Finding their teachers indifferent
company, they have gone off to the village for the
afternoon.

The monks do not rise from the beds on which
they are lounging, but survey us with an assumed
air of superiority and indifference. Do not even
the gods bow down before the monks? They do
not seem pleased to see us, or willing to be
friendly, so we had bettér move on. The majority
of these pastors of the people spend most of their
time in lolling about the wzdras—too lazy and
ignorant to teach their pupils—or wrapt in deep
meditation which soon lapses into yet deeper
slumbers.

Of all the village lads, those living at the wzharas
are the most neglected. They have to do the
menial work of the monks, and in return are
taught to repeat stanzas from the classic books,
which are written in obsolete language, and a lot
of Buddhist folk-lore and mythology. Very few
priests know anything of arithmetic, geography,
or history ; so of course they cannot teach them.

One often sees boys clothed in the yellow robes.
They try to carry a great weight of dignity,
which sits ill on their young shoulders. The
villagers treat them with good-natured indiffer-



They Worship the Robe. 73



Inside a Buddhist Temple.

ence, and are always rather glad to chaff them.
They generally say when questioned about the
fitness of grown-up people paying peculiar respect
to such youngsters, that it is the robe they
worship, not the wearer of it.

But now the more enlightened Buddhists have
left the sleepy monks behind, and have started
anti-Christian schools under lay supervision.
These opposition schools are very numerous at



7A Opposition Schools.

present, but I cannot recollect a single case where
they have permanently injured the mission-schools.
Of course, at first a great many of our boys go
over to the new Buddhist school, but they
generally come to the conclusion that they were
better ‘off with their Christian friends. Some-
times the boys coming to our schools have to put
up with a good deal at the hands of the opposition
teachers and their pupils. I have known cases
where boys’ books have been torn up, their slates
broken, and themselves made by force to stop in
the opposition school till it broke up for the day.
But these are grand opportunities to conquer by
love. Ifaspirit of love is shown onsuch occasions
by the Christians, the rivalry of the enemies of
Christ is always put to shame.

The children attending the opposition schools
are.taught exactly on the same plan as the boys’
in our schools. They begin school with a lesson
on Buddhism, just as we devote the first hour to
the Bible; they have started Sunday-schools too ;_
and have wesak cards (wesak is Buddha’s birthday)
just as we have Christmas cards. Imitation is
the sincerest flattery, it is said. The aim of this
movement amongst the young people is not due
so much to love of the young, but to hatred of
Christ. It is remarkable that the only case of
actual rudeness that I have been subjected to by



An appreciated “ Treat.” 75

a Singhalese boy was from a little fellow who
had been entrusted with the work of collecting
boys for his school by an opposition school-
master.

It is wonderful what a little kind sympathy with
these bright boys will do. They are very shy, but
make great friends if one only tries to cultivate
their friendship. A school treat under entirely
native influence is sometimes rather a depressing
occasion to the youngsters. True, they get gay
handkerchiefs, knives, and books given to them,
and have a good “tuck in” of buns and bananas;
but their elders do not always appreciate the fact
that the day is the boys’ day, and that they for
once if.a way must become young again to
please the children. When, however, one gets
amongst the boys on such occasions, and lays
oneself out for their amusement, they soon show
that they can enjoy a good romp as much as any
English boy. Unnecessary clothing is laid aside,
and everything is forgotten but the excitement
and enjoyment of the moment. All join in heartily,
except one or two little unfortunates who have
come to the treat arrayed in grotesque English
garments. Just fancy a poor little fellow ac-
customed to go about in the easy-fitting national
dress, being able to play when got up in English
clothes! Two or three such fantastically-arrayed



76 Fantastically Arrayed.

youngsters are quite a feature at every school
treat. A pair of shoes which make him hobble
and limp, grey worsted stockings, white trousers,
and a black coat, surmounted by a white sailor
hat with a black varnished crown and _ blue
ribbons, is an outfit very often chosen as most
becoming.

But at our big schools the boys do everything
as like English boys as they can. Every boy

Wy.
Yypygp
Y Yi Jf

MY
Vy

MY
{yf





Set them a Good Example. 77

likes to. wear English clothes at these schools,
if possible. They would look much nicer in
native clothes, it is true, but they like to be up
to date. They go in for cricket, football, tennis,
debating societies, and all the various amuse-
ments of an English school, and do them all
remarkably well too. And in their studies they
take up the Oxford and Cambridge Locals.

Whenever we interest ourselves in them they
quickly respond. After all, a great deal of the
apparent difference of character of English and
Native boys is only on the outside, and year by
year we hope to make them more like our bright,
generous, manly boys at home. But our great
aim must be, not to educate them up to our
ideas, however lofty they may be, but by God’s
grace to seek to be the means of making them
more Christ-like. Whatever we are they will
strive to be, so let us set them a good example,
that they may learn that to be like Christ is not to
be unmanly. Let us show them that the English
school-boy is not ashamed of loving and serving
the Lord Jesus, and, believe me, it will bear fruit
in the lives of our Singhalese brothers.



78 Boys compared with Girls.

CHAPTER VII.
CHINESE BOYS.

By Mr. C. T. Stupp.

large subject, especially when you
remember that your ‘‘ Chinese boy”’
is your servant, perhaps thirty or
forty years old, as well as the mischievous
young spark seen about the streets of Chinese
towns, &c.

A Chinese baby boy has generally a rare time
of it in comparison to a Chinese baby girl. The
latter are received by their parents with regret
and indignation; relations and friends at once
come and offer their deepest sympathy for the
great calamity which has overtaken the parents,
who not infrequently end up by throwing out
the unwelcome object to die, eaten by dogs or
wolves. This in China would be considered good
for the wolves, bad for the baby, but again good
for the parents, who so will have escaped the





Received with: congratulations. 79

~ hardship of supporting her through many years.
But the baby boy is received with congratula-
tions—his death would be a calamity ; petted and
spoiled by all, if not kissed as ours. Kissing is
. never in season in China; the nearest a Chinese
baby gets in the shape of kissing is a maternal
smell or sniff administered on the roof of his
head. But although he is smelt, he is not washed,
except on very
rare occasions.
Home educa-
tionbegins early {8 64
by teaching . ‘
them to lie and “
curse, those
being marks of ~
intelligence and
wisdom. A fond
father coming
home. from his
work, greeted
by his offspring,
will delight in
the progress of
his son’s edu-
cation. ‘‘ How
old are you?” if
‘* Sixty,” replies Father and Son,

rh
ay

HU Joa
2

Ws

Lae
ls





80 A Boy's Lessons.

the youngster. Roars of laughter, approving
pats on the head, and, “‘ Smart, intelligent boy!”
from all. ‘‘Curse your mother,” proceeds the
father, when the young chit will turn round
and bestow on the smiling mother a mouthful
of the vilest, filthy talk, such as would hardly be
expected from the most depraved man or woman
in England, and this is received with equal
approval and laughter by the audience.

When the Chinese boy goes to school he is
presented with a new name—not by his parents,
but by his master. This is good, for not infre-
quently the parents will give such delightful
names as “Small Dog,” “ Black Dog,” “ Little
Devil,” &c., &c. The girls would not be thought
worth a name at all.

The Chinese boy scholar has a different time of
it to our English boy. There are no boarding,
but all are day-schools. The boy is taught all
the characters in the Confucian classics; each
word is a different hieroglyphic, with different
sounds or tones. The boy learns them off by
sight and sound. But not till three years
have gone by does the master begin to teach
him the meaning of the hieroglyphics he has
been drumming into his memory. In repeating
his lesson, the Chinese boy will turn his back
to his teacher instead of his face. Every boy



8I

The Chinaman’s Costume.



Two Chinamen.



82 Encounters with Wolves.

learns his lesson by yelling out at the top of his
voice his own particular task, regardless of the
din or inconvenience to his neighbour; and more
miraculous than all, the teacher sits listening to
this Babel of sound, and yet distinguishes the
different mistakes and corrects those of each
individual boy.

A Chinese boy runs considerable danger from
dogs and wolves; it is not an odd thing to hear
of a wolf having carried off one from even the
very gates of a city or village whilst playing with
his pals; nor is it strange to see a boy with a
seam down his face, the result of a wolf attack
and attempt to carry him off.

A Chinese boy has no manly games of skill,
such as our cricket or football; if he makes a
shuttlecock, he uses his foot for a battledoor.
He will fly his kite in the spring, because he says
it can only then be flown by the uprising of the
spring air, and this is considered a worthy pastime
for grown-up and educated men! :

Such are a few facts about Chinese boys. It
is to be hoped that our English boys will never
become like Chinese, but that the Chinese may
become like English boys. This can only be done
by our taking to the Chinese what has picked us up
and made us into a nation, and that the foremost in
the world, viz. the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.



Noblest and Best. 83

Our games and sports should make our boys
truly manly and great. We deny ourselves, and
train our bodies to win a silver cup for ourselves or
our house, or honour for our school or university,
and such ambitions are noble and good; but let
us see to it that we be not weary in well-doing—
. that we go on to perfection; for should not these
lead us up to grander, nobler, and yet more en-
grossing ambitions? After all, it does not require
much reflection to admit that it is nobler and
better to save life than to kill; to be a soldier
of Jesus Christ, to go and save, at any cost or
sacrifice, His enemies and ours, than to be a
soldier even of our Queen, to fight to kill her
enemies and ours. To win a match is good, but
surely to win even one heathen soul for Christ is
better than to win a dozen matches for self or
house, school or university. These, we might
say of athletics, ought we to have done, and not
to have left the other, the greater spiritual work,
undone. There is more solid satisfaction and
pleasure in being used to bring down even one
Chinaman from the heights of conceit and super-
stition to become a humble follower of the Lord
Jesus than in bringing down hundreds of par-
tridges and pheasants. To bea true Christian is
as much above being an athlete as to bean athlete
is above being a baby sucking ivory rings, or an

F 2



84 Enlist in Christ's Army.

infant playing
with a hum-
ming-top. To
be a_ true
Christian is
to be a hero.
History tells
of no _ hero
like St. Paul.
Read Paul’s
life—that is
true religion.
Religion con-
sisteth not, as
many vainly
imagine, in
wearing a
black coat and
white tie, read-
ing prayersand
preaching sermons in churches, more or less
full of professing Christians, who have from child-
hood read in their Bibles or heard in their churches
of the way of salvation—but in surrender to Jesus
Christ as a rebel to a king, in accepting His free
gift of pardon and salvation bought by His own
death on the cross for you, and enlisting in His
army to bring this lost world to the knowledge of



Kite- flying.



True Religion. 85

salvation, vowing and giving utter obedience to
a Commander who never made, nor can make, a
mistake. As St. Paul says, “‘ Making it my aim
so to preach the Gospel, not where Christ was
already named, that I might not build upon
another man’s foundation; but as it is written,
They shall see to whom no tidings of Him came,
and they who have not heard shall understand.”

The present-day religion may be, and is too
often, an effeminacy, a mere parody of the religion
of Jesus Christ, and the heroic obedience, self-
sacrifice and valour of His early and true disciples.

True Religion is Paul’s life—a grand heroism,
the manliest and noblest of all pursuits and pro-
fessions.

Let us away with the false and lay hold of the
true, following in the footsteps of Paul, who
said—

“To me to live ts Christ, to die is gain.”

“T hold not my life of any account.”

“Tam ready ...to die... for the name
of the Lord Jesus ;”

and, above all, in the footsteps of Him, of Whom
it was said—

“ He saved others, Himself He cannot save.”



86 “ Are they Boys or Girls 2”

CHAPTER VIII.
JAPANESE BOYS.

By A MISSIONARY IN JAPAN.

English brothers. To begin with,
they look very much like girls! If
you were to meet a company of them
in the street, on their way home from school,
demurely walking along, perhaps hand in hand,
their books carried in a handkerchief, wearing the
regulation scholastic ‘‘ divided skirt,” short cloak,
and European hat, and you were new to the
country, you would certainly ask the question,
‘* Are they boys or girls?”

The Japanese boy is much gentler in his
manners, his mind, his speech, and his play than .
the English boy. He never tears about, pushes
roughly,.or speaks rudely, and very rarely fights.
Ifa stranger speaks to him, he will answer politely,
accompanying the answer with a bow. To those
above him in the social world, parents, teachers,





A Queer State of Affairs. 87

&c., he is invariably polite. Heis never heard to
use bad words—I mean cursing and swearing;
indeed, there are no words for oaths in the Japanese
language.

A Japanese boy never has to be driven to school ;
he loves to study, and if you were to ask a class-
room full of boys what the dearest wish in life of
each one is, the answer would probably be in each
case, “‘ To become a great scholar.” The school-
master’s life is therefore an easy one, and yet
difficulties sometimes arise in a Japanese school
never dreamt of in an English one, and masters
are treated in a way that would make the hair of
an English ‘‘ Head” stand on end to think of.
Supposing a boy is punished or reprimanded, as
he thinks too severely, offended or aggrieved in
any way, he will sulk at home, refusing to come
back to school until the master has apologized.
The whole class will probably absent themselves
too, and threaten to leave the school altogether.
If some change (and the Japanese dearly love
changes) is requested by the boys, and _ their
request is refused by the head-master or school
committee, or some obnoxious master is not
removed at their request, the whole school will
leave ina’body. Asarule, the authorities give in,
and the requests are agreed to.

Education is well provided for by the Japanese



88 No Football or Cricket!

Government. There are good schools, of different
grades, in every town; and scarcely a village but
has a good school within reach, and the fees are
almost nominal. The school, if a large one, is
generally governed by a school committee. The
English system ofa head-master with full authority
over the school, and having his own staff under
him, is unknown in Japan. The cane is never
used; a Japanese regards with contempt and
scorn anyone who lays violent hands on another,
and punishments of any kind are seldom needed.

Out of school hours his games are gentle and
mild; he dislikes violent exercise. He does not
care for football or cricket, though many attempts
have been made to teach him those noble games.
Lawn tennis is fairly popular in some of the
mission-schools, and the American game of base-
ball. Rowing also has come into favour of late
years; many schools have their boat, and last year
the Tokio University beat a European crew from
Yokohama. I fear these had fallen into the
common English error of despising their op-
ponents, and had not trained. The Japanese
style is certainly peculiar, the outside hand being
under the oar. They seem to pride themselves on
the rapidity of the stroke ; one boy belonging toa
school crew was heard to say, ‘‘ Oxford only rowed
thirty-six ; we rowed fifty-four.”



Military Drill, 89

In most schools much attention is given to
military drill, which is compulsory, and the boys
are practised in different athletic exercises. The
Japanese is wonderfully lithe and athletic, can
climb toa giddy height, and walk with composure
over the roof of a house. This may be partly
owing to the fact that from babyhood he has been
accustomed to run about barefoot, or with straw



S ae :
aS

A Group in a Japanese Street.



go A Modern School Building.

sandals, or wooden clogs, which allow full play to
the muscles of the feet. The foot gear is kept
on, and lifted about by the great toe, which thus
gains great strength and flexibility. I have seen
aman splitting bamboos, and holding the ends
firmly in. their place with his great toe, using it
almost as another hand.

The school building is now generally a substan-
tial foreign-built one, either made of brick or lath
and plaster, enclosed in its own courtyard, with
porter’s lodge complete, and a separate room for
a kindergarten; but twenty years ago the Japanese
boy began his school career at a dame’s school,
more or less open to the street, and passers-by
could see and hear the young shaven-headed
urchins shouting their syllabic alphabet at the
top of their voices, or busy writing Chinese
characters with a brush in a copy-book. The
copy-book consists of several sheets of blank
paper, fastened together at the top, one character
being written very large on each page; the book
is then hung out to dry, and you may know one
of these schools by the string of copybooks under
the verandah outside and the assemblage of small
clogs in the entry. When dry, these copy-books
are used again and again, until perfectly black,
and even then still continue to be used, the fresh
writing being legible whilst it is wet.



Thousands of Difficult Letters. gI

The boy spends a great part of his time learning
to read and write these Chinese characters.
English boys and girls do not know what a blessing
it is to have an alphabet like our own, of only
‘twenty-six letters, and very easy letters too; so
that any child can soon learn to read small words,
and any intelligent child of twelve or thirteen can
read almost any book or any newspaper that is
put into his hand. A Japanese boy has to learn
not only hundreds, but thousands of letters, and
very difficult ones too; some of them taking more
than twenty strokes of the pen (a brush) to write.
A Japanese cannot therefore read thoroughly well
till he is grown up, and even then there will be
many letters for which he will have to use a
dictionary. English, too, is much studied now;
and at one time many English and American
gentlemen were employed at the different schools
as professors of English. Gradually these are
being dispensed with, and English is taught by
Japanese masters. They, of course, have their
own methods of pronunciation, but the books are,
at any rate, read, and the meaning understood,
and for general knowledge a Japanese boy is not
far behind an English one, being, as he is, intelli-
gent and anxious to learn. Arithmetic used to
be taught by means of an abacus, which is still
used in shops, merchants offices, and banks, as



92 Rapid Arithmetic.

well as for private home accounts; and sums are
added up, divided, and subtracted with extra-
ordinary rapidity. I once challenged a bank
clerk for an intricate addition sum of amounts
varying from thousands of dollars to tenths of a
cent, and found that he with his abacus had
finished before I could do it with pencil and paper.
In the higher schools the higher branches of
mathematics, algebra, Euclid, &c., are taught.
The Japanese boy, unfortunately, is not truthful.
You cannot place much reliance on his word,
nor do they themselves give each other much
credit for truthfulness. His very politeness forbids
his telling a disagreeable truth, and he cannot
see that there is any particular use or virtue in
being truthful. He is not chivalrous or polite to
women. His sisters are put on one side for him
in the home, and wait upon him as he wishes. I
once heard two Japanese ladies extolling the pre-
cocity and gentlemanly bearing of a lad, the son



Abacus or Counting-board.



An Example. 93

of the Governor of a Province, in that, on his
daily return from school, he refused to enter until
his mother came out and bowed ‘‘O Kayeri”’
(welcome home), and took his books from him, as
was her duty on her husband’s return from his
office. There is no discipline for him, either at
home or at school, and on that account he
grows up too often self-willed and overbearing,
and cannot. bear up against reverses in after life.
In one thing the Japanese set an example to
the Western world—in their care of and respect
for their parents. There is no such thing as a
workhouse in Japan, and no need for them. The
aged are taken care of as a sacred duty; filial
piety, together with loyalty to the emperor or
feudal lord, being in their eyes the highest of
virtues, inculcated with care into the young, and
extolled in all their poems and national stories.
Of course the birth of a boy is hailed with joy,
and congratulatory presents come in from friends
and neighbours. The fact is notified to the public
in general next time the month of May comes
round, when a curious custom prevails. During
that month, over every house to which a son has
been born since that time last year there flies a
huge paper fish (see picture on page 94)—an
impossible carp, his body a paper bag beautifully
coloured and shaded in black or red like thé scales



94 A Festive Appearance.

of a fish, inflated
by the wind, his
mouth being kept
open with a bamboo
hoop. The idea is,
I believe, that as
the fish swims up
against the stream,
so must the boy do
in after life. These
fishes vary in size
from three to fifteen

feet long, according
fe RS = to the means of the
SS family, and _ give
a curiously festive
appearance to the
town, as they fly in the air from the tops of long
bamboos tied to the roofs of the houses.

The girls, too, have their month for fishes, but
theirs are smaller ones, and it is not always
remembered to hoist them.

Now you will like to know a little about
their names. Boys’ names are decidedly ugly
and mostly long, four or five syllables, with the
conventional ending of either ¢av6 (for the eldest
son), 72rd (second son), saburo (third son), &c.
For instance: Momotaro, Tokujir6, Seisabur6,









a —
Pr as









In the month of May,



The Honorific “ San.” 95

Other names are: Naokichi, Torazo, Tetsuya, &c.
Girls’ names are pretty, and are often taken from
flowers and trees, such as Kiku (chrysanthemum),
Matsu (pine tree), Ume (plum), &c., correspond-
ing to our English ones—Rose, Violet, Lily, &c.

In addressing a person, “‘San”’ is always used
with the name, sz/ffixed, not prefixed (i.e. “‘ Nao-
kichi San”); things generally being done upside
down in Japan. The father and mother are
perhaps the only people who would speak to a
boy or girl without the honorific ‘‘ San.”

You are all familiar with pictures of the Japanese,
and know what kind of clothes they wear. The
general shape of them is the same for men and
women, and does not alter from the cradle to the
grave; the patterns grow smaller and the colours
quieter as he advances in age. A lad of eighteen
will still have his &zono and haord made with
tucks to let down. Many of the better-class boys
are dressed now from an early age in European
clothes, made in Japan. - They are fond of a com-
forter, and wear gloves—woollen ones in winter
and cotton in summer.

With regard to religion, when quite young they
are taken by their parents from time to time to the
temples. These are holiday times, when they wear
their best clothes. But no religion of any kind is
‘taught in any but mission-schools, and young





A Temple in Japan.

altT fo y2jguvs



Christ's Servants wn Japan. 97

Japan is practically growing up without religion.
A Buddhist will tell you his religion teaches the
sanctity of life, and therefore a Japanese boy
will not wilfully and wantonly #7// a cat or an
insect; but I am afraid he is often quite as cruel
as a little untaught English boy of the same class
might be. You may see a young scamp catch a
grasshopper or dragon-fly, pull off the legs and
wings, and torture it for a long time, and I have
known a butterfly collector astonished when re-
monstrated with on behalf of some poor butter-
flies which he had pinned alive on his hat.

I must refer you to the head-master of the
C.M.S. Boys’ High School in Osaka, if you want
to know more about Japanese boys; from him
and from other C.M.S. Missionaries you could
hear of boys who have become bright and
earnest Christians, who have a knowledge of the
Bible that would put some of you to shame, and
who have persevered in reading it, in spite of
bitter opposition and persecution from their
friends. Cheerfully and bravely do they endure
hardness, and try to live as good soldiers and
servants of Jesus Christ, and win others to Him.

ee



98 Widely Different Surroundings

CHAPTER IX.
AMERICAN-INDIAN BOYS.

By THE Rey. H. W. G. STOCKEN.

ey OYS of North-West America—or,
(rather, let me say Indian boys of the
great North-West, in the Dominion
of Canada—are brought up in sur-
roundings widely differing from those of boys
in England. In the days of infancy they are
wrapped in moss and laced up tightly in sacks, so
that they can be handled roughly by the children
of the tent, and come to no harm.

Sometimes the mother carries the baby boy on
her back in the blanket which she uses as a cloak
by day and a covering by night. When travelling
he is placed on a dvavots behind a horse. When
in the tent or log hut, he is stood against the wall
or hung in a cradle.

Indians are, as a rule, very fond of their
children, and as soon as a little boy is of an age
to walk, his father may be seen leading him about




veal ab eia reStntie teas is 25
Library

Universi
of

Florida

A
in

es
“S

The Baldw:

oS

Reo




Al [Missionary [dools

LONDON
CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY
SVAIGIS ISOM SOUUNRIE; Iles
1896

WET UTE I a eee Ch eee
LONDON:
PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIViNGTON, LD,
ST. JOHN’S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL, E.C,


PREFACE.

LDLSSSLSIIN

HAT can be the meaning of such a title
as “ Boys and Boys”? We talk of
“Boys and Girls,” but why ‘“ Boys
and Boys”? Would not the one
word ‘“‘ Boys” be enough?

Well, sometimes we repeat a word in this way
in order to express contrast. You know the differ-
ence between one bat and another, or between one
boat and another. I may have a bat that is
sprung, and that jars my hands as I use it; or I
may have a bat which can drive. If I want an
hour or two on the river, I turn from one boat
because it is a “great tub of a thing,” and I choose
another because it looks light and swift. So we
may say there are ‘‘ bats and bats,” ‘‘ boats and
-boats.”

In the same way there are “‘ boys and boys.”
There are tall boys and short boys, clever boys and
stupid boys, active boys and lazy boys, amiable
boys and quarrelsome boys. In this book the
differences that one notices first are differences of
race and colour and language. You will read
about African boys who are black, and Arab boys
who are brown, and Bengali boys who are darker
brown, and Chinese boys who are yellow, and
Red Indian boys whose colour we know by their

A 2


4 Preface.

name. So that the book might properly be en-
titled, “‘ Boys and Boys and Boys and Boys and
Boys and Boys and Boys and Boys and Boys ’—
nine sorts in the nine chapters.

But the title is right after all. For the book
really tells of two great divisions of boys—boys
who are not Christians and boys who are. It
reminds us that Jesus Christ, who was Himself a
Boy, who died for all boys, and who lives now to
bless all boys, has never even been heard of by
more than half the boys in the world! And its
chapters have been mostly written by men, young
men, who have gone out to Africa and India and
China and other lands to tell those boys of the
Saviour they have never heard of, and who there-
fore have seen and felt the tremendous difference
between “‘ boys” and “ boys.”

But this tremendous difference may be seen

and felt here at home. There are “ Boys and
Boys” at Eton and Harrow. There are ‘“ Boys
and Boys” in a village school. There are Eng-
lish boys who are proud and happy to have the
Lord Jesus for their Captain and their Friend;
and there are English boys who dislike His
.nhame and His word and His service, and don’t
want to have anything to do with Him. Yes,
there are ‘‘Boys and Boys” everywhere. In
which division are you? Remember, the boys
who have ranged themselves on Christ’s side are
on the Winning Side.

Now read away! And then see if you boys who
do know Jesus Christ cannot take your part in
telling those other boys who don’t.

EUGENE Srock,
CHAP.

II.

III.
IV.

VI.
VII.
VIII.

IX.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
Boys AND Boys. By the Rev. W. E. Bur-
ROUGHS : 3 : 5 : Seg ari],
Boys :OF West Arrica. By Mr. T. E.
ALVAREZ : : ; : : ; Nelo

WAGANDA Boys. By Mr. G. L. PILKINGTON. 29
Boys OF PALESTINE. By Mirek th HELIS fa40
BENGALI Boys. By Mr. P.H.SHAUL . dt
Boys or CEYLON. By Mr. SYDNEY SIMMONS 64
CHINESE Boys. By Mr.C.T.STupp . a 3
JAPANESE Boys. By a Missionary in Japan ao

AMERICAN-INDIAN Boys. By the Rev. H. W.
G. STOCKEN . : : 5 : 6 QS

CONCLUSION. By Dr. C. F. HARFORD-

BATTERSBY . 5 ‘ : x 3 Reo

APPENDIX. — THE CHURCH MISSIONARY
SOCIETY ; ; : : j : paket
ISIE OF TELUS RNAIIONS:

Crows building their Nest .

One of our great Public
Schools

Calling the Roll .

Krooboys in their Canoes

Making for the shelter of the
Water

Waganda Boys .

Main Entrance to King’s
Palace, Mengo . :

A Muganda Boy carrying a
load :

The Bishop Gobat Shuicolt
Jerusalem.

The way Noratan was
dressed before he came to
the School

Esa with his Violin

A Street in Jerusalem .

View of Calcutta .

Bengali Boy cooking his I* Sod

Bengali Christian Boys :

A Bengali Village Street

PAGE

9

12
15

17 |

44

60



PAGE

“ Wabadibe!” . 65
On the beach at Colombo 68
Inside a Buddhist Temple 73
Bungalows in Ceylon 76
Chinese Father and Son 79
Two Chinamen 81
| Kite-flying 84
A group in a Japanese Street 89
Abacus or Counting-board . 92
In the month of May 94
A Temple in Japan 96
Red Indian ‘‘ Papooses’’ . 100
A young Hunter . . 104
| Hunting on Horseback » 105
| A Blackfoot Family » 109
An African Bedstead . . III
Capturing a Slave . 112
A Moslem Boy . 116
Market Scene in Africa . 117
The Church Missionary
House. . : - 121
Miscellaneous 7, 16, 21, 25, 51,
64, 123
BONS AN) BOYS:







——
CHAPTER I.
BOYSj AND BOYS.
“ BY THE
Ain ce) Sa
‘al anh Rev. W. E. BURROUGHS.

FRICA,” wrote a modern
schoolboy, when asked to
say what he knew of the
Dark Continent, ‘is a large
country chiefly composed of
sand and elephants, the

centre of which was unin-

habited until that wicked man Stanley
filled it up with towns and villages.”

It is to be trusted that none of our boy
ar Uf & readers may be so ignorant as_ this

; schoolboy was—or, if they should share
Studying Crows.

his lack of knowledge when they commence this
little book, we do hope they will have parted with
that ignorance when they reach the last chapter.
‘Boys and Boys.” What does our title mean ?
Well, just this—that besides our own boys, our
bright, brave, honest, English boys, who make our
homes here so full of life and restless energy, there
are other boys, not a bit like you in face or feature,
in complexion or habit,—and yet they, too, are
boys, with boys’ hearts, and boys’ lithe, active
bodies, and boys’ big hopes and dreams, and boys’
immortal souls—to be lost or saved. Yes, there
are ‘‘boys and boys”; we know it, and we want
you to know it and remember it too. For xaturally
we do not care to think of more than ourselves. I
have lately been studying crows, as each morning
I must pass under a group of tall elms where is
a colony of these noisy birds busy building their
nests, and I have come to the conclusion that they
are terribly suspicious, and terribly selfish. For
while one of each pair is seeking for fresh twigs ©
for the new house, the other bird sits close by the
bundle already gathered, warning off every brother
crow, lest, haply, another’s nest should be helped
on from the materials which are so. jealously
guarded, and which have been so laboriously
obtained. Evidently up in those elm-tops it is a
case of ‘‘ crows,” and not of “‘ crows and crows.”
A Hurrying Crowd. 9




fRows BUILDING THEIR

Nesr,

And then when I pass on through the street of
a quiet country town which is filled many times a
day with the hurrying crowd of six hundred boys
of one of our great public schools, and so am kept
10 Boy Followers of Christ.

in constant remembrance that there are ‘‘ boys”’
here, I long that they and I should let our
thoughts sometimes wander away to the world’s
other sides—to Africa and China, to India and
North America—and think that there too are
“boys ’—our brothers—‘‘ Boys and Boys.”

It is with a good hope to win your interest and
help for other boys that we have written these
pages. All which you will read there in subse-
quent chapters has been written by those who
have themselves lived in Heathen lands amongst
their boys, and found them so often just as much
to be loved and liked as the dear. boys at home.
Yes, and they can tell us that when these same
boys have learnt to love and serve Jesus Christ,
they have proved themselves, under persecution
and trials such as you have no conception of, to
be noble, true-hearted, devoted followers of their
Lord.

But I must not anticipate in this opening chap-
ter what you may read for yourselves in those
which follow. I would rather suggest two or three
good reasons why we should keep in the front: of
our minds that there are ‘‘ Boys and Boys,” white
boys and coloured boys, boys’ whom we see and
know and love, and boys whom we never have
seen, nor ever shall till we all meet before God’s
throne ; boys who have heard of and learnt about:
England’s Possessions. II

God and heaven and a Saviour’s love, and boys
who have never heard of the God who made them,
of the Saviour who died for them, and of the bright
and blessed home where is room for them, as well
as for you and me.

I. English boys should think of ‘‘ Boys and
Boys,” because England has many of these Hea- ’
then boys under her charge and care. We are
all very proud of England; we look at the map
and see how small these little islands look which
we call ‘‘ The United Kingdom,” and then recol-
lect that that small kingdom rules over one-third
of the population of the world. Our hearts feel
big and our heads are high as we think of our
wide possessions in America and Africa, in Asia
and the Archipelagoes. Great Britain owns a far
Greater Britain, upon which the sun never sets!
Ah! but there is something in this to make us
very solemn, perhaps even very sad. Should we
not think it very wrong if a man had a very big
property from which he derived a large income,
and yet he only cared for the servants in and
around his house and gardens, but entirely neg-
lected the tenants beyond his park gates? This
is just the position of England. She possesses a
vast and’ rich inheritance, and hers would be
eternal shame and disgrace, and loss too, if she
neglected the far-away parts of her possessions ;
12 Strong and Real Bonds.

and, surely, we are bound to give all we deem
best and most needful to those who are, though
far away, united to us by strong and real bonds.
Do we believe that any nation can be truly great
or happy without Christianity—without the Bible?
Then should we not give that Book and all its
blessings to India and to Africa?

II. This would mean a big work, but there is a

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One of our great Public Schools ’’ (Harrow.
ne of gi ublic Schools "’ (Harrow.) Xe ere \
Christ's Command. 13

yet bigger one to which we are as much bound as
to the evangelizing of England’s vast possessions
in heathen lands, and that is, the Evangelization of
the World! You are not only Exglish boys, you
are also Christian boys, that is ‘‘you belong to
Christ,” and, unless you are untrue to your name,
His will and command should be obeyed. And
you know that our Lord Jesus ad very plainly tell
_ us (Matt. xxviii. 19, Mark xvi. 15, Acts i. 8) that
this was our duty, the duty of aM Christians, and
so the duty of every Christian ; and, in their own
way, and so far as they can fulfil it, the duty of
all Christian boys. I need not dwell on this,
because when you come to the last chapter of this
volume you will find that Dr. Harford-Battersby
has told you how you may fulfil Christ’s command.

It is nearly 700 years ago since the boys and
girls of France and of Germany were fired with a
holy enthusiasm to plan and carry out a crusade
of their own.* I suppose they could not live in
those wondrous days of splendid though ill-directed
consecration to what was thought to be the cause
of Christ, without catching the spirit of their age,
and resolving to do their little best to rescue-the
Holy Cross and the Holy Sepulchre from the
Infidel. In France 30,000 children, under the
boy Stephen, encamped around Vendéme, and in

* See The Crusades, by G. W. Cox (Longmans).
14 “ Crusaders.”

the same year (A.D. 1212) 20,000 German boys and
girls set out from Cologne under the peasant lad
Nicholas. There is something touching and beau-
tiful in the assembling of those bright boys and
earnest girls, turning their backs on homeland and
kindred, to claim their share in the high and holy
enterprise of those dark ages. No matter if they
were mistaken in what they did, no matter if they
sadly and sorely failed; we think of their so¢cve
and of their az, of their se/f-denzal, and of their
bravery, and we long in these brighter days to see
English boys not ashamed nor afraid to be ‘ Cru-
saders,’’ banded to carry the Cross of Jesus Christ
into those dark lands where as yet the story of the
Love of Jesus and the Death of Jesus has never
come.

To help towards this our little Book has been
written ; and let each boy as he reads remember
and think of that young man who, beyond all
question, did more for the world than any mortal
man before or since, Saul of Tarsus, and with him
ask, ‘‘ Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” And
if God should answer your question in the years
to come, by opening your heart to be willing to go
“far hence unto the Gentiles,” and by opening
the way for you really to be sent—then on you
will have been laid the highest, holiest, happiest
work which even our Master has to entrust to any
servant. You know, dear boys, how prized and
Ready to Die. 15

coveted and honoured is the decoration known as
the V.C.; it is confined to no rank in the Queen’s
army—the little drummer-boy might win it as
soon as the grey-headed colonel. It is reserved
for the man—the boy—who saves another’s life
upon the deadly battle-field, and who is ready
to die by the whistling bullet or the sharp sabre
cut, if only he can carry safely the wounded
comrade from the strife. And when we see our
Missionary bands go forth to India, to China, to
darkest Africa, where God’s battle is deadliest,
and the poor dying ones lie thickly around, we
think of a day coming when the Lord of Hosts,
who has been watch-
ing the conflict and its
heroes, shall not fail to






recognize and reward,—
“Well done, good and
faithful servant ! ”



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16 White Men Welcome.

CHAPTER II.

BOYS OF WEST AFRICA,
By Mr. T. E. ALVAREZ.



OW we are going to take a little
journey, ‘and visit the African boys
in their homes on the West Coast.
Right glad will they be to see us,
for in African villages the arrival of
Europeans is a very rare occurrence,
and there are many, many boys
living in Africa, not very far pon

the cbast, who have never seen a ‘“‘ white -man,”’

much less a “white boy,” in all their lives. So

you must not mind if, as we do our best to get a

good look at them, they too are a little inquisitive

and anxious to learn all they can about us.

A couple of hours before high-tide our journey
begins from Freetown, and soon we are well on
our way up-country, with the sea-breeze filling
the two sails of our mission-boat, and carrying us
swiftly past the Krooboys (see picture) in their




Brave Fellows. 17

frail canoes, hurrying to their homes before the
river-tide begins to ebb. They are brave fellows,
these Kroomen, and manage their small craft
splendidly in the choppy sea; but somehow we
feel safer in our own tight little vessel, and we
admire without envying.

It is a strange journey this—so different from
anything we have known in England: the great



















































































































































































Krooboys in their Canoes.
18 Chattering Monkeys.

estuary, nearly six miles across, gradually narrow-
ing until we can see both sides of the river quite
plainly ; the banks covered with mangrove trees,
the homes of hundreds of chattering monkeys;
now and then a sudden splash in the water
attracts our attention, and we are just in time
to see the tail of an alligator, who has apparently
been sleeping with his weather-eye open, disap-
pearing under the water. We are just looking
at what seem to be small thick logs lying
-in the mud on the river-bank, when suddenly
‘these take to themselves feet, and, as they
waddle down to the water, we see that we
have been disturbing the midday siesta of a
family of little alligators, who, awaking from
their quiet snooze to see their father steadily
making for the shelter of the water, think very
wisely that they cannot do better than follow his
example.

Now the breeze begins to drop and the sails to
flap about, and the order is given to take down
the mast and get out the sweeps. Five men row
at a time, and hard work it is, as the men know,
for off comes all that they can possibly do without
in the way of clothing, and, as every minute with
the tide is precious, in a very short time the boat
is-answering in splendid style to the lusty-strokes
of the rowers; and now we must just settle our-
Uncomfortable Travelling. 19

selves down for five or six hours’ most uncom-
fortable travelling.

When we started all was bright and cheerful
all round us; but now the night is coming on,.
and the splash of the oars gets very monotonous,
to say nothing of the shaking of the boat at every
stroke, and the awful din of the boatmen singing
in chorus within a few feet of us. What are we
to do? Sleep is out of the question, and reading
impossible. Happy thought! we will make some
tea. We have been so busy enjoying all our
surroundings and talking while the daylight
lasted, that we have forgotten to be hungry;







Making for the Shelter of the Water,
B2
20 A Picnic Tea.

but now, closed in from the heavy night-dew
beneath our canvas awning, and able scarcely
_to see one another’s faces by the dim light
of the lantern, Nature—the old schoolboy nature
—reasserts itself, and protests against being so
long neglected.

In the search for the tea-basket all the rowing
has to be suspended, for this little travelling com-
panion has a provoking way of getting below all
the other packages in the boat; but at last the
offender is brought to light, and the stove and
kettle prepared for action. How anxiously we
try to foil the attempts of the wind, which seems
determined to baffle our hopes of tea by putting
out our little spirit-lamp; at last our efforts are
rewarded by the welcome sight of steam issuing
from our kettle. ;

The joyful news is immediately telegraphed
through the boat, for the men have been deeply
interested in our preparations; and though they
have not yet acquired a taste for hot tea, they.
nevertheless have learnt that the ‘white God-
man’ does not like to eat alone, and hope
accordingly.
~ Before they get their biscuits, and as we are
enjoying our meal, shall we take a look at them ?
Bright, ‘strong, merry fellows they are—scarcely
more than boys, three of them. They look some-
No difference in God’s sight. al

how as though they would
have made capital “for-
wards” in the school “‘ pack ”
with us, had they been white
and God had sent them to
the same school with us in

England.
What a wonderful differ-
ence colour makes! Yet



as we sit in the boat with ,
plenty of time to think, I am
thinking how in God’s sight colour makes no
difference—how He loves all men, and “ willeth
not that any should perish.” Many, however,
who go out to this sad coast would regard
our boatmen as belonging to a lower creation ;
and so the natives almost think themselves,
and in their simple manner congratulate us on
the love of God. ‘God loves the white man,”
they tell us often when we go to them for the
first time, “but He does not care about us.”
Oh, what joy tc feel
that we may in the
name of the King
of Kings challenge
this lie of Satan,
and so consecrate
our service unto



cul Lay)
22 Strange Rowing.

«

Him, that through our poor lives of love
they may be drawn to believe in that higher
Love which brought our Master from His
home in heaven to live and die for them
and us!

How strange their rowing must seem to you as
you watch them! and how shocked our ’Varsity
friends would be to see men standing up all
together on the thwarts to row every third stroke,.
and what a ‘‘shock”’ we should have if we tried
to do such a thing on the Thames in a light
“eight”! Yet this is what these men are doing.
The fact is, that they know they cannot row for
five, hours in one position, and this is their
remedy—a remedy which, however, keeps the
boat continually quivering from end to end, and
effectually prevents anyone getting even a few
minutes’ sleep. However, they are very happy,
and we are getting along, so we must not
complain. Saat

And now our long journey is nearly over. A
light in the distance a mile away tells us that
friends are expecting us; and now comes the
boatmen’s turn. Shall we listen to the words of
their Temne song as we approach our destina-
tion? Evidently they are grateful for the relics
of our evening meal, and their gratitude would

seem to be indeed a “lively sense of favours to
Walking the Beam. 23

come,” if the words they are singing have any
meaning :—
“ The God-man is come far over the sea ;
He’s a very fine man, my master, O!
For he wanted to come to our country ;
He’s a very fine man, my master, O !
His boatmen we’re all very glad to be,
And now that we’ve brought him our town to see,
A beautiful present he’ll give to me ;
Such a very fine man, my master, O!”

At.last we are on /erra firma again, and a few
minutes’ walk through numerous intricate lanes
of the little town of Bake Loko bring us to the
mission-house. After very welcome refreshment,
we are soon in the arms of Morpheus, snug within
the sheets; for on the morrow we must be up
betimes, if we would see the African boys in their
homes, away from all missionary influence and
civilization. :

Away we start at 5.30 the next morning, press-
ing on as far as we can before the sun gets hot.
There are no horses, so we must ride on our own
legs, and the porters’ heads will take our baggage.
Now we are putting to the test the skill we gained
at school in walking the beam, for we have to
cross a very primitive bridge, consisting of a long
and slippery trunk of a palm-tree, spanning a
muddy swamp; next we are hauled on men’s,
shoulders over another swamp, where there is not
24 No Windows !

even this convenience. Then, just as the sun-
is getting warm, and you are getting decidedly
hungry, we reach a huge river, to find that the
canoe to cross by is away on the other side, and
we must sit down and wait while one of our men
swims over to bring it. After a very few days’
journey filled with all sorts of exciting adventures
_ —pleasant and otherwise—we shall be able to get
to some large town where no missionary, and
possibly no white man, has ever been before us,
and there we shall be able to study the ‘‘ Heathen
at home” and the African boy among his usual
surroundings.

First, what kind of a house does he live in?
Very different is his home from those we are
accustomed to see day by day here in old
'England. If you can imagine a circular wall of
mud and a cone-shaped grass thatch on top of it,
you will have some idea of an African house.
Windows there are none, but two openings, one.
on each side of the hut, let in just enough light
to reveal all the dirt and dust which abound on
every side.

How well I remember my first evening in one
of these African huts. The first thing I saw wasa
great network of osiers covered with soot hanging
from the centre of the roof, and I suggested to
my servant that I would prefer to have all that
Florrid little Neighbours ! 25

mass of soot removed before I slept in the hut;
but he firmly refused to touch it, explaining that
the “spirit” of the hut would be very angry if we
interfered with it. So there was nothing for it
but to roll myself in my rug, and lie down on the
mud floor of the hut and try to sleep. Not a
very hard thing, you will say, after marching for
between five and six hours.

But unfortunately for me a number of rats had
apparently chosen my hut as a suitable place for
a small evening-party, and, after having races all
over my boxes, began to devote their attentions
to me, and introduced themselves in a very sum-
mary fashion by carrying off my candle bodily,
and then tugging at my hair. How horrid! you
will say; but it is surprising how soon you get
used to rats and cockroaches and mosquitoes
in Africa. They are such constant friends, and
make themselves so very much at home with you
wherever you go, that very soon you do not mind
them a bit.

So much for
the house. . But
you will say, “I
want to know
how the boys
live,” so I must
tell you.


26 No Cricket or Football,

They rise about half-past five in the morning,
and sometimes wash, but generally don’t, when
they get up. Then after a little of something to
eat, most of them go off to the fields to work hard
all day till nearly six in the evening, when they
return for.their evening meal; others will be sent
off with a 60-lbs. load of rice or palm-nuts or
cassada-roots on their heads to the nearest
trading-station, there to exchange their goods for
salt, cloth, matches, or anything they wish to
buy. Others, again, generally the younger ones, ’
will be engaged in bringing water, or wood to
keep up the fires, or looking after the chickens
and goats belonging to their home or village.

Dreary and sad their lives are—day after day
their work is always the same. Any moment an
enemy from a neighbouring town may swoop
down upon them and burn their village, and take
them away to live the whole of the rest of their
lives as slaves. They know nothing of happy
school-days, for they have no one to teach them,
or of jolly picnics and games of cricket and foot-
ball; almost their only amusement is to dance
round the fire at night to some weird tune of
about three notes played on a wooden drum.
Sometimes, it is true, we come upon a merry
party of boys swimming about in some river ; but
this is a rare sight, and we may almost say that
Their Religion. 27

African boys do not know how to play games,
because no one has been to teach them.

“And what,” you will ask, ‘is the religion
of these people?” Needless to say that they have
no Sunday or day of rest as we have; but I do
not want you to think of them as idolaters, for
that they are not. They believe, as-you do, that
God is their Creator, and that there is an Evil
Spirit always seeking to do them harm; but they
know nothing of God’s love, for they believe that
He takes no interest in their lives, but that con-
tinual sacrifices must be offered to appease the
Evil Spirit, whom practically they worship. Out-
side every village you will find a little devil-house,
where sacrifices may be offered at any time.

Many of the chief natives, again, are Moham-
medans, and it is this terrible religion that is
mainly responsible for the continuance of the
two great curses of Africa—the slave-trade and
polygamy. Look with me along this forest-
path at this line of half-starved human beings
travelling—many of them in chains, and several
women and young children—in the dim moon-
light towards the interior of Africa. Many of
them. have been captured by the sword during a
night attack on their villages; others have been
bought from their own parents in exchange for
cattle or cloth.
28 “ Well you take it ?”

_ Look at another group: here is a chief travel-
ling at ease, and behind him follow a long line
of twenty or thirty ill-clad and famished-looking
women—his wives—with heavy loads on their
backs, following their master through the heat
of an African sun. This is the fruit of Moham-
medanism—slavery and polygamy, the great open
sores of Africa.
* * * me

Oh, that God*would lead some of you, my
younger brothers, who will read this, to conse-
crate your bright young lives for Christ and
Africa to the healing of these open sores with
the precious “‘ balm of Gilead ’’—the message of a
Saviour’s dying love. The angels in Heaven have
not the privilege that you may have of witnessing
for Him: to none of them has it ever been given
to brave the dangers of the West Coast and of
African fever to bring the saving knowledge of
Christ to perishing souls; but unto you it is given.

Will you take it? Will you kneel down xow
and consecrate your life to Him for the extension
of His kingdom? claiming the privilege of fellow-
ship in His sufferings—maybe, even in His death.

“For where He died would I also die;
Far dearer a grave beside Him
Than a kingly place among living men,
Tle place which they denied Him.”
“ Jolly” Boys. 29

CHAPTER III.
WAGANDA BOYS.

By Mr. G. L. PILKINGTON.

pee URLY hair, large brown eyes, the
: white with a Pacis
shade of ~ ets



green in it,
broad mouth, thickish
lips, and a good lump.
of a nose, these are
generally the salient
features of a. Muganda
boy. Then as to cha- °
racter, he probably pos-
sesses a good many of ‘




the qualities that go Zi
under the name _ of
Suiolly. jn.tond of. fun
and pleasure (especially
of food and plenty of
it), with a considerable
sense of humour, good-
natured, eager for : :
adventure, with a very * Waganda Boys,
30 Born Sportsuten,

strong feeling of loyalty to king or chiet. In fact,
when you penetrate under the dark skin, you find
that there is very little difference between him and
his paler relations; especially those of them that
come from the country that once was called the
“Isle of Saints.”

Are the Waganda boys fond of games? Yes;
but their chief games have been the stern one of
war, and the scarcely less exciting one of hunting.
Quite small boys of twelve or fourteen accompany
their liege lords to the wars, and carry rifles and
use them, and they are all born sportsmen in the
best sense; the Waganda will surround a lion in
his lair, and kill him with spears, or even some-
times, I’m told, with sticks ; of course, in leopard
or lion hunting a vast number take part, and
death and serious mauling are not uncommon.

But they have some games proper of their own;
one very good one consists in hurling short, stout
sticks with a peculiar twist so that they spin along
the ground like the spoke of a revolving wheel ;
this game has elaborate rules which I can’t give
here, and the knack of hurling properly is ‘not
easy to acquire, as I know by dismal failure after
many attempts. Then they playa sort of hockey,
and prisoner’s base, both introduced, no doubt,
from Europe.

Then for indoor games, they havea game of the
A “ Counting Gane.” 31

nature of—what shall I say ?—draughts or chess.
It is played on a board, and the players move
alternately, but otherwise it is quite different,
except that it requires the same power of looking
ahead and imagining what the board will be like
when several moves have been made. Proficiency
in it implies a great power of counting and
calculating—in fact, it might be called the
“counting game”; and possibly, if introduced
into England, schoolmasters might be induced
to patronize it, as a pleasant way of teaching
arithmetic. Waganda boys of ten or twelve can
beat me hollow at it, in spite of Dr. Colenso and
other wise men at whose feet (metaphorically) I
have sat.

Can they tell good stories? This is their
strong point, I should say. Every African is
blessed or cursed with the “gift of the gab.”
And they can give a vivid account of adventures
through which they have most of them passed,
snapping their fingers in a peculiar way to
emphasize every sentence. Then they have an
unlimited store of beast stories, about Mr. Fox and
Mr. Bear, and so on; and all they say is illus-
trated by proverbs. The Waganda are a most
wonderful people for proverbs: so to say, pro-
verbs were their Bible; the only generally recog-
nized authority and wise judge to whom an appeal
32 Proverbs.

could be made. Nothing so easily convinces an
average Muganda as one of his own proverbs.
“ Akwana akira ayomba,” ‘‘ Friendship is better
than quarrelling”’; how often have I found this
act like oil on troubled waters! ‘Does the
monkey: decide forest cases?”’; how often has
this put an end to an attempt to appeal in some
disputed point to a not impartial umpire? Of
course, the monkey is not a disinterested judge in
any case which affects the forest, his home: the
wolf is no fair judge of the lamb.

Are they truthful? Not at all. They are
absolute masters of the wretched art of telling a
lie as if it were the truth, and sometimes they will
persist even against proof positive. But I need
hardly say that when they are really converted,
that is all changed.

They are very handy, these Waganda boys. If
they have not much book-learning, they have
something much more important, the use of their
hands and eyes. Simple in their wants, they can
clothe, feed, and house themselves fairly well, and
thereby develop a certain independence which
has its advantages and disadvantages.
_ What sort of clothes do they wear? The real

native dress is bark cloth, the bark of a kind of’
fig tree, cut in strips, scraped, and beaten out
with grooved mallets, and then sewn together
Flowing Rodes, 35

with native-made needles and cotton made of
plantain fibre. This is a good dress in many
ways, but has the serious disadvantage of not





Hand taltaagle 2
© To
Knfes Tauace

ab



being washable! So those who can afford it

adopt calico instead, and very well they look

dressed in flowing robes of this material, snow-

white ; for about this those again who can afford
zac



34 Physical Strength,

it are very particular. There is therefore a large
demand for European soap. Don’t adopt the
common error of supposing that an African has no
taste, and only appreciates flaming colours in the
worst possible taste; quite the contrary. A
Muganda, at least, would not be seen in such a
garb; he appreciates just a little quiet colour
in his dress, but that is all. This white cloth
looks particularly well in contrast to their dark
skins.

When a Muganda boy is about five or six years
old he leaves his father’s house and, as a rule,
enters the service of some chief. So their home
ties are not nearly so strong as ours. This is one
of the things which we expect soon to be much
modified by Christianity.

Physically, they are very hardy. No Muganda
boy needs more than one meal a day, although he
makes no objection to four or more if he can get
them. He can travel twenty miles or so a day,
carrying all his belongings in a bundle weighing
about 30 Ibs. on his head, without any great
fatigue, and sleeping in the open, if necessary.
He can wade through rivers and marshes up to
his neck for a great part of the day, and be none
the worse for it. The tropical sun he rather
enjoys, of course, than otherwise.

Now, do you know what has been in my mind
Native Missionaries, 35

while I have been writing these last words? I
havé been half wishing that I had been a Muganda
boy myself! Because, you know, I ama missionary,
and have to do a great deal of travelling; but then
my wretched European body needs a whole lot of
things to keep it in health, and I get fever when
I wade through a marsh or if I don’t get my three
meals a day; and the sun broils all the strength
out of me, and I can’t go about much without a
tent, and a quantity of clothes and tea, and knives
and forks and spoons. Oh, how I’ve envied those
Waganda boys sometimes! But then God gave
me my body, such as it is, and I must do the best
I can with it for Him. But think what good
missionaries these boys that I’ve been telling you
about ought to make! It would not. be so very
difficult for them to travel all over Africa; and,
besides, the people would not be so afraid of them
as they are of us, being black or brown like them-
selves. Well, what chanceis there of any of them
becoming missionaries? Perhaps it will surprise
you to hear that a good many of them have
become missionaries already.

Two of them went off about a year ago to a
place in Uganda, where there was not a single
person who could read the New Testament; after
nine months’ work they had taught a hundred
people to read God’s Word for themselves. I

ae C2




Be N97
he























i

In Uganda,

36


Theory and Practice. 37

wonder if any of us have ever done so good a nine
months’ work as that in our lives!

And many of them are very thoughtful, and read
God’s Word, and study it and act uponit, and
these are the sort that will make missionaries, for
you know knowledge of God’s Word is like skating
or swimming; theory alone is not enough; you
must learn by practice. That is why some people
don’t get very far in their knowledge of the Bible;
there’s too little practice.

Let me tell you about some of these friends of
mine. One of them, a Roman Catholic of about
fifteen, who is a great friend of mine, once said a
thing to me which I shall never forget. I had
asked him whether he would like me to pray for
him. At first he wouldn’t answer; at last he
said, ‘When you love a person, can you help
praying for him?” He had learnt something
about two important things.

Another was sent into the country to teach,
and after spending a fortnight at this place he
came to me to ask a question. ‘‘ The chief of
the place where I am has given me a fowl, and I
don’t know whether I ought to accept it. If
I do, I am afraid the people may think we have »
come here not to teach, but to eat fowls.”
You say, ‘‘ How foolish of him!” perhaps, but I
could put up with a good deal of folly of that sort. .
38 Painful Food.

Rather than run the risk even of dishonouring
the Lord ‘Jesus Christ, he was willing to deny
himself. That you may understand this the
better, let me tell you how they eat their food.
Their staple dish is plantains, steamed in their
own leaves and mashed. The guests sit on the
floor on mats, and baskets are brought in full of
great masses of plantain wrapped in several layers
of leaves; the leaves are first spread out to serve
as table, table-cloth, and hot plates all in one;
then the master of the ceremonies divides the food
among the guests, a great lump for each, using
his hand covered with a piece of leaf (to prevent
burning) to cut it. In eating they use their
fingers, of course, taking a small portion of plantain
and kneading and rolling it in the palm of their
hand, and then digging their thumb into it, and
using the cup-like vessel thus made as a vehicle
for gravy. Now, these plantains are very good
indeed if you have something to eat with them,
but alone they are poor; the Waganda show what
they think by calling a meal of this sort “ painful
food.” Do you think this piece of self-denial only
a little thing? So is a weathercock, but it shows
which way the wind blows.

Then there was another who asked one day to
be allowed to tell the people how ‘God had
conquered his heart’; and he did so next
flow he Spent his Holidays. 39

morning. He told us how he had longed to know
that he was accepted with God, and how he had
taken the verse in St. John which says “ that
whosoever believeth on Him should not perish,
but have everlasting life’; and had claimed this
promise, but had not at that time obtained the
certainty that he wanted; and how, after some
time, he had taken another verse, and pleaded it
in the same way; and after another interval the
words in St. James, ‘‘Let him ask in faith,
nothing doubting,” were the means of bringing
him into the full light and joy of the Gospel.
And then he went on to say, “It was the Holy
Spirit who taught me, and not men; no one can
teach except the Holy Spirit.” His life shows
that God has conquered his heart really.

Then there is a boy of seventeen or so who
spent some nine months teaching in the country,
and came to the capital for a holiday, and spent
the greater part of his time in copying references
out of an English Bible into his Luganda New
Testament. Was this a strange way of spending
holidays ?

The future of a great part of Africa may depend
on those who are now boys in Uganda. This is
the lever to move Africa, and what is to move the
lever? Prayer and effort on our part.
40 «Good Memories.

CHAPTER IV.

BOYS OF PALESTINE.
By Mr. F. T. Ettis.

207 ING-A-DING-DING, goes the bell at
six! patter, patter, patter go the
feet as the boys go down to wash
their hands and faces. Such are
the early morning sounds in Bishop Gobat
School, and have been for the last forty years.

‘But where is Bishop Gobat School?” I hear
someone asking. Do you know where Jerusalem
is? Of course you do. Then Bishop Gobat
School is there.

The boys are all natives of this country—
Syrians, mind, not Jews—and they speak Arabic,
a language not a bit like English. Their skin-is
nearly as white as that of any English boy who
lived beneath the Syrian sun might become, and _
not black as many people think. They have very
good memories, and can learn to speak and recite
English very easily. And how fond they are of


Curtous Customs. 4!











































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































os ENT Se

ri

The Bishop Gobat School.

learning! A boy’s father talks to him just as he
would to a grown-up son, so that the very smallest
of our boys will have the courage to stand up
before the people at the entertainment and say
his piece just like a man.

Many of the things done here are all topsy-
turvy. When a boy begins to write, he does not
begin from the left as we do, but from the right,
and the books begin from our end. In multi-
plication they do not say “seven times six,” but


42 A Boy from the Country.

‘seven in six’’; and for division not “ fours into
twenty,” but ‘twenty on four.” So also a boy
often says, ‘‘Tom has on me sixpence,” when he
means ‘‘I owe Tom sixpence,” because he has
made a literal translation of the Arabic. When
a boy plays at marbles he often says, ‘‘ Abo
talatch,” i.e. “‘ The father of three,’ meaning he
has won three. The boys are very fond of
cricket, and if a boy is “out,” he says, ‘ Out-
side,” and when he wishes to say, “Put him
out,” he says, ‘‘ Kill him.”

Look at the picture of the boy. on page 44.
This shows how one of our boys, Abdullah, was
dressed before he came to school. He has on a
long shirt tied round the waist with a peculiar
girdle and straps acrosseach shoulder. Over that
is a thick woollen cloak, made of sheep and goats’
wool. He has a black handkerchief fastened on
his head, with a very thick band folded twice.
This rope is made of goats’ hair. His knife
hangs from his belt.. A man would also have a
pouch containing tobacco, flint, and a bow of
steel. The last two he carries to strike a light.
This girdle is also his purse, and often it takes a
long time to get the money out. If he is
attacked on the way by robbers, he would do his
best to drive them away with his club. Some-
times the Native carries a gun. The robbers
Olives and Dried Figs. 43

would not stop to take the money out of his
wonderful purse, but would take the purse itself
and all his clothes as well away with them,
leaving him naked, as you remember the poor
man was left who fell among thieves in the
parable of the Good Samaritan. Some men were
once attacked quite near our school and so
stripped. They crawled to the gate of the city
and begged some covering from the gatekeeper
before they could enter. ;

Little Abdullah does not wear shoes in his
home because they make his feet too hot, but
runs about barefooted. The skin on the soles of
his feet gets as hard as leather. There also he
would have to eat a kind of thin cake of bread,
soft and crinkled. This bread is baked fresh for
every meal in a small, rude oven, like a round
bowl turned upside down on the ground with a
hole in the top. The stones on the floor of it are
heated with dried dung burnt. With his bread
he eats olives or dried figs, or perhaps dips it in
sour milk, oil, or molasses. In the evening at
sunset he gets the chief meal of the day, boiled
rice with stew made red with tomatoes. What
do you think he uses for a knife and fork? The
same as Adam did—fingers. Usually a party sits
around a big dish of rice and stew, and when one
is satisfied he gets up and makes way for another.



44

ee oy pA
a uit i | lle? J : of f

Var
Wy”





y 3 ia eS
TY ; If =
MI eh ate:
Ke i i Ta The way Abdullah was dressed
My I" it ‘al i i before he came to the School.
} ) (See page 42.)
A Red Fez Cap. 45

Those still eating say as he leaves, ‘“‘ What is the
matter with you?” meaning, “‘ Why do you eat
so little ?”

At night this little boy curls himself up on a
mat on the floor, covers himself with his big over-
coat, and sleeps as sound as a top till morning.
A boy in a better kind of home would have a
quilt, very thick and heavy, as well as a woollen
mattress underneath.

In school the boys wear a kind of uniform of
grey trousers, blue blouse or smock, and a red fez
cap with a black tassel to it. These caps are
ironed out smooth and round, and if taken off
much they get out of shape. To avoid this they
are worn all day long, and sometimes a boy will
even sleep in one. They have a strong pair of
shoes just like those worn by English boys.

Our boys scarcely ever fight, though they often
quarrel, and the one bears the other a grudge for
a long time after. Fighting it out and forgiving
one another is a thing almost unknown among
Syrian boys—in fact, they don’t know how to box
at all. Very often a great friendship exists
between two boys; they always play together, and
help each other at every opportunity. Like
English boys, they love their own town best. It
is only lately, though, that I have noticed the
boys of one town sticking together. Personal
46 When School-days are over.

liking often goes before love of town or
village.

Is it not a good thing to have a missionary
school on Mount Zion, in the very city where
the Lord Jesus lived and died?

Many of the old boys are now out in the towns
and villages of Palestine among their Native
brethren, teaching and preaching about Christ
their Saviour. Some have become guides to
show tourists the sacred sights where our Lord
lived among men, and these dragomans, as they are
called, surprise people with what they know about
the Bible. Others have become shopkeepers,
carpenters, or servants, and if you ask them they
will tell you of the happy days spent in Zion
School, how grateful they are for the instruction
and kindness received there, and how anxious
they are that their little sons should go to the
old school. Yes, we do try to make every boy a
' missionary. First to get him to give his heart to
Jesus while young, and then to give up his life to
His service. Each boy knows that he can be,
a missionary, whatever he may become and
wherever he may go.

Perhaps you would like to hear about some ot
the boys. Saleem isa little Moslem boy of eleven.
His father and mother both died when he was
very young, and his friends brought him to our
A Mischievous Boy. AT

school. As he grew up he was as full of mischief
as any English boy could be. Once he was very
naughty indeed, and chased some kittens about
the school, and one fell into the well. Another
time he found some eggs in the hen-yard, took
them to the kitchen when the servants were not
there, and fried them. One year when he went to
his aunt’s at Emmaus for the midsummer holiday,
he did nothing but throw stones at the fowls.
His aunt is very poor, and lives in a small, dirty
hut. When Saleem got up the first morning he
asked her for a comb to do his hair, and soap and
water to wash with, as he had been accustomed
to do at school. But when he came back he
hardly looked as though he had been able to get
them. He told his aunt that she was dirty
because she did not wash herself. This last mid-
summer, when he went again, he took a Scripture
picture-book with him to show to his sister and
tell her the Bible stories. But you will be sorry
to hear that a Moslem preacher heard of Saleem
and sent for him. He frightened the poor little
boy’so much that he dare not come back to
school. We are very sorry that Saleem has not
returned, but we pray that when he grows into a
man he may come out as a Christian.

In another picture you see a little Christian
boy holding the violin. His name is Esa, and
48 Bible Class for “ Old Boys.”

his father keeps a
grocer’s shop in Jeru-
salem. He made this
violin out of an old box,
and covered it with
an advertisement paper
about Cadbury’s cocoa.
Esa could play all the
tunes we sing in school.
Often in play hours a
group of boys would
gather round him and
sing while he played.
He has become a car-
“penter now. Some-
times I meet him in the
f{ town carrying his basket
hi of tools upon his head
j and a piece of wood in

Y his hand. His happy
~~ face beams with delight
as I wish him ‘ Good-
day.” Every Sunday
afternoon he comes
with several other old boys to the Bible-class,
held in my room for them. Esa will be a good -
man, because he has been a good Christian
boy.



Esa with his Violin.
Dinner at the Bishop Gobat School.

Morning school be-
gins at half-past eight
and lasts till half-past
twelve, with ‘only a
break of a quarter of
an hour for recreation.
Then comes dinner.
The food. provided
would seem strange to
English boys, but ours
like it. Some of the
favourite dishes are
boiled wheat, stuffed
vegetable marrow, cab-
bage or vine leaves
stuffed with rice and
meat, and lentils
stewed with onions.
After dinner, a number
of the boys stay behind
to clear away the
plates and dishes from
the tables; others
wash them up and
return’ them to the
cupboards ; the re-
mainder rush off to
play at cricket. Work













A Street in Jerusalem.
+51)

49


50 A Favourite Hymn,

finished, the others join them, and all have a
good time until the school bell rings at two.
Afternoon school lasts two hours. At four
o’clock each boy gets a piece of bread and
all go for a walk with one of the teachers.
Supper is at half-past six. Before this and every
meal a verse of an Arabic hymn is sung to some
well-known tune. After supper comes evening
prayers, taken alternate nights in Arabic and Eng-
lish. Their favourite hymn is one which reminds
me very much of home. Here is a verse of it :—
“ Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far away,
In Jesu’s keeping we are safe and they.”

Then comes preparation of their lessons for the
following day. Just let us take a peep into this
big dormitory as the boys are going to bed.
Rows of little beds are ranged along each side of
the room, and the teachers’ bed in one corner.
Each bedstead is made up of two planks resting
on two iron stands. On this is a straw mattress
with sheets, blanket, and quilt. One of the first
things a boy does when he comes to us is to learn
to make his bed properly. On entering the bed-
room each boy walks to his bed, undresses in
silence, and then kneels down to say his prayers.
Almost as soon as his tired head touches the

pillow he falls asleep.

But it is time to go now. ‘‘ Good night,
boys!” ‘‘ Good night, sir!”


CHAPTER 'V.. *

BENGALI BOYS.
By Mr. P. H. SHAUL.

SX URRAH! What an unexpected treat !
4 I have just been asked to take some
of you fellows round our district, and
there introduce you to some of my
chums out there; such bright, jolly, interesting
boys I am sure you will find them, although, of
course, there are ‘‘ boys and boys” in India as
well. as here at home.

I do wish that you had a better guide, for I am
not what is called a ‘‘boy’s man”; but I will do
the best I can, and my all-too-short six years’
experience in the mission-field should help me in
this difficult task.

This will suffice for our introduction, and we

D2


52 In the Future,

shall get to know each other better going round;
so hurry up, all of you, for there is none too much

‘time for just a peep at our “real live” Bengali
boy friends.

Only a peep to-day; but perhaps in the future
some of you will be included among the judges,
magistrates, doctors, business men, and, Jest of
all, missionaries of our vast Indian Empire, so I
do want your first impressions to be good ones,
and that you may to some extent realize the great















































































































































View of Calcutta.
A Large City. 53

spiritual need of these boys; then when you come
out here, you will love them, and by your example,
sympathy, and prayers, do your level best to help
and influence them for good. 3

Our voyage by the ‘imagination route” has
not taken very long, and here we are safely landed
in Calcutta. Is it not difficult to realize the im-
mensity of this country, and to remember that if
it were divided into eighteen pieces, one of these
would be bigger than the whole of our dear old
England? But come along. The first thing we |
will do is to trot round this large city, and have a
look at some of the schools and colleges, where
no doubt we shall see a little of the school-life of
young Bengal—a life very different from that of
the English school-boy.

A Bengali boy usually begins his school-days
in the primary village school. Here he appears
every morning, with his books covered neatly
with paper, and carefully tied up in a duster,
which serves the purpose of strap or satchel.
Under his arm is a bundle of the long split leaves
of the palmyra tree, which he uses for his copy
slips, and dangling from his finger by a piece of
“home-made” string is his earthenware ink-pot,
while his pen, cut from a piece of cane, reposes
gracefully behind his ear.

He soon spreads his little mat on he mud
54 The Matriculation Examination.

floor, and seating himself cross-legged upon it,
begins in monotone, and in chorus with the
other pupils, to repeat his lessons. This practice
quickly assures the passing missionary of the
existence of a village school, and if he turns aside
and enters the little hut, he is sure of a warm
reception. He will be asked to examine the
scholars, and then find many willing to purchase
gospels, while all eagerly beg for a copy of Zhe
Children’s Friend in Bengali. Sad to say, the
missionaries are very few and far between, so that
his welcome visit forms the exception rather than
the rule.

After mastering the elements of Bengali “three
R’s,” the young scholar passes on to an ‘‘ entrance
school” to read English and prepare for the matri-
culation examination of the Calcutta University,
which is essential to Government employment, or
the study of law and medicine, the goal of many a
Bengali boy’s ambition.

From the age of ten and upwards many of the
boys leaving their village homes and rural pursuits
throng into the towns, and here in Calcutta we
shall find scores of them passing us in the street,
crowding the lecture-rooms, playing football on
the “‘ Maidan,” and meeting us “here, there, and
everywhere.”

A Christian boy (shame upon us that there are
Uncomfortable Circumstances. 55

not more of them!) on his arrival here can enter
a boarding-school, where he is well looked after,
and helped morally, intellectually, physically (we
must have a look at one of these schools directly),
but for the Hindu or Mohammedan lad there is
nothing of the sort. He, poor fellow, must live
in the town as best he can; some are quartered
with relations and friends, which often proves no
help to study, as there are many household duties
to be gone through, the young student having
often to cook his own food. Many become tutors
to lads a class or two below them, and thus earn
board and lodging; but the large majority are to
be found in hostels or chummertes, ten, fifteen, or
more boys uniting to keep house together. There
are hundreds. of such clubs in Calcutta, with no
outside discipline or supervision whatever. One
missionary tells us that he often receives school
letters headed ‘‘ The Ideal Mess,” and he doubts
not that this system of indiscriminate chumming
leads to an ‘‘ideal mess” quite other than that
intended to be expressed by the title. Yet not-
withstanding all these disadvantages, many of
these bright, clever boys manage to gain yearly
promotion to higher classes, and get through
fairly stiff examinations. Once, on meeting some
students, I was much amused by hearing several
of them introduced as “‘ fazluves.” “This is Mr.
Dp “ Failed B.A.”

Banerjea, a failed B.A.,” and ‘‘ This is Mr. Bhat-
tacharjea, a failed F.A.,” &c. The reason of this
apparent pride of failure I soon found out. A
student who has passed his matriculation ‘ex-
amination only, and read no farther, is in Bengali
eyes Jelow the student who has passed his ma-
triculation and ¢hez read and failed for his F.A.;
so with the failed B.A., he has not only passed
his F.A., but done his B.A. work.

There! I am afraid that your guide is tiring
you with all this talk. However, he must stop
his yarn now, for here we are at the C.M.S. Boys’
Boarding School. There is no passing it by, for
a large sign-board proclaims the name of the
school in large letters, so that he who runs may
read. i

As we step inside the school compound, a



Bengali Boy cooking his Food.
S price and Clean. 57

number of boys wel-
come us by raising
their two hands
placed together to
their foreheads, the
elder ones saying
“Good-morning,
sit, /a- swhile* the: "
youngsters _ repeat i |
their own native |||
““Namaska.” I am
sure you are struck ||
with the good looks |i
of these lads, looking
so spruce and clean
with their white
jackets and dhutis
(lower cloth), the
folds of which
hang down so gracefully in front.

But here are others with coats off and dhutzs
‘tucked up round their waist, hard at a good game
of football. Someone remarks, ‘I wonder those
fellows do not smash their toes. There! did you
see that chap playing half-back? a splendid kick!
and no boots to kick with.” -They are playing the
Association game—not Rugby (or, as another



Bengali Christian Boys.

puts it, only “socker,” not “rugger”). We see
58 Tops and Marbles.

Mr. Clarke, their Principal (who, I believe, played
for his college at Cambridge), joining in the game.
He has evidently coached them well, for they
play well together; the forwards are quick at
passing, and the backs steady and strong.

You will be glad to hear that in the competition
for the “‘ Elliot Challenge Shield” these boys beat
every Hindu and Mussulman team that opposed
them, and also do as well in their studies as in
their games, four out of five who entered for the
Entrance University Examination having suc-
ceeded in passing well.

We shall never get round at this rate. Why,
here are some of the youngsters playing with their
tops and marbles. See! they fire them in their
own native fashion—of course, far superior to
ours—using the fingers of both hands in cata-
pult fashion, instead of one hand as we do.

Are you not glad to find that the Principal
believes that ‘‘ Mens sana in corpore sano” is as
true in Calcutta as in the Rome of Juvenal, and
that our friends here have plenty of exercise
in the fields, swimming-bath, fives-court, and
gymnasium ?

Perhaps you would like to have a chat with
some of these fellows who are standing watching
the game. Here is one whose father is a
Brahman of the highest caste among the Hindus.
Once Brahman, now Christian, 59

He has had the pluck to leave his father, mother,
home, and relations to be baptized as a Christian,
giving up all for Christ’s sake, counting not the
cost. But he has found friends among us, and we
trust he is preparing for direct work among his
own people.

Why, here comes the head-master! A jolly nice
fellow he is, looking as happy and smiling as our
other friends. How pleased he is to see all you
fellows! Yes! he too was a high-caste Brahman
once, but now is rejoicing in Christian liberty ;
but who is this with him? Why, I do declare it
is an old friend of mine, whose father is an
inspector of police, also a man of high caste.
Well do I remember in my first year, when I was
living with our Christians at Bollobhpur in the
Nuddea district, how, as I was fagging away at
the language one morning, I saw a lad running
into the compound. Coming up to us he lost
no time in avowing his intention to be baptized as
a Christian, as he had given his heart to Christ,
and had learnt to love Him since he had heard of
His love, told simply and well by a Bengali
preacher in his own village.

The news quickly spread round the neighbour-
ing villages that this young Brahman desired
baptism, and day after day relations and friends
crowded in. They pleaded, begged, urged, ex-
60 Pleaded and T yeuiened:































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































A Bengali Village Street.

postulated, stormed, and threatened, but all to no
purpose. The young fellow stood firm, and took
every opportunity of reading with us, and also of
confessing his firm convictions to those who
visited him. Never shall I forget sitting with him
one Sunday morning while the last supreme
effort was made, and everything short of force
(which we could not allow) was tried to get the
A Stirring Sight. 61

young inquirer to return to Home, and Mother,
and Religion.

You can well imagine what a joy it was to us
on another Sunday to escort this dear lad to the
river, and there see him, before the assembled
crowds who lined the banks, descend with our
Native pastor into the water, and be baptized into
the Christian Faith. We then returned to the
church, which was crowded out, and after some
straight words to those assembled, we marched
round the villages, the newly-baptized boy in our
midst, singing ‘Victory to Jesus.” Yes! it
would have stirred you fellows up to think more,
pray more, and do more for our Bengali boys if
you had seen that joyful, happy procession.

Perhaps I have done wrong in showing you
our Christian school first; we certainly ought to
see the C.M.S. school for Mohammedan lads, for
which Jani Alli, himself a converted Mohammedan
boy, laboured and died. But we must pass out of
the light into the darkness, so that you may see
the urgent need of the millions of lads of this
great empire, who are still enthralled in the
bondage of heathendom, living in darkness and
sin, with not a ray of the light of Christ’s teaching
and influence’

As we move among the Hindu and Mussulman
boys, we are at once struck with the difference
62 A Real Friend.

between them and our Christian boys in physique,
expression, manner, and behaviour. I am afraid
these boys often do what you would call low,
mean, and sneakish actions; but before you judge
them, just look at their surroundings and their
teaching. Why, the very deified heroes of the
Hindu sacred books are liars! and hundreds of
years of oppression by foreign rulers in a humid,
enervating climate has much to do with the
inherent timidity of the race.

These boys do so need a friend; they are
trustful and affectionate to those who take an
interest in them, and would be easily led towards
nobler and better things. There are wonderful
possibilities and splendid opportunities in work
among the Indian boys.

In the churchyard at Bollobhpur there is a
monument to an English missionary, on which is
inscribed, ‘‘ The Friend of the Bengali People.’
Mr. Williams had only been out ten years, and
yet wherever I go, all inquire about him; and in
speaking of him, many a sad face lights up with
interest and affection, as they tell of his love and
kindness and the good words he used to tell.
Don’t you long with me to be a real true friend to
these Bengali boys? Don’t you think it was
better that Mr. Williams should be called “‘ The
Friend of the Bengali People,” and have that
All do Something. 63

monument put up by the Christian and heathen
Native friends who were so dear to him, than live
many years in ease and pleasure in Christian
England ; a “‘ carpet knight,” fond of reviews and
manceuvres and sham fights, rather than a soldier
true and tried in the forefront of the battle among
the forts of darkness and citadels of iniquity in
the thick of the fight? I do trust that many of
you will volunteer for foreign service. Surely we
who know what it means to have a Saviour our-
selves will long more and more that those millions
who are living and dying in terrible sin and misery,
“without God and without hope,” should soon
hear of His love and power too. I am sure weall
feel heartily ashamed of ourselves for having left
these Indian boys (subjects of our Queen) so long
in the lurch without doing anything to help them
against Satan and all his host. Let each one of
us who have taken just this peep at our boy friends,
remember the ‘“‘ boys azd boys” of our Indian
Empire, boys who are bright and happy because
they know Jesus, and boys who are sad and
wretched because they have never heard of a
Saviour from the penalty and power of the tyrant
sin. And let us decide that we all will do some-
thing to help, and that we will ask God to help
us to decide what that something shall be.
64 A Familiar Tune.

CHAPEER: Vico
BOYS OF CEYLON.

By Mr. SyDNEY SIMMONS.

ICTURE us on board a great
ocean ‘‘liner,” lying at anchor
in Colombo harbour. The
familiar tune of an English
street song bursts suddenly upon
our ears, and, running up on
deck to look over the side of
our vessel, we espy—just what
you see in our sketch—half a

dozen rickety little craft, made of three or four

logs lashed together, hovering round the steamer.

On the rafts stand dripping lads clothed in their

shiny brown skins only. It is their voices which

have startled us with the chorus we hoped we
had left behind in England. Directly they catch
sight of us their vocal efforts are redoubled, while
they keep time to the tune by clapping their
elbows on their naked sides. Presently they fall


The Sunny Island. 65

to crying, “‘Hab adibe! Haba dibe!” and go
through in mimicry the performance of diving
after the sixpence they hope we will throw into
the harbour. They are very clever in retrieving
any silver coins, and make an impromptu
purse of their mouth for them. One poor little
fellow lately dived after a coin, which he
succeeded in picking up, but a hungry shark,
looking around for a meal, seized his opportunity
and the poor boy’s leg as well. We may be sure
our little friend has never regained his ‘sea legs”’
since, but has had to take to a land vocation.

You see, our first introduction to our brothers
in Ceylon shows that they are just as keen as our
English boys to make an honest penny wherever
they can.

Now, I expect you would like to hear something
about the appearance and customs of the boys of .
“the Sunny Island.” I must begin by telling
you that the
boys I am CLL
speaking
about belong to
the Singhalese
nation. There
are lots of Tamil
people who have
come over from “Hab a dibe!”


66 Connexions of Ours.

India and have settled in Ceylon, but. I shall
not speak about their boys.

You will be surprised to hear that the
Singhalese boys are connexions of: your own.
Centuries and centuries ago our common fore-
fathers lived in North India. From thence our
part of the family migrated across Asia and
Europe, and finally crossed over to Britain, whilst
their ancestors filtered down through India, and
some of them crossed over to Ceylon.

When they landed they took possession of the
island, but they adopted the religion of the people
they had subjugated — namely, devil-worship.
About 400 years B.C. a prince. from North India
came to the Singhalese capital as a missionary
of the doctrines of Buddha. His sister followed
him ; she was the first lady missionary to Ceylon.
These two worked so devotedly that before they
died the whole of the island had professed conver-
sion to Buddhism; and the universal religion of
to-day is a jumble of Buddhism and devil-worship
—a combination of despair and degradation.

When a Singhalese boy first makes his appear-
ance in the family circle, his clothes do not cost
much. They consist of a single thread tied round
his arm as a charm against the numberless evil
spirits, which are supposed to be hanging -about
intent on making themselves generally unpleasant.
One particular Demon. 67

However conspicuous by its absence the rest of
his outfit may be, the charm is never forgotten.
There is one particular demon who has a great
weakness for a good fat boy or girl. One daya
missionary was praising a fine little boy. To his
surprise the lad’s father seemed displeased and
disturbed at the admiration bestowed on his son.
The boy was, unfortunately, not at all well, he
said, and abruptly turned the subject. On leaving
the old gentleman, the missionary asked his
Native companion what was the meaning of the
old man’s strange conduct; and then he learnt
that the anxious father feared lest some demon’s
notice might be attracted to his child by the
expressions of admiration used.

The people attribute all illness and misfortune
_to demons, so that boys early learn to look upon
evil spirits as very mischievous creatures who
must be either cheated or humoured, as the case
may be. This is about the sum total of their
ideas of things spiritual. :

When a boy is old enough he is taken off to
the monastery, where he must lay a tribute of
flowers at the foot of the sacred Bo tree, and
repeat the formula, ‘I take refuge in Buddha,
I take refuge in the Law, I take refuge in the
Priesthood.” If he only appreciated the meaning.
of the words he was saying, what a hopeless,

E 2
68 “ Refuge in Buddha.”

desperate blank they would convey to his mind!
‘I take refuge in Buddha,” who, so they say, has
been resolved into nothingness; who, when he
was alive, said there was no God to love and to
save us, and none to hope in but the sinner’s
self! ‘I take refuge in the Law,” which makes
ita sin even to destroy an ant or aweed! ‘I



On the Beach at Colombo,

take refuge in the Priesthood,” which is one of
the great curses of the land !

How much these poor lads need the Gospel !
No one to help them! while they are taught that
their sins will follow them wherever they may
seek refuge. No sanctifying Spirit to enable
them to keep God’s law of holiness! No one
to teach them but the ignorant, immoral priests !
And all around malignant demons delighting to
annoy and injure them !
In a Misston-school. 69

But there! Let us get out of the close, malarial
atmosphere of this dark and dismal “slough of
Despond”. into a bright patch of Gospel sunlight.

We will have a look at what the missionaries
are doing for these interesting lads. We will go
and have a look at a village mission-school, shall
we? When I was small I was taught that “ chil-
dren should be seen and not heard,” but to-day
we hear the children a long while before we catch
sight of the school. This is because each boy is
learning his particular lesson aloud, while around
him his schoolfellows are all reading their books in
a monotonous, sing-song tone, quite indifferent to
the Babel of voices. But what a curious school-
room! Its walls are only built half-way up to
the roof, which is supported by pillars, and we
see the boys peeping over the top as we come up
the path. (We have to build our schools like this,
as otherwise they would be stuffy and unpleasant
in the hot weather.) There are no doors, so we
step in by an entrance, and all the boys rise and
say, “‘ I-bo-un,” which means, ‘“‘ How do you do.”

You can hardly tell which are boys and which
are girls, can you? That is because the boys
wear their hair long and tie it up in a knot like
their sisters do. And what do you think? In
Ceylon it is the boys who wear combs, and not the
girls. To make it still harder to distinguish boys
70 Result of Work.

and girls, they both wear long, bright cloths,
fastened tightly round their waists.

In these schools the boys have the Gospel
taught them for an hour every morning. The
answers of the elder children generally show a
very thorough grasp of the way of salvation. A
small Sunday-school of Heathen children is also
held here. Many of the boys who learn in our
schools give their hearts to the Saviour. Some I
have known have borne a bright witness to their
faith in their own villages. Numbers, too, who
become Christians in after life, attribute their first
spiritual impressions to their school-days. And
all receive a grounding in Gospel truth which
makes it harder for the weeds of false religion
to find a place in their after lives.

After lessons are over they all go straight home,
as in the villages, they have no one to teach them
English games, and they have no national ones
of their own. The Singhalese people have a
wonderful capacity for doing nothing, and this
feature is shared by the boys. An English boy
must be doing something, even if it be only
mischief, while a Ceylon boy can do that most
difficult thing to be done—namely, to do nothing,
and keep on doing it, too.

In each village there is a wzhdara, or priests’
abode, which consists of the actual dwelling-
Sacred “ Bo” tree. 71

house, and a big building called a digoda, which
has been built as a resting-place for some sacred
relic. The dagoba is like a huge bell, standing on
its mouth with its handle in the air. It is
covered with plaster, and whitewashed. In front
of all and in the middle of a cleared space, is
planted the sacred ‘“‘ Bo” tree-—an indispensable
adjunct of every wzhkava. Here is the national
school of the Ceylon young hopefuls.

Let us go into the priests’ quarters where the
boys are taught. We look in vain for either
teachers or pupils. But yonder is a dirty,
unkempt boy, sprawling on the unswept mud
floor, contemplating the cobwebs hanging from
the smoke-begrimed roof. Another lad is pound-
ing rice in a wooden mortar for the priests’ mid-
day meal. They may not touch food after twelve
o’clock, so they have to lay in a good stock then.

‘* Where are the priests?’ we ask. In answer
we learn that they have gone out begging; for
monks are supposed to eat nothing but scraps of
food given them as alms. After a little further
talk, we offer them a little Singhalese leaflet, but
find that neither of them can read. So we pass
on, having learnt by this peép behind the scenes
why it is that the people so seldom send their
boys to their own village priests to be taught.
If we return later on in the afternoon we shall
72 Yellow-robed Monks.

find things reversed, for two yellow-robed monks
now occupy the verandah, and the boys have -
vanished. Finding their teachers indifferent
company, they have gone off to the village for the
afternoon.

The monks do not rise from the beds on which
they are lounging, but survey us with an assumed
air of superiority and indifference. Do not even
the gods bow down before the monks? They do
not seem pleased to see us, or willing to be
friendly, so we had bettér move on. The majority
of these pastors of the people spend most of their
time in lolling about the wzdras—too lazy and
ignorant to teach their pupils—or wrapt in deep
meditation which soon lapses into yet deeper
slumbers.

Of all the village lads, those living at the wzharas
are the most neglected. They have to do the
menial work of the monks, and in return are
taught to repeat stanzas from the classic books,
which are written in obsolete language, and a lot
of Buddhist folk-lore and mythology. Very few
priests know anything of arithmetic, geography,
or history ; so of course they cannot teach them.

One often sees boys clothed in the yellow robes.
They try to carry a great weight of dignity,
which sits ill on their young shoulders. The
villagers treat them with good-natured indiffer-
They Worship the Robe. 73



Inside a Buddhist Temple.

ence, and are always rather glad to chaff them.
They generally say when questioned about the
fitness of grown-up people paying peculiar respect
to such youngsters, that it is the robe they
worship, not the wearer of it.

But now the more enlightened Buddhists have
left the sleepy monks behind, and have started
anti-Christian schools under lay supervision.
These opposition schools are very numerous at
7A Opposition Schools.

present, but I cannot recollect a single case where
they have permanently injured the mission-schools.
Of course, at first a great many of our boys go
over to the new Buddhist school, but they
generally come to the conclusion that they were
better ‘off with their Christian friends. Some-
times the boys coming to our schools have to put
up with a good deal at the hands of the opposition
teachers and their pupils. I have known cases
where boys’ books have been torn up, their slates
broken, and themselves made by force to stop in
the opposition school till it broke up for the day.
But these are grand opportunities to conquer by
love. Ifaspirit of love is shown onsuch occasions
by the Christians, the rivalry of the enemies of
Christ is always put to shame.

The children attending the opposition schools
are.taught exactly on the same plan as the boys’
in our schools. They begin school with a lesson
on Buddhism, just as we devote the first hour to
the Bible; they have started Sunday-schools too ;_
and have wesak cards (wesak is Buddha’s birthday)
just as we have Christmas cards. Imitation is
the sincerest flattery, it is said. The aim of this
movement amongst the young people is not due
so much to love of the young, but to hatred of
Christ. It is remarkable that the only case of
actual rudeness that I have been subjected to by
An appreciated “ Treat.” 75

a Singhalese boy was from a little fellow who
had been entrusted with the work of collecting
boys for his school by an opposition school-
master.

It is wonderful what a little kind sympathy with
these bright boys will do. They are very shy, but
make great friends if one only tries to cultivate
their friendship. A school treat under entirely
native influence is sometimes rather a depressing
occasion to the youngsters. True, they get gay
handkerchiefs, knives, and books given to them,
and have a good “tuck in” of buns and bananas;
but their elders do not always appreciate the fact
that the day is the boys’ day, and that they for
once if.a way must become young again to
please the children. When, however, one gets
amongst the boys on such occasions, and lays
oneself out for their amusement, they soon show
that they can enjoy a good romp as much as any
English boy. Unnecessary clothing is laid aside,
and everything is forgotten but the excitement
and enjoyment of the moment. All join in heartily,
except one or two little unfortunates who have
come to the treat arrayed in grotesque English
garments. Just fancy a poor little fellow ac-
customed to go about in the easy-fitting national
dress, being able to play when got up in English
clothes! Two or three such fantastically-arrayed
76 Fantastically Arrayed.

youngsters are quite a feature at every school
treat. A pair of shoes which make him hobble
and limp, grey worsted stockings, white trousers,
and a black coat, surmounted by a white sailor
hat with a black varnished crown and _ blue
ribbons, is an outfit very often chosen as most
becoming.

But at our big schools the boys do everything
as like English boys as they can. Every boy

Wy.
Yypygp
Y Yi Jf

MY
Vy

MY
{yf


Set them a Good Example. 77

likes to. wear English clothes at these schools,
if possible. They would look much nicer in
native clothes, it is true, but they like to be up
to date. They go in for cricket, football, tennis,
debating societies, and all the various amuse-
ments of an English school, and do them all
remarkably well too. And in their studies they
take up the Oxford and Cambridge Locals.

Whenever we interest ourselves in them they
quickly respond. After all, a great deal of the
apparent difference of character of English and
Native boys is only on the outside, and year by
year we hope to make them more like our bright,
generous, manly boys at home. But our great
aim must be, not to educate them up to our
ideas, however lofty they may be, but by God’s
grace to seek to be the means of making them
more Christ-like. Whatever we are they will
strive to be, so let us set them a good example,
that they may learn that to be like Christ is not to
be unmanly. Let us show them that the English
school-boy is not ashamed of loving and serving
the Lord Jesus, and, believe me, it will bear fruit
in the lives of our Singhalese brothers.
78 Boys compared with Girls.

CHAPTER VII.
CHINESE BOYS.

By Mr. C. T. Stupp.

large subject, especially when you
remember that your ‘‘ Chinese boy”’
is your servant, perhaps thirty or
forty years old, as well as the mischievous
young spark seen about the streets of Chinese
towns, &c.

A Chinese baby boy has generally a rare time
of it in comparison to a Chinese baby girl. The
latter are received by their parents with regret
and indignation; relations and friends at once
come and offer their deepest sympathy for the
great calamity which has overtaken the parents,
who not infrequently end up by throwing out
the unwelcome object to die, eaten by dogs or
wolves. This in China would be considered good
for the wolves, bad for the baby, but again good
for the parents, who so will have escaped the


Received with: congratulations. 79

~ hardship of supporting her through many years.
But the baby boy is received with congratula-
tions—his death would be a calamity ; petted and
spoiled by all, if not kissed as ours. Kissing is
. never in season in China; the nearest a Chinese
baby gets in the shape of kissing is a maternal
smell or sniff administered on the roof of his
head. But although he is smelt, he is not washed,
except on very
rare occasions.
Home educa-
tionbegins early {8 64
by teaching . ‘
them to lie and “
curse, those
being marks of ~
intelligence and
wisdom. A fond
father coming
home. from his
work, greeted
by his offspring,
will delight in
the progress of
his son’s edu-
cation. ‘‘ How
old are you?” if
‘* Sixty,” replies Father and Son,

rh
ay

HU Joa
2

Ws

Lae
ls


80 A Boy's Lessons.

the youngster. Roars of laughter, approving
pats on the head, and, “‘ Smart, intelligent boy!”
from all. ‘‘Curse your mother,” proceeds the
father, when the young chit will turn round
and bestow on the smiling mother a mouthful
of the vilest, filthy talk, such as would hardly be
expected from the most depraved man or woman
in England, and this is received with equal
approval and laughter by the audience.

When the Chinese boy goes to school he is
presented with a new name—not by his parents,
but by his master. This is good, for not infre-
quently the parents will give such delightful
names as “Small Dog,” “ Black Dog,” “ Little
Devil,” &c., &c. The girls would not be thought
worth a name at all.

The Chinese boy scholar has a different time of
it to our English boy. There are no boarding,
but all are day-schools. The boy is taught all
the characters in the Confucian classics; each
word is a different hieroglyphic, with different
sounds or tones. The boy learns them off by
sight and sound. But not till three years
have gone by does the master begin to teach
him the meaning of the hieroglyphics he has
been drumming into his memory. In repeating
his lesson, the Chinese boy will turn his back
to his teacher instead of his face. Every boy
8I

The Chinaman’s Costume.



Two Chinamen.
82 Encounters with Wolves.

learns his lesson by yelling out at the top of his
voice his own particular task, regardless of the
din or inconvenience to his neighbour; and more
miraculous than all, the teacher sits listening to
this Babel of sound, and yet distinguishes the
different mistakes and corrects those of each
individual boy.

A Chinese boy runs considerable danger from
dogs and wolves; it is not an odd thing to hear
of a wolf having carried off one from even the
very gates of a city or village whilst playing with
his pals; nor is it strange to see a boy with a
seam down his face, the result of a wolf attack
and attempt to carry him off.

A Chinese boy has no manly games of skill,
such as our cricket or football; if he makes a
shuttlecock, he uses his foot for a battledoor.
He will fly his kite in the spring, because he says
it can only then be flown by the uprising of the
spring air, and this is considered a worthy pastime
for grown-up and educated men! :

Such are a few facts about Chinese boys. It
is to be hoped that our English boys will never
become like Chinese, but that the Chinese may
become like English boys. This can only be done
by our taking to the Chinese what has picked us up
and made us into a nation, and that the foremost in
the world, viz. the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Noblest and Best. 83

Our games and sports should make our boys
truly manly and great. We deny ourselves, and
train our bodies to win a silver cup for ourselves or
our house, or honour for our school or university,
and such ambitions are noble and good; but let
us see to it that we be not weary in well-doing—
. that we go on to perfection; for should not these
lead us up to grander, nobler, and yet more en-
grossing ambitions? After all, it does not require
much reflection to admit that it is nobler and
better to save life than to kill; to be a soldier
of Jesus Christ, to go and save, at any cost or
sacrifice, His enemies and ours, than to be a
soldier even of our Queen, to fight to kill her
enemies and ours. To win a match is good, but
surely to win even one heathen soul for Christ is
better than to win a dozen matches for self or
house, school or university. These, we might
say of athletics, ought we to have done, and not
to have left the other, the greater spiritual work,
undone. There is more solid satisfaction and
pleasure in being used to bring down even one
Chinaman from the heights of conceit and super-
stition to become a humble follower of the Lord
Jesus than in bringing down hundreds of par-
tridges and pheasants. To bea true Christian is
as much above being an athlete as to bean athlete
is above being a baby sucking ivory rings, or an

F 2
84 Enlist in Christ's Army.

infant playing
with a hum-
ming-top. To
be a_ true
Christian is
to be a hero.
History tells
of no _ hero
like St. Paul.
Read Paul’s
life—that is
true religion.
Religion con-
sisteth not, as
many vainly
imagine, in
wearing a
black coat and
white tie, read-
ing prayersand
preaching sermons in churches, more or less
full of professing Christians, who have from child-
hood read in their Bibles or heard in their churches
of the way of salvation—but in surrender to Jesus
Christ as a rebel to a king, in accepting His free
gift of pardon and salvation bought by His own
death on the cross for you, and enlisting in His
army to bring this lost world to the knowledge of



Kite- flying.
True Religion. 85

salvation, vowing and giving utter obedience to
a Commander who never made, nor can make, a
mistake. As St. Paul says, “‘ Making it my aim
so to preach the Gospel, not where Christ was
already named, that I might not build upon
another man’s foundation; but as it is written,
They shall see to whom no tidings of Him came,
and they who have not heard shall understand.”

The present-day religion may be, and is too
often, an effeminacy, a mere parody of the religion
of Jesus Christ, and the heroic obedience, self-
sacrifice and valour of His early and true disciples.

True Religion is Paul’s life—a grand heroism,
the manliest and noblest of all pursuits and pro-
fessions.

Let us away with the false and lay hold of the
true, following in the footsteps of Paul, who
said—

“To me to live ts Christ, to die is gain.”

“T hold not my life of any account.”

“Tam ready ...to die... for the name
of the Lord Jesus ;”

and, above all, in the footsteps of Him, of Whom
it was said—

“ He saved others, Himself He cannot save.”
86 “ Are they Boys or Girls 2”

CHAPTER VIII.
JAPANESE BOYS.

By A MISSIONARY IN JAPAN.

English brothers. To begin with,
they look very much like girls! If
you were to meet a company of them
in the street, on their way home from school,
demurely walking along, perhaps hand in hand,
their books carried in a handkerchief, wearing the
regulation scholastic ‘‘ divided skirt,” short cloak,
and European hat, and you were new to the
country, you would certainly ask the question,
‘* Are they boys or girls?”

The Japanese boy is much gentler in his
manners, his mind, his speech, and his play than .
the English boy. He never tears about, pushes
roughly,.or speaks rudely, and very rarely fights.
Ifa stranger speaks to him, he will answer politely,
accompanying the answer with a bow. To those
above him in the social world, parents, teachers,


A Queer State of Affairs. 87

&c., he is invariably polite. Heis never heard to
use bad words—I mean cursing and swearing;
indeed, there are no words for oaths in the Japanese
language.

A Japanese boy never has to be driven to school ;
he loves to study, and if you were to ask a class-
room full of boys what the dearest wish in life of
each one is, the answer would probably be in each
case, “‘ To become a great scholar.” The school-
master’s life is therefore an easy one, and yet
difficulties sometimes arise in a Japanese school
never dreamt of in an English one, and masters
are treated in a way that would make the hair of
an English ‘‘ Head” stand on end to think of.
Supposing a boy is punished or reprimanded, as
he thinks too severely, offended or aggrieved in
any way, he will sulk at home, refusing to come
back to school until the master has apologized.
The whole class will probably absent themselves
too, and threaten to leave the school altogether.
If some change (and the Japanese dearly love
changes) is requested by the boys, and _ their
request is refused by the head-master or school
committee, or some obnoxious master is not
removed at their request, the whole school will
leave ina’body. Asarule, the authorities give in,
and the requests are agreed to.

Education is well provided for by the Japanese
88 No Football or Cricket!

Government. There are good schools, of different
grades, in every town; and scarcely a village but
has a good school within reach, and the fees are
almost nominal. The school, if a large one, is
generally governed by a school committee. The
English system ofa head-master with full authority
over the school, and having his own staff under
him, is unknown in Japan. The cane is never
used; a Japanese regards with contempt and
scorn anyone who lays violent hands on another,
and punishments of any kind are seldom needed.

Out of school hours his games are gentle and
mild; he dislikes violent exercise. He does not
care for football or cricket, though many attempts
have been made to teach him those noble games.
Lawn tennis is fairly popular in some of the
mission-schools, and the American game of base-
ball. Rowing also has come into favour of late
years; many schools have their boat, and last year
the Tokio University beat a European crew from
Yokohama. I fear these had fallen into the
common English error of despising their op-
ponents, and had not trained. The Japanese
style is certainly peculiar, the outside hand being
under the oar. They seem to pride themselves on
the rapidity of the stroke ; one boy belonging toa
school crew was heard to say, ‘‘ Oxford only rowed
thirty-six ; we rowed fifty-four.”
Military Drill, 89

In most schools much attention is given to
military drill, which is compulsory, and the boys
are practised in different athletic exercises. The
Japanese is wonderfully lithe and athletic, can
climb toa giddy height, and walk with composure
over the roof of a house. This may be partly
owing to the fact that from babyhood he has been
accustomed to run about barefoot, or with straw



S ae :
aS

A Group in a Japanese Street.
go A Modern School Building.

sandals, or wooden clogs, which allow full play to
the muscles of the feet. The foot gear is kept
on, and lifted about by the great toe, which thus
gains great strength and flexibility. I have seen
aman splitting bamboos, and holding the ends
firmly in. their place with his great toe, using it
almost as another hand.

The school building is now generally a substan-
tial foreign-built one, either made of brick or lath
and plaster, enclosed in its own courtyard, with
porter’s lodge complete, and a separate room for
a kindergarten; but twenty years ago the Japanese
boy began his school career at a dame’s school,
more or less open to the street, and passers-by
could see and hear the young shaven-headed
urchins shouting their syllabic alphabet at the
top of their voices, or busy writing Chinese
characters with a brush in a copy-book. The
copy-book consists of several sheets of blank
paper, fastened together at the top, one character
being written very large on each page; the book
is then hung out to dry, and you may know one
of these schools by the string of copybooks under
the verandah outside and the assemblage of small
clogs in the entry. When dry, these copy-books
are used again and again, until perfectly black,
and even then still continue to be used, the fresh
writing being legible whilst it is wet.
Thousands of Difficult Letters. gI

The boy spends a great part of his time learning
to read and write these Chinese characters.
English boys and girls do not know what a blessing
it is to have an alphabet like our own, of only
‘twenty-six letters, and very easy letters too; so
that any child can soon learn to read small words,
and any intelligent child of twelve or thirteen can
read almost any book or any newspaper that is
put into his hand. A Japanese boy has to learn
not only hundreds, but thousands of letters, and
very difficult ones too; some of them taking more
than twenty strokes of the pen (a brush) to write.
A Japanese cannot therefore read thoroughly well
till he is grown up, and even then there will be
many letters for which he will have to use a
dictionary. English, too, is much studied now;
and at one time many English and American
gentlemen were employed at the different schools
as professors of English. Gradually these are
being dispensed with, and English is taught by
Japanese masters. They, of course, have their
own methods of pronunciation, but the books are,
at any rate, read, and the meaning understood,
and for general knowledge a Japanese boy is not
far behind an English one, being, as he is, intelli-
gent and anxious to learn. Arithmetic used to
be taught by means of an abacus, which is still
used in shops, merchants offices, and banks, as
92 Rapid Arithmetic.

well as for private home accounts; and sums are
added up, divided, and subtracted with extra-
ordinary rapidity. I once challenged a bank
clerk for an intricate addition sum of amounts
varying from thousands of dollars to tenths of a
cent, and found that he with his abacus had
finished before I could do it with pencil and paper.
In the higher schools the higher branches of
mathematics, algebra, Euclid, &c., are taught.
The Japanese boy, unfortunately, is not truthful.
You cannot place much reliance on his word,
nor do they themselves give each other much
credit for truthfulness. His very politeness forbids
his telling a disagreeable truth, and he cannot
see that there is any particular use or virtue in
being truthful. He is not chivalrous or polite to
women. His sisters are put on one side for him
in the home, and wait upon him as he wishes. I
once heard two Japanese ladies extolling the pre-
cocity and gentlemanly bearing of a lad, the son



Abacus or Counting-board.
An Example. 93

of the Governor of a Province, in that, on his
daily return from school, he refused to enter until
his mother came out and bowed ‘‘O Kayeri”’
(welcome home), and took his books from him, as
was her duty on her husband’s return from his
office. There is no discipline for him, either at
home or at school, and on that account he
grows up too often self-willed and overbearing,
and cannot. bear up against reverses in after life.
In one thing the Japanese set an example to
the Western world—in their care of and respect
for their parents. There is no such thing as a
workhouse in Japan, and no need for them. The
aged are taken care of as a sacred duty; filial
piety, together with loyalty to the emperor or
feudal lord, being in their eyes the highest of
virtues, inculcated with care into the young, and
extolled in all their poems and national stories.
Of course the birth of a boy is hailed with joy,
and congratulatory presents come in from friends
and neighbours. The fact is notified to the public
in general next time the month of May comes
round, when a curious custom prevails. During
that month, over every house to which a son has
been born since that time last year there flies a
huge paper fish (see picture on page 94)—an
impossible carp, his body a paper bag beautifully
coloured and shaded in black or red like thé scales
94 A Festive Appearance.

of a fish, inflated
by the wind, his
mouth being kept
open with a bamboo
hoop. The idea is,
I believe, that as
the fish swims up
against the stream,
so must the boy do
in after life. These
fishes vary in size
from three to fifteen

feet long, according
fe RS = to the means of the
SS family, and _ give
a curiously festive
appearance to the
town, as they fly in the air from the tops of long
bamboos tied to the roofs of the houses.

The girls, too, have their month for fishes, but
theirs are smaller ones, and it is not always
remembered to hoist them.

Now you will like to know a little about
their names. Boys’ names are decidedly ugly
and mostly long, four or five syllables, with the
conventional ending of either ¢av6 (for the eldest
son), 72rd (second son), saburo (third son), &c.
For instance: Momotaro, Tokujir6, Seisabur6,









a —
Pr as









In the month of May,
The Honorific “ San.” 95

Other names are: Naokichi, Torazo, Tetsuya, &c.
Girls’ names are pretty, and are often taken from
flowers and trees, such as Kiku (chrysanthemum),
Matsu (pine tree), Ume (plum), &c., correspond-
ing to our English ones—Rose, Violet, Lily, &c.

In addressing a person, “‘San”’ is always used
with the name, sz/ffixed, not prefixed (i.e. “‘ Nao-
kichi San”); things generally being done upside
down in Japan. The father and mother are
perhaps the only people who would speak to a
boy or girl without the honorific ‘‘ San.”

You are all familiar with pictures of the Japanese,
and know what kind of clothes they wear. The
general shape of them is the same for men and
women, and does not alter from the cradle to the
grave; the patterns grow smaller and the colours
quieter as he advances in age. A lad of eighteen
will still have his &zono and haord made with
tucks to let down. Many of the better-class boys
are dressed now from an early age in European
clothes, made in Japan. - They are fond of a com-
forter, and wear gloves—woollen ones in winter
and cotton in summer.

With regard to religion, when quite young they
are taken by their parents from time to time to the
temples. These are holiday times, when they wear
their best clothes. But no religion of any kind is
‘taught in any but mission-schools, and young


A Temple in Japan.

altT fo y2jguvs
Christ's Servants wn Japan. 97

Japan is practically growing up without religion.
A Buddhist will tell you his religion teaches the
sanctity of life, and therefore a Japanese boy
will not wilfully and wantonly #7// a cat or an
insect; but I am afraid he is often quite as cruel
as a little untaught English boy of the same class
might be. You may see a young scamp catch a
grasshopper or dragon-fly, pull off the legs and
wings, and torture it for a long time, and I have
known a butterfly collector astonished when re-
monstrated with on behalf of some poor butter-
flies which he had pinned alive on his hat.

I must refer you to the head-master of the
C.M.S. Boys’ High School in Osaka, if you want
to know more about Japanese boys; from him
and from other C.M.S. Missionaries you could
hear of boys who have become bright and
earnest Christians, who have a knowledge of the
Bible that would put some of you to shame, and
who have persevered in reading it, in spite of
bitter opposition and persecution from their
friends. Cheerfully and bravely do they endure
hardness, and try to live as good soldiers and
servants of Jesus Christ, and win others to Him.

ee
98 Widely Different Surroundings

CHAPTER IX.
AMERICAN-INDIAN BOYS.

By THE Rey. H. W. G. STOCKEN.

ey OYS of North-West America—or,
(rather, let me say Indian boys of the
great North-West, in the Dominion
of Canada—are brought up in sur-
roundings widely differing from those of boys
in England. In the days of infancy they are
wrapped in moss and laced up tightly in sacks, so
that they can be handled roughly by the children
of the tent, and come to no harm.

Sometimes the mother carries the baby boy on
her back in the blanket which she uses as a cloak
by day and a covering by night. When travelling
he is placed on a dvavots behind a horse. When
in the tent or log hut, he is stood against the wall
or hung in a cradle.

Indians are, as a rule, very fond of their
children, and as soon as a little boy is of an age
to walk, his father may be seen leading him about


Boys’ Ornaments. 99

from tent to tent, or taking him to the river ona
summer’s morning for an early bath. As soon as
the boy is a few weeks old, a name is sought for
him. Sometimes the name is given by his father,
sometimes by some of his grandparents or near
relative, in commemoration of some deed of valour
performed by his father, or with reference to the
place of his birth, or to some circumstance that
may have occurred about the time of the boy’s
birth. Favourite names are, “ Taking Two
Guns,” ‘Handsome Rider,’ ‘Killed in the
Night,” ‘Cree Down the River,” ‘“‘The Big
River,” “‘ Eagle Rib,” and such like.

Then the boy’s ears are punched, and large
brass rings are inserted, to which ornaments of
every description are attached. A favourite ear
ornament is a shell which may be bought at the
Hudson’s Bay stores. Frequently small pieces
of money are hung in the ears, but they do not
usually adorn them for long. They are generally
soon converted into tea and sugar. In late
years, the favourite ear ornament has been a
thimble, a hole being bored through the end, and
a small wire thread passed through, causing it to
hang pendant. Brass and iron wire is wound
around the wrists and fingers several times,
forming bracelets and finger-rings.

When the boy is about two years of age, a

G 2
100 A Religious Ceremony.

medicine - man

¥@° is called upon
to perform a
religious cere-
mony over the
child, with a
view to giving
him immunity
xe from sickness.
“1 Patches of

black paint
} are put on
I his cheeks,
forehead, chin,
| ears,and wrists,
and his hair is
Rep inaiad) gathered into
"PaROOS88: “ 4 bunch in
front and se-

curely tied in

shape of a knot. This is

done with much incanta-

tion and prayers, and the

father pays a horse or
something else to the

medicine-man to the value of fifteen or twenty
dollars (£3 or £4). In addition to this, the boy
frequently has a small charm hung around his




A Complete Dress, TOI

neck; sometimes it is in the shape of an animal
cut out of leather and covered with beads;
sometimes it is a stone of peculiar shape or un-
common in kind or colour that the parent has
picked up somewhere and considers fissa-ta-pi
(wonderful).

A boy’s ordinary costume consists of a little
shirt made of a piece of cotton print, trimmed
with red or other fancy-coloured material, which
reaches to his waist. A belt round the waist
sometimes supports a loin cloth, a pair of mo-
cassins, and a pair of leggings, made of any
material, with a fringe on the outside of each leg.
A blanket, suitable to the size of the child, which
he throws over his shoulders and holds with his
left hand, completes his dress. Sometimes the
blanket is cut up and made into a blanket-coat,
which leaves the left hand free, and is more easily
worn.

Indian boys have no indoor amusements. . At
an early age they learn to gamble, from seeing it
carried on by their seniors in the tent. This
consists in changing stones and sticks from one
hand to the other, and bidding the opponent to
guess in which hand these articles are to be found.
Since the contact of Indians with white people,
playing-cards are much used by Indians, and
Native boys sit for hours gambling with these.
102 Outdoor Amusements.

There are many outdoor amusements for
these lads. They are very fond of using the
bow and arrow. They frequently fetch down
birds with these, and shoot gophers, a kind of
ground squirrel, by hundreds. They are very
apt, too, at throwing straight willow sticks, about
two feet six inches long, for long distances along
the ground. In the winter, when the snow is
crusted, they spin tops, made out of a stick of |
wood, and drive them for long distances on the
top of the snow. In the spring of the year they
are very fond of throwing lumps of clay from the
end of a long flexible stick, They also very
ingeniously form all sorts of animals and birds
out of clay. This gives them amusement for
hours in the spring of the year. No amusement,
however, is greater than a ride on a pony’s back.
The boys learn to ride without a saddle. Two or
even three boys sometimes mount the same pony
at one time, and when the pony thinks it too
much of a good thing, he throws up his hind
legs and pitches all the ebeye off, much to their
enjoyment.

As soon as boys get to be nine or ten years of
age, they have to herd the horses belonging to
their fathers and relatives. The horses graze out
upon the prairies summer and winter. In the
summer at daybreak the boy is roused from his —
A Ride across the Prairie. 103

slumbers in the tent, and goes off with his /ariat
(a long rope made of cowhide plaited) in hand to
‘find the horses. He has sometimes to travel
several miles before he finds them, and then,
having found them, he dexterously throws the
rope, with a noose at the end, over the horse’s
head, and, tying the rope round the horse’s lower
jaw to do for a bridle, he rides bareback and
drives the band off to the river. This is very nice
fun in summer, but in winter, when the cold is
intense and the thermometer stands 25° or 30°
below zero, it is not pleasant work. At such
seasons the lads often suffer considerably from
frost-bites to both face and feet.

Indian boys are very fond of roaming, and
nothing pleases them better than to go with the
family on a long journey across country or along
the rivers, which are frequently followed in order
to get fuel and water, and during the summer
months berries as well. On one of these journeys,
the lads inspect every nook, climb every hill, and
make themselves thoroughly well acquainted with
the locality. They are great students of nature,
and know the habits of insects, birds, and wild
animals on the prairies, such as wolves, badgers,
gophers, and antelope. The various kinds of duck,
the prairie chicken, and the smaller birds, all
attract attention. The eggs are sometimes taken,
104 Cruel to Animals.

but more fre-
quently the
nests are
watched until
the young
are hatched,
- when the boy
takes them
before they
can properly
fly or escape
from his
hands. The
boys are cruel
to birds and
3 = most dumb
A young Hunter. animals.

They keep
owls, eagles, or hawks for days tied by a string
around the leg or foot. They allow it to fly a
certain distance and then delight in hauling it
back again.

Indian boys are very wilful. They are seldom
punished by their parents. The father says, if
his boy is impudent to him, “ Wait; he'll grow
big soon, and then he will be sorry for talking
so.” They have, as a rule, very sudden outbursts
of passion. Their temper is altogether uncon-



A Failing amongst Indian Boys. 105

trolled. They are put out at the smallest thing
and fly into a rage. They are not, as a rule,
sulky, although there are some who have that
characteristic, as there are amongst white people.

With all this, many of the boys are lovable
creatures. If they really like one they will exert
themselves to any extent to please him. Almost
every Indian boy has one or more special com-
panions, whom he calls ni-tuk-ka, and, as the

word implies, it is generally one of the same age


































































































































































































106 “ Pieni-puk-st-put.”

as himself. These companions wander about
together by day and by night. They herd the
horses together, and may generally be found in
each other’s company.

When growing into manhood, the young man
looks out for a medicine and charm which are to
be his guide and assistance through life. He
goes to the top of a hill, and for two or three days
remains there fasting and sleeping or dreaming,
waiting for a revelation which he thinks is sure
to come. If anyone is seen approaching him,
he cries, ‘ Pi-ni-puk-si-put, ni-nit-si-tau-pi”’
(‘Do not come here; Iam living alone”). At
last, overcome by hunger and thirst, he goes off
into a dream, and sees that which he has been
longing to see—first, the form of an animal which
lives on the prairies, which in future becomes his
charm, his protection from sickness, his protector
in the day of battle. He subsequently takes the
,animal’s skin, if it is small, and stuffs it and wears
it, or he cuts out the form of the animal, and
covers with beads its model, and hangs it around
his neck, or wears it in his hair.

The other desire of a young Indian is to have
possession of a medicine, and this comes to him in
the same way, by his fa-pau-kani, or dream. He
says that in this dream a herb is especially brought

fore him, and that henceforth becomes to hima
Medicine-nien. 107

medicine. He lets no one know what it is. He
goes out and digs it alone, and then dries it and
chops it up. It is then put into a small skin bag
and kept very carefully. The young Indian is
now ready whenever called upon to try his skill
in curing any case of sickness. The usual method
adopted by these men is to chew a little of the
herb in the mouth, and, after certain preparatory
work, such as singing, beating of drums or rattle,
and the passing of feathers over the part affected,
to spit out the chewed herb upon the person; or,
if it is a throat or lung complaint, they make the
patient drink some of the herb with water. In
return for this treatment the young man expects
a horse as the fee for his attendance upon the
sick person. In time many young men fall out of
the list of medicine-men, and, as a’rule, a few of
the elder men have the monopoly of the business.

As soon as the young Indian is about sixteen
years of age he is expected to join one of the
heathen dances. Of these there are many orders,
.and he may belong to one or more of them.
There are the “‘ Prairie Chickens,” the “ Bears,”
the ‘‘ Dogs,” the ‘‘ Crow Carriers,” the ‘‘ Sioux,”
the ‘ Black Soldiers,” and a host of others. It is
the custom for the dancers to imitate, as fai as
possible, the birds or animals after which the
dance isnamed. Holding their blankets over head
108 Love of Pontes.

and shoulders, they stoop low and flutter about
like chickens. They kneel up, and with hands
doubled under towards the arms, they imitate the
bear. Like the dogs, they pick up food with
their mouths. The other orders all have their
peculiarities. Into any one of these a young
man must be initiated with prayers and paint.
He is dressed up in the distinctive dress of the
order, taking the costume and feathers of one
who is leaving it, and for which he has to pay
one or two horses.

Nearly all young Indians have a love of ponies,
and ‘it is often an ambition to possess a number
ofthem. They are used amongst the Indians for
the purposes of trade. When a wife is desired, a
number of horses have to be given to the parents
of the female, who in return often send other
ponies with the girl when she is taken to the
young man’s tent.

This article has dealt only with heathen boys,
and has special reference to the children of
Blackfoot-speaking Indians. For the benefit of
these children of the plains, the C.M.S. mission-
aries have erected boarding-schools, into which
a large number of the Blackfoot boys have been
admitted. Many of them have proved themselves
intelligent. Many can read and write. Some
have come forward at their own request to be
Christian Boarding-schools. 109

baptized, and a few have been confirmed.
Marvellous is the change Christianity makes
in these boys.

Shall we not pray that they may soon all be
brought into the fold of Christ ?



A Blackfoot Family.
110 So Different.

CHAPTER X.
CONCLUSION.

By Dr. C. F. HARFORD-BATTERSBY.

w 2 HERE is something very romantic
about stories from strange countries,
and it is quite possible that some
fellows may have felt rather envious of
Mr. Pilkington’s young huntsmen, or of the other
boys whose lot is cast amidst such exciting sur-
roundings. It is possible, however, that others
have not felt the same keenness to exchange even
the humdrum life of a British schoolboy for such
scenes as these. After all, there may be some
counterbalancing advantages in the sort of life
which we have to live at home, uneventful though
it may seem to be.

The lives of an African boy and an English boy
are so different that it is difficult to compare one
with another, but it may help us to sympathize
more with boys, such as those of whom we have


A Picture of Misery. III

been hearing, if ge, /) 5
we think of some
points of differ-
ence between

their livesand
ours.
When we

are ill, as a
matter of
course our |
wants are
cared for. A
comfortable
bed, good
nourishment,
gentle nurs-
ing, and the
best medical advice will be provided for us, and
we expect it.

I well remember my first experiences of the
way boys in Africa fare under similar circum-
stances. The first patient in my hospital on the
banks of the Niger was a black slave boy, suffering
from disease of the knee joint. He could hardly
drag himself along the ground, and looked the
picture of misery, as he had also lost the sight of
one eye, owing to small-pox.. The way he had
been treated by his own people was by red-hot

An African Bedstead,


112 No Clothing.

wires being driven into different parts of the leg.
Another little boy patient of mine in a village
some distance from my hospital was suffering
from inflammation of the lungs, yet he was allowed
to crawl about as best he could, even outside the
house, without a stitch of clothing on him. These
are the things which African boys have to suffer,
not in these two cases because anyone meant to be
cruel to them, but because they did not know any
better. But there are worse things than these.
Bodily suffering is hard to bear, but sorrow of
heart is harder.



Capturing a Slave.






Torn from his Home. 113

One day I was called to see a boy who had been
brought into my hospital very seriously ill. To
my surprise, no one could speak to him in‘a
language which he could understand, even though
I had people with me who could speak a great
many different languages. This was very sad, as
I could not make the little fellow understand that
I wanted to be kind to him, and he was in such a °
state of terror that even when we tried to feed
him he did not seem able to trust us. At first I
could not understand what the trouble-was, but
the next day I discovered that the tall, stately
Mohammedan negro who had brought him was
his master, and that he was a slave. I was told
that only a few days before he had béen torn from
his home by a heartless slave-catcher, that his
father and mother had probably been killed before
his eyes, and that then he had been sold to the
man who had brought him to me. His master
was very anxious about him, because it would
mean serious loss of money if he died.

Have you ever thought why it is that such care
is taken of the sick in our own country, and why
we boast so much that as Britons we “ never
shall be slaves,’’ nor have anything to do with
slavery? Some say it is due to civilization. But
China had civilization when our fathers were
naked savages. The Mohammedans of Central

oat
114 A Changed Life.

Africa, who carry on slavery, have civilization,
yet this has not taught them the great law of
love.

No, we must look elsewhere for the cause:
the secret of England’s greatness is the Bible.
Whether we look at our hospitals or the institu-
tions which care for the poor and the destitute,
Christianity is responsible for these great bles-
sings which we enjoy, and if we go to a country
which is not Christian, we are not likely to find
‘ many hospitals or charitable institutions, unless
they have been introduced by Christian people.

I have described to you some of the troubles of
Heathen and Mohammedan boys which all of you
can understand; but there is a worse trouble
from which they are suffering, which I must try to
explain to you.

At one of the first places where I landed in
West Africa, I had the opportunity of a talk with
some Christian boys, just as I have often had with
fellows at home, about the great needs of the soul,
and especially on the subject of sin. As I was
speaking to one bright-faced though dark-skinned
boy, he suddenly burst into tears, saying, “I
have been such a bad boy”; but when he could
speak again he told me that he knew God had
forgiven him, and had changed his life.. Have
you eyer realized as he did the hatefulness of sin?
What do they need ? 115

If you have, I trust you can say, as he could have
said—
“T belong to Jesus ; ’twas a happy day
When His blood most precious washed my sins away,

When His Holy Spirit changed my heart of stone,
Set His mark upon me, sealed me for His own.”

If you can say this, as many of us can who have
learnt to trust Jesus, perhaps as little children, or
it may be whilst reading the Bible, or attending
some Boys’ Mission or a Schoolboys’ Camp, then
you may be able to understand a little of the need
of these other boys in far-off lands.

What is it then that they need? Is it religion?
Many of them are much more religious than you
are. Is it that they do not pray? Some of them
would put us to shame in the regularity with
which they say their prayers. Let me tell you of

‘boys whom I have met who*would answer this
description.

I was in the great city of Bida, in Central
Africa, and was sleeping in a little native-built
house in one of the courtyards of the town, when
I was awakened at three o’clock one morning bya
noise as of boys at a choir practice, learning
some minor chants. These were Mohammedan
boys at school at this unearthly hour in the
morning, learning to recite their Arabic prayers.
Probably none of them understood a word of what

Hee
116

A Living Saviour.

they were repeating, as the prayers were in Arabic,
and these boys are either Nupés or Hausas, yet
day by day they come together in different schools

= =

A Moslem Boy.



for the purpose of learn-
ing these prayers, and
being taught to read and
write extracts from religious
books.

But though they spend so
much time over religious
observances, their religion
is only a matter of form.
It cannot in any way change
their lives, it cannot atone
for a single sin, and so it is
of no use to them, but often
is a hindrance, for it pre-
vents many from seeking
the truth. What they need,
and what we all need, is
not a mere set of religious
forms, but a living Saviour
who has died to take away
eur sins, and who can
deliver us from the power
of those sins even to which
we may have been slaves in
time past.
Bov Martyrs. 117



A Market Scene in Africa.

Are there some who say that the Heathen are
too degraded—that it is no use to seek to save
them? Such people expose their ignorance.
Missionary ‘history is full of stories of the faith-
fulness of Christian boys even in the midst of
severe persecution. The stories of the boy-
martyrs of Uganda, and of many a Christian boy
118 Millions of Heathen Dying.

in India and every other mission-field, simply fill
us with shame as we think of how little we pave
suffered for Christ’s sake.

I remember one summer day when I was at
school at Repton going down for a swim in the ,
Trent. It ‘was only the second day I had ever
bathed in that river, and at the end of my swim I
was feeling very tired, when suddenly a cry was
raised of danger; one of my schoolfellows was
drowning. ‘Three or four fellows were round him,
trying to hold him up, but in vain; there, before the
eyes of a great part of the school, he was drowned.
Oh, how I wished I could have done something to
save him. Can you imagine the gloom that fell
over the school when the sad event was known ?

Only one fellow! Yet we would have given
anything we possessed to save his life. Can it
be true that there are millions of our brothers and
sisters in heathen lands passing into eternity with-
out one to tell them of Jesus, and we do not care ?

I am sure some of you do care, and you would
like to do something to save the. boys of whom
you have been hearing. Let me tell you of some
ways in which you may help.

1. Read about Missions. Are you fond of read-
ing? Don’t fill your minds with the sensational
rubbish which is found in the common novels,
and in the foolish (so-called ‘‘comic”’) papers of
Splendid Book for Boys. 119

the bookstalls. Do you like stories of thrilling
adventure in real life? I defy you to produce a
more stirring romance than the story of John G.
Paton, of the New Hebrides. If you have never
read this, nor ‘‘ Lion-Hearted,” the life of the
martyr-bishop Hannington, nor ‘‘The Story of
the Life of Mackay of Uganda,” as told for boys,
you don’t know what real adventure is.

I might write pages about the splendid mis-
sionary biographies which can now be had, some
of them for a very small sum of money. But I will
sum up what I have been saying in one sentence:

(2) Study the lives of missionaries.
But I have another recommendation, and that is—

(0) Study a missionary magazine. Either the
Church Missionary Gleaner, price td.
monthly, or Awake, price $d. monthly,
are my choice, and you will find them a
good investment.*

One word more with regard to your reading.
You will notice that I have used the word
“study.” Don’t be frightened of it. What I
want you to do is to try to remember what you
read. Unless you do, reading will not do you
much good. If you do, you will always be

* Both Magazines are published by the Church Missionary
Society, Salisbury Square, E.C.
120 Pray for Missions.

thankful that your mind is so well stored with
things worth remembering.

Write down anything which strikes you. Keep
a little book for any special points you want to
remember. It is a splendid exercise to write a
short abstract of what we have read; and if you
have the chance of going in for a missionary
examination, with some good books as a prize,
you would have an additional object for study.
Our Boys’ Magazine * gives missionary informa-
tion, and sometimes has examinations.

2. Pray for Missions. Now that we have the
C.M.S. Cycle of Prayer, in which we pray for some
part of the world or special branch of missionary
work, it is so easy to pray for some special subject
every day; and there is something else to help us
to understand what we pray for, and that is the
Gleaner's Atlas (C.M.S.). There is nothing like
a map for helping one to realize what missionary
work is; and when we can get for 1s. an atlas of
the world, with information for each day about the
Mission work in each part of the world, we have no
excuse for not remembering to pray for Missions.
It is a good plan to have one of the copies of the
Cycle of Prayer in one’s Bible, and to note down
on it the names of any missionaries we may have
seen, or places in which we are specially interested.

* Published at 13 A, Warwick Lane, E.C.
A Suggestion. 121

I have mentioned your Bible. Of course you
read that regularly. Perhaps you belong to the
Schoolboys’ Scripture Union. You will find in
the Bible the best help to prayer, especially about
Foreign Missions.





































































































































































The Church Missionary House.
122 Stamp Collecting.

3. Give to Missions. Have a missionary-box,
and put something into it yourself. Do you
believe in the text, ‘‘ It is*more blessed to give
than to receive”? If you have never proved it
before, begin at once.

Is it absolutely necessary to spend so much
time and money at the shop hard by, whose
description I leave you to fill in from your own
imagination? Shall we not think of something
we can give up for the sake of Christ and the
Heathen? If, however, you have a missionary-
box, there are plenty of ways of filling it. Are
you good at carpentering or fretwork? You
might make some pretty things, and sell them
for the missionary cause. Perhaps you are fond of
stamp collecting. A great deal of money has been
made for Missions by the sale of foreign stamps.

4. Be a Missionary yourself to the Heathen or
Mohammedan World, if you can. Many of us
are not able to go; but if you can, there is no
greater privilege in the world than to be a Foreign
missionary. How many representatives has your
school in the Foreign Mission Field? I am
thankful to say that Repton has contributed a
considerable number. Three of the celebrated
band of missionaries to China, of whom Mr.
Studd was one, were Etonians, and three were
Reptonians. Amongst the little band of mis-
Which shall head the List ? 123

sionaries in Persia, three are Reptonians. In the
ship in which I sailed for Africa on my first
journey, two of us were old Reptonians. I do
not want to say too much of my dear old school,
but I want to stir up some of you fellows at other
schools to rivalry. I know something of the con-
nection of Eton, Harrow, and Rugby with the
Mission-field, but no school has done what it
should have done. Which school shall head the
list? You could have no higher, happier, holier
calling than that of a missionary, and if I may
say so, than that of a medical missionary.

You fellows with life before you, you who have
had the great advantage of a public school edu-
cation, you who have gained the athletic prizes
and have strong bodies, you great scholars—yes,
and you more humble scholars, who yet know
what it is to be faithful to your heavenly Master
—in His Name come along!


APPENDIX.

THE CHURCH MISSIONARY
SOCIETY.



©3 It is an interesting old house, and many
visits have been paid to its cellars, where may be seen
a well-preserved fragment of the Roman wall of
London. You and I, however, would want to go
upstairs as well! There is a certain room on the
first floor which ought to have a very special interest
for us after reading this book. On April 12th, 1799,
sixteen clergymen and nine laymen met in that room
and founded the Church Missionary Society, which
has now grown to be the largest Missionary Society in
the world. There were many discouragements at
first. For some time the Committee had to look to
Germany for their supply of missionaries, as none were
forthcoming in-England; and there were home
difficulties as well. But God’s help and blessing
never failed, and the Society went on growing and
Appendix. 125

increasing until in 1813, a modest house was taken in
Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, to be used as an office,
a residence for one of the secretaries, and a Training
Home for missionary candidates.

After sixty years, however, a larger house became
absolutely necessary, and one was built next door to
the old house. Still the work continued to grow and
the workers to multiply, and in 1885 the first house
was pulled down, the second house enlarged, and the
present house, of which you have a picture on
page I2I, was opened. No secretaries live there now,
no missionary candidates are trained within its walls ;
itis one huge office, and a very hard-worked office
too! You may well believe this when you hear that
besides those parts of the world of which you have
read in this book, the C.M.S. has missions in Egypt,
Persia, Mauritius, and New Zealand, besides many
places in Africa, India, China, and North America, of
which we have not had space to tell you. And so
many different kinds of work are done in those
Missions. You have been reading chiefly of the work
amongst boys ; but here is a list of other branches of
work done by C.M.S. missionaries :—

1. Preaching indoors and out of doors, in cities and in
villages.

2. Speaking to individuals, indoors and out of doors,
everywhere.

3. Visiting, rich and poor, the Brahman lady in her zenana,
the Arab in his tent, the Eskimo in his ice-house.

4. Lecturing, to educated English-speaking men in India
and Japan.

5. Itinerating over wide extent of country, in many lands.

6. Lantern lectures and evangelistic singing.

7. Pastoral care and instruction of converts.
126 Appendix.

8. Training of Native pastors, evangelists, teachers,
catechists, Bible-women.

g. Teaching the Word of God to heathen children in
town and village schools.

10. Boarding and day-schools for the children of
Christians.

11. Orphanages, and Homes for rescued slaves and other
outcasts.

12. Medical Missions, Hospitals, Dispensaries, Itinerant
work.

13. Industrial and material improvement of barbarous
tribes.

14. Translation of the Word of God.

15. Preparation of Christian books, tracts, &c.

16. Reducing hitherto unknown languages to writing
preparing vocabularies, &c.

17. Incipient organization for Native Churches.

18. Example of Christian personal life.

19. Example of Christian family life.

The officials at the Church Missionary House are
brought into touch with all this work. Nearly every
day some:Committee meets to talk over difficult
questions which missionaries may have asked in their
letters, to choose new missionaries, or to regulate ex-
penditure. Statesmen, Indian judges and retired civil
servants, officers in the army, business men and clergy-
men, are on these Committees, and feel it a privilege
to help on the grand work which many of them have
seen with their own eyes. And there is no end of
Home work to be done too. Preachers and speakers
have to be supplied in all parts of the United King-
dom, new plans for interesting different classés of
people in missionary work have to be thought out and
acted out, and missionary literature has to be prepared
and sold. Yes, anybody who comes asa worker to
Salisbury Square must mean work! The hardest-
Appendix. 127

worked schoolboy in England does not work so hard
as a C.M.S. secretary.

Someone has said that this motto ought to be
written over the doorway of the Church Missionary
House: ‘The place where prayer is wont to be
made.” It isso true. Constantly in the middle of an
important Committee meeting the business will stop,
whilst one of the members leads the others in prayer.
for guidance about a difficult point; and every
Thursday at four o’clock a Prayer-meeting is held in
the big Committee Room, open to anyone who likes
to come, when letters from the foreign field are read,
anda short address is given by one of the secretaries,
Perhaps some of you who live in or near London
might be able to come to this meeting occasionally
during the holidays; you would have a warm wel-
come.

But there is another reason which I hope will bring
some of you to Salisbury Square one day. God may
put it into your heart to offer yourself to Him and to
the C.M.S. for work in the foreign field. Hundreds of
fine young fellows have walked up those well-worn
steps in days gone by, to speak of their wish for mis-
sionary work, and to be helped by some older friend
to discover God’s will in the matter. Hundreds have
stood in the large Committee Room, on the eve of
their departure for the Mission-field, to say a few
manly words of farewell, and to thank God for the
honour He has put upon them in allowing them to be
His ambassadors amongst the Heathen. No “milk-
sops” they ; well-known cricketers and athletes, men
who have won their “ Blue,” as well as those who have
128 Appendix.

taken brilliant degrees at the University, have been
taken leave of in that Committee Room, and have
lived, aye, and died too, for Christ and the exten-
sion of His Kingdom. And, until the King Himself
returns, we doubt not that others will press forward to
“follow in their train.’ What about yourself? God
may keep you in England, weak health or family
circumstances may bea sign that the honour of foreign
service is not for you. But that is His affair. Our
part is to say to Him, as Solomon’s servants said to
their earthly master :—

“ Tuy SERVANTS ARE READY TO DO WHATSOEVER MY
Lorp THE KING SHALL APPOINT.”