more effective form.

To present, we say, not to produce; for Christian Philosophy has long been in the field, though uncombined, yet in its vigor and valor holding the mastery and pushing on the advance.

The purpose of this Institute of Christian Philosophy is well expressed in the articles of organization. I call attention especially to the 1st, 2d, and 3d articles:

First. To investigate fully and impartially the most important questions of philosophy and science, but more especially those that bear upon the great truths revealed in Holy Scripture.

Second-To associate men of science and authors, who have already been engaged in such investigations, and all others who may be interested in them, in order to strengthen their efforts by association; and, by bringing together the results of such labors, after full discussion, in the printed transactions of an institution, to give greater force and influence to proofs and arguments which might be little known, or even disregarded, if put forward merely by individuals.

Third. To consider the mutual bearings of the various scientific conclusions arrived at in the several distinct branches into which science is now divided, in order to get rid of contradictions and conflicting hypotheses, and thus promote the real advancement of true science; and to examine and discuss all supposed scientific results with reference to final causes, and the more comprehensive and fundamental principles of philosophy proper, based upon faith in the existence of one eternal God, the creator of all things.

Twenty years ago, a similar Institute was organized in England, styled The Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society of Great Britain.

At its head, as President, stood Lord Shaftsbury until his death in 1885-Lord Shaftsbury, one of the noblest of England's noblemen-able, modest, faithful, true-a recognized friend and leader in philanthropic enterprise.

As his successor, the Institute unanimously elected Prof. Stokes, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S.E. (who is a Professor in the University of Cambridge, England, in the chair once occupied by Sir Isaac Newton), who is also a life member of The American Insti

tute of Christian Philosophy-a foremost thinker, scientist and philosopher.

Our worthy and efficient President, Dr. Deems-in the good. providence of God, long may he continue at our head-has been doing for the American Institute of Christian Philosophy what President Shaftsbury has done for the Victoria Institute-seeing it safely through the perils of infancy; completing its organization; multiplying its resources; enlarging its numbers and its influence.

The Victoria Institute in the twentieth year of its existence has reached a membership of about one thousand; while The American Institute has, in this fifth year of its completed organization, five hundred members. As its name indicates, so it seeks not exclusively for profound and mature thinkers (though it seeks especially for these), but for lovers of wisdom, young or old, men and women who are willing to think; and who desire themselves to advance, and to promote the progress of others, in the fields of philosophic thought.

To this end, it is important to secure the ablest papers on Christian Philosophy in its various branches; and thus furnish a varied and valid philosophic literature that shall meet the vital wants of our time at home and abroad, particularly the pressing wants of the educated youth in our own country, and the more immediate wants of the nations just emerging into Christian civilization and with difficulty breaking loose from vain philosophy and false religion.

An urgent demand, then, meets this Institute-to increase its membership; to multiply its means; to employ the best talent in Christian Philosophy; to be awake to its opportunities and duties; and enlarge its influence for good until it shall be felt throughout our whole country and across the seas to distant and still more distant shores. In this way, in prayerful spirit and with increasing devotion, we may greatly promote the good of men and the glory of our divine Lord and Saviour.

"They please Him best, who labor most

In peace to do His will."

AMERICAN SCHOOLS IN THE TURKISH EMPIRE.

[A Paper read before the American Institute of Christian Philosophy, April 1st, 1886.]

BY REV. JAMES F. RIGGS.

IN

N the Summer of 1874 a great many people went to Saratoga Lake to see a notable boat-race. The reporters of the daily papers were there, and the published accounts of the race emphasized the interest felt in the various crews, the management of affairs, the rulings of the referees, and especially the genuine enthusiasm of the immense crowd of bystanders. After discussing all these things, however, one of the New York reporters added this significant observation, "The real tragedy was in the boats."

The

Our theme is one that is walled in with difficulties. whole subject of education in any country, and under the most clearly defined conditions, is surrounded by a host of unsettled problems. But, while we recognize these as having a well understood claim, we remind ourselves that "The real tragedy is in the boats." The real educator, the man who is set like the brave Hittite warrior of old in the "forefront of the hottest battle," that man gets a view sometimes of the nature of the case, not so clear to the "City Editor," or to the "Easy Chair."

It is a painful spectacle in some quarters to see the conflict with ignorance going on in a fashion that calls to mind the famous. letter from David to Joab, in which it was understood that the hero was to be subjected to the most severe test, and then-abandoned! "Retire ye from him that he may be smitten and die."

This is not the purpose of a Christian community, yet in particular instances it has happened more than once. The great cause of Christian education is now in the balance; the question is not speculative but practical; WE are to say whether the world is to witness this revolution in the twentieth century, or not. For the world is to undergo revolution by the influence of Christian education, and the question is of methods. The whole

world is the field of our endeavor. The thin end of the wedge has been inserted into every state in the world, with exceptions quite insignificant. The Bible has been translated into more than one hundred and eighty languages. The centre of active evangelistic work in any place must be a nucleus founded by missionary effort, and we know that such nuclei are numerous. What then stands in the way? What is the obstacle, to the removal of which our efforts should be directed?

We have opportunity, the world is open. We have the supreme agent, the Scriptures. We have hundreds of infant churches in this foreign field, each suitable as a nucleus of further advance. But the "laborers are few." This is the obstacle. It is at this point that our foreign work has been halting for more than half a century. The consequences are visible in many places, especially in India, where the lack of an efficient native force is most noteworthy.

Some persons have cherished the notion that the world is to be converted by the preaching of men who are in the strict sense foreigners. This we regard as a mere dream. It cannot be done. Apostles, if there were enough of them, might do it; the missionaries can never accomplish such an enterprise, because they are few, and because they are separated in many ways from the masses of their race, because they are foreigners. Think of a preacher, however efficient, with a million souls in his parish! We need something more than missionaries; we need an EDUCATED NATIVE MINISTRY. We cherish a grateful appreciation of the fact that God sent prophets and apostles who were not angels, but men, and the same line of thought that brings us to this conclusion, carried one step further, makes the demand eminently reasonable that Chinamen, Armenians, Parsees, or Bedouins-that all should be under the spiritual care of those who are their kin. We pray for the success of foreign missions; let us pray that each of them may become a home mission field.

It is difficult to enlist an earnest and a continuous attention to themes connected with the East. So great is the variety of influence at work; so many are the strata of society involved; so strangely entangled is the story, that to many persons the entire Eastern question, in its material and its moral aspect, is an

enigma too deep for study. It is the culmination of romance; it is dream-land; it is a twisted tissue of eccentricities and follies that can never be estimated in the same way that questions are brought home to us who live under a colder sky, and in a duller atmosphere.

Long cherry-wood pipes, with beautiful amber mouth-pieces; white muslin turbans and girdles of red stuff worked in gold thread; little donkeys and big camels; ancient mosques with elegant tiles of green porcelain; and under the shadow of this regal beauty, mud huts seven feet square; lavish extravagance in a thousand forms, and a suffering humanity too ignorant to complain these take the place of the Eastern question. What a tissue of problems, old and new, may be examined about the end of the Mediterranean! The site of Eden; the mountains of Ararat; the tablets of Nineveh; the mounds of Babylon; the countless dumb and nameless statues of colossal stone; Hittite inscriptions; Byzantine legends; the mystery of a cloudless sky; the great Egyptian river with its sealed past: these things intoxicate the visitor with a new and indefinable sense that he is standing on the border line of a world that is strange indeed!

It is the land of the unexpected, the grotesque, the pitiful, and yet over all that is wretched and repulsive there is shed a soft, mellow light, suggestive of fairy-land, of the lavish hospitality of the "Arabian Nights," of Aladdin's lamp, and of a dim, painless comedy that is singular in its contrasts, compared with the stern battle of our Western and Northern life. The picture of AngloSaxon Christendom is drawn in hard lines: there is no picture of the East, save a succession of dissolving views.

Rome thrills the traveller as the birthplace of great thoughts, Athens as a source of art and poetry; but the East is like a gorgeous painting, like the dream of a fairy.

Such a city as Constantinople is more than a city-it is a focus of all sorts of interest, historic, archæological, ecclesiastical, political, and commercial. There are features in that city that call to mind the clear discrimination of the Greeks, the strong common sense of the Romans, the toilsome patience of the monks, the sincerity and warmth of the early Church, and the fortitude of heroes who knew how to die!