The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 09, September, 1889Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 09, September, 1889
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
That afternoon, at the woman's meeting, we learned that they had given
away everything they possessed, furniture, clothing, bedding, dishes,
and were absolutely destitute of the barest necessities of life. This is
one of their customs. They reason thus: Our child is dead; our hearts
are sad; life has no longer any attractions; take all we have. The
Christian Indian women in our church each gave something out of her
little property to help these poor heathen people, who in their
superstitious ignorance had made their lot so wretched. Taking this,
they returned home and demanded of the family of the other poor boy a
cow in _payment_ for the death of their child.
And there came to me this question: Is it possible that in the midst of
this beautiful free land of ours, there lives a people so densely
ignorant, so darkly superstitious, sunk so low in heathenism, as this
incident shows? And this is only one of many such incidents. May God
help us when such things are possible in a Christian land.
* * * * *
THE CHINESE.
* * * * *
THREE DAYS OF EVANGELISTIC WORK AT PETALUMA.
BY JEE GAM.
I reached Petaluma a little while before school began. The scholars soon
poured in and the attendance was the largest the school ever had. In
order to have a little preaching service, we hurried through the
lessons. At the conclusion of school, two hymns were sung. I then
preached to them of Jesus. They all listened very attentively and
appeared interested. At the close, I asked them to come again the next
evening and bring their friends. To my great surprise, the next evening
not only all the scholars came, but many outsiders; some of these had
years ago attended our school for some little time, but the majority of
them had never been inside our mission. I was informed, after the
meeting, that five or six of them were very highly educated in Chinese,
and that they were chief officers of the Chinese Branch Masonic Society
in Petaluma. I thought they came simply for curiosity and perhaps for
argument. Just before the meeting commenced, I went into my room, knelt
down and said to God: "Oh Lord, Thou art the Almighty God, Thou knowest
the motives of those who have come to this meeting; Thou knowest I am
very weak. I can do nothing without Thy help, so I beseech Thee to make
me a good agent in Thy hand. Give me the right word to speak, fill me
with power."
I arose from prayer and felt that God was with me. I went into the
meeting and announced my subject. It was on Daniel being cast into the
lions' den. I noticed the marked interest they all seemed to feel. At
the close, I again asked all present to come the next evening (Sunday
evening) and bring more friends.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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