Kitabı oku: «The American Missionary. Volume 43, No. 01, January, 1889», sayfa 2

ITEMS FROM THE FIELD

From a teacher in one of our schools in the mountain country:

"As I go among the homes I continually see something new which shows me how great are the needs of the people here. The primitive ways and simplicity of the mountain people strike me and I sometimes imagine that I am in a country a century behind the times. Last week I made a call at the home of one of my pupils whose mother was sick. As I entered the room I could not distinguish the faces of those who sat about the fire, for the room had no windows. The only light that came in was through a door in an outer room, and it seemed to let in more cold than light. I wondered how much work or enjoyment could be got out of such dark, small quarters, while the sick woman told of her struggle with sickness and poverty. She also gave me some history of her early life, which showed a great lack of necessary instruction in what are the best things. The children of this home look like sickly plants which have always lived in the dark and which have never felt the invigorating influence of God's beautiful sunshine. We are praying that the sunshine of God's love may be felt in the hearts of this people, even if there are no windows in their homes to let it in."

From a pastor in Kentucky:

"We are busily at work in this mountain country, and as we think of wider possibilities for the mountain boys, you cannot imagine our gratitude in view of our hopes that a new industrial department will be opened. It has been the subject of many a prayer in the closet and in teachers' meetings, and we feel that all that is needed will be supplied according to His riches who gave himself for us. He has heard our united petitions for a pastor to gather the straying flock and relieve our overworked missionaries. We held our weekly teachers' meeting on Friday. Last evening as we were sitting together as usual, one spoke of the coming pastor, when lo, he was ushered in. He has really come. We rejoice in our work, but we see so much just ahead. I long for the time to come when this interesting people shall be a 'peculiar' people in the better sense."

From a teacher at Jonesboro, Tenn.:

"Each week brings new accessions to the school: there are now nearly a hundred enrolled. All the seats in the primary room are in use, so that when Miss Smith has a full school she has to seat some of her scholars in chairs. The seats in Miss Page's room are also full. We have eight pupils who room here and board themselves. Four of them come from Scott Co., Va., coming ninety miles. They are young men and women, but they have had very little opportunity for education. They are anxious to learn and try to carefully obey the rules of the school. We hope they will gain much from church and Sunday-school and the influences thrown around them here, as well as the lessons from the school room. Yesterday we had applications from four others from the same region for accommodations—a young married man and his little daughter, seven years old—a young man and a young woman. We said, 'Come and we will do our best for you;' but if others apply we shall have to tell them we are full. These are just the kind of people we want; eager to learn and willing to do the best they can."

From a school in North Carolina:

"Your letter of the 28th, informing us that we can have assistance from the Hand Fund for a certain number of pupils, is received, and we have had a continual thanksgiving ever since. If I could tell you how the mothers looked when I told them, and if I could put down the tones of their voices as well as their words, you would be sure that the help is appreciated."

The pastor of the church and teacher of the Theological Department of Straight University writes us:

"The religious interest has so deepened that for several weeks I have been preaching three times a week. Four or five prayer meetings have been started by the students of their own accord in each other's rooms. Eleven united with us on profession of faith at our last communion, and as many more have made a start at different meetings, and will unite with us at the next communion. A remarkable feature about the work is the fact that numbers of the older students who are most deeply interested are Roman Catholics. One young man who united with us is a Spaniard from Matamoras, Mexico, and has been educated as a Roman Catholic. I believe he may be counted on to do loyal service in his native city. In this way the A.M.A. is ever doing 'foreign work,' and work which I believe will tell in Mexico, Cuba, and the Central American States.

"If some benevolent friend in the North would send us twenty-five copies of Stalker's Life of Christ, it would be of great help in this work."

Information respecting a very interesting revival of religion comes to us from Sherwood, Tenn.

Increased religious interest is reported from Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn.

The teachers in the Normal School at Lexington are taking new courage in their work in view of their increasing facilities.

One of our young men who expects to take up missionary work this fall thus expresses himself: "I don't suppose that I know very much; but one thing I know, and that is the Dakota Bible. I can read that to the people and talk about it in my own language, and they can understand me, and that is what they need; they need the Bible."—Word Carrier.

A CHINAMAN'S VIEW OF A FAMILIAR TEXT.—The writer was for a time a pupil in the White Street Mission School in New York, but he is now a prosperous laundryman at Kingston, N.Y. In a recent letter to one of his former teachers, he gives the following bit of New Testament exegesis: "I led the Young Men's Christian Association meeting on the Sunday before January 11th. The subject which I gave out: 'The Christian must be born twice;' and also read the Scriptures in chapter iii of the Gospel St. John, and explain to them. I said if a man in this world born twice, he only die once, and if a man born once he die twice. I mean if a man born twice he must born again of the spirit; his soul shall save; that is, he only die once. If a man born once his body shall die and his soul also perish; that is, he die twice. After the meeting was pass one of the old gentleman came to me and said, 'Are you a missionary?' I answered him 'No.' I said 'I am a laundryman.' And good people thought I was missionary."—The Foreign Missionary.

Full of encouragement to the workers for the Chinese here in America is the fact that most of the students entering the new Christian college in Canton were formerly Sunday-school scholars in America. Most of these converted Chinamen who return to their own country are said to take their part in various forms of Christian work. What an inspiration to the patient teacher, who spends an hour or more every Sunday in trying to Christianize a single Chinaman, to think that, in this indirect way, he, or more frequently she, may be helping on the conversion of China.—The Congregationalist.

These very just remarks are equally applicable to the work the American Missionary Association is doing so largely and effectively among the Chinese on the Pacific coast. A letter from Mr. Pond gives us this corroborative item:

"On Monday evening, November 26, we expect to hold a farewell meeting for Joe Jet, once one of our missionary helpers, who is going back to China to superintend missionary operations for our Chinese Missionary Society. He takes over $1,100 with him, contributed for this purpose by the Chinese connected with our mission. To this Missionary Society, our Christian Chinese contribute regularly each month, from twenty-five to fifty cents. They aim to do quite a large work, which they hope that the representatives of the Board will superintend, but the whole expense of which they mean to bear."

The American Missionary Association has been greatly afflicted in the death of Mrs. George A. Woodard, the wife of the Principal of Gregory Institute, Wilmington, N.C. She was a most devoted missionary, consecrating her earnestness and fidelity to the cause of Christ. She will be sadly missed by the colored people of Wilmington, and by those who are inmates of the Teachers' Home at Gregory Institute.

SYSTEMATIC SPENDING

BY REV. C.J. RYDER

The pastor of a Boston church recently handed to the District Secretary of the A.M.A. $1, saying as he did so: "That one dollar is really more than some hundreds of dollars. It is the gift of a poor woman in my congregation who depends upon her own labor for support. She gives this dollar to the A.M.A. from her hard economy." It may be that God's decimal pointing is not the same as ours in many cases.

On a table of the same district office of the A.M.A., there stands a little brown pasteboard box. In it are some tracts offered for sale. All the proceeds from their sale go into the treasury of the Association. These tracts were printed at the expense of a poor woman who has spent a long and useful life in service for others. She comes into that office now and again to see if her gift is increasing. She is not fashionably dressed. No! She never drives to the Congregational House in a carriage. I doubt if she often enjoys the luxury of a street-car ride, although she is upward of seventy years of age; and yet she never comes through that office door but she brings with her the bright glory of spiritual sunshine, and the wealth of her Lord's own presence. She is pinching herself in almost painful economy that she may have $100 to give to this great mission work before she dies, and

 
"Her great Redeemer shall call her to inherit
The heaven of wealth long garnered up for her."
 

Now let us turn a moment to the other side of the A.M.A. work. I hold in my hand a letter written upon this scrap of paper by a colored boy in the South and sent to one of our missionaries who had come North:

"Oct. 21. My Dear Friend, Mr. Brown—I wish you would if you please if you please send me three dollars and a half now if you please send it I want to buy a good little shot gun please send it."

These facts present the double responsibility which the A.M.A. sustains to its constituency in this vast and complex missionary work. None of these facts are exceptional in character. The Association must so present its work to the churches as to "constrain" them to give; drag them by the chains of Christian duty to give; those who can of their abundance abundantly; those who must of their penury, with this tremendous self-sacrifice.

An old colored preacher in Georgia, in my hearing, preached on "Pasteboard Christians." He said: "Brethren, did you neber see a pasteboard box? It's mighty nice; maybe all covered with gilt paper; looks right stiff and stout, but you just set it out in the rain and see it when it goes 'pooh,' and am all omnatiously busted. It am jest so with some Christians. They comes to meetin' with good clothes on; they looks drefful fine! But you just pass the contribution box 'round, da goes 'pooh!' and dar ain't nothin' left of 'em." It has not been my experience that there are many pasteboard Christians in the district of New England. Systematic giving, giving constantly, giving because the safety of our country requires it, and the kingdom of Christ demands it; this is the sort of giving which I have found to be the rule.

But there must be systematic spending as truly as systematic giving. The gifts of the churches must be husbanded, and the churches must be warned from time to time against wasteful and unwise efforts, by which others are seeking to do the work, which is being done systematically through your agent, the American Missionary Association.

My personal experience as Field Superintendent, has pressed upon me the imperative importance of this side of the responsibility which this Association holds to the churches. One must pass back and forth often, and become personally familiar with this great field, before he can understand the importance of the systematic spending of this Association. Wrecks of schools and churches are not few in the Southland. Godly men and women and godless adventurers have experimented in many places. Money has been and is being wasted, that might be used to great and permanent advantage if contributed through the A.M.A. and disbursed according to the principles which long experience has proved to be sound.

It is the purpose of this paper to emphasize some of the facts concerning this great missionary field, and to point out the advantages of systematic spending, which you secure when you commit your funds to this society rather than to the hap-hazard efforts which you have no power to supervise and no control over.