The Child in the Midst: A Comparative Study of Child Welfare in Christian and Non-Christian LandsPlatt, Mary Schauffler
Religion
The Child in the Midst: A Comparative Study of Child Welfare in Christian and Non-Christian Lands
Platt, Mary Schauffler
Church work with children; Missions
What marvelous power there is in the Word of God! A Mohammedan boy in
a fanatical Persian city, which had often been visited by colporteurs
and missionaries, went one day to the bazaar where he saw a New
Testament being torn up to serve as wrapping paper. He remonstrated
with the shopkeeper, and finally bought what was left of the Book.
Through its influence both he and his mother were led to Christ. In
another Persian city, the missionary holds a Bible lesson for boys
under fifteen every Friday, when they do not have to be at work.
Picture cards sent by thoughtful friends in America are earned by boys
learning the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, or verses from the
Sermon on the Mount. Some of the boys always repeat the lesson at
home to their mothers, and some say openly, “If what the Bible says is
true, the Mohammedan religion is vain and useless.” Truly, “the
entrance of Thy word giveth light.”
Do American children prize their Bibles as does this Korean boy?
[Sidenote: A Korean boy and his Bible.]
Every day in the village of Nulmok there is an exodus of small
boys to the mountain for fuel. Wood being scarce, it becomes
necessary for each household to furnish a fuel gatherer. This army
of boys is winding its way to the mountains some five miles off.
Each boy has tied to his jikcey, or rack carried on his back, a
small package of rice. This is his dinner, for it is an all-day
job. As they make their way up the well-nigh barren slopes, one
boy notices that his friend Kaiby has a second little bundle tied
to his jikcey, and so he hails him to know why he is carrying two
dinners.
“Oh, one is for my body, and the other is dinner for my soul,” he
replies.
After a morning spent in raking over a small area of the
mountain, each boy has succeeded in getting together his bundle
of dried grass, and all sit down beside a mountain brook to eat
of their dinner of cold rice and a relish of greens or pickled
cabbage in season. Soon Kaiby has finished his meal and is
untying his second bundle; taking out a book he begins to read
aloud, slowly, while the other boys gather around to hear. It is
about a great Man, who, when the people wanted to make him king,
went to the mountain to pray.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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