In The Interior Of The Island The Chinese Cut Down Forest Trees
In The Jungle, And Saw Them Up Into Planks; They Cultivate
Vegetables, Which They Bring To Market; And They Grow Pepper And
Gambir, Which Form Important Articles Of Export.
The French
Jesuits have established missions among these inland Chinese,
which seem very successful.
I lived for several weeks at a time
with the missionary at Bukit-tima, about the centre of the
island, where a pretty church has been built and there are about
300 converts. While there, I met a missionary who had just
arrived from Tonquin, where he had been living for many years.
The Jesuits still do their work thoroughly as of old. In Cochin
China, Tonquin, and China, where all Christian teachers are
obliged to live in secret, and are liable to persecution,
expulsion, and sometimes death, every province - even those
farthest in the interior - has a permanent Jesuit mission
establishment constantly kept up by fresh aspirants, who are
taught the languages of the countries they are going to at Penang
or Singapore. In China there are said to be near a million
converts; in Tonquin and Cochin China, more than half a million.
One secret of the success of these missions is the rigid economy
practised in the expenditure of the funds. A missionary is
allowed about £30. a year, on which he lives in whatever country
he may be. This renders it possible to support a large number of
missionaries with very limited means; and the natives, seeing
their teachers living in poverty and with none of the luxuries of
life, are convinced that they are sincere in what they teach, and
have really given up home and friends and ease and safety, for
the good of others.
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