pleasure trip to Washington, and we will show you better than we
can write, the need of missionary work among its 60,000 colored
people. This is one of our winter’s worst days. It rains fast, and
the streets are full of snow and water. Breakfast over, I hastened
to market for meat to make broth for the sick, and to the grocery
for bread. While picking my way over the slippery pavements, a
grandmother calls after me with a request that must be heeded. On
entering my room in the Mission, a barrel from Brooklyn awaits
unpacking. God bless the dear friends of the North who so nobly
respond to my appeal for help. They never will know how much good
the old clothes do. Before I’m half through, knock number one
brings old Auntie Bennett, afflicted with a disease so offensive
that she cannot attend our gatherings. When leaving with her bundle
of warm garments, in steps Auntie Harris, always so trustful in the
Lord, and yet she says, “I sat all yesterday without any fire”;
her husband and crippled son unable to provide. Thankful for a
little relief, she goes out to carry a big bundle to another poor
creature, who, with her old man, have scarcely a crust, and nothing
but a leaky shanty for shelter. Caller No. 3 is a young woman,
bringing a note from the police station and a certificate from her
doctor, that tells of serious sickness, one two-year-old child,
and nothing wherewith to help herself. I send her to see our Day
Nursery, and tell her to bring her baby on Monday, and I will see
what more can be done. Her dull, wan face brightens as she leaves.
Tom C. comes next—my boy, who draws our Temperance blackboard
illustrations, paints our signs, puts up Christmas decorations,
&c. I’ve just received his fit in a suit; so, with a patch to mend
the sleeves, and more work under his arm, he goes. Pinkie T. has
framed some mottoes, and I ask her to hang them in the school room,
paying her with a pair of nice boots. Annie C., our missionary girl
from Howard U., comes to assist, and, as a member of the Doing-Good
Society of the school, this P.M. brings a report from sick Mr.
Green. After preparations for the afternoon, and a peep into the
nursery, where the floors are being scrubbed and the children
are taking their bath (for, though the Associated Charities have
adopted this, my pet project of last year, and have appointed a
committee of ladies, I have the daily supervision). I leave for
lunch at 12½. The girl’s industrial school opens at 1½; 61 out of
130 scholars are present. We are divided into 15 classes, each with
a teacher, if enough ladies are present. I appoint a girl to attend
to callers. We open with singing, and sew until 3 o’clock. Some
are making bags for their work, some patch-work, some, fancy-work,
while others are mending or making garments and learning to cut
them. We intersperse sewing-songs. They help the pupils to remember
instructions. From three to four we have various exercises, such as
talks on health or manners; Bible lessons, repeating the Child’s
Creed or the Commandments, with responsive chant or a Psalm and the
Lord’s prayer. To-day, we have an object lesson in house-keeping. A
table is placed on the platform and Annie C. is asked to prepare it
for tea. She arranges the cloth, dishes and food, with criticisms
from the scholars. Then, she invites four girls to sit and eat
while she acts as waitress. After eating she removes the dishes for
washing and folds the cloth. A few more callers and the busy week
closes. Thank God for the sunlight it has brought to us during our
revival meetings in the conversion of two of our dear girls.
* * * * *
VANTAGE GROUND NEEDED BY STUDENTS.
BY MISS JOSEPHINE KELLOGG, TOUGALOO, MISS.
We long for the time when these people shall obtain a little
vantage-ground by industry and—still more essential—by economy
and a prudent use of earnings, so that the children may begin
the work of getting an education betimes and continue it until a
respectable course of study is thoroughly mastered. We have some
such, and we hope much from the earlier training and the favorable
circumstance of their having parents interested in educating them
and able to do it.
In the cases of a majority, they come to us already grown-up,
something having given them an ambition for better things than
they had known. They have their own way to make and can be in
school only a part of each year, many of them working nights and
mornings and one day of each week besides, to pay their board in
whole or in part. As the time approaches when exhausted funds and
worn-out clothing must compel them to go out and seek employment,
thoughts will wander and there will be a relaxation in the matter
of preparation and recitation of lessons in spite of themselves
and the exertions of their teachers. No doubt there is a blessing
connected with their struggles against adverse circumstances, and a
manly and womanly self-dependence is fostered in this way, but it
is not to be expected that a great number will complete the course
in the face of such discouragements.
As year after year passes, and they get education enough to help
them on somewhat in life and a knowledge that fits them to be
useful in church, society and home, and they yet seem almost as
far as ever from the goal of graduation which they once placed
before themselves, they begin to be anxious to settle down to the
real business of life, and they relinquish the hope of a completed
normal course with, perhaps, a subsequent complete collegiate
course.
While it is the few of those who enter that go on to the end of the
course and the many drop out as I have described, yet we do not
consider our labor in vain, but rather hope to claim the assurance
“Blessed are ye who sow beside all waters.” If the teaching were
only in the ordinary elementary branches we might think it of
little avail unless carried on continuously to a more satisfactory
issue, but much of it is more fundamental than even arithmetic. The
entire mode of life is a lesson and a much needed one to most of
those who come to us. The regularity of meals with the laws of the
dining-room, the regularity of retiring and rising, the neatness
and order of the rooms, the care of clothing, the personal habits,
the sanitary regulations, the study and exercise, and the propriety
of deportment required, not to speak of the regular work belonging
to the industrial training, seem to new scholars to form a complete
hedge, if not a bewildering labyrinth; but a very bright feature of
our work is the spirit of subordination and respect for constituted
authority, which greatly simplifies and lightens the enforcement of
all necessary rules. This is an excellent and much-to-be commended
trait in our students. I have asked some of those who go out to
teach if the children in the public schools are easy to govern. Oh,
yes, the answer has been, _they expect to mind_.
[Illustration: LADIES’ HALL, TOUGALOO, MISS.]
It is very edifying to note how those who come without any taste
or neatness in their personal appearance, with sorry attempts at
finery and painfully-laced waists, improve under the tuition of
the lady principal and the influence of those who have been here
longer, the expression of the countenance often changing more
rapidly and noticeably than even the manner of dress. But, O! the
patience and the faculty required for this most important work of
training the girls in womanly virtues and housewifely ways!
With all the patience and with all the faculty possible, it is a
great and constant strain to have the care of such a household,
and the matrons and lady principals need the uplifting prayers and
sympathy of the warm Christian hearts interested in these schools,
in a special degree.
And then the instruction in the Bible, as “the only and the
sufficient rule both of faith and practice”—the value of this work
cannot be over-estimated. The case of a young man who came into
school for the first time this fall, comes to mind. Living far
back from the railroad, in the country, he had had no advantages
of any schooling but a few brief sessions of the public school. He
was entered in the Third-reader grade and was to all appearance
a most unpromising specimen, although a professed Christian, and
apparently a sincere one, with a real experience of trust in God,
but wofully untaught as to Christian character and duty. As the
Scripture was from time to time plainly and searchingly expounded,
and the vices which are sometimes permitted under the garb of
religion were exposed, it was plain to see that he was listening
as to a new revelation. In school-room work there was a marked
improvement, especially in the expressiveness of his reading, but
the great benefit that came in his term of school was in the way of
moral enlightenment. A month ago he joined the temperance society.
The last prayer-meeting was taken up largely with speaking of the
temptations that would be met at Christmas-time to violate the
pledge, and one young man said that, in view of these temptations
he would rather spend Christmas at Tougaloo than anywhere else.
This young man then “spoke in meeting” for the first time, I think,
and said he did not feel that way. It seemed to him that the
principal thing he wanted to go home for, was to tell his people he
had become a temperance man. He had been a good deal of a drinker,
a member of church, too, and his people were all in the same way,
and didn’t know any better, but now he would tell them that he had
found a better way, and that they, too, must forsake the old bad
way, or they would surely go down. He said, “If I can’t keep my
pledge, I may as well find it out first as last, but _I do believe
I can_. I does feel as if temperance _is grafted in here_,” laying
his hand upon his breast. He hopes to return and bring a sister
with him, but if he cannot get the means and never comes, is there
not here a little bread cast on the waters?
The evening before school closed there was a beautiful Christmas
exercise, consisting of recitations, Scripture and music, lighted
by a large star of evergreen filled with burning candles. No doubt
many a new idea concerning the universal holiday was imbibed. This
was followed by an exhibition by the temperance society.
Thanksgiving day was a blessed occasion with us. Rev. Mr. Stickel
preached on Tests of Character, dwelling upon the test of faith
and the test of gratitude, basing his sermon upon the story of the
ten lepers. An opportunity has usually been given, in connection
with the morning service, for personal testimonies, and so many had
given themselves to the service of the Lord and so many had been
led into a fuller Christian experience since last Thanksgiving that
there was a real eagerness for this service, and a somewhat wistful
look on a good many faces when the meeting was closed without it.
At the end of dinner, however, President Pope rose and said such an
opportunity would be given then and there; that we could not spend
a portion of the afternoon more profitably nor have a pleasanter
sort of after-dinner speeches than in recounting the good dealings
of God with us. Notwithstanding the fact that a Thanksgiving dinner
is about as well calculated to promote a spirit of thankfulness as
anything that can be mentioned, it was a little harder to rise from
the table and speak in the dining-room than in the chapel. Yet,
after the first momentary hesitation, the testimonies came, briefly
but freely, of gratitude for health, for success in work, for the
privilege of being at school, for the pardon of sins, and many
other things.
One young man said he had felt all the year, as never before, that
all his blessings came right from the hand of God. He had felt
it in his teaching, and had thanked God for all his success. He
thanked God for this school, and for those friends in the North
who had established it, and for all the benefits it is conferring
upon the people of this State. One youth said he was thankful he
had learned the true object of man’s life—what he was made for. He
used to think a man could serve God or let it alone—that his time
and faculties were his own, and he could do as he pleased. But now
he had learned that a man’s true calling is to serve the Lord. He
was glad to know that the great God has something for every one to
do, and has His eye upon the way he does it, and that his reward is
according to his faithfulness, and not according to the greatness
of the work. It seemed to make life worth living.
Prof. Salisbury was with us three days of the last week, in the
tour of the schools which he is making to get his work in hand.
He gave us a helpful talk in chapel one morning, and again gave
an account of the other schools he had visited, and we trust his
subsequent visits will aid in promoting the symmetry and efficiency
of the work of this school.
* * * * *
THE INDIANS.
* * * * *
CHURCH AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK AT S’KOKOMISH, W.T.
BY REV. MYRON EELLS.
June 22d and 23d, 1874, this church was organized with eleven
members, only one of whom was an Indian. But while there was only
one Indian, it was hoped that God would bless the work so that
others would be induced to come in, and we have not been wholly
disappointed. Since that time twenty-eight Indians and half-breeds
have joined it and our new church at Jamestown, near Dunginess,
besides thirteen whites who have joined on profession, and thirteen
more by letter, making seventy-five in all, including the first
members. Forty-five Indian marriages have taken place here in a
Christian way, and twenty-seven funerals. All of those married,
who are alive, are still living together, owing mainly to the
Agent. Christian services at funerals are something about which
the Indians at first cared very little, and often have the dead
been hurried off to burial without even letting me know that any
one was dead; and their burying-ground with its small houses and
clothes, cloth and other things, was a curiosity to visitors. But
after a time, having made some slow improvements, they opened a new
burying-ground, and when the first grave was made the chief said
to me: “To-day we become white people. We do not like the idea of
having cloth and other things around our graves, and we expect that
there will be none of it here.” That was nearly four years ago, and
there are now no such things visible. At a later day I was absent
when one person died, and no white man was present at the funeral;
but when I returned, the Indians asked me to make arrangements so
that if I should necessarily be absent some Christian white man
should go and help them bury their dead in a Christian manner.
A prayer-meeting was begun here as soon as the present Agent came
(before there was a church or minister), which has been constantly
maintained, and its influence has gone into all the Christian work
here. But it has been too old for some of the children, and too far
away and in a wrong language for many of the Indians; hence it has
been supplemented by children’s, ladies’ and Indian prayer-meetings.
It has been my custom, as I have been able, to hold such meetings
with the Indians at their logging camps. The following incidents
show a change. About six years ago they said they did not know how
to pray or what to say. So to help them we would say a sentence and
let one whom we supposed to be the most suitable in heart repeat
over the prayer, line after line. One evening something comical
struck one, and he burst out laughing in the midst of his prayer.
At another time a hunter came home during a prayer-meeting, and,
without any regard to it, came in, throwing down his saddle and
things, and talking very much as if there were no prayer-meeting
there. That Indian of late has been one of the leading ones to
pray. Another evening, when I was through and was leaving I said
“Good night,” and the reply came, “Good night,” but as I was
outside the door and shutting it, the words were added in a not
very complimentary way, in a lower tone and yet so that I heard
them, “old man.” That Indian, after going to great lengths in
gambling, has been one during the past few months to try to induce
his relations to enter the right road.
I have been reminded of these incidents lately by way of contrast,
because of the earnest requests that have come to me, during the
past few months, to go to the same place, and the earnest and
apparently hearty thanks which have come from the same persons and
the same camp for the same work.
About eight years ago an Indian was wandering around during
Sabbath-school time, and was asked why he was not inside the
church. His reply was, that the services were so much in English
that they were dry to him. Only when the time came for singing the
Chinook song was he interested. There was only one song, then,
but the necessity for them seemed to grow until there were enough
to make our little book, in 1878, “Hymns in the Chinook Jargon
Language.” Indians living away from the Reservation have learned
to sing them who have learned but little else about the Gospel,
because they could not sing them without learning them. They have
carried and sung them down the straits to Cape Flattery and across
the straits to British Columbia, to Indians I probably never shall
see, and some Gospel truths have gone with them. The Indians of
both tribes, however, Twanas and Clallams, felt that another
important step had been taken when last spring they could sing in
their own native language.
In our Sabbath-school we have always followed the plan of having
the scholars commit five or six verses a week to memory, and most
of those who have done the best in this respect have come into the
church. Eight out of ten of the highest on the list for 1878 are
now members, and the same proportion holds good for some other
years. In all, twenty-seven have come in on profession of faith
from the Sabbath-school.
[Illustration: INDIANS WATCHING A TRAIN.]
* * * * *
THE CHINESE.
* * * * *
COMITY.
REV. W. C. POND, SAN FRANCISCO.
From the first I have conducted the operations of our mission
on principles of denominational comity. There are five distinct
missions at work for the Chinese of California, besides our own.
The Presbyterian has schools in San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento,
San José, and, perhaps, I may add, at Napa and Santa Rosa, though
I am not aware that the work done in these two places is directly
connected with their Board; the Methodist mission has schools
also in San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, and San José, and one
besides, at Chico; the Baptist and Episcopal missions conduct
each one school in this city; the United Presbyterian mission has
schools in Oakland and Los Angeles. The total number of schools
sustained by all these missions—so far as I am informed—is
thus 15. Our mission has six schools in San Francisco, and ten
elsewhere. Sacramento and Oakland are the only points outside
this city occupied by us and by other missions also. At each of
these points our schools were first established, and we have not
felt it due to comity to abandon our work begun and carried on
for years because others came in to divide it with us. But we
have never yet planted a school in any field already occupied,
unless San Francisco be an exception, where the occupation was so
incomplete, that we, ourselves, having one school, have established
five others. I am led to these remarks partly because the facts,
it seems to me, are worth reporting, and partly because, just
now, questions of comity have been and are still before us to be
answered. Thus, in accordance with a purpose expressed at the
close of our last fiscal year, to do something this year for the
large colony of Chinese that has established itself in the town
of Chico, I visited that town last month. I heard of a school as
already established—though its existence had been before unknown
to the pastor with whom I had corresponded. I visited the school;
found four pupils present, and learned that it was sustained by
the Methodist Mission. There was room for so much more to be
done that I made conditional arrangements for planting a school
there. The condition was that the Methodist Mission should give us
cordial welcome and divide the field with us territorially. But our
Methodist brethren say that they would prefer to occupy the whole
territory, and promise to do so in adequate force, and therefore we
have withdrawn. The large town of Vallejo has a Chinese population
somewhat exceeding 200, and no one was caring for their souls. I
determined to put into that field the work which I had intended
to do at Chico. I have made arrangements accordingly—renting a
mission-house, engaging a teacher, and arranging for a helper to
go there as soon as the building can be made ready. But the school
will be in special relation with the Presbyterian Church, there
being no Congregational Church, except at South Vallejo, nearly
two miles distant. I have accordingly said to our Presbyterian
friends that I would establish and carry on the school, subject to
transfer at any time when their Board will assume the care of it,
and will reimburse our treasury for expenses incurred up to the
time of the transfer. At Los Angeles we had sustained a school for
two or three years, and several of our pupils had been brought so
clearly into Christian light and life that almost immediately after
the establishment of a Presbyterian mission there and the transfer
of our work to its care, they were baptized and received into the
Presbyterian church. But the brother to whose care the work was
committed removed, after about two years, to Oakland, and left it
in other hands. This field has now become so large that it need
involve no criticism upon the mission already existing there to say
that there is room for another, and that souls in large numbers
are walking in darkness that might be led into light, if we should
resume the work we unwisely (I now think) laid down. I propose,
therefore, to do this as soon as I can command the time necessary
to visit Los Angeles, unless I should then find that the facts have
been incorrectly represented to me.
Two principles of denominational comity suggest themselves as the
outcome of my thought on these questions and these fields. The
first is _no crowding_; the mission already at work in a field, to
be left in sole possession, provided it will render the service
needed there; the second is, _no possession without occupation_; no
leaving of souls to perish because somebody’s dog is in the manger,
and a field has been entered but not worked. Am I right?
SOUND DOCTRINE.
The following sermon-sketch was read for criticism by our helper,
Lee Sam, at our regular exercise last Wednesday afternoon. I
ventured to ask him whether he found what he had written in some
commentary, or whether it came from his own study of the text and
of related passages. He told me that it was what he himself had
thought out in Bible study. It may be interesting to see what
views of human depravity a thoughtful man unschooled in theology,
unbiassed by ancient traditions, untrammeled by any standards or
any creeds, has drawn forth for himself from the Word of God. The
text was in Romans, 5:21.
“That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our
Lord.”
1. What is meant by reigning unto death and reigning unto eternal
life? It means the work of Christ and the work of Adam. What was
the work of Adam? What is the work of Christ? The work of Adam
was the work of death. The sin of Adam brought death upon all our
race. In the 17th verse of this chapter “By one man’s offence
death reigned by one,” because Adam transgressed God’s command by
eating the forbidden fruit, so God turned him out of the Garden of
Eden. But we are of the race of Adam. He transgressed God’s will
and brought sin upon us all. But some say our hearts are full of
good when we are born, but, by and by, we learn the evil from the
others. But we don’t believe that; we see sometimes the little
baby when he begins to talk, then he tell lies; when he begins
to walk then he fight with others; when he know his parents then
he disobeys them; when he grow to be a man then he walks his own
way, it may be “committing adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations,
wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness,
revelings.” So we know the evil is not learned from the others, we
have it when we are born. By getting away from God and doing those
wicked things we cause the death of both soul and body.
2. What is the work of Christ?
“In Christ shall all be made alive.” It is said, John, 5:21, “For
as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the
Son quickeneth whom he will.” In Adam all die, but in Christ shall
all be made alive.
How can we reign unto eternal life? If we want to obtain eternal
life we must come to Jesus and trust in Him. Jesus says, “All power
is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” In 1st John, 2:1, “If
any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the
righteous.” Though we are sinners, and far from God He can bring us
back. But our God hates sin, he loves us, and would save us from
our sin, and bring us near to Him. “For God so loved the world
that he gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him
might not perish but have everlasting life.” Jesus came into the
world to save us. His whole life was spent in doing good, and at
last he died on the cross to give his life a ransom for many, for
all who will come to him and be saved. He is able to save us. We
are commanded to love the Lord with all our hearts and with all our
minds and with all our souls. Adam loved God with all his heart,
but lost God’s love. The Lord Jesus, by his holy spirit, restores
this love in our hearts, so that we do love him with all our hearts
and souls, and through Christ we can do all things. Without Jesus
we can do nothing. Christ gives us victory over death. In 1st Cor.,
15:55, 56, 57, “O death where is thy sting! O grave where is thy
victory! The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the
law. But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our
Lord Jesus Christ.”
* * * * *
CHILDREN’S PAGE.
* * * * *
LADY AGNES HAMILTON.
BY MISS HENRIETTA MATSON, NASHVILLE.
The teacher was passing from one to another of her pupils, taking
their names. “Missie, Capitola, Viola, Colly, Prudy, Vic,” were
some of the names already recorded, but here was a little mite of a
girl, who gravely gave her name as Lady Agnes Hamilton. The teacher
smiled, but kindly said, “Agnes, is it not?” “No, Lady Agnes,”
persisted the child, in a decided manner, that accorded well with
the name.
The little lady is, perhaps, seven years of age, but not larger
than an ordinary child of four. Her face is of a rich olive tint,
and now the scarlet mingles with the brown, as she becomes confused
and excited under the teacher’s questioning. Her eyes and hair are
brown, the latter with a golden tinge, falling in short, crisp
curls around her neck and face. The small, sensitive mouth, with
its childish bloom and sweetness, tempts the teacher to stoop down
and kiss her to atone for disturbing her with doubts in regard to
her title and rank.