death-rate from poor food, insufficient clothing, wretched houses,
lack of nursing and of competent medical attendance, cannot keep
down the increase. The children can be readily gathered into Sunday
and day-schools. Another generation ought not to be permitted to
remain in the condition of the present and past.
3. Then there is a third reason why this work should be undertaken
_at once_ on a much larger scale than at present. The attention
of the outside world is turning to the wonderful resources of
these mountains. It is becoming known that here is the richest
undeveloped part of the United States. The great forests of
valuable timber, the thick and easily-mined deposits of coal, the
fine quality of iron ore close by the coal, and other undeveloped
wealth, are already drawing men here in large numbers. The
railroads are pushing their way among the mountains and immigration
will add more and more to the population, and vastly more to the
wealth. Villages are springing up, cities will soon follow, and
before many years this region will be filled with an enterprising
and well-to-do people.
Now is the time for the Christian influences which are to mould the
future history of this people for good, to be set in motion from
strategic points. Cannot the Congregational churches, which have
the lead in Christian work here, arise in faith and take possession
of the land in the name of the Lord?
There is one place which gives promise of being the future center
of this whole region and the largest place in the mountains.
It is now absolutely destitute of all elevating, religious and
educational institutions. It is nearly one hundred miles from
the nearest A. M. A. work. It is a village of three or four
hundred inhabitants, with a thickly populated country all around
it. A railroad is on the way to it, and it has such exceptional
advantages that it can scarcely fail to become a large and
important place. It ought to be occupied at once, for people are
beginning to come in advance of the railroad and now is by far the
easiest and cheapest time to start the work.
Is there not some man of consecrated wealth who will assume
the financial part of establishing at once a mission in this
place? A neat, inexpensive little chapel, a school building, a
young minister and his wife, a teacher and his wife, would make
a beginning from which great things would be sure to result.
Beginning with this place, there ought to be a church and a school
placed one after another in the most promising places, until there
shall be a center of mental and spiritual enlightenment within the
reach of every person in this backwood, but promising region.
FRANK E. JENKINS.
* * * * *
THE INDIANS.
* * * * *
SPEECH OF ELI ABRAHAM, A NATIVE INDIAN.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE DAKOTA ASSOCIATION.
_My Friends_: When I was fifteen years old I learned to read
God’s Word; and from the time I learned to read it I have desired
earnestly to know what was in it.
Although I did not know much, it has been my work now for about
eighteen years to teach others, the boys and girls and young people
who have come to school at Santee. When our school first began we
held it in a log house covered with dirt, and with a hay floor. The
boys and girls came to school wearing their blankets, and they sat
on the ground to study. But now we have good buildings, and besides
teaching in books, our pupils are taught various industries--such
as shoemaking, blacksmithing, carpentry and farming, and our girls
in all home work.
Our boys like to take exercise in playing base ball, and I have
noticed that when the base ball clubs of white young men from the
towns around come in to play ball with them, the white young men
get beaten; or when they try their speed with our boys in foot
races, they also get beaten. And it seems to me that if our young
men can be rightly instructed, they are sure to make good progress.
It has been my work to teach our scholars in the Bible. They come
from many different tribes. Some are Titon Sioux, some Grosventres,
some Poncas, some Arapahoes, some Yanktons, some Brules, yet all
learn to read the Bible in our Santee dialect, and the past year
I have been much pleased because of their interest in it. Often
they ask so many questions that we don’t get on very far with our
reading.
It seems to me that the best way to train up a people is to begin
with the children. It is like this: Once I pulled up a little
seedling tree a foot high, and planted it near my house, where I
watered it and cared for it. When the dogs scratched it over, or
the oxen trod on it, I straightened it up again. Then I drove down
a strong stake beside it, and I tied it up in whatever direction
it was crooked. Now, after ten years, it is a tall, straight tree.
So it seems to me that if we take the children and bring them up
straight, we shall have an upright nation, and that by God’s Word
we shall make them truly upright.
I have been thinking also how we should train our people in
benevolence. We must train the children. I have a little girl,
to whom I gave a red cent and wished to teach her something.
So I asked her to what she would give it--to the sick, or for
the preacher, or for sending missionaries? “What do they send
missionaries for?” she asked. “To teach the people God’s Word who
have not heard it,” I answered. “But what will one cent do?” she
replied. Said I, “If one hundred little girls should give a cent
each, it would make a dollar.” My little girl had learned to sing
and play a little on the organ. When the young men came in, they
would ask her to sing for them; but after this she would answer,
“I will if you will give me a cent.” When she had laid by five
cents, I asked her if she was going to buy candy or nuts with it.
“No,” says she, “I am going to give this to Mr. Singing Walker, our
missionary to the wild Indians.” This, it seems to me, shows the
way we are to train up our people, beginning with the children.
* * * * *
THE CHINESE.
* * * * *
HOME-LOVE VERSUS CHRIST-LOVE.
To all persons familiar with missionary work in foreign lands
the fact suggested by the title of this article is more or less
familiar. It sometimes occurs, even in American families, that
Christ enters “to set a man at variance against his father and even
a daughter against her mother,” but this is unusual, so much so as
to seem almost monstrous. When, as was the case last week, not far
from my own field, the conversion of a daughter provokes the mother
to disown her and to bid her leave home and look out for herself,
we are set wondering what strange madness has wrecked that mother’s
heart, and we ask, Is she possessed of the devil?
But this experience is usual in the turning of our Chinese to
Christ. Scarcely any of them can escape it. And the questionings
and struggles and sorrows are often very severe, and I have, of
late, been specially impressed by them. Thus, Mrs. Shattuck, of
Santa Barbara, writes: “We have three or four anxious to join the
Association [thus making profession of faith in Christ--W. C. P.],
but they are afraid of their own families. Tong is a good Christian
boy,--as a pupil and as a singer equal to any China boy I ever had.
When he talked with me he trembled like a leaf, saying, ‘I do so
love your Jesus, but my family be angry. What shall I do?’”
Jee Gam has a little group of pupils in our Central school so
eager to study the Bible that they often remain an extra hour
(from 9:30 to 10:30 P.M.) for instruction from him. One in this
group, as deeply interested and as intelligent and constant as
any, is a brother to two of our Chinese brethren, but has never
himself confessed Christ. Jee Gam wondered at this, and began to
inquire into it closely. The young man replied, “My brothers are
both Christians. I am the only one left to worship my mother when
she dies. It would break her heart if she thought she had not even
_one_ son left to worship her.” I confess that as I “took in the
situation” I felt the tears starting. What shall we say to such a
soul? This led to an item in the experience of Jee Gam himself.
“When I left home the last time,” he said, “my father, knowing that
I had not joined him in the worship of ancestors, and knowing _why_
I had not, walked with me outside the village, urging me to promise
to worship him when he should die.” He appealed not only to Jee
Gam’s affection but to his fears. “‘If you do not worship me,’ he
said, ‘my ghost shall pursue you and punish you.’ I could not so
pain him as to say that I would not worship him, and I could not
say that I would worship him, and so, I said over and over again,
‘I will do what is right.’ And these were the last words I ever
said to my father: ‘Father, I will do what is right.’”
A few days ago Rev. D. D. Jones, formerly laboring as a missionary
in South China, was speaking to me of one of the members of our
Church who succumbed to the pressure brought to bear upon him
at his marriage in China, and bowed to the idols. Immediately
afterwards, deeply penitent, he went to the chapel in some
neighboring village, where Mr. Jones was just then preaching, and
confessed his fault. “I was not afraid of what they threatened to
do to me, but when they began to persecute my mother I could not
bear it.”
The case which has most deeply interested me and called forth my
earnest prayer is that of a Chinese physician in Marysville. I
made his acquaintance about two weeks ago, on my recent visit to
that mission. He has attended our school for more than a year,
and is one of the most faithful of the pupils. He shrinks from
no service by which he can help on the work. He is well read in
Chinese--perhaps beyond any of our brethren, and is regarded as
specially skillful as a surgeon after the Chinese ways. He is a
very substantial looking man, with a fine head, a pleasant face,
and a demeanor marked at once by modesty and strength. He is
greatly interested in the study of the Bible, and, but for one
hindrance, would doubtless be a member of the Association, and
would, perhaps, have presented himself for baptism. I sat down by
his side and asked him what he thought of Jesus. “I believe in
Jesus Christ,” was his emphatic reply. “But how much do you believe
in him?” I asked, and then proceeded to illustrate real faith by
the confidence which he would wish his patients to repose in him--a
confidence which would lead them to abide implicitly by all his
directions. “I believe in Jesus Christ just as I would wish my
patients to believe in me,” was his reply. “What, then, is in the
way of your becoming an avowed and active Christian?” He turned to
our helper, Loo Quong, and talked to him at length in Chinese. Loo
Quong interpreted to me. “It is the woman,” he said. This woman he
had pitied as she told him of the abuse she suffered at a brothel
in San Francisco, and he had bought her from her mistress for
$500. Quite in accordance with the dictates of Chinese morality,
he had made her a sort of American wife. That is to say, he had
his wife and son in China, and this woman was to be, after a sort,
his wife in America. This he now understood to be inconsistent
with Christian character; but what was he to do? I dare say he was
divided in mind somewhat over the $500. He could scarcely afford
to lose it altogether, and I blush to say that he could doubtless
realize the full amount by selling her. But all questions of
pecuniary loss or gain apart, what shall he do? To drop her is to
let her fall into a life of prostitution--almost to _doom_ her to
it. He might send her to one of our Mission Homes for Women, but
she is not disposed to go. Four or five years--as I understand
it--they have lived together, and while, so far as his own comfort
or pleasure is concerned, I believe he would give her up, would it
be right thus to dispose of her? It is a knot not easily untied, a
tangle not easily cleared. I have thought that there might come to
him such an ‘unction from the Holy One,’ such an ‘abundant entrance
into the Kingdom,’ such a clear and uplifting conversion as would
resolve all doubts and show a straight path before him. If this
might be so, it seems to me that he would become a worker in our
missionary field such as we greatly need: a reaper whose abundant
sheaves would be gathered into everlasting life. Pray for it with
us.
* * * * *
BUREAU OF WOMAN’S WORK.
MISS D. E. EMERSON, SECRETARY.
* * * * *
EXPERIENCE OF AN A. M. A. STUDENT TEACHER.
My first time to teach came last September, when I was formally
introduced to my work in the Practice School. I was allowed to
go to the school one morning as a visitor, that I might get the
general plan of conducting the classes, and, if I must say it, I
dreaded the beginning more than ever. The second day found me at my
post, determined to do my best. I was delighted with my apparent
success that afternoon, but prejudice compelled me to keep still
about it.
My surprise was greatest when I was told that I must prepare these
lessons before teaching them, just as much as I did my own lessons.
Each day the classes were more interesting and pleasing, every
scholar doing his best work, not because he was obliged to, but for
the simple reason that his teacher as she went along, instilled the
love of study in his mind. This teacher had me prepare each lesson
separately, giving her opinions and suggestions and asking me how I
would teach it.
Days and weeks went by rapidly; each day found me more interested,
each night found me more willing to go over the lessons with the
teacher. I would not have you think that I taught only one or two
studies, for before my time expired I had taught every class in the
school. I remembered that when I went to school as a child I was
always glad to have my teacher lay aside the text-book and tell us
something of interest about each city and river in geography or
about some particular story in the reading lesson, so I endeavored
to have a story or interesting fact for each class, that they might
be the more interested and also might remember the particular
points. I found out that it is the teacher’s duty to answer
sharp questions as well as ask them, for, in my physiology class
especially, some of the toughest questions I ever heard were put to
me by those bright children.
My geography classes were nearly wild with excitement; sometimes
we would take sea voyages, and again we would find the homes of
different peoples and animals. Geography can be made a pleasant,
interesting and helpful study, and that is what I tried to make it.
Soon my six weeks had gone, and with reluctance I bade the dear
little scholars good-by. I think that I made happy and lasting
impressions on some of the children, as recent rumors have added to
my stock of conceit.
About a week after my time of teaching had expired I had a new
experience; the teacher falling ill I was called upon to take
her place. Elated with my past success and burning with a desire
to teach a whole day by myself, I armed myself with a schedule
of classes, the bunch of keys and proceeded to the school house.
Most of the pupils seemed glad to have me there, but I could see
well enough that their teacher came first in their estimation.
Devotional exercises over, I announced that their teacher was
ill and that I hoped they would be good for _her_ sake; then the
lessons commenced. I found it quite different from having to do
with only one particular class, to hear one class in the back part
of the room and keep an eye on three dozen curly haired witches in
the other part of the room. Oh! how slowly the time went, how my
temper waxed warmer as I noticed the various tricks and pranks. But
something kept whispering, “How often have _you_ made faces at your
teachers, thrown paper and made noises?” so I kept down the sharp
words that continually came up, and tried to smile as I gently
admonished the giggling offender.
As it was a rainy day I took ten minutes from the recess and let
the children write a letter to their sick teacher. When the teacher
read them over with me, you would have laughed could you have seen
some of them. In some I was spoken of quite highly but in others I
was reported as doing not so well as their own dear teacher. Some
letters were composed of straight lines, as the very little folks
also deemed it necessary to write to her.
After all there is an indefinable charm for me in teaching, and I
mean to go on. Every night and morn I asked God’s help, and through
him I accomplished what I have. I can say that my practice teaching
was a source of pleasure and help to me.
* * * * *
FOR THE CHILDREN.
* * * * *
MRS. TUCKERS’ CONVERSION.
It was Saturday afternoon, and Mrs. Tucker was very tired. Life was
hard at best, only a tedious routine of wearisome duties; but on
this particular afternoon, the closing of the week’s work pressed
very heavily upon her.
“Oh, Mrs. Tucker, can Sallie go with us to the mission band?”
Mrs. Tucker raised her eyes, and saw, standing in the doorway, two
little girls.
“Mission band! I’d like to know what’s a mission band?” she
demanded sharply.
“Why,” spoke out the bolder of the two; “it’s lot of us children
all together, working and sewing for poor folks. We bring our
pennies to Miss May for them, and she says it’s giving to Jesus. We
have just the nicest time; do let her go.”
“Oh, mother,” and Sallie’s brown eyes looked appealingly into her
mother’s face; “please say I may--do let me.”
Mrs. Tucker slowly folded the garment she had ironed, and hung it
in its place before she answered.
“No, she can’t. I can give her all the sewing she wants to home,
and we’ve got nothing to give the Lord; he don’t give to us. So go
along, and tell Miss May that Sallie Tucker’s better set to work.”
When Mrs. Tucker, the hard day’s work at last completed, toiled
wearily up stairs, she found her little daughter seated upon the
top stair, while about her on the floor, were scattered all her
childish treasures.
“What on earth, child,” exclaimed her mother, “is all this clutter
for? What are you trying to do?”
“Why, mother,” chirruped the sweet child’s voice; “I am looking to
find something to give to Jesus.”
“Give to Jesus! What do you think the Lord wants of such stuff as
this?”
“But, mother,” she explained, and her voice grew unsteady, and the
bright eyes filled with tears, “my teacher said anything we give
to him, he would like it; and if we gave what we loved best, it
pleased him most. And this is what I love most--my wax doll and my
birthday book. Won’t he take it, mother? Can’t I give him anything?”
“Sallie Tucker!” and her mother’s voice was cold and stern, “you
just put this notion out of your head. You don’t know what giving
to the Lord means. Put this trash away. When the Lord remembers us
with some of his plenty, ’twill be time enough to give to him, I
reckon.”
It was the afternoon for the Woman’s Quarterly Missionary Meeting,
in the Shadyville Baptist church. Mrs. Gray, the minister’s
wife, came to the vestry with a sad heart. She knew too well the
character of these gatherings. A few ladies came together, in a
listless, apathetic way, a few lifeless prayers were offered, a
little business disposed of, and the ladies went to their homes
wondering why there wasn’t more interest in missions. Mrs. Tucker
wasn’t in the habit of attending the missionary meeting, so when
she came into one this afternoon, the ladies present looked at each
other in surprise. Mrs. Gray read the psalm and offered prayer, and
then came the usual dead silence.
Presently Mrs. Tucker rose to her feet, and, in a voice shaken with
emotion, said:--
“I s’pose you’re all astonished to see me here, but the truth of
the matter is, I’ve got something to say to you, which can’t half
be told in words, neither. You all know my little Sallie has been
sick; but I don’t s’pose none of you know what that sickness has
been to me. You see the children wanted her to go to the mission
band, but I was tough and cranky, and dead set ag’in’ anything of
the kind, and told her, in the crossest way, she couldn’t go. She’d
heard somethin’ about giving to Jesus, and laid out her best doll
and book; an’ I laughed at it, an’ told her the Lord didn’t want
her trash. Well, she took sick, an’ got sicker an’ sicker, till my
heart stood still with the fear o’ losing her. She was out of her
head, you know; and every time I come near the bed, she’d start
right up an’ say, ‘Oh, can’t I give him anything? Don’t he want my
dolly? O mother, mother can’t I go?’ till I just thought my heart
would break in two. Everywhere I looked, I could see her eyes, with
such a beseechin’ look in ’em, and hear her voice callin’, ‘Mother,
mother, can’t I give _anything_?’ till at last I went down on my
knees, all broke up like, and I sez:--
“‘Lord, I’m a poor, ungrateful sinner, and I’ve been a-withholding
from you all these years; but if there’s anythin’ I can give you,
won’t you please take it? Even my little girl, and everything I’ve
got I just lay down.’
“Well, my sisters, I cried an’ cried as I hain’t for years, and it
wasn’t all for sorrow, neither; there was a great deep joy in it
all. An’ I come here to-day to tell you that I just give myself and
all I’ve got to the Lord’s work. I’m fairly converted to missions,
and if the Lord will only take the poor, miserable offerin’ I’ve
got to give, and use me rough-shod in his work, I’d really be only
too thankful. Why, my sisters, I’m the happiest woman on earth,
and it’s all owin’ to the blessed child and that there children’s
band.”--_Selected._
* * * * *
RECEIPTS FOR APRIL, 1887.
* * * * *
MAINE, $98.63.
Augusta. Cong. Ch. and Soc. $23.30
Bangor. Mrs. Littlefield’s Class _for
Wilmington, N.C._ 14.01
Bath. Mrs. Anna Covel 5.00
Belfast. Ladies, by Miss E. M. Pond, Bbl. of C.
Bluehill. “A Friend,” _for Pleasant Hill,
Tenn._ 5.00
Brewer. First Cong. Ch. 11.00
Bridgton. Ladies, by Mrs. C. C. Farnsworth,
Bbl. of C. _for Williamsburg, Ky._
Casco. Mrs. R. Mayberry 1.00
Castine. Class No. 9, Trin. Sab. Sch., 1; Mrs.
C. M. Cunningham, ½ Bbl of C., _for Student
Aid, Tougaloo U._ 1.00
Dennysville. Miss Lillie Vose, _for McIntosh,
Ga._ 1.00
Farmington. First Cong. Ch. 19.32
Gorham. Miss E. B. Emery, _for Talladega C._ 10.00
Harpswell Center. Ladies, by Mrs. E. P. Morse,
Bbl. of C. _for Williamsburg, Ky._
Madison Bridge. Mrs. Ezra Dinsmore 3.00
Newcastle. Ladies, by Mrs. Chas. D. Crane,
Bbl. of C., _for Williamsburg, Ky._
North Brighton. _for Wilmington, N.C._ 1.00
Portland. St. Lawrence St. Ch., _for
Wilmington, N.C._ 1.00
Portland. High St. Ch., by Mrs. Mary Wells,
Bbl. of C. _for Williamsburg, Ky._
South Berwick. Mrs. Lewis’ Sab. Sch. Class,
_for Wilmington, N.C._ 1.00
South Waterford. Mrs. J. M. Shaw 2.00
Topshan. Ladies, by Mrs. Wm. Flye, 2 Bbls.
_for Williamsburg, Ky._
NEW HAMPSHIRE, $363.50.
Alstead. Class of Little Girls, by Mrs. G. B.
Cutler, _for Indian M._ 2.00
Atkinson. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 17.12
Berlin Mills. Parish Ch. of Christ 5.73
Boscowan. “Crescent City Helpers,” _for
Student Aid, Straight U._ 25.00
Claremont. Cong. Ch. 17.00
Colebrook. E. C. Wilder, 8 Boys’ Coats val.
2.32
Concord. “A” 5.00
Exeter. Second Cong. Ch. 114; Mrs. Woodbridge
Odlin, 30 to const. MISS MARY H. BLACK, L. M. 144.00
Franklin. Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch., _for
Students Aid, Atlanta U._ 10.00
Hinsdale. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 10.02
Jaffray. “Lilies of the Field,” _for Storrs
Sch. Atlanta, Ga._ 9.00
Kingston. Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch. 25.54, also
Bible val. 3, _for Santee Indian M._ 25.54
Nashua. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 41.34
Pembroke. Prof. I. Walker’s Bible Class, _for
Wilmington, N.C._ 2.00
Penacook. Jere C. Martin 10.50
Tilton. Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch. Class of Boys,
3, _for Student Aid, Straight U._, Class of
Girls, 8, _for Woman’s Work_ 11.00
West Concord. Cong. Ch. 20.00
Winchester. Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch. 8.25
VERMONT, $330.39.