Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/556

546 city of Singapore. Most of these enterprises are still in their initial stage, but there seems no reason to doubt that all four of these publishing houses will soon enter upon a wide sphere of active usefulness.

Our Sunday-school work has met with special success and proved an unexpectedly valuable auxiliary in our great work. I can remember very well the morning after I entered Lucknow in company with Dr. Butler that I was strangely moved when I heard two boys singing to a familiar tune a Hindustanee hymn. At that time perhaps not more than half a dozen children in all that region could have joined in the song, but now there are probably seventy thousand who could take up the strain if called upon. Many of the Sunday-schools are largely attended by adults as well as children, but, in view of the fact that the majority of our adult converts are themselves but children in knowledge, and in some respects in character also, the instruction received seems as well adapted to them as to those of younger years.

It remains to notice an important measure which was adopted some years ago for the better administration of our affairs throughout the vast region which we now occupy. At an early stage in our history it was felt that some central authority was needed which would be empowered to deal with all such interests as belonged in a peculiar sense to our own field in India and Malaysia. Questions of various kinds were constantly arising, for the settlement of which no provision had been made by our missionary authorities, and not a few of these questions were of such a nature that it would have been impossible for any party or parties on the other side of the globe to have satisfactorily dealt with them. In order to meet this want the General Conference of 1884 made generous provision for the organization of what was called a Central Conference; that is, a representative body of ministers and laymen meeting every two years, and authorized to deal with all questions of general interest to our own peculiar work. At the outset this measure was looked upon as pointing in the direction of ultimate independence, but those