Part 4

The influence of the work among the prisoners is seen to be very salutary. The church service and the Sabbath-school are the two bright spots in the lives of the prisoners. From twenty to twenty-eight teachers, of both sexes and colors, Northern and Southern, engage in the work. Three hundred pupils, prisoners, attend with remarkable regularity, as the attendance is optional. The influence of the religious work is to inspire the prisoners with hope, and with a purpose to retrieve whatever they have lost by their folly and crime in the past. Scores of them go out and live useful and honorable lives. Of this we have abundant proof.

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WOMAN’S WORK AMONG WOMEN.

Answers to Prayer—“Scrubbing up with the Bible.”

MISS HATTIE A. MILTON, MEMPHIS, TENN.

My heart is overflowing with thanks-giving, not so much for the great results that I have already seen—for the greatest results in this work are discerned only by the eye of faith—but that I am permitted to be the instrument, even in a humble way, of answering your prayers, and not only yours, but those of the poor suffering people here. So many times when administering to their wants, not only when giving them loaves and fishes, but when pointing them to a higher spiritual and moral life, they have remarked, “Miss, I know the Lord sent you in answer to prayer.”

Sometimes I hesitate about going to places, and think I will do some other duty that day; but when the thought comes to me that it may be an opportunity to answer somebody’s prayer, I feel that I must go. Again, many times have my friends in the North answered my prayers. I will mention one instance which struck me as being remarkable. A very poor woman came to me asking for clothing for the little helpless children of her dying sister. I had just given out the last garment; but while talking with her I put up a prayer that something would come soon, and told her that I thought I should have something for her in a few days. Just then the door-bell rang, and I went to the door and found there a box, which I opened at once, and in it beheld the answer to my prayer! It was full of very nice and mostly new clothing for children. It was a literal fulfilment of the promise, “and it shall come to pass, that before they call I will answer; and while they are yet speaking I will hear.” And it is a comforting thought, that wherever God places us, He gives us the opportunity to answer other people’s prayers.

The interest in this work is constantly increasing as we know more about it. The outlook for the year on which we have already entered is very encouraging. A few days since, while visiting a very hard neighborhood, one mother who is a church member said, “You must come around often; we knew ye first, and ye ought to visit us most; we needs ye too. I allers lays close down to what ye say, like the knife to the grindstone, ‘cause I wants ye to sharpen me, so I will get to living better. I’s mighty keerless, tho’ sometimes I does try in a stamerin’ manner to talk to my trifling neighbors. Now do come around often and _scrub us up with the Bible_.” Another woman, who has a good home, said, “We are so glad to have you back, so we can have our prayer meetings again; for we like those quiet meetings, without any fuss; and we like a leader in whom we have confidence, to instruct us.”

One of the pupils in our school urged me to start a Sunday-school in the Methodist church, of which she is a member. I went three or four times, accompanied by one of our teachers. The colored pastor gave us a hearty welcome; said he was proud that we had come to help, and that he was no respecter of persons. The number increased each week. Last Sunday it was very unpleasant. The tenacity of the red Memphis mud was marvelous; but when I arrived, a little late, at the church, having been detained to attend the burial of a baby, I found a goodly number, and the pastor was reviewing the last week’s lesson. We immediately proceeded with the lesson for the day, after which I told them I thought we had better organize a Sunday-school, as I only wished to be a teacher, and would rather some of their own number would be the officers. To this they gladly assented, and we organized. We have three classes. I furnish them with Sunday-school papers, as they have never had any. Twice, as the hour for service approached, the minister has given up preaching, saying they learned much more studying the Bible. As we were leaving the church a brother said, “I believe you is going to be jest the building up of this church.” Another said, “That is the kind of folks we colored ones needs; some one who is always at the post of duty, and is not afeard of mud and rain.”

We have substantial evidence that our Northern friends have not forgotten the suffering ones here, in the shape of two barrels of very useful clothing, from Whitewater, Wis., and I have word that boxes from three other places are on the road. May those who give be as much blessed as those who receive, and we will strive to do all in our power to answer their prayers. “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.”

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STUDENT TEACHERS FROM LE MOYNE.

MISS L. A. PARMELEE, MEMPHIS.

We have never kept any record of the teaching and Sunday-school work done by our pupils, but, within a few days, I have gratified my curiosity by taking notes from the lips of a few student-teachers. Here they are.

Sixteen of our young people have during the summer taught one thousand and thirty-five (1,035) day pupils, and very nearly as many S. S. scholars. This does not include the teachers now at work, some of whom return to us next week, or in early spring. Probably this is only a fifth of the record, counting all former pupils.

Some of the experiences are very droll, as of the young woman who saw new phases of life in Arkansas: “Would you believe it, that the _white_ people didn’t know as much as I do?” White and black always called her “the white lady,” and urged her return next season.

Another young woman was assistant in a school of 80 children. The log school-house had no windows except board shutters; the seats were boards fastened upon blocks of wood; the blackboard was of her own manufacture. The building was so small that in pleasant weather she heard her recitations in a bush-arbor built against the side of the house.

Some of the teachers had better accommodations. One young man had an excellent building in a community of thriving farmers. He has taught there for five seasons. Just now he is getting up a club for the _New York Tribune_ and reports ten subscribers.

Another young man, a member of the senior class, could scarcely leave his people. A powerful revival in connection with the school had brought many aged people as well as children to confess Christ, and the converts were loth to part with their teacher and friend. The person who went after him does not weary of telling about the tears shed and pathetic expressions of regret.

After two years of constant teaching, another writes, “There are so many things in life I can’t manage, I want to go to school again.” The most cheering sign of the year is this growing desire for more thorough preparation for the work of life.

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THE INDIANS.

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BOYS FOR HAMPTON FROM FORT BERTHOLD.

Rev. C. L. Hall, Fort Berthold, D. T.

In the temporary vacancy of this Indian Agency, we gratefully acknowledge the courtesy of Mr. Hall, who is in the service of the A. B. C. F. M., in writing us the interesting letter which we print herewith:

I have had my privilege and my duty to co-operate with your society as represented by Hampton Institute, Virginia, and with the U. S. Government, in inducing a number of Indian youth to go East for education.

We thank God that the Government, among other good movements it has undertaken, has taken this “new departure” in the matter of Indian education. The A. B. C. F. M. has for many years been educating Indians with success, and the present civilized condition of the Cherokees, Choctaws, and many of the Sioux, Nez Perces and other tribes, is owing to their efforts, and for some years past the A. M. A. has also undertaken like work with like success. Indian education is no new departure with us; but on the part of the Government it is, and it has given us great pleasure to help on the plans of the Secretary of the Interior and of Commissioner Hayt in this matter.

The beginning of their “experiment” was here at Berthold. Captain Pratt, who was detailed by the Government to get fifty Indians from the mission, came to start his company at this agency, and I shall always feel that it was an honor to have been able to help him get a start. We did not know how the people would feel about sending their children to a distant and unknown country. They were superstitious about school and church influences. Would they trust the white man? Would they be sufficiently influenced by the desire for an education.

Well, Captain Pratt had both experience and faith; he told us of his talks and prayer meetings with the prisoners in Florida, and of their desire for education, and of the willingness of Eastern Christian friends to help them; then we knelt down in the sitting-room of our mission home, that Sabbath evening, and committed our way unto the Lord. All was in doubt; some had refused to go; the chiefs would not send their children; but soon three youth (boys of eighteen or twenty years of age) came of their own accord and offered themselves. They had been attending our school and had learned in a measure to trust us. They said they knew it was a long way to go and a long time to stay, and it would be hard; but they were prepared to carry out their resolution to learn to be white men. Soon thirteen youth, nine boys and four girls, were secured, all from our school; it took the nucleus of our school; but we knew that this movement would create a new interest in education and bring us new scholars, as well as do more than we could for the old ones who should go away, so we gave them up willingly.

With this beginning, Captain Pratt started down the river in a flat-bottom stern-wheel mission steamboat, one cold October day, collecting more from the river agencies as he went along till forty-nine were secured. The youth looked very sober as they started off; there were some very touching partings with friends, one of whom said, “I may not see a hair of him again;” and at the last look at them we saw blankets and coats waving in lieu of handkerchiefs on the upper deck of the boat. My heart was in my mouth as I thought of the boys and their Indian relatives, and of the better days in store for Indians, of which Uncle Sam was giving us a foretaste. All this was a year ago; to-day a hundred more from Dakota are on their way to Hampton and to Carlisle, and provision is being made for others in the West near their own homes. It is a beginning of better days, and I rejoice that our two Congregational societies can find occasion to co-operate with each other and the Government in behalf of the Indian.

Now let us make a vigorous push, along with the forces now at work, to get him the protection of the U. S. Courts, so that he may have a better appeal than the only one now open to him, as Gen. Crook says—_his rifle_.

In spite of the change of agents four times in less than four years, and in spite of all endeavors to break down Christian influences here, these Indians have steadily progressed. They are cultivating more land and doing it more thoroughly, showing more interest in schools, and a stronger desire to adopt civilized habits, one young man going so far as to come to me with the request, “Father, they say you are skilful; can you not make my shoes squeak for me? They don’t squeak like white people’s shoes.”

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THE CHINESE.

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“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 F. 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. Palanche, Esq.

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THE ROMANCE OF MISSIONS.

BY REV. W. C. POND, SAN FRANCISCO.

It is said that in connection with a somewhat enthusiastic collection for the American Board, taken ten years or more ago, at the First Congregational Church in this city, one card was sent up having this inscription: “Five dollars for Home missions, but ‘nary red’ for Foreign.” The Christian spirit of the expression and its rhetorical elegance are about equal. Yet it well represents one class of Christian workers and givers who believe intensely that charity begins at home, who like to _see_ what they are doing, and to watch its on-goings and to judge of its results for themselves. Foreign missions seem to them chimerical; the interest in such work romantic; and they don’t believe in romance and chimeras.

We have sometimes met another class whose interest flags when they are brought in contact with the hard facts of any Christian work. For them, “’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view.” To see and handle any Christian enterprise involves them inevitably in disappointment. They read the glowing pages of the _Herald_, and often feel their hearts burn within them; but if brought into actual, daily contact with the toils, the drudgeries of service, the days of small things, the months and years of discouragement through which, with faith that would not falter, God led his servants on to that which now makes those pages glow, they would soon become disheartened, possibly fault-finding, as though funds and men were being wasted on a work that makes so little show.

We respectfully suggest to all such friends of our Chinese work that they remain in the East, and do not at present visit California; for Christ, as found in the souls for whom we labor, has no halo round his head—indeed, He had none when He wrought in that carpenter’s shop at Nazareth; when He walked, with dust-worn raiment and with weary feet, the ill-wrought trails of ancient Palestine; nor even when He hung upon the cross. There was no external beauty to make men desire him; and to many who at this distance are almost filled with envy at the high privileges Peter, James and John enjoyed of seeing his face and hearing his voice, and walking in his companionship, He might have seemed a “root out of dry ground, having no form nor comeliness.”

At any rate, He abides to-day in souls that are very dark, that are very little sanctified—saints that by no means answer to the ideal saintliness—He abides in them; and while with patient love we bear with them, and while we hope on and work on, though faith feels like fainting and hope seems long deferred, we are _assured that we are serving_ HIM. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

This is the period of the year when our work has least of what is outward and visible to stir enthusiasm. The weather is often stormy. The nights are often very dark. At some of the factories, work having broken across the boundary line which fading daylight fixed, holds on under gas-light till it is too late for our pupils to get to school. At any rate, many of them drop off; the average declines, and our hearts droop a little. It would be so much easier to work, if we could all the time be expanding, increasing, harvesting. Then, often, the pupils seem specially dull, and this one or that one in whom we have become deeply interested, and whom we supposed to have become somewhat enlightened, discloses a depth of darkness which we do not like to fathom, and shows that he has understood far less than we supposed. Among those whom we believe to be true followers of Christ, there crop out littlenesses of envy or jealousy or ill-humor, that perhaps would call down on them swift condemnation, did not all this remind us so much of what has stained our own Christian life.

Now if our romantic friends should drop in upon us at such times, they might be sorely disappointed; might feel that we had drawn on our fancies for some of our facts; might possibly go away and add their own “Amen” to the scornful taunts of Godless newspapers upon “converted Chinamen.” And yet just such experiences of difficulty and discouragement belong to Christian work everywhere. If they do not form a necessary part of the discipline and training of the church, they certainly are unavoidable in the healing of sin-poisoned souls—in the education, the _leading out_ of men from darkness into light.

I write these things, not because I have any special disappointments to communicate. I have none. And yet the state of the work just now is shadowed in these reflections. I have sometimes fancied—and felt that it was no mere fancy—that I could see in the story of our little mission, a tiny miniature of the history of the Apostolic Church. We had our little Pentecost to start with. We had the glow of a new love, the effervescence of a new life, the fresh joy of fraternal fellowship; prayer meetings carried, against my protest, for sheer delight in them, on into the small hours, by men who must be up and hard at work by six o’clock in the morning. Then after awhile we had our Ananias—two of them, since there was no wife to match Sapphira. And then we had disputes and little jealousies, like those of the Grecians against the Hebrews, and our scatterings by persecution and by other causes, in which, I rejoice to say, our disciples, like those of old, went here and there, preaching the word; so that with all that there has been at times to start anxiety, to test faith, to chasten hope, the work has kept moving on. Souls have been added constantly, _saved_ souls, we trust. Much prayer has gone up to the throne of grace, and earnest work has followed it, and Christ, thank God, has proved himself to be stronger than the strong man armed.

THE OROVILLE MISSION.

We entered a new name on the list of our schools on the 1st of November. It is at Oroville, the county seat of Butte Co. It is taught by Miss Jessamine Wood, daughter of the Congregational pastor in that town. Years ago we began a work there, but under auspices that proved to be very unfavorable. Ever since, we have desired to renew the effort, but the way has not opened till now. There are few points in the interior of the State where so many Chinese—1,500, it is said—are congregated. The Chinese population of the town at one time out-numbered that of all other nationalities. Our school, at its outset, is very small, the attendance being only seven, but we trust it is the thin edge of a wedge which we may yet drive home with good effect. A helper will be set at work there, temporarily at least, after the holidays, by whom not only may the school be enlarged, but the Gospel be preached in the streets, and the war for Christ be carried into the very Africa of Oroville Chinatown.

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RECEIPTS

FOR DECEMBER, 1879.

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MAINE, $250.54.

Alfred. Cong. Ch. and Soc. $15.50 Bangor. Central Ch. Sab. Sch. 35.09 Brewer. First Ch. and Sab. Sch. 8.70 Bridgeton. “Jean.” 5.00 Ellsworth. Mrs. L. T. Phelps 10.00 Gorham. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 28.27 Hallowell. Miss F. Littlefield, 2 Bbls. of C. Hampden. Cong. Ch. 9.50 Litchfield. Ladies, Bbl. of C. Machias. Centre St. Ch. 1.88 Newport. Mrs. M. S. N. 1.00 Norridgewock. Cong. Ch. and Soc. $45.60; Individuals, $1. 46.60 Norway. Mary K. Frost 5.00 Searsport. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 25.00 Skowhegan. Miss C. A. Weston, $20, _for Student Aid, Fisk U._;—Mrs. W. Woodbury, $5, _for Student Aid, Tougaloo U._ 25.00 South Berwick. Hugh and Philip Lewis, by Rev. G. Lewis 7.00 Vassalborough. Joseph White 5.00 Yarmouth. First Ch. and Soc. 22.00

NEW HAMPSHIRE, $264.62.

Amherst. Ladies’ Union Miss. Soc., _for Student Aid, Straight U._ 31.00 Bristol. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 5.78 Concord. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 39.05 Derry. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 10.74 Dover. E. J. L. 1.00 East Derry. Mrs. M. G. Pigeon, Bbl. of C. Fisherville. Cong. Ch. 17.61 Francestown. Cong. Ch. 21.00 Greenfield. Individuals, by Mrs. M. M. Foster 7.00 Hanover Centre. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 7.00 Hillsborough Centre. H. O. C. 1.00 Hopkintown. Rev. D. S. 0.60 Jaffrey. Ladies’ Benev. Soc., Bbl. of C. Keene. Ladies’ Benev. Soc. of Second Ch., $2.50, and Bbl. of C. 2.50 Marlborough. Ladies’ Freedmen’s Aid Soc., Bbl. of C. and $1 _for Freight_;—Freedmen’s Aid Soc. $10 _for Talladega_ 11.00 Mount Vernon. Cong. Ch. and Soc. (ad’l) 2.50 Mason. Ladies, Bbl. of C. Nashua. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 21.34 New London. Mary K. Trussell 2.00 Pelham. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 2.50 Salem. Cong. Ch. and Soc., _for Student Aid, Atlanta U._ 5.00 Sanbornton. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 15.00 Stratham. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 20.00 Sullivan. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 5.00 Temple. Mrs. W. K. 1.00 Tilton. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 30.00 West Campton. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 5.00

VERMONT, $862.30.