Part 3

Many of the regular school exercises were set aside for my address. They sang “Hold the Fort,” and others of Sankey’s collection, with spirit. The young lady who teaches them, Miss Gerrish, is remarkably faithful, full of tact and good sense. Your missionary himself interested me a good deal. I saw him first at the young men’s rooms at a prayer meeting. He gave a little personal experience, showing how a child comes to the Master’s arms. Professor Stearns, of Washburn College, spoke highly of his disinterested work at the mission. He has worked great changes for good. The people, for the most part, own their houses and lots. Some houses are very neat. One soldier’s wife said: “Yes, this little stone house is mine. My husband is a common working man. Yes, we have paid for the house. It is little, but, you know, there is nothing like home, if ’tis only so small!” Her husband had been through the war near me. On Sunday, every child was well dressed, and generally the blacks had as good clothing as the whites. I urged these good people, who are struggling up into respectable ways of living and moderate prosperity, to stand up for the Lord, that He may bless them more and more.

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WHAT THE STRAWBERRY-BED DID.

Rev. A. Connet, of McLeansville, N.C., tells the story. Last year we canned 12 gallons, and the people stared. This year we have canned 20 gallons, sold $11.39 worth and have had all we wanted to use for the last 35 days. A white neighbor whom we feasted in the patch, and whose children were also fed on berries, said, “You have astonished the natives.” Ours are the only cultivated strawberries in this neighborhood. Now for the fruit. 1st, a new industry. Example is contagious. A number, some white and some colored, have spoken to us for plants. 2nd, the strawberry-bed is helping to bridge the social chasm. Some of our white neighbor ladies called on us in strawberry time. 3d, the children have just come in with a basket of cherries and a lot of dewberries given them by the man whom we feasted in the patch.

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THE INDIANS.

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VARIETY IN MISSIONARY LIFE.

REV. M. EELLS, SKOKOMISH, W. T.

Our services on one Sabbath were a decided medley of persons and Babel of languages. The opening exercises were in English, after which was the sermon, delivered in English but translated into the Nisqually language, and a prayer was offered in the same manner. At the close of the service, two infants were baptized in English, when followed the Communion services in English. At this there were twelve white members of the Congregational church here, and one Indian; also two white members of the Protestant Methodist church, one Cumberland Presbyterian, and one other Congregationalist; there were also about seventy-five Indians as spectators. The Sabbath School was held soon after, seventy-five being present. First, there were four songs in the Chinook language, accompanied by the organ and violin; then three in English. The prayer was in Nisqually, and the lesson read in English, after which the lessons were recited. Three classes of Indian boys, two of Indian girls, and two of white children were instructed in English; one class of Indian children was talked to partly in English and partly in Chinook. There is one Bible class of Indian men who can understand English, a part of whom can read and a part cannot, and another of about forty Indians, whose teacher talks English, but an interpreter translates it into Nisqually, and then he does not reach some Indians of the Clallam tribe who are present. Next followed a meeting of the Temperance Society, as six persons wished to join—a white man who can write his name and five Indians who touch the pen while the Secretary makes the mark. Three of these are sworn in English and two in Chinook. The whole services are interspersed with singing in English and Chinook.

On the trip to an Indian logging camp one evening, to hold a meeting, my companion and myself found the tide up so high that we had to “coon” the logs, as they were rolling in the water, in the dark, wade a part of the time, and improvise a lantern out of cedar sticks split up rather fine.

A Sabbath day’s work appears as follows: Began services with the Indians at Jamestown about ten o’clock, which continued until half-past twelve; then returned three-quarters of a mile to my boarding-place, went into the cupboard and took a very little lunch in my hands; walked four miles or more to Dunginess, where I preached to the whites at two o’clock, without even a chair or anything to sit down on; walked back two miles to the house of a friend, where I sang and played on the organ about all of the time, except while eating supper, until half-past six or seven, when I walked back to Jamestown and held services from eight to ten o’clock—thus walking thirteen miles, besides holding service over five hours, and singing an hour or two.

The variety of one trip of about two hundred miles is recorded thus: As to food, have done my own cooking, eaten dry crackers only for meals, been boarded several days for nothing and bought meals. As to sleeping, have stayed in as good a bed as could be given me, free of cost, and slept in my own blankets in an Indian canoe, because the houses of the whites were too far away and the “phleeze” were too thick in the Indian houses. They were bad enough in the canoe, but the Indians would not allow me to go further away for fear that the panthers would catch me. As to work, have preached, held prayer meetings, done pastoral work, helped clean up the streets of an Indian village, been carpenter and painter, dedicated a church, performing all the parts, been organist, studied science, acted as agent, taken hold of law, in a case where whiskey had been sold to an Indian, and in a will. As to traveling, have been carried ninety miles in a canoe by Indians, free, paid an Indian four dollars for carrying me twenty miles, was carried twenty miles on a steamer at half fare and twenty more on another for nothing; rode horseback, walked fifty miles, and “paddled my own canoe” for forty-five miles.

A note is made of some people very hungry for preaching. One lady just recovering from sickness was hardly able to walk three-quarters of a mile to church, and as they had no horse her husband took her on a wheelbarrow more than half the way. An old lady, seventy-six years of age, walked over three miles to church where the services were mainly for the Indians, then a mile further, where the preaching was for the whites, and then returned home.

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INDIANS AT HAMPTON.

BY REV. H. B. FRISSELL.

Our communion on Sunday was very interesting. There were added to the church four colored students and three Indian boys. These three are representatives of three different tribes. One of them was an Apache. He came to us sixteen months ago with no knowledge of Christ, and none of God, with the exception of what he had gained from an old medicine man. He told me that God was like the wind that came in at one window and went out at the other. He has been very earnest in his study of the Bible and has come to my study night after night when he had had a hard day’s work and an evening study hour that he might read the Bible with me. Not long ago he told me he wished to pray in meeting and asked me if I would write out what he wanted to say. So I took my pen and after long pauses he told me what he wanted to say to God. I wrote it down just as he gave it to me. He has carried it away to learn so that he may take part in our weekly meeting in English. The other two boys have come to me twice before and asked to join the church but I have told them to wait. But now it seemed as though they could wait no longer and they were glad to profess their faith in Christ.

THE CHINESE.

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THE PENALTY OF PROSPERITY.

BY REV. W. C. POND.

Our schools were never before so prosperous as during the last six or eight months. Each successive budget of monthly reports showed a larger enrolment and a larger average attendance, in the aggregate, than had ever been secured before. Notwithstanding that we have closed our schools in Oroville during these hot months, and have given a month’s vacation to the Berkeley school, the reports for June call for their superlatives as cheeringly as did those of April or of May. The rolls for June showed the names of 908 Chinese pupils, and the average attendance was 437. During the ten months now past of the present fiscal year, no less than 2,152 Chinese have been enrolled as members of our schools, and thus, for longer or shorter periods, have been brought to hear something of the true God and the only Saviour. Many have been with us but a short time, but not one, I believe, has failed to get some new idea which, it would seem, must have set him to thinking, and thus may prove to be in him the seed of the everlasting life.

But what is the “_penalty_” of all this? and why should there be any penalty for it? The penalty is a depleted treasury, and the reason for this is the unavoidably increased expenditure. How many of our readers know what it is to have more than $1,600 coming due, and less than $600 at command? As many as have had this experience will understand the penalty I am just now called to suffer. I _could_ not turn the dark souls away from what seemed to be for them the only possible path to light, and I could not bid them welcome without increasing our corps of laborers. I could not add new workers without adding some new bills. The increase of expense is not at all proportioned to the increase in work fulfilled, for while we have reached nearly 40 per cent. more Chinese than we did in any preceding year, the expense will be greater by only about 10 per cent. But I have been working all these years up to the utmost limit of our resources, and now, towards the close of this fiscal year—the annual appropriation from the parent society exhausted and the gifts of most of our regular contributors already used—it comes to pass that that 10 per cent. extra begins to be felt, and as the mission purse gets lighter your superintendent’s heart gets heavier with thoughts and plans and cares.

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” some of my readers are asking. I answer, first of all, I mean to pray. Nothing else ever availed in my experience to replenish a depleted treasury, like appealing to the Giver of all good. He knows the work; He gave the opportunity; He has, many times before this, verified His promise, and answered my prayer. I mean to trust Him; ask His counsel and His help, and so _move on_. While His pillar of cloud and of fire goes before us, we need never be dismayed. “Difficulties will be removed, in proportion as it is necessary that they should be removed.” But I do not mean to stop with prayer. That is Müller’s way, and, in his case, it succeeds. When he was consulted as to the failure of others who wrought on his plan, it is said that he replied: “They were not so called.” Every man according to his own calling. For myself, I read the promise thus: “Ask, and it shall be given you; _seek, and ye shall find_.” And so I feel called to follow up my asking with seeking, and to enter every door that my master causes to be opened to my knock. That is just what I am doing now, in writing this paragraph. It may not reach all our readers till after our fiscal year has closed; but the books can be kept open till October 1, and gifts sent to make up what is now lacking, will be gratefully acknowledged, and most carefully used.

THE CENTRAL SCHOOL.

This is held at the Central Mission house, in this city—the headquarters of our whole work. The building is admirably located for our purposes, and though always felt to be too small for the most effective service, has nevertheless answered our purpose tolerably well. As long as the attendance on the school did not exceed 125, it was possible to move about easily in the school-room, and by careful attention to ventilation, to keep the atmosphere tolerably pure. But last month the _average_ attendance was 185, and the largest attendance on any one evening was no less than 260! Of course even standing room was at a premium. To move about in such a mass; to attempt anything like classification; to give to each pupil his portion of instruction, taxed the energy, patience and skill of the teachers to the utmost. Jee Gam declares that if we had room enough and teachers enough, we could have 300 pupils in this school every evening.

One reason for this throng of pupils, (and I am glad to say that a like cause of prosperity exists in all our schools) is that we have now so excellent a corps of teachers and of Chinese helpers—so faithful, so devoted and enthusiastic—and, generally, so well fitted for the work. About this I trust there may be nothing temporary. Another fact,—which may not always operate so strongly as now—and which tends specially to fill up the Central school, is the great influx of Chinese now going on at this port. When the new law goes into operation, this will be checked, at least, for a time. Hastened, doubtless, by the passage of this law nearly 25,000 Chinese have come in at this port within less than six months,—a number equal to one-fourth of the entire Chinese population in the whole country at the beginning of this year. This multitude will rapidly scatter, moving wherever a demand for their labor attracts them, and then the pressure at this spot will be lessened, but the work will remain to be done; 25,000 more of these blood-bought souls, to be brought to a knowledge of their Redeemer; 25,000 more out of whom to gather messengers of salvation, heralds of the gospel of Christ’s dying love and living power to the myriads ready to perish in their native land.

I am sorry to say that my faith in the possibility of securing in any way a more commodious building for this school and for a head-quarters for our entire work, is not strong. Perhaps this is the reason why the oft-repeated petitions of our teachers for more room, remain without response. “According to your _faith_” it is said, “be it unto you.” One lady at the East, self-prompted, or prompted of God, has added to many a previous kindness, a donation of $100, to be used for this enlargement when it shall become possible. One member of the Executive Committee of the A. M. A., who has visited our quarters, and seen something of the need, has hinted that the easiest way to get relief would be to ask for the necessary fund to buy or build. I ventured to infer that if this request should be made, his generous heart and ever-open hand would help the matter on. It would be much that thus we could save to our work $1,200 per annum now paid for rent. This sum would keep _five_ teachers in the field for a full year. And then we should have a building suited to our needs, large enough and light enough, open enough to the pure air of heaven, to speak for itself a welcome and to bear in itself a blessing to these crowds of needy souls. Fifteen thousand dollars would secure this—a place where (if the predictions of our wisest helpers may be trusted) 300 _young men_, born in the depths of heathenism, could be brought every day of every week throughout each coming year, to sit at Jesus’ feet and hear his word. And a sum much less than that would put my faith concerning it at that mustard-seed point at which our Saviour assures us “nothing shall be impossible to you.”

CHILDREN’S PAGE.

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ONE BOY WHO GREW UP IN A COTTON PATCH.

BY MISS LAURA A. PARMELEE.

His name is Frank, his cotton patch is in Mississippi, near the Sunflower River, and he is teaching school in that neighborhood at this very time. Although he is quite grown, he is not so tall as his highest cotton stalk, and doesn’t look a bit as if he had a story. It is not an uncommon story, and might be true of a good many Williams, or Henrys, or Johns. That is why I am so particular to tell you his name and where he lives.

Most of his time was spent in the field, but he ate and slept in a rough log-cabin of one room. The chimney was built outside of the cabin, and was made of sticks and clay. The one window was a board shutter, swinging on leather hinges. Two beds, a table, a few dishes, two or three pots and kettles, three or four leather-bottomed chairs and a barrel of meal furnished the house.

Poor as the building was, a good mother’s love made it a dear home to her little children. Roses and honeysuckles bloomed around the door all summer, and in summer and winter the white sand was swept clean with brooms made of twigs tied together. Health and work gave appetites for the fried bacon and hoe-cake that furnished the daily meals. Baked sweet potatoes with pones and greens were sometimes added to their bill of fare.

There was no father to provide for the family, so the little ones must try the harder to care for themselves. When Frank was scarcely more than a baby, he followed his mother and sisters to the field and pulled trash; that is, pulled up old stalks and sticks for burning, to clear the fields ready for the plow, and, after the furrow was prepared, little fingers dropped the fuzzy gray seed into the soft earth.

By the time he was five years old, Frank had his own light hoe and “chopped cotton” almost all day. When the feeble plants had been cut up and the strong ones cleared of weeds, there was the corn to be hoed and the melon patch to be attended to. In August the fleecy white fibre had pushed itself out of the green bolls and the pickers must go to work. With a large bag tied around his neck and shoulders, Frank went up and down the cotton patch, his nimble fingers pulling the feathery cotton from its casings. Carefully as he gleaned each bush, no sooner had the field been once picked than other bolls unlocked their treasures, and again and again he must go over the same ground. Sometimes Christmas came before the crop was all gathered, and in January the fields must be cleared once more for plowing. Playtime never seemed to come to Sunflower River. To plow, pick cotton, roll logs and build rail fences—was that all of life? Frank wondered about it.

Two Sabbaths in the month the family went to the little brown meeting-house that nestled under the trees down by a spring of sweet water. No bell called the people, yet they came, on foot, on horseback, in wagons from miles around. Four or five hundred gathered in and around the church. Three or four preachers would occupy the rude pulpit, and often the services did not close until sunset. Some of the ministers could not read a word; some barely read the text and lined out the hymns. They said a great deal about

“The green hill far away Without a city’s wall, Where the dear Lord was crucified, Who died to save us all.”

And as Frank thought of that wonderful scene and how

“Dearly, dearly, He has loved, And we must love Him too,”

he longed to know more of His life and sayings. Must he wait to learn of the Saviour’s words—wait until he should meet Him in heaven?

The questioning found a happy answer when he was about fourteen. A summer school was started in the neighborhood, and on rainy days and at odd times he learned the alphabet, to make figures, to form letters and to read. New thoughts came into his mind, new hopes, new plans. He heard of a large school up the river where Northern teachers taught eight months of the year.

One day the good mother was startled with the question, “May I go to school at Memphis?” She could only answer, “I am too poor to send you. I can give you nothing but my prayers.” But Frank believed those prayers were worth more than bales and bales of cotton, and with a few dollars in his pocket he started for the city. He was sure that “King Jesus” would have compassion upon him as He did upon that other young man who “was the only son of his mother and she was a widow.”

Reaching the strange city, he soon found a Christian gentleman who wished a boy to wait on the table. “Work for his board and go to school,” was the good news sent home. One year went by, two, three and four. Slow but faithful, he was going up in his classes, winning the respect of school-mates and teachers.

One October, as he re-entered school, he modestly told his teachers that he had taught during the summer. It was said so quietly that little heed was paid to it, until another young man came from the same town and announced that the unostentatious Frank had done a remarkable work in the way of Sabbath-school, temperance and day school. No one had thought him able to do anything of the kind.

And these long days, while you are swinging in hammocks and going to lakes and rivers in the search for cool air, our young friend is teaching a hundred dusky boys and girls each week day, and directing the Bible lessons of a much larger number on Sunday. He writes to ask for S. S. papers, for a temperance text book and for the prayers of his teacher.

Although he did grow up in a cotton patch, he is a useful man, and expects to one day see the King in his beauty, in the land that is very far off.

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RECEIPTS FOR JULY, 1882.

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MAINE, $218.20.

Brewer. Manly Hardy $50.00 Centre Lebanon. Mrs. O. A. Moody, _for Indian M._ 5.00 Centre Lebanon. Cong Sab. Sch. 1.35 Dennysville. Mrs. Samuel Eastman 5.00 East Union. David Fowler. 5.00 Hallowell. Teachers and Pupils of Classical Academy, _for Student Aid, Atlanta U._ 15.00 Kennebunk. Union Ch. and Soc. 22.50 Norway. Mrs. Mary K. Frost 2.00 Oldtown. Cong. Ch. 5.00 Wilton. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 6.35 Windham. Dea. J. T. and Mrs. C. D. 1.00 —————— $118.20

LEGACY.

Brewer. Estate of Miss R. S. Atwood, by Manly Hardy 100.00 —————— $218.20

NEW HAMPSHIRE, $274.90.