America, through whose sleepless activity the India Sunday School Union was founded in 1876. For many years the work had prospered, but it was not until then that it was thoroughly organized. About forty committees now look after the Unions in different parts of the field. The Central Committee is located in Jubbulpore, the “hub” of the railway systems, and its representative missionaries and laymen study the broad interests of the work. This Committee, besides stirring up the auxiliaries to action, is also answerable for the orderly administration of business.

His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, Sir Andrew H. L. Fraser, M.A., I.C.S., K.C.S.I., has, to the great joy of our Sunday-school hosts in India and far beyond it, consented to become the President of the India Sunday School Union. That a highly placed official, virtually a king over 70,000,000 of people, should accept such an office is a tribute to the man and the work. The India Sunday School Union has the rare privilege of such ex-Presidents as Raja Kunwar, Sir Harnam Singh Ahluwalia, K.C.I.E., lately decorated by His Majesty King Edward; the Right Rev. Bishop Welldon, lately Metropolitan of all India and Ceylon, and others.

The writer takes his place as General Secretary. In the last analysis he is responsible to the public that the various Committees are constitutional in their procedure. He has been in the service of the Sunday School Union, London, since 1896, which organization helps the India Sunday School Union also in other ways. It should be carefully noted that the India Sunday School Union is different from nearly all other agencies in the non-Christian world. It is a separate entity-an Indian and independent organization, and is supported entirely by voluntary contributions. Financial help is welcomed from any part of Christendom, and India herself helps to the best of her ability.

Let some of the methods be explained. The India Sunday School Union exists-(1) To emphasize the spiritual

character of Sunday-school teaching. (2) To consolidate and extend Sunday-school work. (3) To educate teachers in the best principles and methods of Bible study and teaching. (4) To produce and foster the growth of English and vernacular literature suitable for teachers and scholars. (5) To encourage special services among the young people. (6) To focus the attention of the Christian Church upon the child as her most valuable asset. (7) To unite for mutual help, all Sunday-schools conducted by Protestant Missions in Southern Asia.

The above objects are promoted by various means, chief among which are (1) The International Bible Reading Association aims to establish and direct daily Bible-reading at home on the next Sunday's lesson. The registered membership in India is about 20,000 and the readings exist in thirteen Indian languages. (2) Of the sixty vernaculars in which the schools are conducted, twenty have biblical expository leaflets on the current lessons. Some editions are for teachers, some for senior scholars, some for the "tots"-in all about fifty editions. To maintain the expositions at a high standard of excellence, nearly forty editors put heart and brain into their preparation. To feed the hungry printer with "copy," to correct proofs, to go to press in time, each week, all the year round, means more, much more, nerve-fag and eye-strain than ten times the same amount of editorial work in Western lands. For the honor of those concerned be it said that none of the editors receive any renumeration for their labors, and often, in a whole year, not one edition is issued late. Most of the editions are weekly-none of them weakly. This fructifying stream is kept flowing by individual, denominational and Sunday School Union enterprise. Almost invariably they are sold to the teachers under cost price, but in no case given free.

The offerings of the children toward Sunday-school expenses frequently take the form of a quota of grain from

each, saved from the daily allowance-a kind of perpetual self-denial. It is an inexpressibly delightful sight to watch the little Indian children receiving their colored and pictured leaflets. Homes inaccessible to the most experienced missionary easily surrender to a Sunday-school child with the message of Christ's redeeming love on his lips, and a picture leaflet in his hand. The 2,000 printing presses of India issue seven hundred newspapers, and most of them are non-Christian and anti-government. To the writer it is an encouraging thought that all this is counteracted somewhat by the Sunday-school Scripture expositions, explained each week by the life and the lips of 20,000 voluntary teachers. (3) The India Sunday School Journal is an English monthly magazine for Bible students and Bible teachers in Southern Asia. (4) Teachers and scholars present themselves in July for an oral or written annual examination, on the work of the previous six months. Last year answers were tendered in nineteen languages by over 16,000 candidates. Since 1896, no less than 58,000 illuminated and graded certificates have been granted. In the same period of time over 83,000 candidates, most of them non-Christian, have presented themselves for this examination. As four-fifths of the schools use the International Syllabus, an examination on this wide scale is made possible. (5) A beginning has been made in the matter of teacher-training by the formation of a Correspondence College. The course embraces four years' study of the Bible, Child Psychology, and the Science and Art of Teaching. Certificates and diplomas are granted for proficiency. The scheme gives promise of fruitage. (6) Conventions are occasionally held in different parts of the Empire at which teachers are encouraged in the study of the more important aspects of their work. (7) Missions are held frequently for young people and are chiefly in the charge of W. H. Stanes, Esq., our Honorary Children's Missioner. (8) A central office is regularly maintained as a Bureau of Infor

mation for all Sunday-school workers in the Empire. From this office the organizing is conducted—it is the nerve center of the whole Sunday-school system of Southern Asia.

In a paper of brief compass it is not possible to do more than condense the facts. Will the hearer and reader, therefore, ponder the great significance of the work outlined. Without ostentation the Sunday-school teacher is, by the salt of the Word, purifying the very springs of Empire. Non-Christian children constitute the major portion of the scholars, and who can tell how irresistibly the next generation will be thus influenced?

The Sunday School Union of India binds together the Sunday-school workers of sixty out of the seventy existing missionary societies, in a Bible-teaching and characterbuilding crusade. Children under fourteen years of age are the special charge of the Sunday-school teacher. "Ten thousand times ten thousand" of such children in India await the entrance of his Word.

And shall we not lift our eyes from India's center to Asia? Here, on Asiatic soil the God-Man lived; here he gathered the children and established the first Christian Sunday-school; here he crimsoned the path he trod with sweat and blood; here his Church began her world-conquering crusade. And yet! And yet!! And yet!!! After nineteen centuries have spent themselves what do we find? Listen

In India there is one S. S. member to a population of

900

To-day, Easter Monday, I am rejoicing in the fact of a risen Christ. To-morrow, at sundown, I leave my wife and bairns in this plague-stricken city, for China, the land of Sinim. India herself is providing the means for this journey. In China I trust I may be of some service to

the missionaries in the formative stage of a Sunday-school Union for China and Manchuria. The opportunity promises to be opulent. If it proves to be so, I trust the choice Sunday-school people assembled in Rome, when this paper is read, will see to it that the newly-organized work in China is maintained in a state of health and activity. More than half the human race is in Asia. Britain has one Sundayschool missionary in India, and America one in Japan. This is all that Christendom is doing for half the children on God's great and beautiful earth.

Japan

BY FRANK L. BROWN

November 20, 1906, I left San Francisco for Japan, commissioned by the Japan Committee of the World's Sunday School Committee to bring to the Sunday-school workers of Japan, Christian greetings from their fellowworkers in America, study the Sunday-school conditions prevailing, assist in the organization of a Sunday-school Committee or Association, if the time were propitious, and to report results to this Convention. Accompanying me were the prayers of many earnest workers, who, through the announcement of the World's Committee, were deeply interested in the mission to the "Sunrise Kingdom." I bore the greetings to Japan of some of the foremost Christian people in America, including the Honorable Chas. W. Fairbanks, Vice-president of the United States, the Honorable Leslie M. Shaw, ex-Secretary of the Treasury, the Honorable John W. Foster, ex-Secretary of State, E. K. Warren, President of the World's Fourth Sunday School Convention, the Honorable Justice Maclaren, President of the International Sunday School Association, Dr. Geo. W. Bailey, Chairman of the World's Executive Committee, Mr. W. N. Hartshorn, Chairman of Executive Committee of the International Sunday School Association, Mr. H. J.