The American Missionary — Volume 35, No. 1, January, 1881Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 35, No. 1, January, 1881
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
I wish it were possible for me to give some suitable account of
the Sabbath greetings and services. A few touches only, and your
imagination must supply the rest. The bell called us to the house
of God at 9 a.m. You first meet the men and women who joined
the church ten years ago, and are now pillars in it and in the
Sabbath-school. And such a welcome!—such hand-shaking, such glad
hearts! You very soon know Paul’s warmth towards his beloved Church
of Philippi, his first love in Europe, as this was my first love in
Alabama. It was nearly five hours before these morning greetings,
the Sabbath-school, the preaching and then more hand-shaking, were
ended, and the people willing to go to their homes. The promise,
“He shall bring all things to your remembrance,” seemed that day
fulfilled. Precious memories of the wonderful work of grace that
drew so many of them into the fold were present to all with power.
“Our hearts burned within us” as we talked of these things there,
and “by the way.” The night service, the Monday calls, the informal
social gathering, the eager questions, the manifest Spirit’s
presence, the next day’s farewells—all made a deep impression on
us, and led us to feel anew that this missionary work is God’s
work, for it was that work that inspired our hearts and was our
theme from first to last.
This church has already put five young men into the Christian
ministry, and is in morals, intelligence and management a pattern
worthy to be copied.
Since my arrival home the one question that presses heaviest on my
heart is, how can we provide for the boys and girls of Marion and
other places visited that want to come to the college to school? In
Childersburgh, Shelby Iron Works, Calera, Selma and Marion, places
along the line of my journey, I found many smart boys and girls
anxious to become educated men and women. In one place I found
twenty-five eager to come, not one of whom could pay more than a
small part of necessary school expenses. Low wages, poor crops, the
cotton worm and inherited poverty keep them where they are, and so
far as I can see they must live and die there in their poverty and
hopelessness, unless those whom God has more highly favored are
moved to help them. Our college expenses are so low that seventy
dollars will keep one pupil in school one year, and sometimes,
on account of labor done or aid from home, a much smaller amount
will suffice. We need more than one thousand dollars to be used in
this way this year, above the amounts already pledged. Christian
education transforms these boys and girls. I wish you could see the
eight young men that were graduated last June from the Theological
Department of the college, and hear them preach the word to their
people; you could but say, “Verily, this is God’s way and I
must chime in with it.” Several young men are just now entering
the Theological Department who are every way worthy, but wholly
dependent for means to prosecute their studies to the end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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