LANCHAUFU

[s. 406] : The capital of the province Kan-su, China; situated on the right bank of the Hwang-ho in a narrow valley which the town fills, 450 miles W. N. W. of Hsi-ngan-fu. It has important manufactures of coarse woolen goods. Altitude, 5,000 feet. Population, 250,000, of of whom many are Mohammedans. Station of the CIM (1885), with (1903) 6 mi ionaries, 2 with their wives; 1 woman mi ionary, 1 chapel, and 1 dispensary. A LANDAUR: village and sanitarium in the District of Dehra Dun, United Provinces, India; situated 77 miles E. of Ambala. Altitude, 7,459 feet. Population (1891), 2,000. Station of the PN (1874), with (1903) 1 mi ionary and his wife, 1 woman mi ionary, and 1 boarding school. Station of the ZBM, with (1903) 2 women mi ionaries, 2 native workers, and 81 Zenana pupils. The name is sometimes spelled Land our. The place is also called Wood stock. A LANG-CHAU: town in the province of Shen-si, China, situated 115 miles W. N. W. of Hsi-ngan-fu. Station of the CIM (1893), with (1903) 1 mi ionary and his wife, 1 woman mi ionary and 1 chapel. LANGUAGES; Mi ions and the Unwritten: Christianity had its origin in the midst of the highest civilization of the times. It was not born in some obscure corner of the earth. It found its way at once into the imperial centers of the mightiest empire of the ancient world. It expre ed itself at the outset in tlie supremest language the human race has ever invented. The oracles out of which it sprung had already been translated into this tongue, and the new oracles of the New Covenant were given in the same speech. It is a significant fact that cannot be too often commented upon that Christianity at once conquered the best and po e ed it for the New Kingdom. It speedily also began to invade the other living languages of power and influence the Syriac, which reached out eastward to the Euphrates and beyond, and the Latin, which was the speech of the civilization of the West. This could not take place without affecting the very life and forms of these languages, changing their vocabulary, enriching their content. It would be interesting to trace the influence of Christianity aggre ive, conquering, mi ionary Christianity on these languages, already Without doubt the vehicle of polished thought. the very language of Greece, in which the New Testament was first given form, received a new imprint from these holy writings. So too the Scriptures, translated into the Vulgate, the common speech of the Latin peoples, had their modifying influences on the language Except, however, in adding of the Caesars. elevation of thought and in the gift of spiritual ideals it is doubtful whether Christianity really added anything to these already cla ic languages. When we come to another cla of languages another set of facts are to be considered. Christianity, ever restle and moving outward from its early centers, came in contact in the West with peoples that had already developed incipThey had created their alpha i ent literatures. The new light of bets and begun their progre . the Spirit, however, proved a mighty leaven, and as we trace these origins of literature we find, as — — in our earliest forms of English literature, the presence of the creative power of the Christian story. Even later in their development it is the power of the Bible translated by the mi ionary church into their tongue that fixes it as iii England and in Germany, or the power of a mi ionary soul that lifted it to its loftiest po ibilities, as Dante, the tongue of Italy. liakaTvn 389 But this is not enough for Christianity. It is not satisfied to vivify existing literature, and give a mighty upUft to those in the weakne of their it has created the very forms of Ute rain fancy ture and has made languages. The language of Ru ia and Bulgaria, and Servia, all the languages however modified that take their origin from the old Slavic of the early centuries, owe their very letters, their alphabet, to mi ionaries from Constantinople: Cyril and Method i us, who in the 9th century went to the South Slavic peoples and gave their language form in the quaint characters that abide to this This work of mi ionaries in the 9th cenday. tury is being carried forward by mi ionaries in A mi ionary in Central the 20th century. Africa has just reduced the Kairondo language to writing and begun the translation of the In the year 1903 the Gospel into this speech. complete New Testament translated by the Rev. E. H. Richards was i ued in Sheetswa, the speech of millions of people on the east coast of Africa who had no written language until the advent of the mi ionary. What is true of these African tribes is also true of the many peoples In living in the scattered islands of Mic rones i a. 1856 the Rev. Hiram Bingham, the son of one of the first mi ionaries to the Sandwich Islands, He left the United States on the Morning Star. — He arrived in Apaiang in November, 1857. spent the first eighteen months after his arrival in acquiring the language and putting it in writing. In February, 1859, he commenced the trans- New Testament, which was not com lati on of the pleted until 1873, and the Old Testament twenty The whole story is a fascinating one. years later. In the translation nearly 400 foreign words had to be introduced for which there were no equivalents in the new tongue. The language of Ponape, one of the Caroline Islands, was also reduced to writing by mi ionaries. Matthew and John were translated in 1859. This translation was made by the Rev. Dr. Gulick, who had the help of a runaway Portuguese who had been on the island, and who had acquired the language and had been converted by reading the Portuguese New Testament given him by a mi ionary, so that from this incident we see how the Divine Word reproduces itself by giving shape to languages which had no written form until the mi ionary influence came in contact with it. In the Marshall Islands the mi ionaries reduced the language to writing in order to translate into The New the language the Holy Scriptures. Testament was finally given to these people in 1885. What was true of the Gilbert Islands and the Ponape and the Marshall Islands was also true of Kusaie and the Mortlock and Ruk languages. Another interesting group of languages which has been reduced to form by mi ionary effort is It is true that of the Indians of North America. that the Cherokee language owes its alphabet to a newspaper enterprise, a certain educated Cherokee, Geo. Gue , purposing to introduce — The mi ion the “talking leaf” to his people. aries, however, much to his disgust, made use of his work for circulating the Scriptures, and the first actual printing in type from the letters originated by the newspaper enterprise was the Book of Genesis, translated by the Rev. S. A. Worcester, D.D., and published in 1827. Laos The work o-f the Moravians among the Del a wares and of the American Board mi ionaries among the Dakotas and among the Choctaws, all had tro do with the shaping and forming of these languages. So much was it realized that this mi ionary work had been an important aid in the civilizing of the tribes that in 1887 the Dakota Indians appealed from the decision of the United States abolishing the use of the vernacular in their schools on the ground that the Vernacular Bible had been a great and effective agency in their civilization. Not only has mi ionary effort, especially in connection with the translation of the Scriptures, been a creative power giving shape and form to many unwritten languages, of which the above incidents are simply occasional examples, and giving an elevation and dignity to those that already had been reduced to writing, but in many instances the work of the mi ionaries has been the only influence that has given permanence to these languages. In some cases the only memorial of these languages that exists is the product of the labor of the mi ionary. LAN-KI-HSIEN A town in the province of Che-kiang, China, situated 75 miles S. W. of: Hang-chau. It is an important commercial center. Population, 200,000. Station of the CIM (1894), with (1903) 3 women mi ionaries, Name is some5 native workers, and 1 chapel. times written Lan-k’i. A LAN-TIEN-HSIEN town in the province of Shen-si, China, situated 28 miles S. E. of HsiStation of the CIM (1895), with (1903) ngan-fu.: 1 mi ionary and his wife, 1 native worker, chapel, 1 Sunday school, and 1 day school. name is sometimes written Lan-t’ien. 1 The LAO-HO-KAU: A town and river port on the Han River, in the province of Hu-pei, China, situated 200 miles N.W. of Han-kau. Station of the CIM (1887), with (1903) 2 mi ionaries and their wives, 9 native workers, 1 outstation, 2 places of worship, 1 Sunday school, 1 day school, and 44 Christians. Station also of the Norwegian Luther an China Mi ion (1894), with (1900) 3 mi ionaries, 2 with their wives; 4 women mi ionaries, 1 day school, and 1 boarding school. Station also of the PB, with 1 mi ionary and his Name spelled wife and 2 women mi ionaries. by the Society Lao-ho-k’ou and Lao-ho-keo. LAO-LING. See Le-ling-hsien. 407