Twenty-three millions of Chinese live in the province of Kwang-tung, of which Canton, with its two millions, is the chief city. All the Chinese that emigrate to the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand go from eleven districts (out of 81) of Kwang-tung province, the very large majority to America and Australia from four districts—known collectively as "See-yup." In those See-yup, distant over a hundred miles S.W. from Canton, and speaking harsh dialects differing much from pure Cantonese, there are some seventy mission-stations belonging to the American Presbyterians, the American Baptists, the Church Missionaries, and the American Board. Of the 3000 Chinese in New Zealand only a small minority—about one-sixth—come from the "See-vup": the other five-sixths come from two districts—this, page 2 holding the eastern half of Canton City, called

P'oon-Yu,

that, bounding P'oon-yu on the east, called

Tsang-Shing.

The clannishness of Southern Chinese is very manifest oven in foreign lands. So it comes that, of the 600 and more gold-diggers in Westland, all but a score are P'oon-yu men, likewise the gardeners at Wanganui, Palmerston North, and Kaikorai (Dunedin), also the miners at Nokomai, Waipori, Waikaia, and Orepuki; while the 140 fruit-dealers in Wellington are nearly all from Tsang-shing, as are the Anderson's Bay (Dunedin) gardeners. On the other hand, the laundrymen in Dunedin, Christchurch, and Wellington are almost wholly See-yup men.

Some 2500 of our New Zealand Chinese belong to two clusters of farming villages with a total population of some 400,000. The P'oon-yu cluster, where pure Cantonese prevails, numbers about forty, and lies from 6 to 20 miles north of Canton: the Tsangshing cluster of twenty lies 35 to 40 miles east of the city. Among the former group the American Presbyterians recently opened a chapel: in the latter group the only station was that held by our own student—Mr William Chan—for six weeks last summer at Whitestone Mart.

Those Sixty Villages,

In November, 1898, the C.V.M. was founded by the call for two men. A year later Mr George Hunter M'Neur was accepted as the fir.it student missionary. He had had three years' special training for the foreign mission field—one year in Australia and two in Scotland. After, in addition, nearly two years among the Chinese throughout Otago and Southland studying the language and the people—a special feature of the C.V.M.—Mr M'Neur was page 4 ordained in the First Church, Dunedin, and sailed for Canton on November 7, 1901. He arrived there December 19, and soon set out to deliver the thirty-two letters and 104 sovereigns entrusted to his care by men in Otago for their friends and relatives in the villages.

Mr M'Neur's interesting quintette of first letters from Canton form a unique chapter of mission literature: it can safely be said that during these ninety-five years of Protestant missions to China no other missionary thither ever had such an introduction to the people of his prayers. Without a word of argument, these letters—written privately to me—make quite clear the peculiar responsibility and the rare opportunity of New Zealand Presbyterians.

Mr William Mawson, M.A., has been accepted as the second missionary, and is now studying Chinese with the prospect of joining Mr M'Neur about the end of 1905. At the end of 1902 Mr William Chan, formerly seven years in Dunedin, will complete his four years' course in the Presbyterian College at Canton, to work among the Canton villagers in their own land or in New Zealand as the F.M. Committee decides.

What an honour to have been the first Church in the Southern Hemisphere to open in China; but what a responsibility the care of 400,000 souls that no Church can care for as we can! Lord, multiply the hearts that cry: "What must I do?"