Читать книгу: «The American Missionary. Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889», страница 3
A MINISTER'S TESTIMONY
"I have just been reading the AMERICAN MISSIONARY for August with profound interest. I rejoice with you that the 'figures are still improving'.
"Your 'practical thoughtful friend' is a suggestive example for us all, I am not surprised that this year he 'has doubled his special contribution.' 'Nothing succeeds like success,' is true also of achievement in bringing ourselves to give to the Lord of what he is constantly giving to us.
"I thank God for the simple, but singular and noble justice done by that judge and jury in Chicago who maintained the civil rights of brother Smith.
"Mrs. Regal's paper on 'The Local Society,' seemed to me full of excellent suggestions. One in particular, that of a birthday offering containing a cent for every year of age, is eminently practical, and conducive to surprising results. How better can we set up our Ebenezer than by thus saying from our purses as well as from our hearts, 'Hitherto hath the Lord helped us'?
"Finding it is best for myself to 'strike while the iron is hot,' I sit down at once to send you a check. The signal mercy of the Lord enables me to make my offering of dollars instead of cents, and has put so many benefits already into the fraction of the current year that it may be reckoned as a complete year. How small an acknowledgment does even a dollar seem for a year of life, with all its escapes from peril and all its experience of good! What a refreshing addition to the resources of the church would result if each professing Christian would give such a birthday offering of one cent for each year of life! May the Lord fill us all with the spirit of him who gave himself unto the death for us.
"I pray earnestly that the American Missionary Association may continue to enlarge, and its work to prosper."
NOTES BY THE WAY
BY DISTRICT SECRETARY C.J. RYDER
White Men and Red Men
"THE ROUND UP!
INTERESTING HIGH SCHOOL COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES LAST NIGHT."
The above was the characteristic heading in a Dakota paper of an editorial notice of the closing exercises of their High School. Everything takes its color from the peculiar condition of society. A rubber overcoat is a "slicker," and a native pony is a "broncho." Not so inappropriate, either, is the term "The Round Up," for the closing exercises of a school year. It ought to be the round up, a complete circle or sphere of successful work and accomplishment, so far as that period of school-life is concerned. The white men of Dakota are changing perceptibly, I think, in their feelings toward the red men among them, or among whom they are. A sense of responsibility for their Christianization seems to have taken possession of the minds of the intelligent Christian people. One is impressed with the abundance of church buildings in these small white settlements. In one small village of perhaps five hundred people, I counted eight Protestant churches. With Christian churches so numerously planted as they are in these new Western States, we may hope for large help from them in the Indian work of the Association, before many years. They are now falling into line in this great work. I rode on one side of the Missouri River for many miles among the white settlements. Afterwards I rode on the other side of the river a long distance among the Indian villages, and could not help but contrast the condition of life of the two. The Government relations differ materially. If the supplies were withheld from the Indians, and they were compelled to take land in severally, and not hustled over the prairie every month or two weeks for meat, sugar and coffee, I think the change for the better would be perceptible in a twelvemonth. There is general hopefulness on the part of the missionaries among the red men, now that two Christian men stand at the head of the Indian Department.
It was my privilege to take a cordial letter of greeting from Supt. Dorchester of the Government Indian Schools to the A.M.A. missionaries at Santee Agency, Neb. It was an encouragement to these earnest toilers in this far-away field to know that there was appreciation on the part of the Government of the Christian work among these Indians. Great care, intense study, great deliberation of action will be necessary if these new Government officers succeed in bettering the condition of the red men, as they are doubtless sincerely desirous of doing. They must know what they are doing, before they do it.
The Government schools which I visited furnished abundant evidence that considerable time would be necessary to correct the evils existing in these, and to make them what they should be before any radical policy could be safely adopted by the Government in reference to contract missionary schools. The Roman Catholic influence seems to have been a dominant power in the control of these schools for some time.
Wolf Chief, a Mandan Indian, called on me while at Fort Berthold and begged that his tribe be protected against a Catholic priest who, he said, wanted to compel them to send their children to a school that he proposed to establish near them. "We Mandans are Congregationalists," said this Indian chief, "and we want to send our children to your mission."
Incidents both amusing and pathetic are of frequent occurrence in this Indian work. Such incidents throw light upon the inside life of the Indians and missionaries, and are often useful in the "Monthly Concert," and so I record some of them here.
"Cherries-in-the-mouth," a somewhat aged and highly-painted Indian, was very much taken with one of the missionaries. He came to the Superintendent of the mission and offered eight ponies for her, or, I believe, more correctly, said he would give eight ponies, if he had them. His affection was larger than his pocket-book, as is sometimes true of his pale-faced brother.
"Plenty Corn" was a sweet little Indian girl, who attended the mission at Fort Berthold. She had won her way wonderfully into the hearts of the teachers, and when she died last spring, there were sorrowful hearts in the mission, as truly as in the Indian tepee. The parents had been reached also by the influence of the mission. They permitted the missionary to lay the body in a coffin. The Indians took up the little white casket and bore it to the boat in which it was to be taken across the Missouri River. The father rowed the boat, as the mother sat on the opposite bank waiting for her dead darling, and from the boat there went up the piteous wailing of the father, which was echoed back from the bank in the piteous wail of the mother. It was a sad, sad sight, and emphasized painfully the need of Christian instruction, that the hope of the Gospel may break through the superstitious darkness of these sad lives.
ECHOES
An old man who teaches in the country heard we had a number of Sunday-school papers, and asked us if we had any "overtures of Sunday-school literature" to give him.
One of the older boys was obliged to leave school to work. In the last prayer-meeting he attended he said: "It makes me feel very sorry when I think that next week my seat will be filled with my absence."
Another prayed that he might walk more "citcumspotly before the world."
"FREELY YE HAVE RECEIVED, FREELY GIVE."
(Written for a Missionary Concert held in the interests of the A.M.A.)
So free are the gifts of heaven,
So many the blessings which fall,
That, should we attempt to count them
We could not number them all.
For God is a generous Giver.
Who sows with a liberal hand
Shall reap a bounteous harvest
And gather the fruits of the land.
For 'tis God that gives the increase,
And oft it's a "hundred fold,"
And men are reaping in many ways
Aside from lands and gold.
The blessings of home and fireside,
Of friendship, of books, of health,
Of knowledge, of church, of worship,
All these are a part of our wealth.
But off in the sunny Southland,
In a part of our country large,
Are needs, which with us are blessings,
And to us there comes this charge:—
Freely received are God's mercies;
And now will ye freely give?
It will be a glorious mission
To help a nation live.
BLUEHILL, ME.M.
THE SOUTH
ITEMS FROM THE FIELD
BY FIELD SUPERINTENDENT F.E. JENKINS
NEW CHURCHES
Two new Congregational churches in connection with our work completed their organization with communion services on Sunday, September 1st. Both were organized by Northern people who have settled in the South in places which are likely to grow by immigration from the North. One is in Roseland, La., and is under the pastoral care of Rev. C.S. Shattuck. It starts with eleven members.
The other is in North Athens, Tenn., and for the present is cared for by our general missionary, Rev. G. Stanley Pope. It begins with thirteen members. Both will come into the regular State organizations of Congregational churches.
The First Congregational Church of Alco, Ala., was organized August 25th, with twelve members. Rev. James Brown, a graduate of the last theological class at Talladega College, is the pastor.
At Fort Payne, Ala., the first steps were taken August 21st toward the organization of a church. It was voted to complete the organization as soon as possible. Rev. Geo. S. Smith, recently of Raleigh, N.C., has gone to Fort Payne to take charge of the work.
NEW CHAPEL
The Plymouth Congregational Church of New Decatur, Ala., aided by the American Missionary Association, is erecting a chapel which is to be used as a church until the congregation shall become larger and wealthier. This church has been organized by Northern people who have gone to this new and growing town to make their homes. It is connected with the Central South Association of Congregational Churches.
HYMN BOOKS WANTED
The Plymouth Congregational Church of New Decatur, Ala., greatly needs hymn books. It has a few copies of the "Songs of the Sanctuary," but not enough to enable it to use them. Any church having copies of this book which are not needed in its service could scarcely do better with them than to send them to this courageous little church.
From Crossville, Tenn., we have this appeal: "It would be esteemed a great favor if some church could furnish our people with a donation of hymn books for church singing. You may know of some church having a new supply of hymn books who would be pleased to give this poor flock on the mountains their old books. If so, they would be thankful, and highly appreciate the favor."
