Preface. HE Publications' Sub-Committee send forth this new Volume of the Society's Magazine with some diffidence. The freshness and vigour which marked the compositions of our late accomplished Editor will certainly be missed by many of our readers. But there has been a sincere desire to keep up the interest and to sustain the permanent value of India's Women, and to make it an effectual means of advancing the Redeemer's kingdom. Under the conviction that the 'Sowing and Reaping' Articles are in every sense the prominent feature of our pages, the Committee issued early in the year the following Memorandum to every Missionary of the Society : MEMORANDUM ON MISSIONARIES' ANNUAL REPORTS. 9 SALISBURY SQUARE, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. March 1st, 1884. In view of the development of our work, the Publications' Sub-Committee offer to our Missionaries some suggestions with regard to their Annual Reports to the Parent Committee. 1. The importance of these Official Records of the Society's work can hardly be overrated. They are indeed journals, to be preserved and filed for reference in the Office among our permanent documents; but they speak also to a much larger audience. It is by them that multitudes of praying friends are, through the pages of our Magazine, kept informed of what our Missionaries are doing, and enabled thus to spread the interest in our work. 2. Bearing this in mind, our Missionaries are invited to consider the necessity of taking pains with their Reports, and of systematically noting throughout the year such incidents and aspects of their work as may deserve a place in these official records. The Committee cordially acknowledge that in most cases this has already been done. If each Missionary will kindly realise that this is her one official return to the Committee which is responsible for her work, and that in its published form it meets the eye and influences the life, perhaps of thousands, she will see the importance of bestowing upon it all the care and thought she can command. 3. The Magazine takes up the work of the Society in regular order; and so that in the course of its six yearly numbers every Station has its place. The first two numbers in the year take up the North India Missions. The third and fourth numbers the Punjab Missions. The last two give reports from South India and China. 4. The Publications' Sub-Committee particularly request that each Report may be (a) clearly written on foolscap paper, with good margin, and that one side only of the paper be used. (b) fully dated, signed, and plainly addressed as follows: The Secretary, Publications' Sub-Committee, C. E. Z. M. S., 9 Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, London, E.C. (c) posted a clear three months before the Magazine containing it is to be published. 5. Our Sisters will be good enough to remember that since the re-formation of our Society the number of Missionaries has doubled, while the size of the Magazine remains the same. While, therefore, the Sub-Committee will do their best to avoid needless alteration, they have not always room to print the Reports word for word as they are sent. Every care is, however, taken that in any needful condensation no salient point shall be altered or omitted, and of course the unabridged manuscript is what is actually laid before the Committee, and preserved for reference in the Office. 6. The Sub-Committee earnestly desire that these Annual Reports may be valuable, not only as a faithful reflection of the work of their Missionaries, but also as a means of grace to readers throughout the world, and as a help in strengthening their zeal and increasing their efforts for the spread of the Redeemer's kingdom. By order of the Publications' Sub-Committee, W. HILL, Chairman. The Committee recognise the cordial response with which this appeal has been already met,1 and no pains will be spared to make this part of our Magazine as graphic and as interesting as possible. 1 May we, however, here emphasise paragraph 4 (6)? Will our Missionaries kindly note that (however other communications may be addressed), Reports for India's Women are to be sent, not to Hampstead nor to Harrow, but to the Office of the Society only. Even since the issue of this Memorandum this has not always been remembered.—ED. The Index to the volume is fuller than heretofore; and the Statistical Tables are now for the first time published in the Magazine Volume. They will make the book complete in itself. And now we trust our readers will not let the six Numbers for 1884 lie neglected among old Pamphlets. We hope they will be bound and used. Our friends perhaps hardly know how a reference to the earlier Reports helps to an understanding of what our missionaries from time to time write home. Our volume represents, at the hands of the Committee, Prayer and Pains. May it now receive, at the hands of our readers, Careful Study; and if they will kindly note any points as to which our Magazine may in future be improved, and notify them to the Committee (addressed as above), they will be assuredly received with grateful and attentive consideration. Our work is growing wonderfully. Here is a sample of what our Missionaries are able, in their less official communications, to write to us :— 'You will have seen from time to time what encouragement we have had in seeing one pupil after another come forward and confess her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. . . . I rejoice to tell you that we have others very anxious to come forward. Some are young, and must wait a while; some are at present hindered by family circumstances: but the desire to follow Christ has been expressed; and in this we rejoice. To God be all the praise! May the Holy Spirit bring His own work to perfection! May He use us also more and more!' All this calls for a corresponding increase, on our part, of pains and care and thought. While we try to make our pages as interesting as possible India's Women must always be a Magazine for the thoughtful and the prayerful, who will bring mind and pains and intelligence and sympathy to bear upon the concerns of the Redeemer's kingdom. |