LANGUAGE

[s. 460] : An important African language belonging to the Bantu family, and ico, It is: UM: MBUNDU spoken in Angola, Portuguese West Africa, and as a trading language over a wide region to the eastward. There are two principal dialects, the Ki-Mbundu and the U-Mbundu; indeed, some consider these as separate languages, whose differences are radical and permanent. It is to be hoped, however, that they will follow the general laws of language under civilized environment, and tend to become one. The Ki-Mbundu was reduced to writing by Roman Catholic mi ionaries in 1642, and grammars and dictionaries of it in Portuguese have long existed. The Meth- 443 odist mi ionaries (U. S.) have done good work in studying its peculiarities and establishing a Christian literature in it. In Bih6 the mi ionaries are doing the same kind of work in ABCFM the U-Mbundu branch. MBWENI A village on the W. side of Zanzibar: Island, a little S. of Zanzibar town. Station of -the (1874), with (1903) 2 mi ionaries, 6 mi ionaries, women 15 native workers, 1 out at at i on, 2 places of worship, 3 day schools, 1 boarding school, 1 industrial school, 1 dispensary, and 456 profe ed Christians, of whom 268 are UM communicants. ’ McALL MISSION: Known in France as the Mi ion Populaire Evangiligue. Headquarters, 36 rue Godet de Mauroy, Madeleine, Paris. Founded in 1872 by the Rev. Robert W. McAll, then a pastor in Hadleigh, England, in response to the remark of a Paris i an workingman to the effect that the people of France would have nothing to do with “an imposed religion of forms and ceremonies,” but were “ready to hear” if any one would teach them “a religion of freedom and earnestne .” These words, spoken August 18, 1871, moved Mr. and Mrs. McAll, after taking counsel with eminent Paris i an pastors, to devote themselves to the evangelization of the working people of France. The requisite permi ion was obtained from the police commi ioner, and on January 17, 1872, the mi ion was opened in Belleville, the communistic quarter of Paris. Its opportunene at once became evident. Calls for new stations came from many quarters, and volunteer service was freely offered, especially by French pastors and laymen. It was several years before any salaried worker was added to the staff, and Dr. and Mrs. McAll never received any stipend from the Mi ion. By 1888 the number of mi ion halls was twenty-two in Paris and its environs, and 108 in provincial towns and cities, including Corsica, Tunis, and Algiers, with 20,000 sittings and an aggregate attendance of 1,555,600. The number of mi ion halls has since been gradually reduced by nearly one-third, altho the number of persons reached is greatly increased. The smaller number of mi ion halls is in part due to financial nece ity, but mainly to development in the activities of the French Protestant churches, many of which have taken over one or more of the mi ion halls. Thus the McAll Mi ion is becoming more and more a pioneering agency and feeder to the churches. Its halls, however, are still centers of a great variety of activities: Sunday and Thursday Bible schools, mothers’ meetings. Christian endeavor, temperance work, dispensaries, lending libraries, domestic visitation, and an extensive circulation of tracts and of the Scriptures. But all these works are tributary to the evangelistic purpose of the mi ion, evangelistic meetings being held in every hall at least twice, and in many, seven times a week. The teachings are purely evangelistic, no criticism or comment upon other forms of teaching or worship being allowed. No effort is made to win converts from the church of Rome, and many who are unquestionably converted remain m its communion. The majority of converts, however, are from free thinking and atheistic ranks that immense that have multitude shaken off allegiance to Roman Catholicism. Except in one or two cases of extreme urgency the Mi ion invests no money in buildings and — Manrltlna McAII MlBslon founds no churches. Its halls are hired shops, and converts are sent to unite with some neighboring church, with whose pastor they are well acc^uainted through his regular work in the mi ion hall. It has often occurred that the majority of new members of a church in any given year are from the nearest mi ion hall. The expenses of the Mi ion (which average le than $1,000 annually per hall) are met by voluntary contributions from Great Britain, Ireland, Protestant Europe, the United States, Canada, the descendants of the Huguenots in South Africa, and, in ever increasing amount, from the Protestants of France. The American McAll Mi ion A ociation, founded in 1883 to collect funds for the Mi ion, has 67 auxiliaries and provides more than a third of its income. An important work was carried on in the three exposition years, 1878, 1889, 1900, by the Mi ion, in cooperation with the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Religious Tract Societies of London and Paris. Halls were opened near the exposition gates, with unceasing services, opportunities for religious conversation, and an enormous distribution of tracts and Scripture portions. In 1890 a citizen of New York provided 10,000 copies of the “Marked New Testament” in French, which were put to judicious use. Many remarkable conversions were due to this work in the exposition. About 1885-1888, a mi ionary ve el having been lent to the Mi ion by Mr. Henry Cook, of the English Seaman’s Mi ion, an important work was carried on in the seaboard towns of Britt any and Normandy, and up the Seine to Paris, resulting in the founding of several important stations. The chief advantage of the method was that the ve el, being commi ioned and equipped to hold meetings, encountered no delay in obtaining local permits or suitable halls for the purpose. This suggested a similar mi ion along the inland water-ways of France. Two chapel boats, expre ly designed for the work, now carry the Gospel along these “silent highways.” “Le Bon Me ager” was commi ioned in 1890, and “La Bonne Nouvelle” (mainly the gift of an American woman) in 1902. This pioneer work has been singularly fruitful. Municipal almost invariably, and communal authorities and parish priests not unfrequently, show hearty sympathy. The people come in crowds, making nece ary two and often three succe ive services evening after evening. An increasing number of permanent works follow the boats, established by French Home Mi ion Societies or by resident Protestants. In January, 1892, the Mi ion celebrated its twentieth anniversary, and Dr. McAll’s seventieth birthday, with many tributes of honor and gratitude. In these the French Government joined by conferring upon Dr. McAll the cro of On May 11, 1893, worn the Legion of Honor. out with exce ive care and labor. Dr. McAll reward, being buried with military went to his honors in the cemetery of Pfere La Chaise. He had already called to the Honorary Presidency a prominent busine man of Paris, M. Louis Sautter, and to the active direction of the work the Rev. C. E. Greig, trained in the Mi ion under his own eyes. Since then the succe of the Mi ion has been unabated, its importance increasingly recognized by French Protestants. The most important events of recent date (1903), besides the growing succe of the boat work, ara McAll, Rev. Robert W. Medical Mi ions a remarkable awakening in nineteen mountain villages in the south of France, due to itinerating work from Gra e as a center, and a still more notable revival in Corsica, where, after many years of persecution of McAll mi ionaries, the people of AuU have abandoned the Church of Rome, provided funds to build a church and asked the Government to send them a Protestant pastor. McALL, Rev. Robert Whitaker: The founder of the McAll Mi ion, Paris, began his ministry in 1848 at Sunder land, and had succe ive pastorates in Leicester, Birmingham, Manchester, and Hadleigh. Mr. McAll was known as a kocn student of natural history, being an accomplished botanist, and becoming a Fellow of the Linnean Society. The three subjects, architecture, botany, and geography, were specially interesting to him, and he turned them all to good account in his pastoral work, and later on in his mi ion work in France. In the summer of 1871 Mr. and Mrs. McAll cro ed the Channel for the first time for a short Taking with them a supply of visit to France. French tracts, they made a point of distributing them wherever they went, and on the last evening of their stay in Paris, August 17, 1871, they found their way to the populous quarter of Belleville, where the people had so terribly suffered during the Commune, and began to give away their tracts among the crowds of working people that were thronging the streets. While Mrs. McAll was giving the tracts around, inside of a caf6 on the Boulevard de Belleville, Mr. McAll was accosted by an intelligent workingman, who could speak a little English, and who came forward saying to him, “Are you not a Christian minister, sir? I have something to tell you. Throughout this whole district, containing tens of you sands of workmen, we cannot accept an imposed religion. But if anyone would come to teach us religion of another kind, a religion of freedom and reality, many of us are ready for it.” Could it be that this was a call from God for them to go over and try the experiment and take the Gospel to the people of Paris? After much thought and prayer, and after consulting friends at home and in France, especially Pastor Georges Fisch and Pastor Theodore Monod, the important decision was made, and in October Mr. McAll resigned the pastorate of the church at Hadleigh, and December found him in Paris, with a small sum in hand for current expenses, and his slender patrimony on which to subsist. On the 18th of January, 1872, the first “McAll Mi ion Hall” was opened on the rue Julian Lacroix, Belleville, the first of a long list. Friends rallied round him, and Pastors Fisch, Monod, Bersier, de Pre ens6, Appia, Vallette, Reoolin, Dhombres, Hollard, and many others were his warmest supporters. The importance of the work accomplished, from a purely philanthropic point of view, was recognized by two societies conferring medals on the founder, the “Soci^t6 Nation ale d’Encouragement au Bien,” and the “Soci t Libre d’Instruction and d’Education Populaire.” The government of the Republic made Mr. McAll a knight of the Legion of Honor in July, 1892. In 1892 Dr. Mc All’s health failed, and he resolved to go to England for a change, but after a winter of severe suffering he returned to Paris, where, in his 72d year, on Ascension Day, the 5th of May, 1893, he peacefully pa ed away. 44i McMULLIN, Robert Born at Philadelphia, Pa.,: November 30, 1832; graduated at the University of Pennsylvania 1850, and at Princeton Theological Seminary 1854; ordained July 27, 1856, and sailed for India September 11, the same year, as a mi ionary of the PN. He was stationed at Fategarh. few months before his capture by the Sepoy rebels he wrote: “We are trying to be calm and trustful, but this cloud is fearfully dark. No matter whether our lives be prosperous or adverse, God has some gracious purpose, which will sooner or later be made manifest.” When the mutiny broke out he, with other mi ionaries, endeavored to reach Allah a bad, a British station, but was made prisoner, and put to death at Cawnpur by order of the rebel chief, Nana Sahib, June 13, 1857. A MEDAK: A town in the native state of Haidarabad, India, situated on a branch of the Manjira River, 48 miles N. by W. of Haidarabad. Population, 7,000. Station of the WMS, with (1903) 1 mi ionary, 4 women mi ionaries, 14 outstations, 137 native workers, 10 places of worship, 27 Sunday schools, 27 day schools, 1 boarding school, 1 dispensary, 1 orphanage, 1 hospital, 1 industrial school and 1,532 profe ed Christians, of whom 724 are communicants. A ME DELL IN: town and the capital of the state of Antioquia, Colombia, situated at the foot of Mt. Santa Elena on the Force River, 150 miles N. W. of Bogota. It is a mining center and the supply depot for large regions. It was founded in 1675 and is next to the city of Bogota in importance. It has railroad connections with Magdalen a River at Porto Berrico. Altitude, Station of the Population, 18,000. 5,000 feet. (1889), with (1903) 1 mi ionary and his PN wife, 1 woman mi ionary, 1 Sunday school, 1 day school and 23 profe ed Christians, MEDHURST, Walter Henry: Born at London, England, 1796; learned the trade of a printer; was educated for the ministry, and, having decided to be a mi ionary to the heathen, was appointed by the LMS, and sailed as its mi ionary in 1816 for Malacca. He was ordained there in 1819. In 1822 he was established at Batayia, in Java, remaining there eight years, during which time, and for several years afterward, he performed mi ionary work in Borneo and on the Having spent two years in Eng coasts of China. land, he was stationed at Shanghai after the con There he remained clusion of the war in 1843. This his final return to England in 1856. was the earliest Protestant mi ion in that city. The fjrinting pre owned by the LMS, which had to this time been worked at Batavia, was now removed to Shanghai, and was under the charge The University of New York of Mr. Medhurst. conferred on Mr. Medhurst in 1843 the degree of D.D. In 1847 delegates from several mi ions convened in Shanghai for the revision of the till Chinese versions of the Sacred Scriptures. After the completion of the New Testament Me rs. Medhurst, Milne and Stronach, by instruction of the directors, withdrew from the general committee, and prosecuted the work of This was com revision of the Old Testament. pleted in 1853. The result of this revision was virtu all)^ a new version of the Bible,_ very correct in idiom and true to the meaning of the original. Dr. Medhurst left Shanghai in 1856 in impaired 445 health for England, and died two days after reaching London, January 24, 1857. A remarkable linguist, he was a proficient in Malay, well versed in the Chinese, Japanese, Javar°se and other Eastern languages, besides Dutch and French, in all of which he wrote. ch089.xhtml m 463