Part 3

Here may be one of the ways in which the postponement of this measure will be a blessing. Time is something much needed in the Indian’s re-adjustment of himself to the new conditions of life. If he can only be encouraged now to exert himself to establish a separate home and open a farm; if he can be guided so as to avoid serious mistakes, he will come out the better for the delay. Let the Christian public throw their sympathy and interest towards securing this end. The Government is well disposed, but cannot act alone. It will do what the public demands.

What is needed is the multiplication of such sub-agents as our Rev. John E. Smith at the Ponca Agency, Dakota, who is both Government teacher and our missionary. He knows every man, woman and child in his charge, and just what they are doing.

Or take our native missionary, Mr. Francis Frazier, at Burrell Station, Swift Bear’s colony. He is himself a practical farmer, _and an Indian_. What Indian has done, Indian can do.

Now, if such men were planted all over the Sioux country in charge of small colonies of farming Indians, properly backed up by Government, the progress of this people would be rapid. As it is, the colony from Rosebud Agency at Swift Bear’s have to choose between the barren lands near the Agency, or spend half their time traveling back and forth over the one hundred and forty miles to their farms located in the best land of the whole reserve. There is no encouragement in that for an Indian to choose land that will bring him a living when Government rations cease.

* * * * *

THE GRAND RIVER MISSION

Miss Collins’ introduction to work in her new field has been no tame affair, as far as the physical elements could make it. The winter has been unusually cold and stormy. But the people have welcomed her cordially, and she has been especially helpful to the sick. Her administration of simple remedies has been blessed of the Lord to work a number of cures, which, to the Indians, have seemed miraculous and have given her a reputation as a healer, so that they bring their sick to her from all directions. One morning she found at her door a young woman sick with pneumonia, who had been brought there on a hand sled by her mother and sister through a fearful snow storm. Miss Collins expostulated with them for so exposing the sick one. The mother answered: “We heard that unless you see their body with your own eyes, and lay your hands upon them, you cannot heal them.” This report, no doubt, arose from her feeling the pulse of the sick.

A child, whose sister had died with convulsions and St. Vitus’ dance, and who was also thought to be dying in the same way, was brought to her. The spasms were relieved at once, and in a few days the root of the difficulty was discovered and she was cured.

Elias Gilbert, the new teacher who takes the place of Edwin Phelps during his absence at Hampton, works in finely. He is very enthusiastic over the progress the people have made under his predecessor and the hearty interest they take in the school and in church services. On the Sabbath there is a very interesting woman’s meeting, numbering about thirty, mostly mothers.

Adams Wakanna is the new worker at Oak Lake, another point in this field. This is newer ground, and the people are yet in careless ignorance of the way of life. But our native helper is full of zeal, for this very reason. He is working well.

Edwin Phelps, who has worked so long and so well in this field, is now at Hampton, Va., taking Bible studies and serving as Indian Chaplain there. Many of the pupils at Hampton are from his own field at Standing Rock Agency. So he has a special interest in them and a personal hold upon them. He cannot fail to do them good.

This Grand River field should at once have a thorough equipment of buildings and missionary force. Four thousand dollars were given two years ago by Mr. E. B. Monroe to build this Mission. But everything waits for the fit man for a missionary.

* * * * *

THE CHINESE.

* * * * *

A NEW HOME.

BY THE REV. C. T. WEITZEL.

The Santa Barbara Chinese Mission has taken a long step forward. Until the beginning of this year, its rooms were hired. Now it lives in rooms of its own on grounds of its own.

Some time before the annual visit of our faithful Superintendent, the Rev. W. C. Pond, the further use of its old quarters had been denied the mission. In this emergency the teacher of the school, Mrs. E. M. Shattuck, opened her own house for its meetings until it should appear what was wise to do next.

The problem had already been considered by Mr. Pond. With a faith, an energy and a wise caution all alike admirable, he set about the solution of it. Within forty-eight hours after the steamer landed him, a desirable lot had been purchased and the contract for a mission-house made. In a week’s time the building was sufficiently advanced to be used by the young men for their Chinese New-year’s reception. On the evening of Feb. 11th, it was formally dedicated. I had charge of the service, and fully sympathized with Mr. Pond’s earnest wish that it should be a decidedly religious and solemn one. His letter for the occasion, and the addresses of the evening, which were interpreted by the helper, Foo King, all strongly emphasized the religious purpose and character of this mission work. The building was set apart not only as a place of instruction, but also as a place of worship; not only as a school, but also as a sanctuary. May it become, indeed, a sacred place to many of these our brethren by the manifestation of the Divine Spirit in His enlightening and converting power!

As for the spiritual results among these young men, it is even more difficult than in ordinary evangelistic effort to speak definitely and positively. Yet no one, it seems to me, can look into the many eager and open countenances to be seen every evening in those mission rooms, without the conviction that somehow the good seed is growing in those hearts. Nor can I note the cheerful alacrity and the large generosity with which these young men have contributed toward the cost of the new building without a feeling that they have, on the whole, a worthy conception of its purpose. And I certainly cannot contrast the debasing, poisonous atmosphere of the ordinary resorts of their countrymen in Chinatown with the healthy, uplifting atmosphere of this mission home, without the thankful assurance that this is a refuge from temptation as well as an inspiration to a better life for every one of these scholars.

That the Chinese Mission of Santa Barbara is doing good, there is not a doubt in my mind. One of their number made a public confession of his faith in Christ the past year, making four who are now members of the Congregational church. Two or three more are anxious to be baptized, but dare not yet take this step for fear of the bitter opposition and the complete ostracism which they say they must expect from their family connections here and in China if they do.

* * * * *

BUREAU OF WOMAN’S WORK.

MISS D. E. EMERSON, SECRETARY.

* * * * *

_My dear friends_:

It is Monday morning, “bright and early.” I have taken my seat by an open window, not so much to enjoy the beautiful outside view of green fields and budding trees as the pleasure of a little talk with you.

There are so many things that I want to tell you, I hardly know which to select, but think I will first tell about

“The Mothers’ League.”

I had felt so deeply that more must be done in careful home training by the mothers of these young girls I meet in Sunday-school and sewing-school, if we would raise up true and pure maidens, that I resolved to try to bring more of the mothers together, that we might freely talk the matter over, hoping thus to bring them into a fuller sympathy and helpfulness with my work and with each other. I bought a package of twenty-five visiting cards, and wrote upon each as follows: “The Mothers’ League will meet at Porter Mission, E. Cedar street, at 3 o’clock, next Saturday evening. You are cordially invited to be present.” Then I sent two of our little Sunday-school girls to take them to the homes of those living near each other.

Last Saturday sixteen of these mothers responded by their presence, and we had a very impressive meeting. Mrs. H., of Tillotson Institute, kindly went with me, and spoke pleasantly to them about the very earliest influence of the mother upon her children. I gave them a few incisive thoughts from God’s Word, one of which was this: “As is the mother, so is her daughter.” The poor burdened mothers, who do so desire to be faithful to their children, but feel so helpless, listened earnestly and with eyes full of tears.

When the question was asked, how many of you would like to join this Mothers’ League? every hand was raised. It seemed best then to suggest only one point of agreement, viz., to pray daily for God’s help in their duties as mothers, and for God’s blessing upon the Mothers’ League.

When asked to suggest the best time when all could unite, one said: “I shall think about it all the day long.” Another said: “I shall pray for it every day at 12 o’clock.” The oldest mother present said: “I think the best time is the first thing in the morning, for we have to pray then, any way.” So it was agreed that with the first waking moments the prayer “God bless the Mothers’ League,” shall ascend from sixteen mothers’ hearts. Will He not bless?

I suggested that we meet again the first Saturday in April, but they said: “That will be a long time to wait; can’t we have another meeting in two weeks?” Consent was given. Then another said: “Can’t we sometimes bring our girls with us?” Consent was given that on the first Saturday in April they might bring their daughters.

I took with me from Tillotson Institute two of the “Young Daughters of the King,” to help in singing, and in this way do something for Jesus. The one who played the organ is the daughter of a minister, who is now pastor of a Congregational Church in Texas, and who was educated in the A. M. A. schools. So true it is that the circle of influence is ever widening.

I find that I have nearly filled my paper, and must leave other things until another time.

We have recently had a cheering visit from Rev. Dr. Beard, Secretary of the American Missionary Association, and the one who has the special charge of the Southern work. Texas is so far away from the centre of things, that we are not often thus favored; so that such visits are the more highly prized when they do come.

M. J. A.

* * * * *

We have had a great spiritual blessing. Only three of my thirty-three Sunday-school boys are not Christians. Sometimes the responsibility almost overpowers me. They have so little help at home, but find so much to hinder and discourage. One bright, smart boy of fifteen has within a few months come into my class, and has accepted Jesus as his Saviour. For nine years he has been smoking, following the example of his father and older brother. Since his conversion he feels he cannot follow this habit, and he is making brave efforts to overcome it. Young as he is, the habit has a very strong hold upon him, and he finds it hard work. But God is helping him, and I know he will succeed. He comes to me each night to report his progress, and for a week has met me every night with a glad smile and the words: “God has helped me, and I haven’t smoked to-day.” One day he got so far as to light the cigarette a boy had forced upon him, but he remembered the verse he had just learned—I Corinthians x, 13—and he threw the cigarette away. There are many equally interesting cases, where help and encouragement are so much needed.

* * * * *

ONE OF OUR SCHOLARS.—He is in the Third Reader class, and is learning the simplest questions in arithmetic. This is his first year in school, and instead of being a little boy, as you might suppose, he is thirty-five years old, and a “Baptist preacher.”

When he first came, he said: “I ain’t got no learning; what I knows, I just picked up myself.”

One of the boys said: “I advised him to come, so that he can learn to explain, and when he gets up to preach, folks won’t sniggle in their sleeves.”

* * * * *

FOR THE CHILDREN.

* * * * *

DOLLARS FOR SELF, AND CENTS FOR CHRIST.

“Yes, I always give for missions and everything else,” said Phil. “I give something every Sunday; don’t you?”

“Why, no; I give five or ten cents when I think I can spare it, when I have a good deal of money and don’t want it for anything,” said Tom.

“I give whatever papa or mamma gives me for it,” said James. “Sometimes it’s more, and sometimes it’s less.”

“Oh, I always give my own money!” said Phil. “I don’t think it’s any giving at all unless you do that.”

“Yours is the best way, I’m sure,” said Tom, soberly. “They say it’s the regular giving that counts.”

“And then, of course, what you give is just so much out of what you’d like to spend on yourself.”

“Yes,” said Phil, feeling very self-denying and virtuous.

“I’m going to try your way,” said Tom. “And I’m going to keep an account and see what it will amount to.”

The three boys were on their way home from Sunday-school, where they had heard from a missionary some very interesting accounts of the great work which is going on in Africa. He had succeeded in deeply stirring the sympathies of his young hearers, so that many of them went away with the solemn feeling that they should in some sense be held answerable if they did not strive to hold out a helping hand to those in such sore need. For the present it was plain that missionary interest was to be centered in the “dark continent,” and little societies were formed among Sunday-school children, they believing it would be pleasanter to put their gifts together than to offer them separately.

Several boys came to Phil’s house on the next afternoon to talk it over, and Phil brought his account-book to put down their names as the first members of their society, with a preamble in which occurred many high-sounding words setting forth their resolves and intentions.

“What’s this, Phil?” asked his uncle, picking up the book on the same evening, after tea.

“Oh, that’s my account-book, uncle; I brought it down to take names and draw up resolutions for our missionary society.”

“May I read it, or is it a secret organization?”

“Certainly, you may. I am simply, you know, trying to work up the idea of liberal giving among the boys.”

“A most excellent idea,” said his uncle, concealing his amusement at Phil’s rather pompous tone. “Let me see: Bananas, twenty-five cents; soda water, ten cents; peanuts, twenty-five cents; bat, thirty-five cents; candy, fifteen cents; base-ball cap, seventy-five cents; Sunday-school, six cents——”

“Oh, stop, Uncle George; that isn’t in it! That’s when I was visiting at Cousin Tom’s, and I promised mamma that I’d put down every cent I spent.”

But Uncle George seemed not to hear, and went on:

“Peanuts, fifteen cents; bananas, twenty-five cents; getting shoe mended, forty cents; soda water, ten cents; missionaries, five cents; getting bat mended, fifteen cents; lemonade for the boys, fifty cents; bananas, twenty-five cents; collection in church, two cents.”

“_Please_ give me the book, uncle.”

“I’m glad you don’t forget your charitable duties, Phil,” said his uncle, giving up the book with rather a mischievous smile.

Phil took it in some confusion. He had heretofore thought but little more of his spendings than to remember his mother’s wish that he should keep an account of the money with which she had kept him so liberally supplied. Now, in looking over his hasty entries, he was astonished.

“Well, well!” he exclaimed, as he added up one page: “two dollars and ninety cents for eating and play, and seventeen cents for giving, and I bragging to the boys what a good thing it is to give regularly!”

He was a conscientious boy, and his heart smote him as he ran over the long list, and thought with his newly-awakened feelings, of the bread of life which that money might have carried to starving souls. If his mother had aimed to teach him a lesson through his account-book, she had not failed.

He got up at last and stood before the glass.

“Now, my young man,” said he, shaking his head very threateningly at the boyish face he saw there, “you know very well that a quarter for peanuts doesn’t look any larger to you than a pin’s head, and that a quarter for giving looks as big as a cart-wheel—but that’s got to stop, sir! This book isn’t going to hold any more accounts of dollars for trash and cents for Sunday-school.”—_The Christian Giver._

* * * * *

RECEIPTS FOR MARCH, 1887.

* * * * *

MAINE, $168.30.

Auburn. High St. Cong. Ch $25.00 Augusta. Sab. Sch. Class, Cong. Ch.; by Alice Means, Treas., 3, Miss K. Carpenter’s Class, 3, _for Talladega C._ 6.00 Bangor. “A Friend,” _for Debt_ 5.00 Bath. Winter St. Cong. Ch., 2 bbls. of C., _for Selma, Ala._, 2.70 _for freight_ 2.70 Bethel. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 11.56 Blue Hill. Miss Caroline Joy, _for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 2.50 Castine. Class No. 9, Trinity Sab. Sch., _for Student Aid, Tougaloo U._ 1.05 Foxcroft and Dover. Cong. Ch., ad’l to const. C. C. NICHOLS L. M. 24.00 Hallowell. By Sylvina L. Smith, _for freight_ 3.00 Machias. Cong. Ch. 6.42 Portland. Saint Lawrence St. Ch., 20; J. J. Gerrish, 10 30.00 Scarboro. Cong. Ch. 5.50 South Waterford. Miss M. E. Shurtleff 1.00 Turner. Cong. Ch. 4.28 Wells. B. Maxwell, _for Debt_ 10.00 Westbrook. Second Cong. Ch. 15.79 West Brooksville. Miss Lucy J. Henry, _for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 2.50 Woolwich. Cong. Ch. 12.00

NEW HAMPSHIRE, $534.27.

Alstead East. Cong. Ch. $9.54 Alstead Center. Cong. Ch. 7.94 Concord. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 20.00 Concord. Miss Folger, _for Talledega C._ 2.00 Exeter. Cong. Ch., 4.97; Miss Alcina Grover, 1 _for Atlanta U._ 5.97 Fitzwilliam. Horace Cooledge, 5; C. D. Bigelow, 1. 6.00 Francestown. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 17.05 Great Falls. Mrs. H. F. Dixon, _for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 10.00 Greenfield. Cong. Ch. 13.00 Hanover. “A Friend” 20.00 Lancaster. Mrs. A. M. Amsden 5.00 Littleton. Mrs. B. W. Kilburn, _for the Debt_ 3.00 Lyme. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 14.91 Milford. “Willing Workers,” _for Student Aid, Tougaloo U._ 50.00 Pembroke. Prof. I. Walker’s Bible Class, _for Student Aid, Wilmington, N.C._ 3.00 Penacook. Cong. Ch., 18.11; Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch., 10 28.11 Tilton. Cong. Ch. 40.00 ———————— $255.52

LEGACIES.

Goffstown. Heirs Estate of Miss Frances Meriam, by Samuel Upson, Admr. $78.75 Hollis. Estate of John C. Jewett, by E. J. Colburn, Ex. 200.00 ———————— $534.27

VERMONT, $702.64.

Bennington Center. Bbl. of C. and 5, _for McIntosh, Ga._ $5.00 Berlin. First Cong. Ch. 8.48 Berlin. Bbl. of C., _for McIntosh, Ga._ Bradford. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 29.21 Brandon. Mrs. L. G. Case, _for Indian M._ 5.00 Burlington. Eldridge Sab. Sch. 3.00 Charlotte. “M. L. H.” 2.00 Chelsea. Ladies, _for McIntosh, Ga._ 10.00 Fairlee. Cong. Ch. 13.12 Greensboro. Cong. Ch. 5.50 Jericho Center. Mrs. Julia Graves 5.00 Lowell. Cong. Ch. 5.41 Milton. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 2.51 Montgomery Center. Heman Hopkins 2.00 New Haven. Mrs. Cephas H. Kent, _for Jones Kindergarten, Atlanta, Ga._ 5.00 Newport. M. B. Hall 2.00 North Bennington. Cong. Ch. 13.14 Northfield. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 11.75 North Thetford. Cong. Ch. 6.62 North Troy. Bbl. of C. and 2, _for McIntosh, Ga._ 2.00 Orwell. Ladies’ of Cong. Ch., _for McIntosh, Ga._ 17.50 Post Mills. Cong. Ch. 5.00 Sheldon. S. M. Hulbert. 5.00 Springfield. —— 200.00 Springfield. A. Woolson, _for Atlanta U._ 20.00 West Brattleboro. Cong. Ch. 13.01 West Fairlee. Mrs. C. M. Holbrook 1.50 West Fairlee Center. Mrs. E. May 5.00 Westfield. Cong. Ch. 6.62 West Randolph. Girls’ Mission Circle, 10; Ladies’ Mission Soc., 10, by Mrs. V. M. Hardy, _for McIntosh, Ga._ 20.00 Windham. Cong. Ch. and Soc., 36.05, to const. EMORY H. JONES L. M., Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch., 15.22 51.27 ———————— $481.64 LEGACIES.

Jamaica. Estate of Mrs. Hepsibah H. Stowell, by Mrs. Ella J. Robinson, to const. JOHN C. ROBINSON, MRS. ELLA J. ROBINSON, MRS. LUCY KELLOGG, MRS. MARY MUZZY, MRS. NORA MUZZY and MISS JENNIE BARNES L. M.’s. $200.00 Jericho. Estate of Hosea Spaulding, C. M. Spaulding, 10; A. C. Spaulding, 5; Nellie M. Percival, 3; E. J. Spaulding, 3 21.00 ———————— $702.64

MASSACHUSETTS, $6,261.64.