BLEBY, Rev. Henry

[s. 111] : Born in Winch com be, England, March 16, 1809. Died May 22, 1882. Mi ionary under the WMS. He was received into the ministry in 1830 and sent out to the Jamaica district in the West Indies, where he rendered He was valuable services to the Church of God. prominent among a noble band of men who, in the midst of deadly persecution, counted not their lives dear to themselves if they could but mitigate the sufferings of their oppre ed fellow creatures. On one occasion the enemies of mi ions to the slaves seized him, daubed his body with pitch, and took a lighted candle to set the pitch on fire. He was only saved by the brave The experiment of interference of his wife. Wesley an mi ions in the West Indies owed much of its succe to the courage and faithfulne of Mr. Bleby in the discharge of the difficult duties that devolved upon him. He was the author of the following works: Death Struggles of Slavery (being a narrative of facts in Jamaica during the two years immediately preceding negro emancipation). Scenes in the Caribbean Sea. Reign of Terror (W. Indies). Romance without Fiction; or, Sketches from the Portfolio of an old Mi ionary. BLIND OF THE FEMALE SEX IN CHINA; See Germany; Mi ionary German Mi ion to. Societies in. BLIND; Mi ions to the: This is one of the works of general philanthropy for which non Christian peoples are indebted to Christian mi ions. Pagan, and more especially Mohammedan, peoples give help to the blind as they do to other impotent folk. The emotion of pity is a characteristic of the human race, of which, happily, traces may be found even where self-seeking sometimes seems to have extinguished all other motives of action. But in the non-Christian countries that habit of thought for the welfare of others is lacking which Jesus Christ teaches Blind; nil»siou8 to His followers. As a rule, in such countries the helple ne of the blind is regarded as a natural calamity for which alleviation cannot be imagined, and which therefore separates them from any po ible connection with the interests of social life. Pity for their condition is superficial and finds sufficient expre ion in occasional doles of food or pence, and only occasionally in the construction of shelters for them. The lot of a sightle one, at the best, if he is one of the common people, is that of a plaintive suppliant who suffers in ragged and lonely uncertainty until death releases him. Schemers for easy gain take advantage of the calamity in some of the Asiatic countries. blind child is taken in hand and cared for, as a busine investment by men who clutch as their due the proceeds of the beggar’s appeal to the pitiful. In Turkey, men make it their profe ion to scour the country in search of such impotent folk in order to hire or buy them from their relatives, and then to exploit their miserable condition on the streets of the cities. In China, it was in past years generally, and in some places still is, the custom of similar harpies to gather up blind girls and house and feed and clothe them in order to make money by thrusting them into a life of debauchery. In such lands the best that can happen to a blind person who is of the poorer cla es is to be left alone that people may to him a beggar’s dole A and pa by on the other side. But let the Gospel enter such a land and the mi ionary who is, charged to make it known cannot rest until he has devised means of giving the blind the power to read, to earn a living, and to feel, by means of this kind i je which appreciates his deeper needs, the love of Jesus Christ for outcasts. The work of mi ionaries for the blind cannot But it is a work here be catalogd in detail. which should not be pa ed by without reference. In China an unusually large per cent, of the population become blind through smallpox, leprosy, and ophthalmia. For neitlier disease is any sane medical treatment provided by the natives. Filthy and immoral habits, and the brutality of parents who wilfully blind their children through greed of gain, are also causes of blindne in China. As far back as 1857 the mi ion of the Protestant Episcopal Church (U. S.) at Shanghai In the north established a school for the blind. ern part of the empire efforts to help the blind took a new development when William Murray, then a colporteur of the National Bible Society of Scotland, succeeded in applying the Braille system of raised dots to the Chinese characters. His Christian sympathy for the wretched Chinese blind drew the whole power of his mind to their relief, with the result that he solved the problem of enabling them to read books. The system which Mr. Murray arranged is so simple that even Chinese who can see have found the Braille alphabet of dots more easy to master and use than the quaint but perplexing characters Mr. Murwritten by their own ancient scribes. ray readily obtained money to open a school for the blind at Peking in 1881, which has not only taught blind beggars to read and write and to work for their own support, but has transformed some of these hopele ly dependent creatures into active mi ionary agents, as Scripture readers, singers of sacred songs, and organists in The amazement of the naChristian chapels. tives on seeing a blind child read with his fingers arouses the deepest interest, and becomes a Blind; Mi ions to BlueflelAs means of turning men’s minds to study of the reasons for the intelligent humanity of the followers of Clirist. The Braille system has been adopted by some of the mi ionary societies, and as tlie children in the blind schools learn to write it, they also begin preparation of a stock of Bible verses and other useful matter which, once comrnitted to The paper, they can read again and again. Bible societies have made this and the Moon system the means of publishing, in the Mandarin and three local dialects of Chinese, Gospels or other parts of Scripture for the blind. What Mr. Murray did for the Chinese of the Peking region was done for the people of a good part of Turkey by the late Rev. Elias Riggs, Some of the D.D., aided by Mr. G. W. Moon. Gospels have been prepared for the blind in Armenian and in Turkish. One or the other of these two systems has been adopted for the uses of the blind in Arabic, in seven of the languages of India, in Burmese, in Sinhalese, in the Toba language of Sumatra, and in the language of Uganda, in Africa. Thus in many lands numbers whose case had been given up by their nearest friends as beyond human aid, have been taken in hand for Christ’s sake by strangers from beyond the seas and have been caused to see the light. There are now 12 institutions for the blind in China, maintained by the PN, the CMS, the PE, the CIM, the WMS, the PCE, the Berlin Ladies’ Mi ionary A ociation, and the German Mi ion to the Chinese Blind, besides the Murray Mi ion and another independent mi ion expre ly to In India 6 such institutions are car the blind. ried on by the CMS, the CSM, the CEZ, the CP, and the ABCFM. In Japan there are 4 mi ionary institutions for the blind established by the CMS, the MCC and an independent mi ion. Another independent organization carries on a The PCE has an school for the blind in Korea. outdoor mi ion to the blind in Formosa, and cooperates with the Japanese Government in giving permanent asylum to those who need it. The British Syrian Schools Committee has opened three schools for the blind in Syria, one of them on the ruins of Tyre that ancient queen of the In nearly all of these instituMediterranean. tions there is provision to endow the pupils with simple industries which will give them occupaBut the number of asylums tion and support. and schools for the blind does not represent the In worlv of mi ions for these wrecked lives. every mi ion field where no such schools exist, individual mi ionaries teach, and elevate, and comfort, and make happy individuals who but for them would never know the meaning of symMoreover, this liumanitarian work has pathy. stirred non-Christians to imitate or support so far-reaching a charity. Even in Turkey, Mohammedans have been led in recent years to copy this part of tiie teaching of the Christians. There is no point of comparison between the non-Christian religions and Christianity which reveals a sharper contrast than their idea of what constitutes kindly care for the feeble and help The man who does not know Christ may le . probably feel pity, but his religion does not direct his pity to reach its proper goal. So he gives the sufferer a penny and leaves him as he was. the man who has learned from But Jesus Christ cannot leave the blind man when he has given him bread. He sees the profounder needs, — ’ 94 — belonging to manhood the needs of heart and soul and mind. He has to supply these needs by a continual and unflinching sacrifice of himself. But in doing it, he becomes the means of revolutionizing a hopele and usele life by bringing it within touch of the springs of power in the eternal world. This work for the blind of non Christian lands would not be done if it were not done by Christian mi ions. Born at Putney, Vt., died at Constantinople, Turkey, Graduated at Amherst December 20, 1892. College in 1837, having for his college mates Henry Ward Beecher, Roswell D. Hitch cock, and Richard S. Storrs. Graduated at And over Theosailed for Turkey logical Seminary in 1842; March 1, 1843, as a mi ionary of the ABCFM a igned to the Nestor i ans living in the mountain region along the frontier of Persia. The Turkish Government having refused, on account of the disturbed state of the country, to let an American go to the Nestor i an district, Mr. Bli was temThe demands of porarily a igned to Trebizond. other fields proving pre ing, he never reached the Mr. Bli field to which he was first a igned. studied the Turkish and Armenian languages. In 1851 he was sent to open a new station at Marsovan, in the eastern extremity of the province of Sivas, and through ignorance of the country and devotion to his duty he exposed himself to malaria, becoming subject to attacks of intermittent fever, from which he could not count After himself free to the very end of his life. having worked with great succe in the Marsovan field, Mr. Bli , in 1856, was transferred to Constantinople for literary work in the Armenian During thirty-six years he was occulanguage. pied in the department of publication, part of the time in editing the Avedaper newspaper, and later in the preparation of books and tracts, many of which have been daily food to the Evangelical Churches of Turkey. During his whole mi ionary life he esteemed it a privilege and duty to preach when opportunity offered, altho a victim of ague, and working during the week like of the printing-pre . Dr. Bli ’ influence a slave in mi ion councils and in native churches alike was extraordinary. The simplicity and piety of his private life, the certainty with which his action was controlled by “common sense unbiased by pa ion or prejudice,” to use the words of one of his a ociates, “and the mingled devotion, pathos, and humor which characterized his discu ions of important matters,” caused it to be remarked that while other mi ionaries of renowned power were at Constantinople at the same time with him they all recognized in Dr. Bli a peer. Probably all admitted that for uniform soundne of judgment at times of crisis he stood first in the mi ion. Dr. Bli preferred to spend time in doing his work rather than in calling attention to it. Hence he was not widely known outside of mi ion circles, altho his services in Turkey continued nearly fiftv years. 112