and, with axes and saws, we went to the forest to fell the trees
for logs; but when a few were sawed the mill failed. Must we
give it up? Not yet. In the saddle I went down the mountain to
Lost Creek, sixteen miles, and to Sparta, seventeen, for lumber.
Through much hardship it was hauled, it taking two days for a
good team to make one trip, and sometimes getting a thorough
soaking in a storm by a night camp-fire. Some forty loads were
dragged up the steep mountain and on to Pleasant Hill. This
coming up the Cumberland Mountains with a load means much more
than a stranger can comprehend. When it takes three hours to go
two miles we may suppose there is some pulling. You can find some
hills in Western Massachusetts and in Maine, but they are mole
mounds as compared with the brow of these mountains. But the men
who had the hauling in charge were patient and faithful to the
last.
The work went slowly on for lack of funds. Twice it stopped, and
no sound of saw or hammer was heard. Some prophesied it would
take seven years to complete the building. Troubled dreams and
wakefulness came, and sleep said, “If you don’t go on with the
work I will not come to you.” I then said to the carpenter:
“Come Monday morning, and I will be responsible for your pay.”
He came, and Monday’s mail brought me $6 from the Sunday-school
in Edgecomb, Me. I paid the carpenter Saturday night, and said,
“Come again.” He came, and Monday’s mail at 11 A. M. brought $7
from the Sunday-school in East Orrington, Me. Rebuked for my
lack of faith, I said, “Come again,” and the third Monday at 11
A. M. brought $25 from that noble man, Hon. J. J. H. Gregory, of
Marblehead, Mass., who always sells honest seed, and has also
recently sent us a fine bell and paid the freight on it.
Slowly the building grew, till, by much tug and toil, where
markets and railroads were far away, and even money absent,
to-day the house stands finished.
The last thing, the furnishing, is being done. So we are planning
to christen it with services there next Sabbath, and on Monday
enter it with our growing and promising school, which, ere long,
if friends stand firm to its interests, is to be one of the
bright lights in the State of Tennessee.
So much for the new house on the Cumberland Mountains.
HOW HAS IT BEEN DONE?
“Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build
it.”
It is the _Lord’s_ work, through his dear children. He has
awakened in the hearts of Christian men, women, young people,
and even _little_ children, an interest in this work, so that,
by closest attention and careful application of funds, God has
enabled me to engineer the work till I can see that He means the
house shall stand complete, without so much as a nickel of debt
upon it.
We have also organized a Congregational Church, and have
in connection with our work another church at Pomona, and
Sabbath-schools in all three.
I preach twice each Sabbath, riding twelve miles in the saddle.
With increasing faith in God and this mountain work, which
demands much grace and not a little grit, I ask the prayers of
those who pray.
* * * * *
THE INDIANS.
A VISIT TO THE DAKOTAS.
BY SECRETARY J. E. ROY.
In 1871, on a tour of home missionary supervision in Dakota,
I came over the Missouri in a canoe, the only mode then of
transportation to this Santee Agency School. I found here Rev.
A. L. Riggs, who had come the year before to take up the newly
initiated work of Rev. J. P. Williamson, who removed up the
river thirty miles to open a mission upon the reservation of the
Yankton Sioux. At that time Mr. Riggs had already displaced the
cabin home and cabin school-house by a frame residence and a
frame chapel school-house about 30×50. Now I find that the chapel
has been spread out upon the sides and elongated in the rear,
with sliding doors to shut off each of the several new parts into
additional recitation and Sunday-school rooms, and the whole to
be crowded for morning prayers and Sabbath service. There have
also come on, the Dakota Home for Young Women, the Bird’s Nest
for Little Children and the Cottage for Little Boys, each of the
three under a matron, and the Dakota Hall for Young Men, with
one of the teachers’ families there in charge. Then come the
well-built shops for shoemaking, carpentry and blacksmithing;
and lastly, the three-story dining-hall, with accommodation for
a hundred and fifty at the tables, with rooms for teachers and
workers, and a whole story yet to be finished off, when funds
are in hand, to accommodate more girls. The whole is heated
by furnaces and supplied with the most approved apparatus for
cooking, baking and laundry work.
But, beyond this expanding of the shell, I find the inner
institution matured into a good deal of character and strength.
Though it has grown by itself, it has come to be very much
like our best boarding-schools at the South. The course of the
year makes up more than two hundred pupils, and there are now
here one hundred and thirty. The mass of them have learned the
English, and the classes are taught in it. Many of them have
been advanced in English studies. The régime everywhere takes on
the Christian type. A great majority of the scholars have been
brought to a personal acquaintance with Christ. A good number of
teachers and preachers have already been sent forth. Music--vocal
and instrumental--brings in its refining influence. A splendid
corps of teachers is employed. Every pupil, male and female,
has some work to do. The shops for blacksmithing, carpentry and
shoemaking have each a competent workman as instructor, and those
departments are run under the closest inspection. I have seen one
Indian doing a fine job of shoeing horses, that most important of
all work in blacksmithing.
Mr. Riggs, the father of the Theological Institute of Chicago
Seminary, has brought the same feature in here. And so for
two weeks, about twenty-five men, young pastors and divinity
students, coming in from their fields, are drilled in the
practical Bible doctrines and methods of preaching and pastoral
work. The lectures have run from two to four in a day. Clearly
it has been a season of stimulus and of replenishment to the
young brethren. Those who were pleased with the young people from
this school, who sang at the Chicago Council, at the New Haven
Anniversary and over the East, last fall, will be glad to learn
that at least half a hundred of equal cultivation could be sent
out as specimens. Three native teachers are here employed, and
they can use either language. It has been a great delight to me
to hear Pastor Artemas Ehnamani preach in his own pulpit in the
presence of his church, that numbers a couple of hundred, and
without the chopping up of his address by the intervention of an
interpreter.
* * * * *
THE CHINESE.
BY REV. F. B. PERKINS.
Mr. Pond has just left for San Francisco, after a week of
exhausting toil for the Chinese missions here and in Santa
Barbara. For his relief, I have undertaken to write this letter,
that his vacation--for so he calls it--may not be altogether
farcical. I do it the more readily for the opportunity it gives
me of saying some things which your readers would not be likely
to learn from him.
It has long been my conviction that, in proportion to the means
employed, no form of Christian work on this coast yields so large
a revenue as Chinese missions. I am sure this is so as regards
that carried on under the direction of the A. M. A. And the
explanation I find largely in the Christ-like devotion of your
superintendent and his coadjutors.
It is but a single illustration of this spirit which Mr. Pond’s
recent visit offers. Both at Santa Barbara and San Diego the
missions have lost their rented premises, and are literally
homeless. It seems imperative that, if the work is to go on,
they should no longer be subject to the disabilities of rented
buildings. But it is a fixed principle of this mission, on
no account to incur a debt. So it is of Mr. Pond, as regards
himself; but for Christ’s needy ones he has more than once
accepted the burden. This he has now again done. In Santa Barbara
he purchased a lot for $600, for which land he is personally
liable, but which he holds in trust for the mission. On that
lot, by the close of this week, a chapel will be erected by a
Christian friend, at a cost of $340. For this property a moderate
rental is to be paid by the mission, and when the sums thus paid
shall amount to the price of the land it, together with the
building, (toward which the little Chinese band have already
paid $150), becomes the property of the mission. In San Diego
the course pursued has been the same, only that here, owing to
the rise in real estate, the amount assumed by Mr. Pond and one
other friend of the work, is $2,500. By similar acts of Christian
self-sacrifice in the past, the mission has already become
possessed of property to the value of $10,000, all without the
burden of debt, or an even temporary diversion of its funds.
But is the mission work worth all this toil and sacrifice? Mr.
Pond, in a carefully guarded statement, says, that since the
establishment of this mission the Chinese converts number over
600, at least fifty having been added during the past year;
and this statement, you observe, makes no mention of results
wide reaching in their beneficence which do not involve this
radical heart work. If this statement be accepted as correct, the
question is answered. But is there really any such a character as
a Christian Chinese? Many persons say, “No.” It is but a day or
two since a Christian man denied it, in my hearing. My reply to
him was to ask for his standard of judgment. If his demand was
that Chinamen should cease to become Chinese, and, abandoning
all their associations, habits and prejudices, become simply
Americans, doubtless they are not Christians; but in that case,
neither are converts from many another nationality to be reckoned
as Christians. Or if absolute freedom from infirmities and faults
be made the test, this would shut them out, but it would shut
out many others also. Alas! it would be fatal to the hopes of
the writer. But if the test be the same we apply to ourselves,
love more or less enthusiastic, loyalty true, even if troubling,
to our Divine Master, and our judgments be according to the law
of charity, then we have no more reason to look askant upon a
Chinese than upon a Bohemian, or a negro brother. The grace of
God works out in these and in those alike, encountering similar
obstacles and being triumphant in about an equal degree.
_Ex uno disce omnes._ He was a house servant, and naturally not
of amiable disposition or agreeable ways. But some twelve months
ago his employer began to notice a change in his bearing, a more
cheerful observance of his duties and a generally pleasanter
manner. Awhile ago he came to the lady, and said: “Mrs. B., I’m
a Christian. I don’t know as you have thought it, but I am.”
“Yes, Jim,” was the reply, “I have seen it for some months past.”
Yet he is as much a Chinaman now as ever, and no more faultless
perhaps than an American Christian. But he is “following on,”
reaching out after likeness to the Master, and that is about as
much as most of us can claim.
“But so much of the work seems fruitless owing to the migratory
life these people live.” Well, twelve years ago I was among the
prospectors of Southern Colorado. During one of our meetings,
I noticed a Chinaman enter the room. Through all the service
he maintained a respectful and interested attitude, and at the
close, taking his hand, I asked him; “You sabe (understand)?
You know our Jesus, our Saviour.” “Yes, I know.” “Where did you
learn?” “San Fis.” “Who taught you?” “Miss Loomis (Rev. Dr.
Loomis).” So I had come across one of these waifs in the heart of
the Rocky Mountains, and two years after he had gone out from his
Christian teacher. I don’t know how clear his views of sin and
salvation were, nor how hearty his trust in the atoning Saviour.
That could only be learned by longer intercourse, and I have
never seen him since. But he knew enough to find his way into
that little cabin in the wilds of Colorado, and to speak with
apparent intelligence and sympathy of the things of the kingdom.
Nor could I doubt that he stood as the representative of very
many who go out from these mission schools, and are lost to all
but the all-seeing eye of Infinite Love.
The work in their behalf may seem to be, but it is not,
fruitless. From this number let us not doubt it, many will
stand forth at last, redeemed unto God, monuments alike to the
unspeakable grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the patient
fidelity of Christ’s disciples.
* * * * *
BUREAU OF WOMAN’S WORK.
MISS D. E. EMERSON, SECRETARY.
Please remember to renew the “shares” in the support of teachers.
Those who desire it can have their shares transferred from year
to year to new fields, thus obtaining more varied knowledge of
the work from the missionary correspondence.
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS.
_Missionary._--I am happy to write you that the $25 pledged for
the support of a teacher is again ready for you. The letters
received were enjoyed very much in the Society and I know greatly
increased our interest and membership.
_New York Missionary Union._--Our auxiliaries voted the $1,100
the coming year for the A. M. A. (support of three missionaries.)
I have promised, as last year, bi-monthly letters from each
of these teachers. Our auxiliaries much enjoy the letters and
greatly miss them if anything delays.
_Local Church Society, Conn._--The amount of our pledge is
collected and will be forwarded. We have received the missionary
letters monthly and we take them into our Mission Circle, and
read them, and frequently they are read from the pulpit so that
all may hear the good results of help given. We wish the good
work God-speed.
* * * * *
It will be remembered that after the Annual Meeting in New Haven
the Indian students from the Santee Normal Training School made
a short campaign among the churches. The writer of the following
letter was one of the students, and in it she tells a friend what
she saw and thought as she went from place to place.
_Dear Friend_:
I will now try to tell you how much I enjoyed our trip East. We
had good and hard times, too. We left Santee Oct. 12th. We were
gone for eight weeks. It seems very nice to get back to Santee. I
think more of the school every time I go away and come back.
We stopped over Sunday at Chicago; then we took train for New
Haven, Conn., and it was a very tiresome journey, for we never
had been on the train for such a long distance. We reached New
Haven Tuesday evening; then the next afternoon we went to the
meeting. The church was just packed, so they had the meeting in
two churches and we had to go back and forth to sing. We sang in
Dakota and English.
I want to tell you some of the places we went to. It will take
me too long if I try to tell you all. We met a great many of our
teachers’ friends.
We went to Essex and had a very pleasant afternoon at Miss
Pratt’s home. We felt as though we were going to see some of our
old acquaintances when we knew that we were to meet our teachers’
friends. As we went in Boston I thought of you and wondered how
many times you had been in that depot. I like Boston very well,
but not as well as I like our old home Santee.
At Providence I met one of my teachers, Prof. Wilson, and I went
home with him and spent the night at his house and had a very
good time.
At Northampton, after the service was out, two young ladies
invited us to go with them the next morning to Smith College, so
we went around and saw the most of the buildings; then again we
went to South Hadley Seminary, and I could not make out which
school I liked the best. I think I never saw so many young ladies
at once as I did that morning.
When we were in Newport one thing we wanted to see very much was
the ocean; but it rained when we reached the city, so we were
afraid that after all we could not see the ocean; but some kind
friends sent their carriages and drivers to take us out to the
beach, and we girls got in one carriage, and we all enjoyed that
ride very much because we saw the great waters we had heard so
much about. As we went along and saw the large, beautiful houses
closed, I wondered why the people built such beautiful houses
just for the summer. I think they might have used their money
some other way just as well as to spend all on houses like that.
Perhaps it was wrong for me to wish it, but I did, when I saw so
many right along the beach. I wished we had some of that money
for our work out here, and if we did it would do more good than
just to stand as those houses did, just for the looks.
At Groton we had a very pleasant evening with some young ladies
who invited us to take tea with them. Many of them got so
interested in our people that they kept asking us about one
thing or another all the time. On our way home we stopped at New
York and Brooklyn, and we saw the Suspension Bridge and we were
surprised to see it; I wanted to see it very much; and one more
thing too, and that was the Niagara Falls. We went across on
Canada side and when we saw the Falls it seemed as though there
never could be so much of water falling down at once. I think it
is just grand to see it, and to hear the great noise it makes.
At Southport we had a very pleasant place to stay and we enjoyed
being there with such good kind friends and to know that we had
such friends at the East. One morning while we were staying there
we had a very hard storm, but in the afternoon it cleared off
and we went to the shore and gathered some shells and stones to
take home with us. We were there for two or three days, while
Miss Ilsley, Mr. Shelton and Mr. Riggs went to other places. At
Norwich, Miss Ilsley wasn’t with us, so John played for the short
time she was away. We missed her very much.
Sometimes the people asked us such funny questions. At Boston we
had service Sunday evening, and after the close of the meeting
one lady came up and said, “Is your teacher Indian?” It seems
she would have known the difference between us and our teacher,
for she was not Indian at all. Then again at one place--I don’t
remember just where--one lady said to me, “How is it you all have
such good teeth?” I told her “I don’t know.” Then again she said,
“Do the Indians ever have the toothache?” I told her yes, and I
think she was surprised to hear my answer.
Since I have come back I want to help more in this work, and I
hope I will be able to do so in the future by God’s help.
Your friend,
JENNIE W. COX.
* * * * *
FOR THE CHILDREN.
(_Letter from a colored boy to his teacher._)
_Dear S. S. Teacher_:
I want to extend my thanks and gratitude to you for that _bright
light_ you presented to me yesterday (I mean that Bible). For
God says it is a lamp and a light, and I believe it. I have been
wanting one for a long time, because I am trying to be one of the
_very best_ Christian boys, and I need God’s word to teach me
and instruct me how to be the _best_ boy. I hope you will have
a large attendance in your class to-morrow, and I hope they all
may be on time. As God has given me the Bible I will make it my
lamp and my light and also my rule to live by. And I will ask God
to help me as I read it, to understand it, and I do want to walk
“Even as He.” I know God’s word can make me whiter than pop-corn
and sweeter than candy.* I would ask of thee to teach me all you
can.
Good Night.
* At the Christmas Festival pop-corn and candy were referred to
by one of the speakers in illustration.
* * * * *
(_Letter from Mrs. A. A. Myers._)
We read in the old story that every mamma crow thinks her own
little crows are the whitest of birds. And I think no one will be
surprised that, having worked with the little folks in Kentucky
for five years, I should have a little weakness toward them, and
if I repeat some of their wise sayings and doings it is only what
might be expected.
Little Elbert, between three and four years of age, with his
golden text in mind, took his kitty on his knee and very gravely
said to it, “Kitty if you lack wisdom, ask of God and he will
give it to you.” Looking at the new moon one evening he said,
“There’s a piece broken out of it;” and one evening when the
setting sun cast out those rays peculiar to it when the air is
full of moisture, he exclaimed, “Mamma, the sun is sticking its
feet at us.” Little Ernest, three years old, was awakened in the
night by hearing our church bell ring a fire alarm. He began to
cry, saying “Our Sabbath-school is burning up.” Little Johnny,
five years old, was so interested in class over the story of
the blind man going with clay on his eyes to the pool of Siloam
to wash, and returning seeing, that when in the general review
before the school, he sitting in the middle of a full house, the
question was asked, “What did Christ tell the blind man to do
after anointing his eyes,” Johnny could wait no longer but spoke
out in a clear ringing voice, “I dess the blind man was glad
of it, don’t you?” Callie’s answer, in the same review, to the
question, “Where did Christ tell the blind man to go and wash,”
was, “Go to the mud-puddle and wash.”
I will try soon to tell you something about our Band of Hope
little folks.
* * * * *
RECEIPTS FOR JANUARY, 1887.
MAINE, $646.11.
Bangor. W. S. Dennett, _for Pleasant Hill,
Tenn._ $6.00
Bath. Central Ch. and Soc. 42.00
Bridgton and Bath. Packages of work _for
Selma, Ala._
Brownville. Cong. Ch. and Soc., to const. REV.
WILLIS LERMOND, E. W. STICKNEY and Hon. A.
H. MERRILL L M’S. 102.61
Brunswick. Two bbls. of C. _for Selma, Ala._
Castine. Trin. Cong. Ch. 5.00
Castine. Class No. 9, Trin. Cong. Ch. Sab.
Sch., _for Student Aid, Tougaloo U._ 1.05
Cornish. Cong. S. S., _for Mobile, Ala._ 10.00
Dennysville Cong. Ch. 10.38
Farmington. Pastor’s Bible Class of Cong. Ch.,
_for Student Aid, Talladega, C._ 2.00
Foxcroft. Mrs. D. Blanchard 2.00
Gorham. One bbl. of C., _for Selma, Ala._,
2.50 _for freight_ 2.50
Hallowell. Mrs. F. C. Page, _for Indian M._ 10.00
Machias. Miss Sara P. Hill’s S. S. Class, _for
Indian M._ 1.50
North Bridgton. Ladies of Cong. Ch., _for
freight_ 2.87
North Edgecomb. Cong. Sab. Sch., _for Pleasant
Hill, Tenn._ 5.00
Orland. “Friends,” by S. E. Buck 40.00
Portland. High St. Ch. (35 of which _for the
Debt_) 226.97
Portland. Williston Ch. 59.68
Portland. Brown Thurston’s Class, High St.
Sab. Sch., _for Hampton N. and A. Inst._ 25.00
Portland. By Miss D. P. Lord, 10; Mrs. Nowell,
1; _for Louisville, Ky._ 11.00
Portland. Bbl. and box of C., _for Wilmington,
N. C._
Rockland. Cong. Ch. 41.40
Skowhegan. Ladies’ M. Soc. of Cong. Ch. 7.40
Wells. B. Maxwell 20.00
Wells. Young People’s Miss’y Soc. of Second
Ch., _for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 5.00
Wilton. Cong. Ch. 6.75
NEW HAMPSHIRE, $729.04.
Amherst. “A Friend” $2.00
Antrim. “Friends,” by John E. Hastings 12.00
Concord. “Friends” 1.00
Derry. One bbl., _for McIntosh, Ga._, 2 _for
freight_ 2.00
Exeter. Mary E. Shute 25.00
Farmington. Cong. Ch. 10.50
Franklin Falls. Mrs. Walter Aiken, _for
Student Aid, Atlanta U._ 50.00
Hampstead. Cong. Sab. Sch. 25.60
Hampton. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 8.08
Harrisville. Mrs. L. B. Richardson 10.00
Jaffrey. “Lillies of the Field,” Box of
Bedding, etc., _for Storrs Sch., Atlanta,
Ga._
Keene. Second Cong. Ch., 19.76, and Sab. Sch.,
46.65 66.41
Keene. S. S. Class, Cong. Ch., by Mrs. K. L.
Wright, _for Woman’s Work_ 20.00
Lebanon. C. M. Baxter, _for Woman’s Work_ 75.00
Lebanon. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 23.00
Lebanon. Ladies of Cong. Ch., 8; Miss Mary
Choate, 4; _for Student Aid, Straight U._ 12.00
Lyme. Cong. Ch. 34.50
Manchester. Franklin St. Ch. 113.11
Ossipee Center. Cong. Ch. 35.00
Pembroke. Mrs. Mary W. Thomson. 7.00
Plainfield. Mrs. Hannah Stevens, _for Indian
M._, and to const. TOM S. WOTKYNS, ARTHUR E.
RICHARDSON and CHARLES S. HORTON, L. M’S. 96.00
Rindge. Cong. Ch. 2.23
Temple. Cong. Sab. Sch. (12.59 of which _for
Indian M._) 36.69
Tilton. Cong. Ch. 4.30
Troy. Trin. Cong. Ch. 10.87
Walpole. Member of Cong. Ch. 20.00
Wolfboro. Rev. S. Clark 5.00
By George Swain:
Amherst. Cong. Ch. 8.00
Brookline. Cong. Ch. 5.25
New Boston. Presb. Ch. 1.50
New Ipswich. Cong. Ch. 7.00 21.75
VERMONT, $543.32.