mmunities still existing.
It is only within the last century, however, that the work of the
missionary societies has infused new life into the work of converting
the Mohammedans. The greatest numerical success has been achieved by
those who devote their efforts to the founding of Christian communities
in villages of their own, entirely distinct from the Mohammedans, with
their own Christian village headmen. It is found that in the Mohammedan
villages the Christians suffer so much persecution from the headmen and
others, that in some cases Christianity has been entirely stamped out,
and the Christians have disappeared, no one knows where. The Christian
villages have in most cases been established in unsettled districts,
whole families being moved from other places, and clearing the jungle
to form their own settlements. These people have been won to Christ by
preaching among the Mohammedans, and are protected from persecution by
thus gathering them into Christian communities. Much work is also done
by means of schools and dispensaries. The Dutch Government provides both
the school buildings and salaries of schoolmasters, under certain rules,
and it also erects hospitals, and provides medicines free to every
missionary. There are also instances in which Christian communities have
grown up in the midst of Mohammedan surroundings, and it is claimed that
such Christians are of a stronger type, and exercise a more powerful
influence among their fellow-countrymen. A Dutch missionary writes that
polygamy and divorce are very prevalent in Java, there being many who
have changed husbands or wives as many as ten or twenty times. The man
has to pay the priest two guilders for a divorce, but a woman would have
to pay twenty-five guilders; the latter is known as "Buffalo divorce,"
i. e., brutal. In Java the second wife is called "A fire in the house."
Four wives are allowed, and any number of concubines. In case of divorce
the girls follow the father, and the boys follow the mother. Divorced
women are often in straitened circumstances and become concubines or the
kept mistresses of Europeans or even of the Chinese.

The largest Christian communities in Malaysia are in North Celebes and
on the island of Amboina. These are the result of the early labors of
the chaplains of the Dutch East India Company.

Among the Malays proper very little missionary work has been attempted
and practically nothing has been accomplished. From 1815 to 1843