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 *, "The Transfigured Sackcloth."

(137O)

HEART, THE SINGING

Frank L. Stanton writes of the man who has a song in the heart thus:

There is never a sky of winter To the heart that sings alway; Never a night but hath stars to light, And dreams of a rosy day.

The world is ever a garden Red with the bloom of May; And never a stormy morning To the heart that sings alway!

(1371)

Heart versus Head—See ;.

Heartless Custom—See.

HEARTLESS PAGANS

There is an essential difference between the attitude of heathenism and of Christianity toward human suffering. Sir Frederick Lely said:

The ordinary native of India who has been untouched by the Light is utterly devoid of pity. In West India a man will be taxed for killing a dog, but not for killing a man. During famine times it is an every-day sight to see men feeding monkeys with unleavened cakes and refusing to give a crust to their fellow men who are lying within a few yards of them dying with hunger. The great merchants and moneyed men of India spent thousands upon food for decrepid and worthless animals, but left it to the British Government to feed the men and women. In a famine hospital, Sir Frederick saw a little lad whose flesh was torn in many places. That morning an agent of one of the merchant gilds had visited his village with a supply of food for the village pariah dogs. The poor boy asked for some for himself but was refused, and in desperation he ran in among the dogs to try and get a piece, and they turned upon him and bit him. A Bunnia Hindu, in Ankleshwer, has recently given 15,000 rupees to found an animal hospital. The enclosure is to be in the midst of the town—a commodious structure, where worn-out cattle and worthless animals will be brought as a matter of religion. Around the outside of these same walls will walk crippled, diseased, poor and hungry men and women and children, but their pleading voices will fall on deaf ears.

(1372)

Heat—See.

Heathen at Home and Abroad—See .

HEATHEN RECEPTIVENESS

The heathen seldom express a longing for the gospel as clearly as in the following petition to the missionaries of the Swedish Missionary Society in the Kongo State from a number of black heathen chiefs in 1887. They said:

We, Makayi, Nsinki, Kibundu, and Mukayi Makuta Ntoko, chiefs in Kibunzi, and our people, desire that the missionaries of the Swedish Missionary Society come and make their home with us, and teach us and our people. We gladly give them the right to erect their buildings upon the high hill southeast from the village of Kibunzi in any convenient spot. We transfer to them all our claims to that hill. Of course, they have the right to use the forests, the rivers, the roads, and the fields for plantations within our boundaries in the same manner as ourselves. We have invited them to come, and we are glad to see them with us, and our one desire is that they remain with us and erect buildings.

(1373)

HEATHENDOM

An experience of my own in connection with the Kiang-peh famine in China illustrates the situation on most mission fields to-day. Tarrying in Chinkiang for a few days before proceeding up the canal, I saw considerable of the refugee camp outside the city wall. Altho one of the smaller camps, this one held perhaps forty thousand refugees from up country, all living on the bare and frozen ground, and the most comfortable of them having only an improvised hut of straw matting to shelter them. The tide of relief had not yet begun to flow from America and Europe. Moved by compassion for the suffering ones, Mrs. John W. Paxton made daily rounds to administer what medical relief was possible. One day I accompanied her, and she translated the words of the people. The commonest complaint we heard that morning from these starving Chinese was that they had lost their appetites! On their faces was the unmistakable famine pallor; hunger had driven them hither from