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Show 1916 Editorial Notes make us all hang our heads, is not the eccentric procedure of a boatload of peace seekers, but the slump of our boasted modern civilization, which after 1,900 years of toiling upward can find no better way to settle its disputes than by barbarous and brutalizing war; by letting loose cruelty, lust, and greed to stalk the earth. It is easy to sneer at Henry Ford, but it is what he is attacking, however feebly, that is really hideous. Let us not lose sight of the point: the concern of every Christian mind and heart today must be how to destroy the war spirit. If the United States is to exhibit a Christian temper at this critical time, she will be thinking chiefly of how she can cast the weight of her word and her example for the reduction of armaments, the denial of militarism, and the promotion of plans to unite nations for the maintaining of peace. It were a wretched business in this year of our Lord 1916 to be deepening suspicion and fear between the peoples of the earth. The progress of events in the last century went to prove Christianity's declaration that the world is one. It is for that truth that the foreign missionary stands, with his gospel of peace and good will. Let us do what we can toward binding the world together; let us greet the other nations, not with the defensive fist, but with the outstretched hand. THE Philippines are a perennial problem. What to do with them; how to stay in them; how to A Philippine g e t o u t of them? These are questions concerning which the politicians dispute and the public wavers. But as to the Christian opportunity in the Philippines- at least in Mindanao, where the American Board is at work-there seems to be no difference of opinion. Every intelligent observer is amazed at what he sees. Our latest prospector, Rev. Frank C. Laubach, who went to the islands in 1915, has been writing home full and graphic accounts of what he has found in extended journeys over large portions of Mindanao. The best parts of these letters have been brought together and published in the January number of the Envelope Series (now ready), under the title, "Scouting in the Philippines." It is a stirring pamphlet, full of human interest and appeal. Send for a copy; better yet, send a dime and your address as subscriber for a year to this attractive quarterly. WHEN Dr. D. Z. Sheffield died at Tungchow in 1913, after forty-four years of service at that Gift""1"'"' s t a t i o n » c l o s e t 0 Peking, the proposal was made that a fund should be raised to provide some fitting memorial. Letters just received from Mrs. Sheffield announce that the doctor's collection of rare Chinese porcelains, gathered by his expert and patient hands through many years, has been sold in Honolulu for $5,000 to one who is interested in missions as well as in curios; and that it is the wish of Mrs. Sheffield, in which her children join, that this sum should be added to the memorial fund, to be administered by a group of the North China missionaries. The money is temporarily deposited with the treasurer of the American Board, awaiting the disposition that shall be made of it. The devotion of our missionaries to their fields and to their work constrains not only their lives, but their goods. Dr. Sheffield's memory was not likely to be forgotten in North China; now it will be doubly perpetuated. THE historic Week of Prayer at the beginning of the year, with its evangelistic and missionary The Week of m 0 t j v e an(J fts u n i o n 0f PrftTGT denominations in the observance, has fallen into decline. The preoccupations of the New Year season, the monotony of the themes proposed year after year, the gradual loss of spontaneity on the part of those who clung to the custom, and perhaps the |
