I believe that its success on the railroads would result in its spread to all great industrial corporations. When Bismarck first introduced it in the German empire there was some grumbling, but since then they have discovered its great value and benefit. Now it could not be repealed. A man could retire, say at fifty or fifty-five years. Many men are not worked out at this age, and could occupy some subsidiary position with the corporation and continue to provide for their families.

I have the fullest faith in such a law. It is either that or state socialism, which is nothing less than creating a great state poorhouse, and the American people are not ready for that system yet.-Joseph Medill.

QUESTIONS TO SPECIALISTS.

ANSWERED BY MRS. JOSEPH COOK, BOSTON.

162. What are the Prospects of Temperance Work in Mission Fields?

Doubtless one reason why the countless millions of Asia and Africa and the Isles of the Sea have existed so long as nations has been their freedom from the Anglo-Saxon vice of strong drink. Abstinence from alcoholic drinks was either a part of their religion, as in Hinduism and Mohammedanism, or the native drinks were harmless compared with the "fire-water" introduced by traders from Christian nations. It is a misfortune to any people when they outgrow and give up an inherited religion and accept no new faith. Keshub Chunder Sen, that prince of Hindu reformers, said that what he feared for his countrymen was that they would leave the hell of heathenism and sink into the deeper hell of infidelity. The intelligent youth of India are now receiving an education in the government schools, which frees them from the restraints of their own religions while it puts no new restraining force in their places. It is generally acknowledged that drinking is far more universal among Englishmen in India than Great Britain. Even Englishwomen not infrequently take what they call "whisky pegs," a combination of whisky and soda water. Following the example of their rulers and teachers, the Hindu youth take to intoxicants, and having a weaker physique and less power of self-control than men of Anglo-Saxon race, they fall easy victims to intemperate habits.

The American missionaries, of whatever name or denomination, are almost without exception, total abstainers. Among the English and Scotch missionaries the old-time custom of the home land has been taken by them into foreign fields more frequently than with those from our own country, although occasionally there is such a notable exception as John G. Paton, who sets his face as a flint against the use both of alcohol and tobacco. Dr. Paton testifies to the great influence and power of temperance as the handmaid of the Gospel, both in his city missionary work in Glasgow and among the cannibals of the South Sea Islands.

The missionaries of our various boards have had this evil of intemperance to meet, and have done all they could to counteract it both by precept and example. Some of the denominations have made stringent rules requiring a pledge of total abstinence from their native converts as a condition of church membership. Rev. Dr. Phillips, secretary of

the Sunday-school union of India, reports that "Bands of Hope for children are being organized in connection with churches and Sunday-schools. In many places large numbers of native gentlemen have been enrolled in temperance organizations." But the most aggressive work along these special lines has been done by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which has sent out six round-the-world missionaries. These women have done splendid service in rousing temperance sentiment and in forming local unions for the promotion of total abstinence principles.

In a recent number of The Union Signal, Miss Jessie Ackermann writes from Japan that seven hundred native gentlemen and about two hundred ladies have joined temperance societies as a result of Miss West's work in that Empire.

Mrs. Andrew and Dr. Bushnell, who did such effective work in unveiling legalized vice in India, are just back from their second visit to the Orient and report that their work the past year "has been almost entirely in mission fields. India is looking up; Miss Ruth Ranney, in Burmah, is most earnest and active and there is a splendid band in Singapore. In China we have six strong unions, Shanghai having three, one of English speaking people and two for the native women. In Japan Mrs. Yajima, the president, is most faithful; and Miss Denton, of Kyoto, and Miss Daughaday, of Totori, are leading American workers. At Kobe, Nagasaki and Tokyo excellent work is being accomplished." It has been said that one of the strongest objections of high caste Hindu women to Christianity is because it permits the use of alcoholics.

Our greatest guilt as a nation in ruining both souls and bodies of nonChristian nations is in connection with Africa. The collector of the port of Boston states that between seven and eight million gallons of New England rum were shipped from that port alone to Africa in a single year. The Missionary Herald for June reports that there has been within the last two years a decrease in the amount of distilled liquors sent from the port of Boston to Africa. The superintendent of Lutheran missions in West Africa writes: The vilest liquors imaginable are being poured into Africa in shiploads from almost every quarter of the civilized world. On one small vessel, in which myself and wife were the only passengers, there were in the hold over one hundred thousand gallons of New England rum, which sold on the coast for one dollar a gallon in exchange for products common to the country." A scathing article, bristling with the latest facts and figures, entitled "Christendom's Rum Trade with Africa," appeared in the Missionary Review for July. It is written by F. P. Noble, of Chicago, a distinguished specialist on African affairs and secretary of the Congress on Africa, held in Chicago in connection with the Columbian Exposition. He says: "The religious battle for the possession of Africa's peoples will be between Christianity and Islam. Though the cross cannot fail to con

quer the crescent, the issue of the contest has been made a thousandfold more difficult because the Church of Christ goes to African pagans with a soul-saving Gospel preached by her missionaries and a souldamning business practiced by her merchants. Were it not for this import of spirits, native church members, now reckoned at only one hundred and fifty thousand, would number a million and more. Such is the unanimous testimony of missionaries . . . In the Congo language the nearest word that missionaries could find to translate sober' means a man who cannot get drunk whatever the amount he may drink.'" Mr. Noble goes on to say that the "worst economic effect of this illegitimate commerce is that it is depopulating Africa. Slavery and slave trade cost Africa one million lives each year," and it is estimated by some residents there that drink kills as many more. It is hopeless to appeal to the trader, for the profits are enormous, often seven hundred per cent. Canon Farrar, comparing the old curse of the slave trade to the present curse of the liquor traffic, declares the latter to be far more deadly. He says: "The old rapacity of the slave trade has been followed by the greedier and more ruinous rapacity of the drink seller. Our fathers tore from the neck of Africa a yoke of whips; we have subjected the native races to a yoke of scorpions."

Last year the United States government collected a revenue from alcoholic stimulants of $136,525,861, or nearly thirty per cent of the total revenue. But the hope of the nation is in the children, and it is estimated that thirteen million children in the United States are now under temperance education laws. Mrs. Mary H. Hunt is the author and international leader of the movement for the introduction of scientific temperance instruction in public schools. Her work has been conducted through the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the churches, philanthropic organizations, and missionaries in this and other lands.

The nature and effects of alcoholic drinks and other narcotics in connection with physiology and hygiene are now a mandatory study in the public schools of thirty-nine of the forty-four states of our Union. This study is also required in all schools under federal control, including the territories, Indian and colored schools, and the national, military and naval academies. Graded text-books on this topic indorsed by Mrs. Hunt are being studied in these schools.

The great success of these books in America has attracted the attention of other countries. Health For Little Folks has been translated into Finnish, Child's Health Primer into Chinese and Hawaiian, and Hygiene For Young People into Swedish, Norwegian and Japanese. The Pundita Ramabai writes Mrs. Hunt that she has introduced scientific temperance instruction into her school. Mrs. Laura B. Bridgman, for thirty-two years a missionary under the A. B. C. F. M., says that the temperance physiologies have been sent for to America for use in the Umzumbe Girls' Home, and can be used in the school, as English is the

medium of instruction in the older classes by government requirement. In Natal the Manual of Health and Temperance has been recommended by the Council of Education as the foundation of oral temperance instruction to be given in the government schools. The temperance physiologies have been adopted for use in the Chinese schools by the Educational Association of China. The president of the Central College of Turkey, Rev. A. Fuller, writing for sample copies of these text-books, says: "In this land tobacco is almost a greater curse and danger to our Protestant communities than alcohol. Every point you gain in America against these evils is a point gained for the world." The indorsed physiologies are in use in a number of the mission schools in Turkey. A warm interest in this department of work is taken by missionaries and teachers in Bulgaria, and the books are in use in many of the schools where English is taught. Copies of the Pathfinder series of temperance physiologies have been shown to the Siamese Minister of Education, and he has approved them, and has given his verdict in favor of having them translated and introduced into the government schools of that country.

As an illustration of the truth of Dr. Fuller's remark, that "every point gained in America against these evils is a point gained for the world," is the encouraging fact that twenty different countries besides the United States have exhibited more or less interest in behalf of making physiological or scientific temperance a part of the required education of the young. To the twenty-three different indorsed physiologies, adapted to all grades of pupils, the World's Columbian Exposition gave the "highest award," especially commending them for "accuracy and judg ment in the selection of matter and skill in the adaptation of the same to varying grades of schools.”

While we as a nation have, to use Canon Farrar's words, "heaped stumbling blocks before the unoffending childhood of the world," it is a reason for devout gratitude that the Christian women of America can send these leaves of healing to the children of the Orient.

If women interested in missionary work would feel the importance of helping on the cause of temperance in the home land, one great obstacle to the speedy establishment of Christ's kingdom would be removed. Some one has pertinently said: "The most inviting fields for missionaries who long to save the savages of Africa are the large cities of Europe and America. If they could convert the traders of those cities and the governments that encourage them they would be of great service to the heathen, who are now perishing under the influence of civilization."