thodox Christians as heretics, and of course Protestants are absolutely without the pale. Recently some Protestant preachers on their way to the presbytery meeting at Shweir stopped in Muruj to rest. They accosted a youth of a dozen years: "Are there any Greek Orthodox here?" "No, they are all Christians except that a few months ago some turned Inglise" (Protestants).

A SURE SIGN OF CONVERSION.

Recently a young man was converted in a Syrian village, and endured much petty persecution. After he had joined the church he approached the local preacher with the confession that many years ago he had defrauded a man by a mean trick, and now wished to restore to him what he had taken.

Foreign Mission Leaflets

The Board has published an attractive CHRISTMAS EXERCISE which will be sent free of charge to any Presbyterian Sunday-school; the only condition being that an offering shall be made for the Board by the school.

The Board has just issued a leaflet entitled, "Points for Pastors and Laymen in re the Monthly Concert." This will be furnished on application and is full of instructive suggestions regarding the conduct of twelve Missionary Meetings for the year 1907.

(For printed literature apply to any of the Women's Boards of Foreign Missions, or Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, 156 Fifth Ave., New York City.) Christus Redemptor; price, cloth, 50 cents; paper, 30

cents.

1. The Man. A young man, of overflowing energy, in dead earnest, hunting for the heaviest load he can carry for the sake of the Kingdom-it is always worth while to watch for such a man. The Cumberland Street Branch of the Lafayette Avenue Church, Brooklyn, always blessed with good leaders, had just such a man for its minister some years ago in the Rev. Harvey S. Murdoch, a Mississippian, a graduate of Princeton, a preacher of ability, an indefatigable worker, and simply irresistible in his enthusiasm.

2. The Field. Twenty years ago there entered a valley of Kentucky, in Perry County, a fine old minister of the gospel, the Rev. Dr. Saunders, and his fine young daughter, Miss Louise Saunders. There was no church at that time in that valley, nor in the surrounding country. The people were of the very flesh and blood of ourselves, descendants of the Scotch-Irish, who can never be spoken of in slighting terms by anyone who knows them, but who were lamentably ignorant and religiously superstitious, and apparently washed up on the beach of civilization with no connection with their fellows. Here, however, the good man preached and his daughter taught. Presently the people gathered and erected a chapel on the face of the mountain, naming it Louise Chapel for the teacher whom they loved. It was built of squared logs, as attractive as they could make it. But the load was impossibly heavy for these two efficient workers. It was part of the work of the Society of Soul-Winners, whose president, Dr. Edward Guerrant, is well known to many who

read these lines. He brought the story of it to the North, came into the Lafayette Avenue Church and thrilled the people, met the young minister of the Cumberland Street Branch and set him afire. Mr. Murdoch thought there were many men who could do the work that he was doing. At any rate, that work yonder looked harder, and the field looked needier. One day, in the presence of one of the gentlemen of the church, he said:

"I have nothing to give except myself. If I had enough to live on, I would love to go to Perry County, Kentucky, and take up that work."

The gentleman said very quietly that he would give him enough to live on if he would go, and the compact was quickly made. And Mr. Murdoch left his Brooklyn field and went his way to Kentucky to help in the hardest work he could see, and joined Dr. Saunders and his daughter. He married Miss Saunders? Certainly. Have you no poetry in your soul?

3. The Work. Then began a phenomenal work of human energy and divine grace. A school was an imperative necessity, so Witherspoon College was founded,-named a college not because it is a college, but because its students are all of college age, and because it hopes some day to become a college, but more commonly known among those who love it as the "Log School." There are gathered three hundred students with a corps of six instructors, beside summer teachers and workers. Its session for public school teachers has made it the mother of most of the public

schools in its own and adjoining counties. Its success has roused many other localities to demand a similar institution. If Mr. Murdoch could only be multiplied by four or five, he could put into operation such schools throughout the mountains. There are four buildings for the definite use of the school, all of them built of squared logs, and very handsome in appearance. This past summer two have been erected; one for the primary department, the money for which was largely raised in the community, the other a dormitory for girls, the gift of a member of the Brooklyn church.

But education has not been the chief work. Soul-winning has been kept in plainest view. There are eight preaching places, the central point at Buckhorn, where the coilege is located, having a hundred and seventy-five members. These preaching places are in several counties, and the influence of the Buckhorn work reaches them all directly. During the summer months, when most of us were omitting effort for the winning of souls, Mr. Murdoch was preaching and had the joy of witnessing more than one hundred and ten confessions of Christ. Several of these preaching points will one day become churches. Meanwhile they are leavening an entire community.

Nor are education and evangelization all. There is a direct influence on the institutions of society in the district. The children of feud leaders are in the school, and some of those who have had to do with feuds in the past are subdued by the grace of God. The Magis

trate's Court has been held for many years under a tree, or in front of any store where the magistrate might be. Now a room has been set apart in one of the buildings of the college for the use of the Magistrate's Court, so that justice may be administered in a thorough and dignified fashion. For years the community has been lying remote from the railroad, twenty-five miles away, without communication with the world beyond. During the past summer Mr. Murdoch has led in the erection of a telephone system of forty miles. connecting most of the outlying preaching and school points and reaching to the railroad. It has been so successful in its operation that already good dividends have been paid to those who joined him in the enterprise.

Moreover, the work has just begun. From the hour of his going to the field the Lafay ette Avenue Church has been interested in him. He has received large financial help year by year from individuals. Last year it seemed to the officers of the church that the time had come to set him free to work without financial trammels, and the church assumed finan cial responsibility for the work through the Home Board. It is counted the southern part of its field, matched by a most promising western field in Wyoming. The demands are increasing, and the church is gladly rising to meet them more fully than ever before. Given such a man and such a field, the work is bound to grow greater. Nor could anyone know the man or the field or the work without being inspired to the help of all three.

Every minister or teacher among the Mountaineers is sooner or later confronted with the question as to the right of our Church to carry on its work in the field known as the southern mountain region. The claim is made by some that the ground is pre-empted, that our Church is not needed, and in some places its work is deprecated, the workers shown in unmistakable ways that they are looked upon as interlopers and their room more desirable than their company. It is well, therefore, to look at the matter fairly and squarely, under

stand the real situation, and be ready to dea! prudently and justly, to do the right at ali

costs.

President Wilson, of Maryville College, in his admirable book, "The Southern Mountaineers," has given patient and thorough investigation of the past and shows that historians recognize the fact that the dominant faith of the pioneers in a large part of the region under consideration was Presbyterian According to one historian speaking particularly of Tennessee, "Presbyterianism was first

population, few ministers, later the loud calls from the new west diverting many in that direction, inability of the pioneer settlers to support an educated ministry, and no Board of Home Missions to help. The Civil War, and unhappy divisions in the Church, these and other causes left many sections of the mountains to their own devices in securing preachers. Some districts never did secure a religious leadership of any kind. Our Church was early in the lead and, while for a time the

other reasons, together with patriotic sentiments backed and inspired by our great commission, make imperative the carrying forward of our work.

In every community there are found those who appreciate the ministry of our Church and the effect of a thoroughly organized Church, with systematic and regular administration of the ordinances of the gospel and orderly observance of the sacraments throughout the entire year, is salutary and instructive