The American Missionary — Volume 49, No. 03, March, 1895

"There would have been much more suffering had it not been for the clothing which has gone out from this school. When seven chickens bring only thirty-five cents the poor mountain people do not have much chance."

A pastor of the Association among our American Highlanders writes as follows: "This has been a most blessed and glorious season of refreshing. In the bounds of my work this fall and winter I have held and assisted in meetings which have in all resulted in something more than 100 hopeful conversions. My work now is especially to care for and look after the welfare of these precious souls lately brought to Christ and to give as much time as possible to my studies."

INDIAN WORK.--Our friends will remember the appeal made by Rev. James F. Cross, of Rosebud Agency, S.D., at our annual meeting at Elgin, Ill., for a chapel to be built at Cedar Butte, S.D. President Gates, moved by the appeal, took it up so enthusiastically that nearly $400 came from him and other generous givers. The Indians drew the logs and have just erected the chapel under the direction of Superintendent Cross. A note just received from the field contains the following, which abundantly proves the wisdom of opening this new station at Cedar Butte and helping the Indians in the erection of their church: "Last week I was up to Cedar Butte church. It was the first time since it was built that I have been there for service. I received two young men into the church. It was a warm day and the thermometer has not been ten degrees away from zero, except to go thirteen below, since." This chapel at Cedar Butte is the center of a new work, and this message brings the hopefulness of the field.

"We received five grown persons to our church fellowship on Sunday, and two children were baptized. Three Christian Indian families were constituted by Christian marriage at the same time. Praise God!" So writes Supt. C.L. Hall, of Fort Berthold Indian Mission, N.D.

Very often we are asked if the people among whom we labor are grateful for the work that is done for and among them--whether there is self-denial on their part in helping themselves in church and school work.

It is very important that we should have some expression on their part in regard to this. There are many incidents in which grateful acknowledgment is made. A few incidents will best answer the above question.

A little more than a mile from here there lives in an almost uninhabitable cabin an old lady who is called "Aunt Eliza." I saw her first one cold day last winter, when I called and found her in bed sick with pneumonia. We ministered unto her as we best could, providing medicine, food and clothing.

From a missionary barrel garments were obtained which helped to make her body comfortable. She depended on the kindness of a neighbor to gather sticks for her and draw water. At times there was only enough fire in the fire-place to give a faint glimmer, not enough to make the room cheerful. Aunt Eliza is old and crippled, and it was only with much care and patient waiting that in the goodness of God she was restored to health. Some time passed after her recovery before I saw her. She came to our house on a hot summer day to bring an offering of gratitude for God's mercy in giving her back health and strength. She brought to us in a corner of her handkerchief fifty-five cents which she had saved from little gifts from children and grandchildren nearly as poor as herself. She had at this time only meal enough in her house to make one "pone" of bread. Gratefully she urged upon us her self-denying gift of thanksgiving. Of course we accepted it, only to return it to her in the name of the Master, who is the Great Gift Giver. Later in the season our sister remembered us again. She had saved for us two chickens, but a "_conjuror_" came along and said he would tell her fortune for them. He succeeded in "_beating_" her out of her offering for the Lord, and in return she received nothing. She came and told us all about it. This good woman did not rest until she brought us one at a time the chickens that she had promised. When the Association met with us a few days ago she brought, as her part to help, a few eggs. There are other incidents in her life which are interesting, but we cannot tell them all now. She certainly is grateful and gives the "widow's mite" in giving all that she has. She has been to our church and been blessed in meeting God in the sanctuary. The first Sunday that she came she bowed and courtesied to the people as she came in, much to their amusement.

Rev. George Thompson was early enlisted as a missionary in the Mendi Mission on the west coast of Africa. He had been a most ardent friend of the slave, active in aiding their escape from the house of bondage, and as a consequence had spent five years in the Missouri State Prison. He went to Africa in 1848 under the commission of the American Missionary Association, and proved himself to be remarkably useful. One of his most far-reaching efforts was in the work as a peacemaker. A fierce and unrelenting war had been raging among the tribes around the mission, and this was brought to a close through the wise and persistent efforts of Mr. Thompson. He was chosen umpire for the contending chiefs, and after repeated and wearying excursions, and ten interviews or councils with both parties, he at length succeeded. Then came the joy which peace brings. Warriors met and fell on each other's necks; chiefs, who were for years enemies, now shook hands and embraced each other with the affection of long-separated friends; sisters, wives and daughters, long captives, fell into each other's arms, weeping for joy. A chief's daughter was seen running to embrace her father's feet, a wife hastened to welcome her husband and children, and entire towns were filled with cries of gladness. The beatitude, "Blessed are the peacemakers," belongs to Mr. Thompson.

Ill health at length compelled Mr. Thompson to relinquish the work in Africa, and in 1856 he returned to Oberlin, Ohio, where he spent five years in publishing his book on Africa, entitled, "Palm Land," and in educating two boys whom he brought with him from Africa. In 1861 he removed with his family to northwestern Michigan, where he labored as a home missionary for eighteen years, being the pastor for fifteen years of a church which he established. He then returned to Oberlin, where he remained until his death in 1893. In all these years Mr. Thompson was a laborious and useful man, actively engaged in awakening the churches to an interest in Africa, in writing his books and educating his children. In his later years, while living in Oberlin, he was abundant in labors in connection with Sunday-schools and feeble churches in Ohio and other States.

In 1843 a number of young men from Oberlin entered upon a mission among the Ojibway Indians in the northern part of what is now Minnesota, under the auspices of the Western Evangelical Missionary Society, which was soon afterward transferred to the American Missionary Association. Of the inaccessibility of this field, a competent authority has said: "There is probably no missionary field to-day on the face of the earth more difficult to reach than this was at that time."

Among this group of missionaries was Rev. S.G. Wright. As a part of his experience it is said that after a short visit at home, Mr. Wright returned to the mission taking his young wife with him--their wedding tour. It was a journey of over a month made in a canoe. They were both compelled to walk at intervals twenty-two miles in the swamps along the side of the stream until they reached Mr. Barnard's station. These walks were varied by sickness; Mr. Wright sometimes had chills every day, but at Mr. Barnard's station he recovered. There remained yet twenty miles of their journey, and this was undertaken on foot, but soon a storm brought five inches of snow. Mr. Wright says: "My wife was very lame, and what woman would not be after walking twenty long miles through mire and water, over high hills and through gullies, in snow from four to five inches deep?"

The change wrought by these missionaries can be indicated in a sentence: When they went there the Indians cultivated almost no land and their only domestic animals were dogs. They maintained a precarious existence by hunting and fishing, and the gathering of wild rice, with starvation as no uncommon experience. In a few years these Indians raised their own supplies of corn and potatoes, with some to sell to procure other necessaries; they began to build houses for themselves; had the benefit of a saw mill and a grist mill, with the blessings of a church and boarding school.

The Association withdrew from the mission in 1859, but Mr. Wright returned under other auspices, and spent several years in effective and useful work. He still lives and is active in Christian labors as a member of the church in Oberlin.

It included every Southern State in extent from Virginia to Texas, and from Texas to Florida. It was a study of schools, their methods and attainments; it was the acquaintance of new teachers and their work, the greeting of those who have become old friends, the look into the eyes of more colored youth in schools than usually falls to one person. It was a comparative study of classes of all grades in schools of the same grade, and of schools in different States and environments. It was an examination of industries in agriculture, industries in mechanics, of schools, normal and collegiate. It was an inspection of properties; an inquiry as to the prices of paints and brick and lime and wall papers.