SEVEN YEARS' WANDERINGS IN CHINA. Ar a recent meeting of the China Inland Mission, held in the Mildmay Conference Hall, a curious looking map, intersected by an irregular network of scarlet braid, was suspended above the platform. It represented the Chinese Empire, with its eighteen provinces, and the adjacent territories of Mongolia, Manchuria, Corea, Thibet, and Burmah. A drawing in the corner, of England on the same scale, smaller than China's smallest province,-gave one some idea of the vast extent of country included in the map. To its utmost limits, and in every direction, ran the bright red line, which marked the journeyings of our former student, MR. JAMES CAMERON, who has, during the past seven years, traversed China in her length and breadth, and entered some of her outlying territories, distributing the Scriptures, and preaching the gospel. It is easy to trace such journeyings on a map; but as the traveller gave, in briefest outline, his unpretending account of his itinerations, one felt that only a Godgiven zeal and patient endurance could have carried him over those more than 20,000 miles, with all the attendant privations, perils, and fatigues.

Mr. Cameron generally journeyed on foot, partly from necessity, though often by choice, as he found more opportunity of doing his Master's work in this way. Occasionally he travelled on horseback, or on a mule; in the north a cart might now and then be hired, but these springless con

veyances left their traces in many a bruise on the traveller's person. Wheelbarrows were the fashion in the southern province of Kwang-si; mere trucks divided into two seats by a wheel let into the centre; two, and sometimes four persons ride on these, one coolie pushing the load.

Starting in 1876 from Gan-king, about 500 miles inland from Shanghai, after six months spent in studying the language, Mr. Cameron went westward into Si-chuen, on the border of Thibet. He found himself the first foreigner to enter many of the towns on his route, but was able, almost everywhere, to sell some scriptures and tracts. Now and then, however, he was threatened with violence, as at I-chang, a treaty port on the Yangtsi, where the people rose against the foreigners, broke in the wooden front of the house in which he was staying with a fellow-worker, Mr. Nicoll, and stole or spoiled much of their property. At a town in Kiang-si, the landlord of his inn was beaten for having harboured the "foreign devil."

There was some river travelling at this point of his journey, through the magnificent gorges of the Yang-tsi, but Mr. Cameron always took a land route by preference when there was a choice, as he could hardly go a mile on foot without meeting wayfarers to whom he might deliver his message, or sell one of his books. In the numerous hamlets on his road he usually found ready listeners to his preaching, as well as a fair sale for Scriptures and tracts. Near Thibet, he was amused by the exaggerated accounts of Chinamen who had entered that country, and described it as a barbarous land, abounding in perils for the traveller. They advised him to carry thither, as a preservative from evil, some earth from Sichuen if he would return from Thibet in health and safety! He found, however, that the only distinguishing features of Thibet, in so far as he penetrated it, were the sparseness of population and the poverty of the people. The border town of Litang was swarming with the baldpated lamas, who are the priests of Thibet. In every Thibetan family every other son born is destined to belong to this lazy brotherhood! Priestcraft never surely attained such terrible proportions elsewhere.

Mr. Cameron managed, under disguise of the Chinese dress he always wore, to enter a Lamasery with a crowd who were offering gifts to the chief Lama. He observed that this high priest gave the people in return a small piece of ribbon supposed to act as a charm, with which the priestridden devotees went away looking extremely happy. As they came in and went out, each turned round one of the upright rollers or prayer wheels, standing in rows on each side the building, this being their mechanical form of supplication.

The road for long sections was seldom below an elevation of 12,000 ft.; and there is a magnificent mountain, KENDA, which is 22,000 ft. high, in this district. Mr. Cameron passed southwards into Yunnan after his excursion into Thibet. Popery had long been planted among the five

JULY, 1883.]

Hearing for the First and Last Time.

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millions of this province, but he found there no Protestant mission. (The China Inland Mission has now two stations there.) Serious illness delayed him some weeks. About this time he had suffered much from cold, long, trying walks; climbing over snowclad mountains in Thibet, with the poorest fare and most wretched accommodation at the end of each day's weary course, had been too much even for his iron frame.

The principal food of the Chinese in this western region is a decoction called "tsan-pa," made of brick tea boiled and mixed with flour, salt and butter. After a visit to Bhamô in Burmah, Mr. Cameron ended this westerly tour of about five thousand miles at Singapore, where he enjoyed some much needed refreshment in the company of Christian friends. But in his life "parting seemed to be the rule" to use his own words; and he soon started again on his lonesome way. This time he went through the southern province of Kwang-si, where his wheelbarrow coolies were poor, sickly opium smokers, only able to perform their labour under the influence of that deadly drug. The missionaries' medicines were in great request in this part of his travels, and the people he was enabled to cure brought him presents of fowls, tea, and cakes, in proof of their gratitude, and in many villages became ready listeners to the gospel which he preached.

It will be seen by our map how he now returned into Yunnan, to traverse its eastern side, among a miserable people, so poor as to look pinched with want, yet greatly given to opium smoking In the capital, Yunnan-fu, he had attentive hearers, some coming to his inn for a quiet talk; and many carried to distant homes the sheet tracts which he, standing in the gateway of the city, distributed freely. Some months later, months of toilsome but untiring missionary travel, we find him in September, 1879, far away in the north-east at Tien-tsin, where he was gladdened by the success of Dr. Mackenzie's medical mission. From morning till evening patients suffering from all manner of diseases were coming to the temple given by the viceroy for a dispensary, and every comer heard the word of life.

Mr. Cameron's last journey was far away to the north, not only to the Chinese provinces of Shen-si and Shan-si but into the outlying district of Shin-king and the borders of Corea: he also crossed Manchuria; and his wanderings ended at Chefù. He had entered every province but one of the great empire, and his journeyings had traversed, in various directions, an area as extensive as Europe.

And year after year, and all the way, the one great object of Mr. Cameron's journey was never lost sight of; and while his were primarily pioneering explorations the good seed of the kingdom was sown on every possible occasion. Many a wayside talk did he hold with strangely mixed companions. "Every three or four miles " he tells us one would come to a tea shop, and seated there, with a beggar it might be on one

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side sipping his two cash worth of tea, a merchant or literate on the other, some half dozen listeners in front, all full of curiosity about my affairs, I would speak to them of the way of salvation through Jesus. Sometimes at night I was able to get a small room in an inn, or a small corner in a large room, or only a corner in a large bed, no screen of any kind anywhere, and at once the tidings would spread, a foreigner is come,' and the house would be speedily filled with Chinamen crowding into my room, or room corner, and on to my very bed, staring, examining my clothes, questioning as only Chinamen can question about my greatgreat-grandfather, and every family detail connected with me; for hours my visitors, usually including my landlord and his wife, would remain; even the literati would come, and borrow books, which they returned to me before I journeyed away. Among many of the magistrates I met with kindness, and preached the gospel in the houses of several."

Most solemnly the thought used to press on the missionary's mind that to most of those he met in the many millioned provinces of China and the regions beyond on which here and there he touched, the message of life was heard now not only for the first, but probably also for the last time. Surely if any sowing of the good seed needs more peculiarly than another to be followed up by prayer, it is such work as this!

We have referred already to some of the trials and privations of such journeyings as Mr. Cameron's; many more might be mentioned; how much of isolation for instance is implied in the simple entry in his record, "I arrived at Pakhoi to find 18 months' letters awaiting me." But it is not for us to dwell on trials to which he alludes but rarely, and in the most passing way. The steadfast spirit of the great missionary traveller of old who could say "none of these things move me" reappears in Mr. Cameron's diary, with deep thankfulness for mercies by the way, especially for the fulfilment of the promise "He that hath forsaken brethren and sisters for My name's sake shall receive an hundred fold,” for many a sweet, refreshing experience of brotherly kindness and welcome to Christian homes was given him to enjoy.

Rather would we sympathise with him in the only real cause of despondency and discouragement he met with, the sore want of labourers in a field so vast, and in some respects so white unto harvest.

"I felt again and again," says Mr. Cameron, "meeting as I did, not with Chinese only, but Thibetans, Miao-tsï, Mosos, Minkias, Shans, Kahch'ens, living without God and without hope in the world, Oh that I could divide myself into many parts, so as to carry the message of

salvation to all of these!

If this is the feeling of the servant, what must be the yearning of the Master over these perishing multitudes? and what His desire to see His disciples go as His witnesses among these millions, impelled by the power of His constraining love, and inspired by the hope of His speedy coming!

W

GARDEN PARTIES IN EAST LONDON.

HILE the West end season is running its course, we in our far East are not without our afternoon teas and garden parties! They are wonderfully different from those of Kensington and Belgravia, it is true; somewhat deficient in the presence of rank and fashion, wealth and beauty; but marked possibly by quite as much true pleasure and heartfelt enjoyment.

Our grounds at Harley

We judge of everything by comparison. House have a struggle for existence with London fogs and smoke, and are poor, townified concerns at best; when we come up from Cliff, where the vegetation thrives and enjoys itself in the pure and pleasant breezes of the Peak, we look down on them completely! But when our visitors come to us from the crowded courts and narrow streets and dingy houses in which, alas, many of them have to dwell, they seem to feel as if they were obtaining a peep of paradise! "Only think now! Who would ha' thought it? Such a place as this here in Bow Road! Ain't it lovely now? Why, 'tis real country!" Why, 'tis real country!" We often pity ourselves and our neighbours because of the chemical vapours and unpleasantly odorous smokes that blow over us from the Stratford factories; but our visitors remark on the delight of our pure fresh air," and one dear old man, who had been long ill, said as if he really meant it, "I do believe this beautiful change of air will do me good, ma'am!"

As our receptions are pretty numerous, each party numbering from one to three hundred, we are glad to have the College Hall or the tent to fall back upon in case of rain, though tea is always served in the garden when fine. We entertain thus, in the course of the summer, many a mothers' meeting besides our own, various "classes" of lads and lasses; the little children of our Sunday schools, who are too young to be taken for the "day in the country"; the mission hall adults; the police, the railway and tram men, the shipbuilders, etc. And we get precious opportunities of speaking to these men and commending the precious gospel to their acceptance on such occasions.

Are there not many who might gather such companies as these in their gardens occasionally, as well as more congenial ones? Is it not what our Master meant us to do? Surely Luke xiv. 13 is a precept to be obeyed by Christ's disciples.

And if any East End friends who have not gardens or conveniences of their own would like to "make a feast" for such a company, their own workpeople it may be, or others, we should be pleased to lend the grounds of Harley House and the use of the College Hall and tea apparatus on any