food and doing his own cooking he was able to attend school about the
same length of time. He then went to one of the upper counties of
South Carolina and taught a private school for two months, after which
he worked for two months in a cotton-gin near by, while remaining to
collect the money for his teaching. Being compelled to use considerable
of the money he had earned to help his parents, he again secured a
public school for two months, at fifteen dollars a month, and boarded
himself. He then went over into Georgia and taught a public school,
for which he was fortunate enough to receive twenty-five dollars a
month. He was then able to return to Greenwood, where he was again
under the instruction of Mr. Backenstose for nearly three months. Under
the advice of his teacher, he determined to get to Fisk University if
possible and take a thorough course of study, but not succeeding in
earning much money by his teaching during the spring and summer, he
stopped for five months of last year at Biddle University at Charlotte,
N. C. He then undertook teaching again, determined to earn what money
he could during the spring and summer, and to get to Fisk University
if possible at the opening of the next school year. He only succeeded,
however, in getting a three months’ school in Georgia, for which he has
only received payment in part. As soon as his school closed he started
for Nashville and reached here on the 7th of October, just as the
answer came from our friend in Illinois which told us what to do. Mr.
Holloway is a member of the African Methodist church, and his desire
evidently is to secure an education that he may use it in Christian
work among his people.
We are confidently hoping that we shall receive similar answers enough
to enable us to provide for at least a hundred such young men as this.
* * * * *
Health—Business—School—Church.
PROF. A. J. STEELE, MEMPHIS.
November 1st found Memphis dull, spiritless, and wearing a half
deserted appearance, its streets strewn with autumn foliage and dry
grass, so that the rustling of leaves beneath the feet was a more
familiar sound than the rumbling of wagons or drays on most of the
streets. Business men who had returned, in most cases without their
families, wore a troubled and doubtful look. Many were discouraged and
without hope for the future of the city, either as a business point or
a place of residence. A few, like the boy in the dark, made a pretence
of courage by “whistling.”
Although the Board of Health had declared the fever ended, there were
still a few cases, with constant rumors of many more. After the cold
spell of October 30, the weather became and continued unusually warm.
Little or no cotton was being received, and orders for goods came not
to waiting merchants. Laboring people returning to the city found no
employment, and many suffered for the necessaries of life.
This state of things continued till the middle of November, when, after
a few frosty nights, and with bright clear weather, the entire aspect
of affairs changed, and rapidly took on a most hopeful and promising
appearance. Cotton, the staple and life of business, began to come in
rapidly, until before the end of November the daily receipts became
the largest ever known at this point, placing Memphis as a primary
cotton market scarcely second to New Orleans. With this revival of
activity the empty talk of a hundred or so self-constituted newspaper
correspondents and pretended scientists ceased to be heard on the
corners and to be seen in the papers. The city authorities and a
committee of citizens began a careful and thorough canvass of the city
to ascertain its condition and needs. Under the advice of a committee
of experts from the meeting of the American Sanitary Association held
at Nashville, a system of sewerage and general sanitary reform was
promptly adopted, and it is now expected that the Governor will convene
the legislature to empower the city to make the needed changes. There
is little doubt but that the hard and painful lessons of the past two
seasons have finally been learned, and that at least another epidemic
will not be invited next year by the criminal negligence of the
authorities.
The school opened November 17 with about forty students. This number
on December 2nd had increased to over 100. We are now receiving new
students every day, of these ten are in the senior or graduating class.
We note with interest a revival of the early desire for education and
the culture which it brings; not _just_ the early desire of ignorant
and foolish expectation, but a steadily deepening conviction of the
need and advantage of patient, continued study and training for better
things in the future. We hope to foster this feeling, and to do what
we may to realize the expectation, by building up honest, manly and
womanly characters in our students. Many of the pupils have taught
during the vacation months; some have not yet completed the term for
which they were engaged. So far as we know, all have labored earnestly
to exert an influence for good in the communities where they have
been located. A few during the sickness were employed by the Howards
or other societies as nurses, one young man saving about $200 at this
work, and gaining an enviable reputation as a nurse.
Our public library is demonstrating its influence and usefulness in a
gratifying way, in awakening in many laboring people a love of reading
and of thought, aside from the great advantage it is to the school
directly and indirectly. During the summer months, considerably over
one hundred volumes were drawn and read. Among many others several
white persons of most excellent standing availed themselves of its
privileges. Of these latter, one is principal of a boys’ and girls’
school in our vicinity.
I cannot close this letter without a word concerning the church here.
During the epidemic, one of its most earnest, reliable members fell a
victim to the scourge. By thrift and saving, every family belonging to
the church, except one only, got through the long summer of idleness
without aid in the way of charity, and before the return of the
teachers, and in the absence of the pastor, the church voted to send a
delegate to the Conference at Athens, raising money at once to pay his
expenses. If this is not an example of commendable church devotion and
courage, show us one that is so.
We look for a fuller, stronger school this year than ever before. I
sometimes think these people have become so accustomed to adversity
and trial, that they come out stronger under it than from any other
experience. May it not be that God is leading them through rough ways
to better things than we think?
* * * * *
THE INDIANS.
* * * * *
THE S’KOKOMISH AGENCY.
Homes and Schools—Lands and Titles.
EDWIN EELLS, AGENT, S’KOKOMISH.
The favor of a kind Providence has preserved us from any unusual
calamities, and general good health, peace and prosperity have attended
us and the Indians under my charge. It has been rather a quiet year,
with nothing very startling, either good or bad, to affect us. Among
the Indians generally, their habits of morality appear to have been
growing stronger. Their general deportment is very good, and their
style of living in their houses is improving all the time. Their
general health, in consequence of their improved manner of living,
has never been better than during the past year. Most of their houses
have been ceiled and good tight floors put in them during the past
winter, so that they are quite as comfortable as the average of white
settlers throughout the country. There has been some land cleared by
them, a decided advance in the kind of fences built by them, and I have
furnished 1,000 fruit trees, which they have set out, nearly all of
which have lived.
Our schools have been well attended, and the progress of the scholars
in their studies has been quite satisfactory. The average attendance
of the two schools has been something over fifty. One feature of
improvement at the Agency, which deserves mention, has been the
employment of apprentices, at small wages, at the various shops at the
Agency. We have had five of our former school-boys employed in this way
during the summer, and they have done very well.
Among the Indians who live off from the Reservation there has been an
increasing desire to take up or acquire land for themselves. One band
living at Clallam Bay, about 160 miles distant from the Agency, have
purchased a tract of 154 acres of land, and have a favorable prospect
before them of doing quite well. Ten individuals contributed the money
to make this purchase. Some other individuals have taken up homestead
claims and are improving them. One has completed his five years’
residence and obtained his title to his claim.
The delay of the Government to furnish the Indians on this Reservation
with titles to their allotments of land, has operated to discourage
them very much in the improvement of their farms. They also had reason
to fear that there was danger of their being removed from here and
consolidated with other tribes, speaking different languages, and to
a distance from the home of their childhood and the land of their
fathers. This has added to their despondency and unnerved them for
effort. With this cloud of despondency hanging over them, it has been
up-hill work to induce them to make sufficient effort to insure any
progress. Their faith in the Government failing, their religious faith
has also weakened, and while it has not led them to any bad practices,
it has prevented them from making progress in Christianity. They reason
in this way: If there is a God who rules the world, and institutes
governments over men; if these governments are unjust and oppressive,
it must be an unjust God who causes all this; and why should they love
and worship such a being? This is the Indian mode of reasoning, and
under the present circumstances there is a barrier raised in their
minds against the Gospel.
As the treaty is soon to expire, and as some of the safeguards they
have heretofore had will be removed, it seems to me very important that
this measure should, if possible, be immediately consummated.
* * * * *
THE CHINESE.
* * * * *
“CALIFORNIA CHINESE MISSION.”
Auxiliary to the American Missionary Association.
PRESIDENT: Rev. J. K. McLean, D. D. VICE-PRESIDENTS: Rev. A. L.
Stone, D. D., Thomas C. Wedderspoon, Esq., Rev. T. K. Noble, Hon.
F. F. Low, Rev. I. E. Dwinell, D. D., Hon. Samuel Cross Rev. S. H.
Willey, D. D., Edward P. Flint, Esq., Rev. J. W. Hough, D. D., Jacob
S. Taber, Esq.
DIRECTORS: Rev. George Mooar, D. D., Hon. E. D. Sawyer, Rev. E. P.
Baker, James M. Haven, Esq., Rev. Joseph Rowell, Rev. John Kimball,
E. P. Sanford, Esq.
SECRETARY: Rev. W. C. Pond. TREASURER: E. Palache, Esq.
* * * * *
THE SANTA BARBARA MISSION—CHIN FUNG.
BY REV. W. C. POND, SAN FRANCISCO.
Among the compensations attending my service as Superintendent of our
Chinese Missions is the annual visit I am called to make to Santa
Barbara; and, notwithstanding the great void I found in the absence of
my greatly beloved brother, Rev. Dr. Hough—now returned to his former
flock at Jackson, Michigan—no visit ever made there was more pleasant
to me than my last. The movements of the steamers were such that it
had to be an unusually long visit; and I gained thus the opportunity,
not only to see more of the homes and hearts of our English-speaking
brethren, but to get much closer in Christian affection and confidence
to the Chinese who have begun to believe in the Saviour. Of the
six that from this mission, several years since, united with the
Presbyterian Church, only two remain; but three others were found who
have never yet been baptized, and who seemed to give good evidence of
being born again. My conversations with them greatly interested me.
There seemed to be a simple faith, a hearty and practical consecration,
a readiness to testify, to work and to give for Jesus, which certainly
looked like true tokens of a new life—the eternal life—begun. I
expect that they will be baptized and received into the Congregational
Church at its next communion. The following sentences from a letter
written me by one of them express what appeared to be the spirit of
them all: “Our school is grow up nicely, and have very good teacher
now. Only one thing I be very sorry. I will tell you about. Some
school-boy go to bad way, and disobey our Lord Jesus Christ. I, in
myself, have no strength to make them to love Jesus Christ. * * * Oh, I
hope you pray for them, and ask God to send the Spirit to change their
heart, and make them to ’member Jesus Christ died on the cross for us,
and make them to ’member continue in heart wherefore the heathen too.
[_I. e._, if I understand him, make them consider wherefore they should
continue heathen at heart.] Oh, we are ’member you always in heart,
because you very kind to our countrymen. I have nothing to recompense
you. But I pray to God for you, and ask God to bless you and comfort
you, and give you reward in Heaven.”
The anniversary of the mission was held on Sunday evening, October
26. A large audience was present, and great interest was evinced.
Besides the exercises by the pupils, there was the annual report, and
brief addresses by the pastors of the Congregational and Presbyterian
churches. The exercises indicated some good progress made during
the year. I remember especially a recitation of the 115th Psalm, a
responsive recitation of John, xiv. chap., and a little dialogue about
our mission schools, and what is learned in them—“not only the English
language, but about Jesus Christ our Saviour from sin.” One pupil
recited the Apostles’ Creed, another the Ten Commandments, and none
except one or two very recent comers were without some Gospel text,
which, fastened in the memory, was recited in intelligible English.
Sacred songs, in both English and Chinese, were interspersed, and the
half-hour was fraught with blessing, I am very sure, to all concerned.
I have never been so hopeful of the best results from our Santa Barbara
work as I am just now.
CHIN FUNG
is one of our earliest fruits, a bright intelligent young man whom,
years ago, I invited to become one of our helpers. He declined on the
ground of being too little acquainted with Chinese, having had little,
if any, opportunity of attending school in China. But I remember that
he said, “I have wished very much that I could be prepared to go as
a missionary to my countrymen at home.” I confess that I did not
realize how deep that feeling was. Such expressions are frequent among
our brethren, and I never have doubted their sincerity, but I have
generally thought of them as consciously a wish for the _impossible_,
and consequently never likely to grow to a controlling purpose deciding
the life-work. But it was not so with Chin Fung. With the hope of this
he has been saving all these years, with rigid economy, the slender
earnings of his work as a house-servant. At length, encouraged by the
excellent Christian lady by whom, of late, he has been employed, he
determined to go to Hartford, Conn., and commence his course of study.
Before this letter reaches you, I trust he will be there.
He did not get away without a struggle. The agony of inward conflict
into which he was thrown by the representations of heathen kinsmen, as
to the wrong he was doing his family, the difficulties and calamities
in which he might involve his older brothers if he should thus turn
his back on China, and disregard a possible betrothal which his elder
brothers, it was said, had made for him, (although, with this great
plan in view, he had charged them not to involve him in any such
responsibility,) called forth my intense sympathy. But I felt that it
was the Master’s call to which, these years, he had been listening,
and that to go back to China in obedience to the summons of his
brothers would be to turn his back on Christ. He himself saw it so
at length—saw it _for himself_, and from that instant there was no
hesitancy, “I will start tomorrow,” he said, with an emphasis which
marked the conflict ended and the victory won. He certainly has some
qualities which under skilful training would tend to make him a useful
missionary.
IN GENERAL.
What I have written about the Santa Barbara school, I might have
written of almost all of them. We have an excellent corps of teachers,
and though one or two of our schools are suffering because our
reviving business prosperity involves their pupils in evening work,
others are steadily increasing in size, and increasing still more, I
trust, in usefulness. At the last communion at Bethany church seven
were baptized. A much larger number than that have recently united
with the Association of Christian Chinese, thus avowing themselves as
Christians, and coming into the process of test work and training,
which we feel to be necessary before they are finally accepted in the
church. But we need to do much more: to enter new fields, to send forth
more laborers, and meanwhile in fields already occupied to bring to
hear as never hitherto, the zeal, the wisdom, the living spiritual
power of Him whose name is “God with us.” Brethren, pray for us.
* * * * *
CHILDREN’S PAGE.
* * * * *
AMATEUR HEATHEN.
The small-boy who has been well and piously brought up hates the
heathen, though policy compels him to conceal his feelings. He envies
the heathen small-boy, and at the same time looks upon him as a selfish
and remorseless absorber of Christian pennies. This is natural and
inevitable. The small-boy is told that his heathen contemporary goes
constantly barefooted, wears very little clothing, is never washed,
never goes to school, and is never taught anything that is good and
useful. Moreover, the heathen small boy lives in a country where
tigers and other delightful wild beasts abound, and where the exciting
spectacle of a widow burning to death in company with her husband’s
corpse—an attraction which no circus in this country has had the
enterprise to offer—is frequently exhibited free. Of course, the
small-boy of Christian lands envies the blessed lot of his heathen
brother, and would give worlds had he, too, been born a heathen.
Now, when this envious small-boy is compelled to give 50 per cent.
of his pennies to the heathen, he feels that it is both unreasonable
and unjust, and his anger burns against the heathen small-boy who,
although rolling in every kind of heathen luxury, meanly absorbs the
scant wealth of small-boys who have had the misfortune to be born in
Christian countries. He cannot avoid noticing that the grown-up folks
who think that he should give one-half of his pennies to the heathen,
do not divide their own property in that way, and he never drops a
copper in the collector’s box without feeling that he is the victim of
moral blackmailing.
Now and then there arises a small-boy with a gigantic intellect, and
a degree of courage which marks him as a born leader of his race. It
is the exceptional small-boy of this variety who heads expeditions
against the Indians and organizes gangs of juvenile highwaymen. That
these enterprises do not meet with success is due to forces beyond
his control, but they display the greatness of his intellect and the
boldness of his character. Of this type of small-boy is Master Jaggars,
of North Meriden, Conn., who lately devised an ingenious and entirely
novel scheme for arresting the flow of American copper coins toward the
heathen pockets of juvenile India.
Some two months since, Master Jaggars, who had painfully accumulated
the sum of twenty-five cents, with a view to an expected circus, was
compelled to consecrate fifteen cents to the hated small-boys of
India. It was this last of a long series of pecuniary outrages that
determined him to take a bold stand against missionary assessments,
and he, therefore, summoned a mass-meeting of small-boys on Saturday
afternoon at Deacon Pratt’s barn, ostensibly with a view to rats,
but really in order to propose a plan of defense against heathen
encroachments.
Master Jaggars made a moving speech, in which he glowingly described
the luxury in which the heathen small-boy wallows. “He ain’t washed,
and he can wear just as little cloze as hesermineter. There ain’t
no school for him, nor no Sunday, you bet. He can go swimmin’ every
day, and can just lay off on the bank and see the crocodiles scoop
in washerwomen and such. Then his back yard is chuck full of tigers
and hipopomusses, and no end of snakes, and he can steal his dad’s
gun and shoot ’em out of the back window. This is the chap that rakes
in all our money, and I say its mor’n we ought to stand. Now, I move
that we all turn heathen ourselves. The folks can’t make us wash and
go to school if we’re heathen, and all the other boys will have to
put up their money for us.” It is needless to say that this speech
was received with tumultuous applause. Howls of execration went up as
the luxuries of the hated heathen were described, and the proposal to
adopt heathenism as a profession was unanimously supported. A slight
temporary opposition was manifested by Master Sabin, who maintained
that in order to become heathen they must first have their eyes put
out—a theory which was based upon a misinterpretation of the hymn
which speaks of “the heathen in his blindness.” The objector, however,
was soon convinced of his error, and expressed thereupon a hearty
desire to become a heathen.
The details of the scheme were all arranged by Master Jaggars. A
plaster bust of Mr. S. J. Tilden was decided to be ugly enough to serve
as an idol, and the amateur heathen placed it on an empty barrel in
the barn, and bowed down to it with much gravity. They discarded all
their clothing except a towel twisted around the waist, and blackened
their entire bodies with burnt cork. There could be no doubt that they
were very successful heathen in appearance, and, as it was late in the
afternoon, they resolved to spend the night in the barn; to breakfast
on the spoils of Deacon Pratt’s orchard, and to attend Sunday-school
in a body, in order to collect tribute from the Christian boys. The
Sunday-school opened as usual the next morning, although the absence
of eleven boys created a good deal of remark. Soon after the exercises
had begun, the teachers were astounded at the entrance of Master
Jaggars and his ten associate heathen. It is only fair to say that the
heathen behaved themselves with as much propriety as their professional
duties would permit. Master Jaggars advanced to the Superintendent and
remarked, “If you please, Sir, we’ve all turned heathen. There ain’t
no foolin’ about it. We’ve got a first-class old idol, and we don’t
believe in nothing no more. So, if you please, Sir, will you please
tell them Christian boys to fork over half of all the money they’re
got, and to remember how blessed it is to consecrate it to real genuine
heathen.”
There is no instance on record in which a heathen has been converted
as quickly as was Master Jaggars. The Superintendent held him by one
ear, and at the tenth stroke of the cane Mister Jaggars renounced his
heathenism and promised to smash his idol and return to the Christian
faith without a moment’s delay. The other heathen, alarmed by the fate
of their leader, fled to the barn, washed themselves, resumed their
clothing, and went homeward with sober countenances, singing missionary
hymns. The North Meriden revival of heathenism was a disastrous
failure, but nevertheless the boldness and originality of the scheme
devised by Master Jaggars must command our wonder and admiration.
RECEIPTS
FOR NOVEMBER, 1879.
MAINE, $173.33.
Bath. Ladies, _for a Teacher_ $8.50
Biddeford. Second Cong. Soc. 27.51
Cumberland Centre. Cong. Ch. and Soc. to const. OREN
S. THOMAS, L. M. 33.00
Farmington. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 19.45
Foxcroft and Dover. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 8.41
Fryeburg. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 13.46
Limerick. S. F. H., _for Raleigh, N. C._ 1.00
Litchfield. Ladies, Bbl. of C.
Newcastle. Second Cong. Ch. and Soc. 7.00
North Anson. ——. 10.00
Scarborough. Cong. Ch. and Soc., “A Friend” 33.00
Waterford. “A. D.” 5.00
Wilton. Cong. Ch. 7.00
NEW HAMPSHIRE, $158.31.
Auburn. “F. B.” 1.00
Candia. Jona. Martin 5.00
Dunbarton. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 11.00
Durham. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 11.50
East Alstead. Second Cong. Ch. $5.55; First Cong.
Ch., $3.10 8.65
East Jaffrey. Mrs. D. 0.25
Hancock. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 25.00
Harrisville. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 7.85
Hinsdale. Cong. Ch. and Soc. $9.62; G. W., 51c. 10.13
Jaffrey. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 10.00
Keene. First Cong. Sab. Sch. 28.37
Mason. Anna M. Hosmer, _for Wilmington, N. C._ 6.25
Pembroke. C. C. S. 0.51
Pittsfield. ——. 10.00
West Lebanon. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 22.80
VERMONT, $266.76.