One of the pleasantest gatherings we shall have this fall will be the Report Meeting, when we shall hear from all the pupils about results of their summer efforts for others. Fourteen took certain Bibles home with them, promising to use them in teaching others to read.[107] Is there anything for children to do in countries where as yet no great awakening or startling political upheaval has taken place, but where missionary influence has been quietly, steadily at work? What about those “unoccupied mission fields” where not even a beginning has been made toward giving the Gospel message? Does Christ need the children of these lands to be at work for Him? [Sidenote: The World’s Tragedies.] “Some one thus summarizes ‘The World’s Tragedies’:-- 207,000,000 bound by caste--from Hinduism. 147,000,000 permeated with atheism--from Buddhism. 256,000,000 chained to a dead past--from Confucianism. 175,000,000 under the spell of Fatalism--from Mohammedanism. 200,000,000 sitting in darkness--from Paganism.”[108] [Sidenote: What a slave boy accomplished.] Let us try to realize that each unit of these vast figures stands for a life that was once an innocent little child, born into conditions or surroundings similar to those of which we have been studying in this book. Think of the future tragedies that may be averted if each little child today is redeemed and begins to work for Christ. Why should there not be thousands of averted or transformed tragedies like those surrounding the life of the little black boy, born in 1806 on the West Coast of Africa? Because of certain peculiar circumstances at his birth it was prophesied that he was not to be a devotee of any idol, but one “celebrated and distinguished to serve the great and highest God.” At one time when the house of his prosperous father caught fire, the little boy rushed in and saved the idols. Whereupon it was commonly said,--“This child will be a great worshiper of the gods; he will one day restore the gods to our nation.”