Kitabı oku: «The American Missionary. Volume 50, No. 09, September, 1896», sayfa 6

The Chinese

VISITS TO THREE MISSIONS

BY REV. JEE GAM

The missions visited were those at Marysville, Oroville, and Watsonville. At each place an anniversary was held, at which Dr. Pond wished me to make an address. But I felt that I had other duties to do besides this:

1. To see that those brethren who had not been baptized should come to baptism.

2. To urge those scholars who ought to join the Congregational Association of Christian Chinese to do so at once.

3. To strengthen and stimulate the brethren, not only to stand firm in their faith, but to press forward to save men through Christ.

4. To urge them to give generously to our work.

5. To preach on the street, that I might lead some one or more to Jesus.

At Marysville I lost no time in getting the names of those who had not been baptized, and who seemed ready for baptism; then the names of pupils who ought to join the association. Then I enlisted the co-operation of the baptized Christians. We just surrounded four of our brethren and urged them to give themselves publicly and wholly to Christ. They objected that they would like just to know more, but they had been under instruction between one and two years, and had confessed themselves believers six or more months ago by joining the association. We thought them well qualified to receive baptism. Finally they consented, and then we all shook hands and rejoiced. They were baptized by Dr. Pond the following Sunday evening, when after the anniversary we received the Lord's Supper and listened to Dr. Pond's sermon on our motto for the year, "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost."

The method of winning the three pupils for the Association was the same only with the added efforts of all present.

The contribution was generous. At my first mention of this matter they all held up their pledge-cards, duly signed, and with the amounts they were able to give written upon them.

On Sunday afternoon we held a street meeting, which all the brethren who could attended, and all helped.

The next day (Monday) two Marysville brethren went with us to Oroville at their own expense. The weather was intensely hot, but this did not prevent a cordial welcome to us, both at the depot and at the Mission. And here we settled down to work just as we did at Marysville. The result was that three brethren were baptized and one scholar joined the association. The new brother is an educated young man, but was a great devotee of gambling, at which he has generally lost money. On my first visit to Oroville, two years ago, I admonished him to quit this bad habit and become a Christian. He frankly acknowledged the sin, but was reluctant to cease from it till he could win back what he had lost. So I could not persuade him. And when I reached Oroville this time I was made sad at hearing that he was still a gambler, though still a pupil in the school. He came to the Mission house that evening at about 10 o'clock, and, after hand-shaking, sat down in a corner of the room. Seeing in this a fine opportunity, I said to the brethren present, "Let us gather about Jee Loy and win him to Christ to-night." There were six of us, myself included. We asked him what objection he had to becoming a Christian. He mentioned many, but we disposed of them all, not, however, without talking for nearly two hours. During the brethren's turns to speak I prayed in my heart many times, invoking God's help on our words, and begging that his heart might be opened to the truth and to Christ.

But he still refused. I then said to him, "Will you go home and think the matter over very carefully and let us know to-morrow evening?" He said that he would. A prayer was offered and he went home. We were overjoyed when he came the next evening to tell us that he had decided for Christ and would join the association, which he did at once. We were all filled with thanksgiving.

Three other things made us glad: (1) The addition of three brethren to our Bethany Church in Oroville; (2) the steadfastness and boldness of our brethren as shown at the street preaching service; and (3) their generosity. For when I spoke to them about Senator George C. Perkins and his allowing them to occupy this building for twenty years without charging a cent of rent, or even our paying the taxes upon it, and suggested that they make him a life member of our California Chinese Mission, as quick as lightning "Yes," "Yes!" was heard all over the room. In a very short time the whole amount of $25 was subscribed; and they intend, with God's help, to make Mrs. Perkins a life member next year.

The anniversaries at Marysville and Oroville were the best we ever had in either place. The Lord's Supper, in each case, was observed at the mission after the anniversary service closed, and this was followed by Dr. Pond's discourse, so that the services did not end till about 11.30 o'clock.

At Oroville, even after this, a pleasant social was held, and we tried to bring another to Christ, but did not succeed; and finally, the night being so nearly gone, and the morning train for San Francisco starting at 4 o'clock, we did not go to bed at all, but strolled through Chinatown and enjoyed the cool night air after a hot, laborious day.

At Watsonville we had similar exercises, and the joy of extending our fellowship to Dr. Quon Hun, a highly educated Chinese physician, who had attended our school for several months, and who, after studying the Lord's Prayer all alone, was led into the light of Christ, and composed a beautiful Chinese poem upon it. He had charge of the tablets of one of the Tongs, and had also his own private shrine in his office. But he returned the tablets and destroyed his own idols. He is a man greatly respected, and will be able to do a great work for Christ, though doubtless he will encounter much odium and persecution.

Bureau of Woman's Work

THE ASSOCIATION JUBILEE

BY SEC. D. E. EMERSON

Not long after emancipation a freed-woman, about 50 years old, who was learning to read, came to the word "unbound" in her lesson, and exclaimed, rapturously, "How good, to feel unbound!"

If the American Missionary Association, its work, principles, and all that it represents, could be expressed in one word, that word would be emancipation—deliverance from bondage, deliverance from caste prejudice, from ignorance, superstition, and darkness. Its mission is to preach the gospel to the poor, to loose the chains of the bound, to proclaim "The truth shall make you free."

It was a little company of earnest men and women that gathered in Albany, N. Y., in September, 1846, to form this organization. Its early history was not only of works, but of "witness," fearless and undaunted. It had a God-given mission, and this conviction sustained its brave adherents during those years of severe trial and testing. Yet all was not discouragement. Every year brought added strength in numbers and in funds. Every year showed more plainly that the hand of the Lord was in this movement.

So it worked for fifteen years, gaining varied experience in industrial, educational, evangelistic, and church work, in methods of administration, in wise use of funds. At the close of this period it was conducting prosperous missions at thirty-seven stations in its foreign field, and in the home field it had under its care 120 churches. Then came the rebellion and war, and the unmistakable call of Providence to the rapid development of missions southward. Immediately the Association, now encouraged and supported by all the churches, moved in the wake of the Union army, beginning in 1861 to work for the contrabands at Fortress Monroe, where 1,800 colored people had sought the protection of the American flag. All its varieties of experience and resources were called into action. It became a philanthropic society to feed and clothe the suffering, a Bible society to distribute the word of God. It became an industrial society to help people to homes and teach practical farming, trades, and housewifery. It established social settlements, with groups of missionary teachers living in one household among the degraded and despised people, to whom they ministered; an educational society with its system of schools; a church society, seeking always the salvation of souls and gathering of converts into churches.

Now it was that the wisdom, the heroism, the unfaltering faith of this Association, strengthened by fifteen years of valorous adherence to the gospel principles of emancipation, prepared it to launch out upon its great mission. The demands were almost overwhelming in extent and variety.

First, Fortress Monroe, then Norfolk and all eastern Virginia, Newport News, and Port Royal; then the Carolinas, Mississippi, and Tennessee. So closely did the missions follow the victorious armies that by the time the war-storm had fully cleared away, the American Missionary Association had 320 missionaries preaching and teaching the gospel to the freedmen, with 16,000 pupils in its schools. No wonder that it was said, "Behold how God has fitted this Association for this vast and mighty work."

The development of this marvelous work has many thrilling chapters among the forty-nine that have been already written. They tell the story briefly of the devoted men and women who have been carrying on the blessed work of emancipation. They show how not less than 3,000 women have given of their best talent and strength to this Christ-like service. They speak of the perils by shotgun and by fire; of imprisonment, ostracism, and scorn; of persecution, that it was believed the progress of the age had made impossible in these later days, but which the State of Florida has been able to revive. But these chapters tell also how the truth has been setting many free, blacks and whites alike, bringing them into a truer conception of God's fatherhood, man's brotherhood through sonship by Jesus Christ.

The American Missionary Association finds its highest testimonial in the work itself, in its system of Christian schools, including graded primaries, academies, normal and industrial schools, in its colleges in each of five states, and in its advancing church work. Nay, its best testimonial is in the product from these schools and churches, the teachers and preachers, lawyers and doctors, the good farmers and mechanics, the upright mothers and fathers, the sweet though humble homes, the conscientious Christian citizens, in whose influence and leadership lies the hope of the African race. It finds its testimonial in the loyalty and devotion of its missionaries, their self-denial for the cause they love. It has seen a gifted woman from a home of comfort going year by year for twenty years to this work of emancipation for the "bound" in Georgia and Tennessee, among a despised people, and, when called from earth and earth's opportunities, leaving a liberal sum to continue the work of Christian education. It has seen many another consecrated missionary take from the savings of a lifetime, to enable the Association to light one more lamp for the dark places of the South, and not a few turn back three-fourths of their small salaries to help in sustaining the work. The liberality of the missionaries testifies not only to the genuineness of the work, but to the importance of the field and its irresistible appeal.

With such a history the American Missionary Association stands before the churches in this, its fiftieth, year. God has graciously widened the fields before it. The 4,000,000 of freed slaves are a race of 8,000,000 in our midst. "Never since the apostolic age has there been open to the church a field so vast, so urgent, so hopeful."

God has graciously widened the mission fields of the Association; the mountain regions of the South have been opened, and the gospel, carried with such personal risk fifty years ago, reaching only here and there a few, may be carried freely to the 2,000,000 of our mountain countrymen mentally and spiritually bound. God has graciously widened the fields. The Indian missions present their claim, for wherever a pagan Indian tribe remains there may the gospel be carried quickly and without personal harm. The providential call has been heard also, and answered by this Association, for the Chinese within our borders and the Eskimo on the Alaskan coast. The work of this Association may well be the glory of the churches. God has done His part. He has opened the fields, He has richly blessed every effort toward enlightenment and Christian civilization. The missionaries have done their part in prayer, in labor, in gifts, in voicing the earnest appeal of these poor, whose greatest need is Christian education and a pure gospel.