The American missionary — volume 42, no. 9, September, 1888

“_Dear Teacher_:

“I am arrived here safely, Nov. 15th, Tuesday, at noon. I thank you and Miss Lilian [daughter of Mrs. Lamont, and, like her mother, one of our teachers] very much indeed for your lovely present and the letter which you given me. I used to read it very often because it is very improve to me, and that I know the Lord Jesus has opened my soul-eye and raised me from the death of sin to a life of righteousness. I will to tell all my countrymen what great thing Jesus has done for me, just as much as I can speak to.

“Now I want to tell you about our journey. We have met fifteen missionary ladies and gentlemen. Some go to Japan and some to China. And several Chinese Christian brethren were there, and we have joined with the missionary to have service on every Sunday morning. I am very glad we have so pleasant opportunity on the ship—sing to praise God and spoke the gospel of Jesus.

“But on the Oct. 26th we meet a great tempest; the waves run over the deck, and the wind against the ship, dreadful. That made the Chinese heathen complain and say many wicked words against us Christians; and they said to themselves, too: ‘We must not allow these Chinese Christians have the meeting on the ship because they tell us believe in Jesus and not worship the idol and image; therefore the evil spirits made the wind and the waves against the ship.’ Oh, I am very sorry for them, so foolish, when I heard that. For we trust in God and know he will take care of us, and even the tempest so great. God made it peaceful, and carry us all to get through safely—never drown. We should all thank God for his mercies and praise him so great and so powerful. But the heathen not mind God and do not care for their souls.

“The missionary was very kindly to them and pity them so ignorant.

“On the 6th of Nov. Mr. Chalfant read Acts 17:24-30, and I read it in Chinese and we try to explain it to them, but they were very proud, and not want to hear the Gospel of Jesus. They only crowd round us and make terrible noise, with revilings and indignity to us. That was to be fulfilled the words which Jesus had said to us Christians: ‘Ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.’ Well, no matter what _they_ said; the Bible says: ‘Love your enemies and do kindly to them that hated you,’ and we know God will be with us and help us in trouble, and even the heathen so persecuted us, but we do kindly to them and pray for them. Now please pray for me, for the temptation is great here; and pray for the missionary in China. * * * I do not forget all your kindness to me. Let God bless you and your family and all the scholars, and increase the number that believe in Jesus our Saviour. From Your scholar,

NG HING.”

I have room for a sentence or two from Chin Toy at Sacramento, in a letter just received: “The tracts and small books were duly received. I was very glad for them. I think will do much good to our people. Street meetings here every Sunday. I give out some of the tracts at the end of the preaching. All hearers seemed very glad to come and get them. Each one say, ‘Give me a piece.’ I trust the Lord will bless the seed still growing, which were sown on these ground. This school is better lately. Had five or six new scholars come last week. The Christian brethren are all well and attend the meeting regularly.”

And here is a little of the “shady side” in another field: “I found these three brethren here not quite love each other. They too much complained each other’s faults. I felt very sorry for them. I think every one of them is try to do right, but they are all impatient; that is the trouble. I visited some stores in Chinatown; invited men to come to school. Some men told me many scholars stayed away because the Christian boys quarrel. So I thought better write you that you will pray for them on that matter. I told them we must love and forgive each other, hold fast together in the bond of peace, and serve the Lord with the pure heart, then we will bring forth fruit.”

Sound doctrine, to which many a company of American believers would do well to take heed, though it comes from the pen of one who once sat in darkness and worshipped idol-gods!

WM. C. POND.

* * * * *

BUREAU OF WOMAN’S WORK.

MISS D. E. EMERSON, SECRETARY.

* * * * *

WOMAN’S STATE ORGANIZATIONS.

CO-OPERATING WITH THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

ME.—Woman’s Aid to A. M. A., Chairman of Committee, Mrs. C. A. Woodbury, Woodfords, Me.

VT.—Woman’s Aid to A. M. A., Chairman of Committee, Mrs. Henry Fairbanks, St. Johnsbury, Vt.

VT.—Woman’s Home Miss. Union, Secretary, Mrs. Ellen Osgood, Montpelier, Vt.

CONN.—Woman’s Home Miss. Union, Secretary, Mrs. S. M. Hotchkiss, 171 Capitol Ave., Hartford, Conn.

N.Y.—Woman’s Home Miss. Union, Secretary, Mrs. William Spalding, Salmon Block, Syracuse, N.Y.

ALA.—Woman’s Missionary Association, Secretary, Mrs. G. W. Andrews, Talladega, Ala.

OHIO.—Woman’s Home Miss. Union, Secretary, Mrs. Flora K. Regal, Oberlin, Ohio.

IND.—Woman’s Home Miss. Union, Secretary, Mrs. C. H. Rogers, Michigan City, Ind.

ILL.—Woman’s Home Miss. Union, Secretary, Mrs. C. H. Taintor, 151 Washington St., Chicago, Ill.

MICH.—Woman’s Home Miss. Union, Secretary, Mrs. Mary B. Warren, Lansing, Mich.

WIS.—Woman’s Home Miss. Union, Secretary, Mrs. C. Matter, Brodhead, Wis.

MINN.—Woman’s Home Miss. Society, Secretary, Mrs. H. L. Chase, 2,750 Second Ave., South, Minneapolis, Minn.

IOWA.—Woman’s Home Miss. Union, Secretary, Miss Ella E. Marsh, Grinnell, Iowa.

KANSAS.—Woman’s Home Miss. Society, Secretary, Mrs. Addison Blanchard, Topeka, Kan.

NEB.—Woman’s Home Miss. Union, President, Mrs. F. H. Leavitt, 1216 H St., Lincoln, Neb.

SOUTH DAKOTA.—Woman’s Home Miss. Union, Secretary, Mrs. S. E. Young, Sioux Falls, Dak.

LETTER FROM SAN FRANCISCO.

_My Dear Miss Emerson_:

Having just returned from my class of Chinese children, my mother thought, for the sake of variety, I might give an account of this interesting though curious gathering. This class was formed about three years ago. There was no Sabbath-school for Chinese children at the time, and seeing the great need of one, and being unable to attend to it on Sunday, I decided to have it on Friday afternoon, at three o’clock.

About three-quarters of an hour before the time for commencing, I start for the children, going from home to home, inviting and coaxing them to come. I sometimes carry with me pieces of cake and candy or a bright text-card to attract those who seem more timid than the rest.

If I meet a stray child on the street, I say “Na lie dook she?” (You come to school?) Sometimes my labors are rewarded by seeing a bundle of clothes slip past me, and a minute afterward all is lost in oblivion in a small alley; but sometimes they slip their dirty hands into mine and trudge along with me, amid the jeers and contemptuous smiles of those passing by. Finally we arrive at our school room, between twenty and thirty children being present, ranging all the way from five to twelve years. We commence by singing three or four hymns; then all rise and repeat a prayer after me in concert, sentence by sentence. I then explain the Sabbath-school lesson through an interpreter, and either show the picture of the International Lessons, or a black-board drawing, and sometimes an object. I find, as with all children, their interest can be awakened and held by means of an object or picture. After letting each repeat the text given the week before, we close with the Lord’s Prayer in Chinese; and after good-bye is said all around, I dismiss them, taking some of them home, as their parents are afraid to trust them across the car tracks alone.

These children are exceedingly bright and attentive, and as to their good behavior, I can sometimes hold up their example as worthy of the imitation of my class of American boys. Only to-day, in speaking of the lesson on “Worshiping the Golden Calf,” I asked which they worshiped, God or idols, and one little girl said, “Me worship God; idols no good. They have eyes, no see; hands and feet, and no walk.” And when I asked all to raise their hands who would worship Jesus, she raised both hands. When shown the picture of Abraham offering Isaac, one of them said, “Why did not he run away?” One day, when taking home a little girl of five years of age, she looked at the cable car which was passing, and said, “What for does that car go faster than that one (pointing to a horse car)? That has no horse.” They ask innumerable questions, and want to know the why and wherefore of everything.

Oh! my dear Christian friends, pray for me, that I may be aided in teaching and guiding these precious souls, on whom so much of China’s progress depends.

Yours in Christ,

LILIAN LAMONT.

OUR YOUNG FOLKS.

* * * * *

LITTLE INDIANS.

Perhaps there are little children in some of the beautiful homes in the cities who cannot understand that the Indians are not all born grown up, with feathers on their heads and tomahawks in their hands. One little blue-eyed girl once said to me with a very long O-o-o-o and her hand over her mouth, “Oh, o-h! I did not know there were little Indian boys and girls!” but let me tell you, little Golden Hair, there are Indian boys and girls.

They have some very funny names, too. But there is one thing pleasant about it; their names are given to them because they mean something. As I write this article, I look out from my window and see an Indian boy with a roughly-made sled drawing his little sister up the hill so that she can slide down again behind him. Little Indians are not wholly unlike little white boys and girls. They eat and sleep, laugh and cry, but they do not fight. That comes with civilization.

I can from my window watch the boys and girls playing on the hillside every day as long as the snow lasts, and I never have heard a child cry nor have I seen one child hurt another. I can hear them laugh and shout and cheer when one tumbles off the sled, but no angry or bad words are ever used. They are very merry and happy when we remember that there is no Indian child that does not know what it is to be hungry and have the mother say there is no food.

When a little baby comes into an Indian home, he is wrapped up in a blanket and it is tied all about him so that he cannot use his arms or legs, and he looks very much like a rag doll, but he cries and laughs just like a real flesh and blood and bones baby. But, little Golden Hair, let me whisper to you one secret of the Indian baby’s happy life: he never gets _spanked_! They leave that to the uncivilized white mother. So, after all, the white boy does not have all the good in life; does he? Only think of sliding down hill a whole morning without even a board between the smooth snow and the trousers, going home with wet and worn clothes and not getting whipped; not even sent to bed!

Indian children are never punished; but, after all, they are not bad. The boys like to hunt the snowbirds with bows and arrows. They kill a great many too. The little girls play with corn-cob dolls and little tents and travois, or _toshoes_, as they call them, sometimes drawn by dogs.

The Indian children have hard lives after all. They cannot live to grow up unless they are pretty strong. A great many little ones die for want of good, wholesome food, and many for want of fresh air and warm clothes. We want all the little boys and girls in Christian homes to remember the little Dakotas. There is much good in them; and if they had the advantages you have, perhaps they would be fully as well behaved, and as true and faithful to God, as are you. Will you help us to save the little Indians?

MARY C. COLLINS.

* * * * *

LITTLE INDIAN CHILDREN IN THE BIRDS’ NEST AT SANTEE AGENCY, NEB.

They are such happy little girls, and so easily entertained. Just now I saw two of them getting such a merry time out of dragging the bowl of a large pewter spoon over the ground for a wagon, putting a little stick in the way to represent water they had to cross—for our recent rains have flooded the bottom-lands in several places. There was a nail lying in the spoon, and I asked what that meant. “Oh,” Maggie said, “that is me, and I am going to the store to buy some beads.” A shorter nail was there to represent her younger playmate. No little girls to-day, pushing their red-cheeked wax dollies in their miniature baby carriages, are any happier than our little Indian girls, drawing their broken pewter spoon and representing themselves by old rusty nails.

At our Missionary Society, which meets every Saturday for an hour, I generally read them a little story; sometimes from “The Pansy,” which was sent us last year, or from “Our Little Men and Women,” also a gift from an unknown friend. They enjoy it always and like to see the pictures; but the book that holds the charm, and of which they never tire, is “The Story of the Bible.”

They have pieced two small quilts and one large one this season, and will finish two others of medium size. Our mite box contains $2.50 at this date. These are the pennies that their parents send them to be used in this way, and occasionally they earn one by some little service for us.

HARRIET B. ILSLEY.

* * * * *

RECEIPTS FOR JULY, 1888.

* * * * *

MAINE, $1,281.94.

Bangor. Hammond St. Ch. $75.75 Bangor. J.H. Crosby, _for Atlanta U._ 5.00 Bethel. Sab. Sch. of Second Cong. Ch. 12.50 Blanchard. Mrs. Rose B. Packard, deceased, by J. C. B. Packard 5.00 Brunswick. Mrs. S. F. C. Hammond, _for Student Aid, Atlanta U._ 25.00 Castine. Trin. Cong. Ch. 5.00 Castine. Class No. 9, Trin. Sab. Sch., _for Student Aid, Tougaloo U._ 1.25 Eastport. Sab. Ch. of Central Cong. Ch. 5.00 Falmouth. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 23.50 Gorham. Miss E. B. Emery, _for Atlanta U._ 25.00 Hallowell. Mrs. H. K. Baker 5.00 Hampden. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 5.79 North Yarmouth. Rev. J. B. Carruthers, 5; Cong. Ch. and Soc., 4 9.00 Portland. State St. Cong. Ch. and Soc., 150; Williston Ch., 84; Rev. F. T. Bayley, 25 259.00 Saco. First Parish Ch. 21.68 Skowhegan. Island Av. Cong. Ch. 12.65 South Waterford. Miss M. E. Shurtleff 10.00 Wells. B. Maxwell, 20; First Cong. Ch. and Soc., 10.25 30.25 ——. “Friend in Maine,” _for Williamsburg, Ky._ 10.00 Woman’s Aid to A. M. A., by Mrs. C. A. Woodbury, Treas., _for Woman’s Work_. Albany. Mrs. H. G. Lovejoy 3.00 Albany. Mrs. A. K. Cummings 3.00 Auburn. High St. 25.00 Auburn. Sixth St. 5.00 Bethel. First Ch. 14.00 Bethel. Second Ch. 12.00 Bethel. Sec. Ch., Little Helpers 3.00 Brunswick. 72.00 Berlin. (N.H.) 10.00 Calais. 10.00 Cape Elizabeth. Star Mission Circle 3.60 Cumberland Center. 20.00 Dennysville. 6.50 Dennysville. Dea. E. P. Vose 5.00 Dover and Foxcroft. Ch. 17.00 East Baldwin. 10.00 East Machias. 4.00 Freeport. 22.00 Freeport, South. 42.35 Gilead. 1.00 Gray. 6.50 Harpswell Center. 10.00 Harrison. 6.00 Jonesboro. 1.00 Jonesport. 2.00 Lewiston. Pine St. 27.00 Machias. 20.00 Machiasport. 8.75 Marshfield. 2.00 Mechanic Falls. 13.50 Minot Center. 18.00 New Gloucester. 26.50 North Yarmouth. 4.00 Oxford. 2.50 Phippsburg. 5.23 Portland. High St. Ch. 75.00 Portland. State St. Ch. 50.00 Portland. Second Parish Ch. 40.00 Pownal. 3.10 Red Beach. 1.00 Shelburne. (N.H.) 2.00 South Bridgton. 5.25 Steuben. 5.00 Sweden. 2.00 Turner. 15.00 Upton. 2.25 West Auburn. 3.05 West Minot and Hebron. 6.50 Whiting. 1.75 Yarmouth. First Parish. 48.60 —————— 701.93 Received by Mrs. J.P. Hubbard, _for Williamsburg, Ky._ Hiram. Mrs. Z.W. Banks, _for Student Aid_ 1.00 North Yarmouth. Mrs. J.B. Carruthers, _for Student Aid_ 11.14 Portland. Mrs. Nathan Dane, _for Student Aid_ 5.00 Woodfords. S. S. Class, by Miss W. Perry, _for Student Aid_ 4.00 Bethel. Mrs. D. W. Hardy, _for Freight_ 3.00 Biddeford. Mrs. J. W. Haley, _for Freight_ 1.00 Farmington Falls. Miss S. G. Croswell, _for Freight_ 2.00 Litchfield Corner. Mrs. J. T. Hawes, _for Freight_ 1.00 South Freeport. Miss H. H. Ilsley, _for Freight_ 4.50 West Falmouth. Rev. W. H. Haskell, _for Freight_ 1.00 —————— 33.64 Clothing, etc., received by Mrs. J. P. Hubbard, _for Williamsburg, Ky._: Auburn. Bbl., by Mrs. F.S. Root Bethel. Bbl., by Mrs. D. W. Hardy Biddeford. Bbl., by Mrs. J. W. Haley Falmouth. Bbl., by Mrs. Geo. O. Knight Farmington Falls. Miss Susan G. Croswell, Box of Hats Litchfield Corner. Bbl., by Mrs. J. T. Hawes North Yarmouth. Bbl., by Mrs. J. B. Carruthers Phillips. Bbl., by Miss Cornelia T. Crosby Portland. Bbl., by Mrs. Chas. Frost South Freeport. Bbl., by Miss H. H. Ilsley West Falmouth. One and one-half Bbls., by Rev. W. H. Haskell Woodfords. Half-Bbl., by Miss W. Perry Unknown Source. Bbl.