Part 4

The first Sabbath in December, thirty-one were received to the Central Church on profession of their faith in Christ. We hope forty-eight were converted in this revival. Some joined other churches and more will yet unite themselves with us. The meetings were thronged as never before. Crowds of young men attended constantly. Some of them were won for God--others were impressed--and with very many, let us hope and pray, the truth they heard and the scenes they witnessed will prove to be “bread cast upon the waters,” to be gathered in some future day to the glory of God.

I think I see a quickened and deepened consciousness of right as they read it in the light of His word, upon the part of professing Christians a painful and unyielding anxiety with those who have not submitted their hearts to God, and with many, a sincere longing to come into the fellowship of the Gospel. If this judgment be true, then how great things has the dear Lord done for us!

The Church now numbers 210 members. My impartial judgment is that they represent a good deal of vitality, and are beginning to realize the infinite willingness of God to bless them, and to enlarge their borders.

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TENNESSEE.

Methods of Revival Work at Fisk University.

REV. A. K. SPENCE, NASHVILLE.

You request me to give an idea of our “methods, success, and experiences” in revival work in Fisk University. It is with much hesitation that I attempt to comply with your wish, for it is difficult, in a brief communication, to convey a correct idea in such matters, and, also, one shrinks from bringing into the foreground human agencies in a work which, if genuine, must be Divine.

To understand revival work here, one must know the ordinary religious work done in the University. Varying from time to time, the following are the means of grace enjoyed by us. We have a church which is, practically, a part of the school. There are three services on the Sabbath--a preaching service, a Sunday-school, and a prayer meeting. During the week there are school devotions in the morning and family devotions in the evening, and also one meeting for prayer. Upon all these attendance is required.

Many other meetings are held voluntarily by the students, conducted frequently by an instructor. There is a Christian Association of the young men and one of the young women, meeting once a week, or oftener. The Society for the Evangelization of Africa holds a meeting once a month, and every Sunday morning since the departure of our missionaries to Africa, a meeting has been held to pray for them and their cause.

Besides these stated meetings, there is a large amount of personal religious work done in a private way, to lead the unconverted to Christ. Opportunities are sought for conversation and prayer with individuals alone. As employees of the American Missionary Association, we feel ourselves bound to labor, as we can, for the salvation of our students. We try to keep it before us continually that we should aim at nothing less than their conversion. And we seek to impress it upon all, that the Institution is entirely the Lord’s, built with His money, kept by His care, and dedicated to His service. We are sustained by the charities of God’s people, given for the sake of His cause. We remember the way in which our wants have been met, in the use of the Jubilee Singers and by other means. The place whereon we stand is holy ground.

In “times of refreshing” the ordinary means of grace have been quickened into greater life, and other means have been used as the Spirit of God seemed to direct. The morning and evening devotions have at times been turned into revival meetings, and extra meetings for prayer and labor with inquirers have been instituted. In a few cases the work of the school has been suspended and the day given to religious meetings; but usually the ordinary work has gone on. Persons under too deep conviction to attend to aught else, have been allowed and advised to wait upon God, and suitable persons have been permitted to wait with them. Occasionally scenes have transpired not to be forgotten nor to be described--the tears, the sighs, the groans, the bowed or prostrate form--and the after unspeakable joy! As time has gone on, whether for better or worse, the emotional has diminished. We have never sought to produce excitement, nor have we sought rudely to crush it out when it came spontaneously, but to quiet it off by indirect means, a thing always soon successful. Doubtless clearer views of truth are doing away with that frenzy of religious excitement which has so largely prevailed, unbalancing the reason and prostrating the body.

We find it necessary to follow a revival with oft-repeated instructions as to the doctrines and duties of Christianity. The young converts need much loving and wise watchcare. They are exposed to many dangers, and have nearly everything to learn, except that they are the Lord’s and he is theirs.

Some years in the history of Fisk University have been years of great barrenness in spiritual things, but none of entire unfruitfulness. Yet long and sorely have we been made to cry unto God, and humble ourselves before Him. Other years are precious in our memories because of God’s peculiar presence there. Three are especially so, 1870, 1873, and 1876; but space will not permit us to enter upon them. Books might be written about them, but they are recorded in God’s book of remembrance; there let them remain. Oh, for a mighty and continual baptism of the Holy Ghost on all our schools in the South!

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Sanitary Reform--Business--Industrial Instruction--Lecture Course--Revival.

PROF. A. J. STEELE, MEMPHIS.

Great is sanitary reform, at least so say all good Memphians. The Memphis of last November is not the Memphis of this, except in muddy and broken streets and shabby street cars drawn by more shabby mules. For these, “men may come and men may go, but they go on forever.”

The business season opened in October, hopefully and more brisk than ever before, notwithstanding that our population has within the three years dropped from fifty to thirty-five thousand.

Merchants are reaping a rich harvest, and all kinds of labor find employment and fair pay, interrupted somewhat for the past month by severe cold and continued rains, which have also seriously damaged the ungathered cotton crop. What would you say to _ninety inches_ rainfall in _eleven_ months? This is the amount reported by the signal service observer at Vicksburg for this year up to December 1.

No one now thinks of Memphis as a failure; what with a unique and almost perfect system of sewerage nearly completed, and what with a growing wholesale trade and many permanent improvements, both public and private, a new Memphis, indeed, must soon replace the old.

School opened in October with a full attendance and every promise of a most successful year. Our rooms for industrial instruction are now finished and ready for use. The classes in needlework, etc., are organized, and in January a class or classes in cooking will receive regular instruction, with practice in the experimental kitchen.

Instruction will also be given to a class in the care of the sick. It is a fact that the great majority of our pupils must continue in very humble positions and circumstances; our aim must be to fit them to fill well the lots that must fall to them in life; and whatever positions they may fill, they must know how to build up, and even adorn, homes that shall be very different from those their parents have known.

The proverb runs, “A man far from home is near to danger.” The most direct way, certainly, of bringing better things to these people, and to the South, is through the home.

Our lecture course for this year is about made up. Dr. Magoun, while here in attendance upon the conference and to visit his daughter, our music teacher, gave the first lecture in this year’s course. Among others to speak are Rev. Dr. Max Samfield, Jewish Rabbi; Rev. Mr. Mayo, of Boston; Judge Pierce of the Circuit Court, two physicians and other prominent professional and business men here. Our idea is to have all the lectures, as far as possible, deal with practical matters, in some degree according with our regular industrial work. In the past four weeks we have been greatly blessed by the Spirit’s presence with us, over thirty of our pupils having found the “better way,” we trust. With the exception of one or two sitting-room meetings, we have only held a half-hour prayer meeting each day directly after school. Some of the conversions have come with wonderful power and presence of the Spirit, but all with quietness and assurance. We hope for still more, and we are glad to have before us so much of the year with its opportunities for training these “lambs” in the Christian life. Most of them go with their parents and friends to the old churches, where, too often, the weekly or occasional emotional outburst or religious frenzy takes the place of real Christian growth and experience. A number will join our church, two or three even breaking away from friends and parents to find a more intelligent, helpful church connection.

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THE INDIANS.

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LETTERS FROM INDIAN BOYS.

Miss Eustis sends us the following letters from two of our Indian boys at Hampton. She says: “Almka came to us a little more than two years ago in his blanket and long shaggy hair, and knew no word of English, and Tom Smith was only a little better off:”

My Dear friend

I want to speak English. Hampton boys I like very much and colored man massachusetts I staye very good I like very much very nice eat bread caks butter tea coffee milk and sweet appls and sweet potatoes and meat and chicken. I back my home I think take again work hard. I like work I like shop very much I know how make wheels. Mr. williams show me. I like him very much I think good to make wheels I back my home very glad so see my friends Indian boys and my father and sister and mother and brother. I like very much white man and colored man and colored woman and white woman. I stayed in Boston four day very good time. I went to christmas day very nice.

Went I was Indian, I use to water my father horse. I used to hunt deer. I bring home my friend all eat. I use scout with white men. I fight Indian some no like white people they fight. dont fight now I come away my home to be like a man so I throw Indian ways. I like Hampton I work study I dont know I think like wild Indian have blanket and leggins I like Hampton I learn about God I like very much I make cart and shopse I like to work very much I do not know English talk or write I know little your friend

Almka.

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Dear friend I would like write to you and tell you all about myself. I don’t known any thing when I first came to school, because I never school at my own home. and I like going to school at Hampton better than my own home. because I learn here more then my own home. And I like to work. if I learn how to work, when I go home. I think I must help some other Indians that dont know any thing about the white mans way or about Gods word, and I think that is best way to teach each other. and I known how to write. but I dont known how to read yet. I know how to talk englist but not much. And we are work every afternoon. so we like it very well. and school every morning. and we like it to learn a good way. We dont want be a bad man. because if we are bad God would not like that kind of man. so we want be a good. and we learn the white mans way now and we were past the Indians way about too years ago. and we take the new way. All the Indians boy and gurls very well. and doing well. and we had very pleasant time last summer over Shell Banks. we had work out there and when we done our work we used play out there. I wish to work out there a gain next summer. I heard that them Indians at my home learn some thing now. they don’t try to learn befor I come here, and I am very glad that they try to learn some thing now. and I wish that the Indian boys and girls come here to school and learn some thing for their people. now our lesson in Arithmetic and reader. and English too. and I like to study them very much. and I been here two years. so I learn some thing now. but not much. and some of the Indian boys went over Mass last summer and went back here again last oct. and they told us that the white people are good. because they are kind to the Indian boys and girls. that is all I have to say to you from your friend

THOMAS SMITH, or NO-WATISH.

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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 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.

SECRETARY: Rev. W. C. Pond. TREASURER: E. Palache, Esq.

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HOW SPEEDS THE WORK?

REV. W. C. POND, SAN FRANCISCO.

_The Marysville Mission_, being viewed as no longer an experiment, celebrated its first anniversary on Nov. 21st, at the Presbyterian Church in that city. Its spacious and beautiful auditorium was crowded, the Methodist congregation uniting in the services. The exercises were very simple, consisting of recitations of Scripture, singing, and an address by our helper, Lee Sam. But the interest rose as the service moved on, till after a specially excellent recitation of I Cor., 13th chap., and especially after Lee Sam’s address, it burst forth in applause. At almost all our anniversaries, held though they are in churches and on Sunday evenings, this expression of interest takes place, unsought, unexpected, undesired, but showing in a gratifying way that whatever hard things men may say of a class of people, as a class, of a race as a race, in the abstract, yet bring them face to face with individuals of that class or race, trying to improve themselves, struggling upwards toward intelligence and freedom and Christianity, and they cannot refuse them the tribute of their good will, their cheery God-speed. There were Congressmen in the olden times who voted for the Fugitive Slave Law, and orators who defended it before the people, who could not possibly have helped wishing success to any individual fugitive if they actually saw him making for liberty with his eye on the north star, and even giving the poor fellow a sly lift that way if they had an opportunity. A warm heart is too strong for a wrong head under such circumstances. And so our anti-Chinese friends at Marysville gave us their presence at our Anniversary, curious to see what could be done, and before we were through bade us God-speed and helped us with a generous contribution. On the day following, a well-officered local auxiliary, like those at Sacramento, Stockton, Petaluma and Los Angeles, was organized. The school is now established in permanent quarters, furnished with all that is indispensable to a comfortable mission house, and sets forth on its second year with promise of good work and glad harvests.

_New Schools._--In this month of December, in which I am writing, we have thirteen schools in operation, a larger number than ever before. The Oroville school resumed its sessions December 1st under the care of Miss Helen Ostrom, whose father, once a missionary at Amoy, China, has taken pastoral charge of the Congregational Church in that place. It starts well, and engages the interest not only of the Chinese, but also of the better element among the Christian people of that town, to a greater degree, I believe, than ever before.

Of the two new schools, one is in Oakland, occupying an apartment kindly granted for the purpose by the Pacific Theological Seminary, situated about 1¼ miles from the school already sustained in rooms supplied by the First Congregational Church. It is near the Plymouth Avenue Church, and will, we trust, be taken under its wing. Miss Maria W. Bye is its faithful and devoted teacher. The other new school is at Point Pedro, the Chinese fishing village of which some account was given in the December MISSIONARY. On visiting the place I found it to consist of six or seven distinct villages situated on the shore of little coves, and separated from each other by points of greater or less altitude jutting out boldly into the Bay. The population, estimated at about 600, is thus divided into little groups of, say, 100 people each; the distance from the nearest to the most remote being not less than two miles. It calls for _two_ schools, and affording, as it does, a field for missionary service among women and children as well as men, it needs at least one teacher able to give not only evenings, but the daytime also to the work. We are at present feeling our way under conditions quite different from those in any of our older schools, praying that the wisdom from above may save us from the mistakes into which our own unaided counsel would plunge us certainly; and that, as we learn how to reach these dark and scattered multitudes, we may have means adequate to the task. “As thy days so shall thy strength be.”

_The Money Question._--Many who count themselves specially prudent find no room for the exercise of faith in matters of cash. But I have not so read either the word or the providence of God. We are walking by faith in laying out our missionary work for this new year. In place of the $1,610.70 received last year over and above the regular appropriation from the treasury in New York, we rely upon raising $5,000 this year. We cannot do the work waiting to be done, we cannot answer the Master’s call with any less sum than that. Every cent of it can be used without extravagance. Indeed we can practice a more effective economy on an income of $10,000 per annum than on one of $7,600. A certain amount is necessary even to _start_. There are some heavy expenses from which there is no escape however we may cut down the work, unless, indeed, we cut its life out altogether. These would not be materially increased even though the service rendered were increased three-fold. We look, therefore, first to the Master himself, and then to his people, whom he constitutes his almoners, to make up this $5,000. Humbly trusting to his faithfulness, we expect it to come, and we venture forward on that expectation. Already, from a helper in the “far East” comes an unsolicited gift of $100, and a pledge of another $100 if, thereby, this $5,000 can be secured. Already I seem to see in the near future full twenty-five or even many more of such $100 shares taken. Where shall I find the remainder? Are there no readers of the MISSIONARY who can aid me to answer this question? “Inasmuch as ye have done it even to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

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CHILDREN’S PAGE.

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BILL AND ANDY’S LARK.

MRS. HARRIET A. CHEEVER

“I say, Andy! let’s go hear Sam Andrews talk to-night; doesn’t cost anything to go in, but they take a c’llection after he’s through, so we can put ten cents in the box, and after meetin’ we can buy some nuts and candy, and have quite a little lark; come on, will you?”

“Sam Andrews!” said Andy, “what, that colored boy that’s been off to the sem’nary?”

“Yes; they say he talks splendid.”

“How much money you got?” queried Andy.

“Fifty cents,” answered Bill. “I’ll take forty cents along to-night--earned it all, you know, so it’s mine to do what I please with; I’ll put ten cents in the box,--oughter help Sam a little, you know,--then I’ll spend, say twenty cents for goodies, and have ten cents in my pocket, and leave ten cents at home; must save a little, you know; how much you got?”

“I’ve got fifty cents too;” said Andy. “Yes, I’ll go. Father won’t object to my goin’ to hear Sam, and of course we won’t stay out very late.”

Bill and Andy were boy chums, who at the present speaking were roosting on a picket fence, in that seemingly comfortable manner in which bipeds of their species seem perfectly capable of doing. They were good-hearted, industrious boys, but rather thoughtless at times, and the parents of both often felt troubled that they seemed to care so little for “book learning.”

Sure enough, when the Town Hall was filling with a half interested, half curious audience to hear Sam Andrew’s story, among the rest, on the back seats, sat Bill and Andy.

Pretty soon Sam began; he told how, through struggles and hardships, want and poverty, he had persisted in gaining an entrance into the seminary.

All at once, Bill swallowed hard, then whispered to his companion,

“I say, Andy, let’s give Sam twenty cents instead of ten!”

“Yes, let’s,” readily agreed Andy.

Sam went on; he told how fever broke out among some of the seminary boys, and he and a few others spent the last cent they could raise in getting medicines, and alas! a coffin in more than one case.

This time Bill gulped down a great sob, and whispered brokenly,

“Andy, old boy, let’s make it thirty cents; a heart of stone couldn’t stan’ that!”

“Yes, so we will,” gasped Andy, with shining eyes.

Sam continued: he told of selling the coat off his back, sooner than give up his precious opportunities for studying and improving his mind.

Here Bill gave Andy a nudge, and whispered desperately,

“I’m goin’ the whole forty, Andy; what’s a selfish old lark of nuts and candy, I’d like to know, for a well fed cove like me? I’ll help Sam the whole figger,--cookies if I won’t!”

“Feel as if I’d been a pig all my life,” whimpered Andy, as Sam went on with his piteous story of painful perseverance and hard endurance. All at once Bill began edging off the settee, but he stopped to whisper again,

“Say, Andy, I’m going home as tight as ever I can leg it after that other ten cents; be back in a minute;” and before Andy could reply he was off: in a few moments he was back again, but where was Andy?

A moment later Andy entered softly, and taking his seat by Bill, opened his hand, in which was _his_ last ten cent piece.

But it might have done one real good to have seen the peculiar shine in the eyes of the generous boys, as their willing offerings rattled down into the well-filled box which was passed around for the collection at the close of the meeting.

And after all, that was not the best of it, for on the way home, instead of the “selfish lark” so cheerfully given up, the boys had a good sensible talk, in which they agreed that it was shameful, the way in which they had neglected their studies, and here was a poor colored boy, who had suffered “all a feller _could_ suffer and pull through,”--as Andy remarked with boy-like earnestness,--for the knowledge they, in their favored freedom from care and privation, had hardly thought worth possessing, much less toiling for.

Bill and Andy’s parents silently wondered what had come over their boys, that all at once they grew so thoughtful and studious; but the boys knew what had come over them, and they also knew why it was that whenever they earned any money, a part was saved out from the rest for charitable purposes.

“Makes a feller feel quite like a man to help some one else along a little besides himself, doesn’t it Bill, old boy?” Andy asked one day.

And Bill replied,