Early in 1916 Brother C. H. Parker wrote of further advance into new heathen cannibalistic territory. At that time he was entering the larger island of Malekula, adjacent to Atchin. Brother Parker is now in Fiji, but the following letter continues the story of his getting over into the Big Nambus tribe farther inland on the large island. He writes:—
“Our work is steadily reaching out to other places, and now we are building a new mission station thirty miles from here, around the coast of Malekula, which will be but a resting place for two or three months, when we shall go on a distance farther, and ten miles inland (rather upland, for it is about four thousand feet to the table-land above), where we have a most favorable opening among the Big Nambus people. They are the most numerous, most savage, most cannibalistic, and most warlike of all the tribes on Malekula. We would go right away if it were possible to put a worker there. It is very hard to get suitable young men for such mission fields as this and the Solomons. A young man was obtained, but the New Zealand government11would not let him come, on account of the war. Now we shall have to break up our forces here, and let my fellow-worker fill the Matanavat station, preparatory to going on and making the Big Nambus his field of operation a little later. It will make greater burdens for each of us to bear, and we shall have to combine as much as we can.
“Matanavat is the place where Satan tried to check our work by rousing the bush tribes to lay in wait for me several months ago. We have felt urged on from above, and now Matanavat has turned to us, and several of the bush tribes around it are calling us to labor in their towns. Matanavat has been the key in the Lord’s hand for opening the door to the Big Nambus.
“While I have been building at Matanavat, a tribe only a short distance away threatened Matanavat with destruction, and the missionary with death. The Matanavat people delegated six of their men to stand guard over me during the night. These slept in my eight-by-ten-foot room with me. When I went down to bathe in the sea after dark, a man stood guard on the beach. The people intend that no harm shall come to me if they can help it. What a change! We praise the Lord for it.
“This people have now finished a twenty-four-by-thirty-six-foot church building, which we hope soon to dedicate. Just now the work is very hopeful.
“It is hard for us to leave the work here and go back to Fiji to take up work there again. But the brethren of the Australasian Union have voted to form Fiji into a conference, and they ask me to act as its president. There are better men than I for such a position, but then I believe that my brethren in council are guided by the Spirit of God, and God has his reason for taking us away from the work here and placing us back in Fiji. We bow our heads in submission, and rest in the blessed assurance that he has sent us.
“We expect to leave in two months’ time, reaching Fiji about the first of July, when that mission will be organized into a conference.
“Pastor A. G. Stewart, who is superintendent of the Fiji Mission, takes my place here. He is in Sydney now, and will reach this island the latter part of next month.”
Niue Island
By S. W. Carr
S. W. CARR
A GROUP OF SABBATH-KEEPING MAORIS IN NEW ZEALAND
[This island, widely separated from others, is situated ten degrees east of the Fiji group and five south of the Samoan Islands.]
OUTSIDE of the usual schooner service between here and Auckland, New Zealand,—a boat running every seven weeks,—a passing ship is a rare event. So when “Sail ho!” was heard recently, all ran to see what it was. It proved to be the “Resolute,” a four-masted timber vessel bound from America to Melbourne. The flag signal read, “Help needed at once.” So the resident commissioner and doctor immediately went out the two miles to her. They learned that through the refusal of the crew of seven men to work, the captain, his wife, and a native of St. Helena had been sailing the ship alone for thirty-one days under short canvas. The month of bread-and-water diet, however, had had a salutary effect on the crew, who were persuaded by the commissioner to resume their duties.
“Sail ho!” was again heard four days later, and this time it proved to be the steamer “Talune,” from Auckland via Fiji and Samoa, bringing back a number of the returned Niue soldiers who had left here ten months ago for the front, via New Zealand. They had proved unequal to the great strain of modern warfare, and a large per cent of them were in the hospital all the time. The remaining eighty soldiers are expected soon. Then all the one hundred and fifty will have returned, except fifteen who died of sickness. Some of them were for a short time in France in the trenches.
Among the latest to join our Sabbath schools is a native teacher and two students of the government English school. They also attend a weekly Bible study, and have begun to keep the Sabbath. The total membership of our three Sabbath schools is now twenty-seven, but not all of these are Sabbath keepers. Those who are nominally so, have yet much to learn. Two have lately given up tobacco, and others are trying to discard the filthy weed, which is used here almost universally by all classes.
Pray that we may continually lean hard upon the Lord, and that the honest in heart may be won for the truth.
In San Salvador
By Henry F. Brown
HENRY F. BROWN
THE little republic of Salvador has the smallest territory of any of the six Central American countries, but its population numbers almost two million, it being second only to Guatemala. Its coast is very low and damp, but, as are the rest of the countries, Salvador is quite mountainous. Many of its mountains are extinct volcanoes, and there are one or two that are still active. The land is very fertile though of volcanic origin. Lava rock is everywhere in abundance. Many small geysers may be seen along the coast.
The capital, San Salvador, is a city of sixty-five thousand people. It is quite modern in appearance, and has a university. Its commerce is largely with the United States, and consists of exported coffee and imported foodstuffs and dry goods. Here it is that our work is started. In November, last year, my brother, John L. Brown, came from Spain to Salvador. He did not intend to begin public meetings at once, but as soon as it was known that the Adventists were in town, he was besieged by many residents to explain the difference between his church and theirs. He received requests for information from towns sixty miles away. My brother was therefore compelled to hold public meetings against his own will. He had rented a house with a large room suitable for public services, but as soon as the Catholic bishop learned of the meetings through the reports in the daily papers, force was brought to bear on the owner of the house; and at the expiration of the time for which the building was rented, my brother was compelled to vacate. He had by this time a little group of interested persons, who came to the new location, and now form his permanent congregation.
At the time of my visit he was occupying a neat little hall with a seating capacity of about fifty. This was filled the night I spoke to them. One believer has become a ‘colporteur, and gives promise of success. Another is studying to become a Bible worker.
Such is the beginning of our work in this Spanish American country. In about eight months there have been won between twenty and thirty who are now prepared for baptism. The prospects are fair for a permanent church in the capital of this republic.
Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
Patience with the Love
By Mrs. I. H. E.
THE poem, “My Dear Little Girl Who Died,” printed at the head of this page, was written by a mother whose little daughter died as the family were on their way to Chile last February. Out of her loss and sorrow, this mother says:—
“I counsel mothers to seek patience, and to appreciate the prattle of the childish lips; for the loneliness is intolerable when the children are gone.”
Long ago the apostle wrote, “Ye have need of patience;” and surely there has never been an hour since these words were penned when the need of this particular grace was more manifest than now. For we live in those “perilous times” described by Paul,—times when sin in varied forms lifts up its brazen head, when temptation besets the children and youth on every hand, and when “perplexity” knocks alike insistently at the door of palace and cottage. Four times, in five short verses, speaking of these very days, James exhorts to this grace: “Be patient therefore;” “Be ye also patient;” “Take, my brethren, the prophets, . . . for an example . . . of patience;” and, “Ye have heard of the patience of Job.”
Parents need patience, fathers as well as mothers; for there is no other place where this grace shines with so clear a light, or where its influence is so conducive to winning and saving human souls, as within the four walls of home. Much else may be lacking, many of the things we have come to consider as essentials may even be spared, if the mother maintains under all circumstances a spirit of serenity and poise, and the father is calm and just, quick to recognize effort and slow to criticize mistakes.
Most parents love their children—that goes without saying. They give up their time to working for them; they deny themselves needed rest and the leisure for self-improvement, that their sons and daughters may have advantages which they themselves never enjoyed; often they even sacrifice their lives for their children; yet how few, how pitifully few, really exercise the grace of patience in their daily contact with these young lives! For it is the nature of youth to demand, unconsciously but none the less insistently at first, and more and more insistently as the years pass. Some one must meet these demands—the father at his daily toil, the mother in the home. And there are so many wants to satisfy, so much to teach, such a staggering list of necessary things to be crossed off the calendar every day, that human patience often gives way under the strain, and scolding and fretfulness come in.
Patience is defined as enduring affliction and loss, suffering with resignation and without complaint. Patience is a habit of mind, “the ornament of kingly souls.” It is one of the crowning Christian graces, a fruit of the Holy Spirit, like faith, love, joy, and peace. It can be acquired and cultivated, as can other virtues; for we are commanded to follow after “love, patience, meekness.”
To be patient, one must first of all have a contented heart; he must be resigned to his lot, and with good cheer undertake the tasks he has to perform. Patience does not indicate indolence, indifference, or irregularity. It may, indeed, indicate the very opposite. One thing it does stand for, and that is self-control.
Even heathen and pagans have possessed this grace to a remarkable degree.
The Stoics taught patience as the highest attainable virtue. By precept and example Socrates showed that patience could be obtained, and a state of mind maintained that would make man content with his lot. Epictetus, when under torture, smiled at his tormentor, and addressed him calmly and reasonably.
It takes a resolute will to be patient under provocation. When hot, fiery words are uttered, we must not retort in kind; when our cherished plans are frustrated and our suggestions ignored, we must not allow ourselves to feel hurt; when coldness and neglect wound our soul, we must be the more careful not to wound others.
It takes strength to be patient,—the strength that comes to those who take time to wait on the Lord for the renewal of that spiritual force that alone can withstand the constantly repeated bombardment of those little annoyances which, too trifling to consider when taken one by one, bring complete defeat and consequent discouragement to many a woman before her day’s work is over. Happy are those who have learned the secret of going often aside “to let a cool drop of heaven’s dew” fall into their parched and weary hearts, and who know by experience the refreshing of those moments which enable them to take up the load and carry it cheerily a little longer.
Patience is not an easily won grace. Like all rare and valuable things, one must pay the price. And the time to pay is now, while the children are little and your hands are full; while the older ones are pulling away from the home ties, and only your love and gentleness perhaps can hold them,—now, while things seem hardest, is the time of all times to be patient. It is easy enough in retrospect to be sorry for impatience, but regret will not undo the past. And it is easy to be happy and cheerful and kind when everything is moving along smoothly, but there is no special help in such an example.
As the diamond, pure and precious, is formed by the pressure of rocks and by great heat, so patience is the grace of those who pass through troubles, who know sorrow and distress and pain, and who yet rely on God’s help for strength to meet all cheerfully. To such “tribulation worketh patience,” because it drives them always closer and closer to their Helper.
“Let us be patient; let us keep
Our watch fires faithful as God’s stars,
Whatever storm or shadow mars
The breadth of life’s uncertain deep.
“Let us be patient; let men trace
No frown, no insincerity,
In skies of ours, that all may see
God’s Spirit in his child’s calm face.”
MRS. I. H. E.
The Home Background
By Dorothy Canfield Fisher
It is a providential thing that the question of the sort of home background which our children shall have is as much within our control as it is vital. And yet there is no axiom the truth of which13is harder for us to realize.
Our instinct is to cry out that, what with enormous rents, high prices for clothes, domestic help unattainable, and hard times hovering ominously near, nothing is more tragically out of our control than the home background. But the fact remains, apprehended by us in our better moments, that, with some few exceptions, the real essentials of a sane, wholesome, active, and happy life for the children lie easily within our reach. There are, of course, families in the congested portions of city tenement districts who cannot command the conditions necessary for proper moral and physical child life and child growth, and there are some other families who are prevented from providing the right background by confirmed ill health or desperate misfortune; but it is safe to say that ninety-nine out of every hundred of us can, by taking thought (the right kind of thought), provide our children with the essentials for normal and healthy growth to their full stature.
By all means, therefore, let us take thought, but first let us be sure that we are taking “the right kind of thought.” Let us clarify our minds as to our real purpose; let us question ourselves seriously about the home we are providing for our children. What ought we to furnish them if we are not to fail in our duty toward them? In the case of infants under a year, modern science, good doctors, and sensible trained nurses, all banging together at our hard heads for the last twenty years, have given us a big lift up out of the abysmal confusion of mind which afflicted the views of our grandmothers on the subject of babies. We know now that if we happen to have plenty of money, time, and strength, it is all very well to amuse ourselves by embroidering the baby’s petticoats and trimming the little caps with ribbon, but that these fascinating occupations have nothing whatever to do with the welfare of the child, and are simply done to please ourselves. We now know that the baby needs and must have clean milk,—absolutely clean milk,—sterilized nursing bottles, and warm feet,—conditions which can be supplied as well in a Gypsy encampment as in the palace of a king.
But in the case of older children we have not as yet so clearly in our heads the equally vital difference between the essentials of moral and intellectual life and those trimmings and embroideries of existence which our own vanity is always driving us on to obtain for our boys and girls. We do not with sufficient vividness understand that for them the essentials are not handsome nurseries, clothes in fashion, expensive schooling, well-to-do playmates, a plethora of toys, a succession of costly “amusements,” or a life of physical ease,—all conditions which, luckily for the children, are out of the reach of most of us.
The real essentials, which any of us can have by taking thought, are peace and harmony among the adults of the family; an atmosphere of purposeful, cheerful industry and clear-sightedness toward the children; and for them a life of intellectual freedom and physical activity. Now these conditions can be secured in a little five-room house, in any moderate-size American town or village, or in the country, as easily as in a millionaire’s mansion. Self-indulgence and laziness certainly can be discouraged more easily by the example of adults who expect, as a matter of course, to do a reasonable amount of real work themselves, than by any amount of verbal exhortation or “manual training” in an atmosphere where the adults expect, as a matter of course, to do nothing but what pleases them.
It is only fair to admit that these right conditions are not easily to be secured anywhere in the world. They are possessions too precious to be gained without effort. But the fact that they can be secured by almost any of us who is willing to put himself out enough to secure them, throws on us the blame if our children grow up without having experienced these inestimable blessings. Inestimable blessings they are, and their absence is an inestimable handicap. They are desirable for adults, but for children they are essential, just as fresh milk, clean dishes, and warm feet are good for adults, but vitally essential for babies. To be sure, some babies do worry along on fly-infected milk and filthy nipples, but they grow up into adults with ruined digestion and lowered vitality. So in a home where irritability reigns, where the adults practice self-indulgence as consistently as their incomes will allow, and deal justly with the children whenever they happen not to feel too tired and nervous to do so, the children do grow up somehow; but they grow up with warped and crooked moral natures, into one or another of the various life failures so tragically common.
Everything else is of less importance for children than the color of the home background. The family can live on oatmeal porridge three times a day, the children can go with holes in their stockings, and with uncombed hair; the house can be unswept, the beds unmade; the mother can dress in a cheap print wrapper—any of the dreadful things we usually think of as “impossible” are infinitely better for the children’s moral health and present and future happiness and usefulness than a mother constantly scolding to let off the steam of her bad temper, or repressing unjustly the innocent activities of her children.—Dorothy Canfield Fisher.
My Dear Little Girl Who Died
By Mrs. J. C. Brower
MRS. J. C. BROWER
As I open my book and turn its leaves,
My mind from the present flies,
For I see a flower drawn by childish hands,
With leaves of a wondrous size,
And I think of that eve, not long ago,
When she drew it by my side;
And my eyes grow dim, and my heart aches sore,
For my dear little girl who died.
Her dollies stare with unseeing eyes
From their place in the cozy nook,
And the Little Friend unopened lies
By the side of the Sabbath Book.
The story hour is a lonely hour,
Full of longing and tears and pain
For my happy child with her eager mind
Who can never come back again.
Oh, many the tales that I long to tell
In response to her eager pleas,
“Tell me a story, or read me one,
From the Bible, mother, please.”
I miss her warm little form, close pressed,
Her golden head near mine,
As we read and talked of the home above,
Where such wondrous glories shine.
But a day is nearing, a long, glad day,
When the Lord himself will come
To gather his jewels from far and near
To their peaceful, blessed home,
Then the angels will bring to my waiting arms
My darling, my love and pride;
And never again she'll be borne away,
My own little girl who died.
The Home Life
By Mrs. I. H. Evans; Miss Lora E. Clement
Conducted by Mrs. I. H. Evans, Takoma Park, Washington, D. C.
Assisted by Miss Lora E. Clement
Through the columns of this department, hints will be given on all matters pertaining to the home life. Short articles and letters are solicited from home makers, telling of their everyday experiences,—their joys and sorrows, their failures and successes.
The Party for Marjory
“Another tumbler broke itself today,” Clara announced cheerfully. Clara’s attitude toward the kitchen mishaps for which she was responsible seemed that of a serene and wholly disinterested spectator.
“O Clara,” Mrs. Fields cried reproachfully, “that’s the third in two weeks.”
“Yes’m. And the handle came off the sugar bowl this noon.” Mrs. Fields dropped into a chair. Tumblers broke easily, she knew, but the sugar bowl! And she had been trying so hard to save three dollars to give Marjory a little party on her birthday! Marjory had never had a party of any sort in all her eight years.
“How many tumblers are there left? Five?” she asked.
“No’m, they’s only four,” Clara responded, with unimpaired good humor. Mrs. Fields made a little gesture of despair. They might have gotten through the month with five, but they could not do with four, as Jack’s mother and her own sisters might drop in at any meal.
“It—it doesn’t seem fair!” she cried to herself. “Jack works so hard, and we get along on so little! It’s dreadful to have your happiness depend on a few dollars. I don’t see how I can do it—I couldn’t give Marjory a party, and not have the table pretty.”
She went upstairs, and counted over the little hoard she had saved with so much self-denial. She heard a door slam downstairs, and the sound of eager footsteps coming up.
“Mother! mother! Lottie Pritchard’s come home with me, and may we have a party, and a lump of sugar apiece in the water? And a piece of bread cut in little squares?”
“And two pieces of gingerbread,” Mrs. Fields added.
Marjory danced happily about the room, and then flung ecstatic arms about her mother’s neck. “It will be lovely!” she cried. “I think parties are the nicest things!”
The eager steps flew downstairs again, and presently Mrs. Fields heard voices under her window. She looked down at Marjory’s little table set with two odd saucers, one cracked cup, and one cup without a handle. Marjory was stirring the sugar for Lottie’s “tea,” and her voice rose happily through the soft air:—
“I’m giving you the cracked cup ’cause it looks nicer, but you’ll have to be careful. I can’t have any more to play with till Clara breaks one the right way—usually she breaks them all to pieces, you know. She doesn’t remember about me. But mother says it isn’t dishes and things, it’s loving that counts, and this cup is very full of loving.”
Lottie took the cracked cup carefully. Her small face was full of delight. “That’s why I like your house,” she said. “It’s full of lovings.”
With a sudden gesture, Mrs. Fields closed the old purse. And she had thought that Marjory’s party depended on money!—Selected.
Lack of Communion Through Disobedience
“THE cause of lack of communion with God is summed up in this—disobedience. Another may take away my substance or my life, but cannot spoil me of my communion with God; if I lack this, I am myself the thief and the robber.”
A Destructive Hurricane
By F. Hall
On Monday, October 9, the Danish West Indies, Tortola (a British possession), and other smaller islands were visited by one of the most destructive hurricanes within the memory of their inhabitants. Incessant showers and a high wind had marked the breaking of the day, and the wind had increased in velocity with every hour, until afternoon, when the signal gun, fired by order of the government, assured us that a hurricane was at hand. We therefore made doors and windows as secure as possible, and prepared for the crisis, trusting in the protection of our heavenly Father. Soon the storm was at its height. Trees were unrooted, and the roofs of houses were blown away like feathers, by the fearful wind. Many houses were completely wrecked or pushed off their foundations.
About six o’clock in the evening there was a sudden calm, and the wind shifted to the southwest; but it gathered reinforcement as it returned, and the buildings and trees that had been weakened by the first gale were destroyed by the second. At St. Thomas large steamers were driven ashore, while cargo boats and smaller craft were wrecked or went down with all on board. About midnight the wind gradually subsided, leaving desolation and ruin behind.
All vegetation is destroyed on St. Croix, but notwithstanding this our suffering is much less than that on the neighboring islands of St. Jan, St. Thomas, and Tortola. On the islands a number of persons were lost. Our chapel was damaged some by timbers falling from a neighboring house, but it has already been repaired.
While there is great distress on every side, our people are all safe. We feel grateful to our heavenly Father for thus protecting us, and claim his promise for continued help. Only those who have made God their refuge and strength will be able to stand when fiercer storms, hurricanes, and earthquakes shall rock this old world in the days to come. Let us be among that number.
F. HALL.
Western New York
By G. B. Thompson
It was my privilege, in company with Elder K. C. Russell, to meet the faculty and students of the Fernwood Intermediate School, at Tunesassa, November 16. This school is located in the southwest corner of the Western New York Conference. I found about thirty students in the school. All were of good courage, and interested in their studies. A new dormitory is nearly finished, which will enable the school to accommodate about fifty students. The entire plant, I was informed, is worth about $12,000, and is entirely free from debt. This is certainly very encouraging. This intermediate school is about two miles from the railroad, and affords a very quiet place in which students in this and adjoining conferences can secure an education that will prepare them to pass on to schools of higher grades.
The following Sabbath and Sunday Elder Russell and I spent with the church at Elmira, N. Y. Some were present from other churches. This was a very pleasant occasion to the writer, as it afforded an opportunity to meet some I had known years ago when laboring in this State. The Lord greatly blessed in the meetings held. The church members are all striving to be faithful. As we dwelt on the certainty of the message, new courage and a renewed determination to be faithful came into all our hearts. The members of the conference committee were present at this meeting, and among other things, planned for aggressive work to be carried forward in the city to strengthen and build up the church.
The last night of the meeting the church was well filled, and some who are not now with us expressed a determination to keep the Sabbath, and to become identified with this message.
G. B. Thompson.
The Value of Individual Work
By F. H. Robbins
THERE are many of our people who can hold Bible readings with their neighbors. This is a very important branch of missionary work, and brings good results, for by this means the worker comes into personal touch with the people, and he can present the sacred truths of the Scriptures. He can urge them to read and study for themselves, and God will water the precious seeds of truth and cause them to grow in honest hearts.
Some hesitate to do self-supporting Bible work, thinking they are not well enough qualified. But if they would begin, God would crown every humble effort with success, and they would develop into strong men and women for Christ.
Much patience, perseverance, and consecration are necessary to prevent one from becoming discouraged when first beginning, but many times the best results are seen from the humblest work. The influence of the Holy Spirit always accompanies the worker for Christ while the truth is being presented. Often the truth is more effective when given at close range around the fireside than when presented to large audiences. After the resurrection, the Saviour told the disciples to go and teach; and this is the best work a person can do. One can accomplish much good by sitting down in the homes, and letting the people ask questions. Then in a humble manner the Bible may be opened and scriptures read which will turn the current of their thoughts, and find a way to their hearts.
I am pleased to say that I have seen the results of such faithful self-supporting Bible work, in what has been done by Sister H. W. Martin, of Kushequa, Pa. She worked for some time among her neighbors, and finally the interest demanded some public preaching. I had the privilege of holding a series of meetings there last month, and as a result of Sister Martin’s work and the meetings, nine have begun to keep the Sabbath, and a number of others are deeply interested. We expect to see some of them take their stand for the truth in the near future. Sister Martin has a nice little Sabbath school of about fifteen.
I hope that others will follow her example by engaging in Bible work until such an interest shall be aroused as will make it necessary to send a minister to hold public meetings to help bind off the work. From now until the end of time, we must stand ready for service. We should lose no opportunity to make known to needy souls the unsearchable riches of Christ. If we fail to do our duty, the word of life may never be presented to them in a way that they will accept it. At such a time as this we dare not say, “I pray thee have me excused.”
F. H. ROBBINS.
God Always Sends His Messenger
By J. W. Siler
The Lord always sends his messenger to give warning to the faithful ones before he brings destruction on a nation or people. He gave Noah, Jonah, and John the Baptist a message that they might prepare the way of the Lord. In Mark 1:2 we read, “It is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.”
But what are the messengers to do? In Jer. 16:16 the Lord says, “I will send for many fishers, . . . and they shall fish them, and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.”
Why is it necessary for the Lord to send his messengers to fish and hunt them from all quarters of the earth? In answer, Luke 1:77 says, “To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins.”
Therefore it is the duty of every Seventh-day Adventist to enlist in active service to help carry the knowledge of salvation to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.
But how are they to work? We find an answer in “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VII, page 140: “In a large degree through our publishing houses is to be accomplished the work of that other angel who comes down from heaven with great power, and who lightens the earth with his glory.”
Some say that the Bible does not speak of the publishing work, and therefore they are not altogether in harmony with it. Let us see just what the Bible does say regarding the publishing work. In Isa. 52:7 we read, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!”
A man is called to the colporteur work just as truly as the minister is called to the ministry, and when we dissuade him from taking up that line of work, we are striving against the Holy Spirit. “One of the very best ways in which young men can obtain a fitness for the ministry is by entering the canvassing field.”
Today God is sending his messengers forth to prepare the way for Christ’s second coming, making known unto his15people the plan of salvation; and now the question is, Who will enlist in the great company of messengers to carry the last message that will ever go to this, a dying world? God forbid that any should refuse. J. W. SILER.
North India
By S. A. Wellman
RECENTLY I spent two or three weeks visiting our mission stations in north India—at Lucknow, Najibabad, Rai Bareli, and Chelusain in Garhwal. Near the latter place we visited another location where we have been offered a school and land for a mission station.
The young man who came into the truth from Hinduism in the Garhwal Industrial School is canvassing for Urdu and Hindi literature during his vacation, and is doing well. In fact, he has the best record of any man we have yet sent out, territory being considered. He attends the Lucknow training school, and has two years more there; then he expects to go back to work for his people.
This year we are very hopeful of having at least four pupils from north India in the Lucknow school. This will enable us to prepare workers who will be able to take their places with our European staff in leading out in the work. The training school is what we have long needed.
Brother and Sister R. P. Morris have been in Mussoorie since the middle of April, and Sisters Kurtz and Mitter have been at the Najibabad station. The work has progressed, though somewhat handicapped, and the village work is developing well among the heathen. In a village where less than a year ago there was much opposition to hearing of Christ, the prospects seem good for real results. Brother and Sister Morris are doing good work. Brother Morris has recently had an operation for appendicitis, but is now recovering.
At Rai Bareli Brother C. C. Belgrave is working hard to accomplish something definite in the town and surrounding villages. The situation so developed that we felt it was best to allow him to put up a mud schoolhouse and residence for the teacher in the village of Jharkrasi. This is nearly complete, and work begins there soon. Brother Belgrave is preaching, both in the villages and in the town, and some are interested. He hopes for results before the end of the year.
Brother and Sister Floyd Smith are settled in Garhwal now. Brethren Smith and Blue went with me on the trip to look up a new location. It is in a village named Bhagrukhal, sixteen miles from our present location. There is a fine community of villages near, and the people have asked us to take the school there. The school is conducted in a building that cost seven hundred rupees, and they offer us two acres of land in connection with the place. It is to be deeded to us free, and we are to have entire control of it, with the privilege of building a worker’s house so as to make a local station of it. With more than thirty villages within a mile or two of the place, it will make a good center, and these villages can be worked in the winter with added effectiveness, when the school at Chelusain must be closed on account of the cold, and the teachers and the European worker are free to work elsewhere. It is still undecided whether we take the school or not.
This trip was a trying one in some ways. We started in the early morning from our present school, and following a long spur of the ridge, dropped down to the river bottom. When we were two or three miles from the school, a heavy shower came on, and we sought shelter in an old building. Then we hastened on to another village, where unfortunately the people, being Brahmins, were afraid of sahibs and refused us shelter. So we had to find shelter under a mango tree when the next downpour came, and from that time till the end of the journey, about four in the afternoon, we were soaking wet.
When we reached a village near the new place, a Brahmin pundit who is in our school invited us to lunch in his place, and we had a chance to dry out some, the sun having come out about that time. Then we went over to the school. Business kept us there the next day till nearly ten-thirty, and we then started back, returning by the main road, but climbing to it up a spur which rose two or three thousand feet above us. We had barely reached the top when the monsoon storm broke again, and we fared worse than the day before. Not till we reached the school at Chelusain did we get rid of the water-soaked garments that had hung round us for over seven hours. But with the walking we did not suffer any ill effects, and were happy through it all. Needless to say, however, we welcomed dry clothes and a good bed that night.
On the return trip I had a good visit with Brother M. M. Mattison at Dehra Dun. He is making good progress with the language, and this fall will be prepared to carry full responsibilities in the work. When he passes his examinations, we shall have three persons in charge of stations who have a knowledge of the language. Brother and Sister Smith are busy studying Hindi in Garhwal, and I hope to see them pass the examinations next spring and join this number. I look forward to the future with courage; for to have workers who can, with the blessing of God, face the people and tell them the gospel in their mother tongue, will mean much. S. A. WELLMAN.
