Читать книгу: «The American Missionary. Volume 43, No. 03, March, 1889», страница 5

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CROWDED SCHOOL-ROOMS

Perhaps some of our friends would be glad to hear a few words concerning Brewer Normal School, Greenwood, S.C. The work goes on, but we are hurried and crowded almost beyond endurance. We have only two school-rooms and one recitation room. In one school-room fitted for fifty-eight scholars, there are ninety-seven. They are obliged to sit, three in a seat made for two, on chairs, stools and even on the teacher's platform. Classes are sent from this room, and their recitation room is the teacher's kitchen and dining-room—not very pleasant for the teachers, but a necessity. The teacher of these classes is the Principal's daughter, who has been taken from her own school to aid in this emergency. In the other school-room, fitted for fifty-eight, there are eighty-six—not quite as many as in the other room, but what is wanting in numbers is made up in size. There are several men six feet tall, and one minister six and a half. In many instances, we are obliged to look up to our scholars.

Some of our classes in this room number thirty-five or forty. The smaller classes from this room recite in the recitation room. It is with difficulty that some of our men, weighing two hundred, get into the seats in the school-room, but they bear the crowding and close packing with great patience. The small boarding-houses in the yard are as badly crowded as the school-rooms. In two small rooms, having two beds each, there are twelve young men, six in each. Here they cook for themselves, sleep and study out of school hours. One can hardly find standing-room among the chairs, trunks, etc. Other rooms are crowded nearly as much. And still the scholars come. What shall we do with them? Our cry is more room. O, that God would put it into the heart of some one to give the money needed for another building at Brewer!

PARAGRAPHS

The congregation of Lincoln Memorial Church, Washington, D.C., rejoiced in a renovated and newly-furnished church edifice, Sunday, Jan. 6th. The pastor, Rev. George W. Moore, preached an interesting sermon on "The Law of Christian Growth." At the conclusion of the services a statement of the cost of the recent improvements was read. The total cost was $1,500, about $200 of which was given by contractors and workmen. Hon. A.C. Barstow, of Providence, R.I., presented the church with one of the large and beautiful stoves, and gave the other at the cost of manufacture. The present membership of the church is one hundred, ninety of whom are resident members. The people have done nobly in their gifts and self-denials, and Pastor and Mrs. Moore have in their hands a great work which promises to be greater in the future.

From a pastor in a remote part of Georgia:

"I have seen more of the condition and wants of the people than ever before, but whiskey and tobacco are the great evils of this part of the country. The colored people are not very much in advance of what they were twenty years ago, but the sad part of it is, that the leaders are no better than the people. I think almost every minister about here uses whiskey and tobacco, as far as I can learn, and of course the members of the churches can see no harm in doing what their minister does. This is a sad picture, but it only shows the need of intelligent and consecrated leaders, such as the American Missionary Association is raising up for a people who have been led by those who are neither intelligent nor consecrated."

Mrs. Hattie B. Sherman, the daughter of Rev. R.F. Markham, died January 14th at her residence in Stockton, Kansas. For two years she was a missionary of this Association at Beach Institute, Savannah, Ga., where she rendered faithful and effective service in the education of the colored people. We tender our sympathies to her father, who was for so many years a useful missionary of the Association in the South, and to her husband, in their great bereavement.

THE CHINESE

LOO QUONG'S APPEAL

Loo Quong is one of our Evangelistic Helpers. His special field at present is Southern California. The appeal is not only original, but spontaneous; written out of the anxious longings of his own heart, and not upon any suggestion from me. I have simply condensed it, to bring it within the limits of our space. I ask for it a kind and responsive hearing.
WM. C. POND.

Dear friends of the American Missionary Association:

We, the Chinese, have appreciated the generous Christian acts of the members of this great Association, who not only have done good to other souls of the United States, but have saved hundreds of poor sinners of our Chinese race, in which I, myself, was one of the lost and now am found. It was through the generosity and God-loving heart of the Association that the Chinese found Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world. And it was through the hard labors and patience of our Superintendent of the California Chinese Mission that the Chinese have become partakers of the blessings of the gospel. Though it is here that the good news is told, it has echoed back far away across the Pacific, where the four hundred millions of heathen Chinese are living. Just as our Lord said to his disciples, "There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known. Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light, and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the house tops." Luke 12: 2, 3.

Those who have been converted in California and who have visited their homes in China, have seen the necessity of Christianity for their countrymen in China. Within these ten years there were hospitals established and missionary societies organized by native Christians and by those who have returned to China from California. Contribution books are often sent over to the United States to the different denominations of Christian Chinese to raise money and send back to support the hospitals and missionary societies in China. But this is not all; not long ago the Congregational Association of Christian Chinese in California organized a missionary society to Southern China, from which part nearly all the Christian Chinese that are now in the United States have come, and this is the most important part of China in which to do the missionary work. There are now many native preachers and evangelists. This society proposes to buy property in China, for a headquarters must be established in some of the middle cities in the south of China, and then to sustain some of those native preachers and evangelists.

Now I must come back to our work in California among the Christian Chinese. There are about one thousand Christian Chinese in California. You may hear in our towns and cities Chinese preachers and Chinese evangelists preaching the gospel to their countrymen. The American Missionary Association has put three more Chinese missions in Southern California during the year 1888, one of them in Tuscon, one in San Buenaventura and one in Los Angeles. Each of these is doing good work. As to our mission at Los Angeles, which was only opened April 1, 1888, it has twenty-five Christian members, and it has nearly one hundred pupils who attend the evening schools and preaching service at the mission house from night to night. There are union meetings of all the denominations of Christian Chinese at Los Angeles, and at San Francisco and Santa Barbara. These meetings occur once a month; Chinese preachers and speakers are appointed to address the meetings, a week beforehand. We have found these meetings a great help to us. Street meetings were often held in the Chinese quarters in many cities and towns throughout the State. Thousands of Bibles and tracts in Chinese were given away to Chinese readers, and thousands of heathen have heard the blessed gospel of Jesus, and, perhaps, there are other thousands who may give their hearts to Christ through this operation. Surely God is hastening the time when His will will be done in all parts of the earth, since the Chinese themselves have summoned their people to Christ. And now I respectfully and earnestly request of all the friends of the A.M.A., and even people of every name, race and creed of this Christian land of the United States, to follow the example of our Master who has given himself for us all, and we do ask for your prayers both for the Chinese in your country and in China.