Abroad for the Bible Society. By John H. Ritson, M.A.
(Robert Culley. 3s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Ritson relates experiences which came to him in his work as a chief colporteur (if the phrase may pass) in China, in Japan, in Korea, and in Manchuria. These are always interesting. The Chinese story is especially so; it deepens the impression made in many ways during the last decade that China is the most hopeful, as it is the largest, of the fields now open for mission work. There are other movements—there is a cry of "China for the Chinese" which means much—and no one need flatter himself that the way is easy; but it is there and open. Mr. Eason seasons his narrative with no little humour ; thus we have a story which, on one side at least, is highly amusing of the village priests who, finding that their god was supine in the matter of sending rain, bored a hole in his side and inserted a centipede. Then we have the case of the native colporteur, So, who, unable to eat the food which was served to him, found himself faced with the dilemma,—a wife or a set of false teeth. Both were about the same price, if he were to be content with a "medium widow " ; but he chose the teeth.
He might have done better, for he had to take them out when he wanted to eat, or even to speak. Everywhere we find good sense, shrewd observation, and illuminating information about places and people. We observe in the account of work in Siberia some noteworthy facts. The spiritual provision for the people is of the slenderest. There are churches in the towns, but the services are in Slavonic, a tongue not " understanded of the people." In the country they are sparse. As for schools, there is one for two thousand two hundred square miles,—i.e., to translate it into facts, there would be about thirty schools in a district of the size of the whole of England, and two would have to serve, as. far as area is concerned, for the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex, and Kent. The Bible Society is welcomed, and its labours seem highly successful.
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