Mission Notes

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 30, 1916

BROTHER L. V. FINSTER, writing September 22, states that in about one month they hope to have their new school building ready for occupancy. Professor and Mrs. Steinel and Brother Sevrens have reached Manila, and will open school as soon as the building is ready. Mrs. Sevrens remained in Shanghai over one boat to assist the Division brethren in stenographic work. Only a short term can be held this year, as their school year in the Philippines closes in March. They call it a “short special course” for this year. Brother Finster expresses sincere thankfulness for the help sent them for their educational work, and closes his letter by saying: “We are leaving this forenoon for San Pablo, to hold quarterly meeting and have another baptism. I am taking Brother and Sister Steinel with me, that they may get acquainted with our young people there before the school opens.”

DURING the last two years the reading public has been surfeited with descriptions of modern warfare and its horrors. The world’s most eminent writers have used ink abundantly in depicting war’s frightfulness. But it has been left to a mere babe to give the most graphic picture of war’s brutality,—a neutral view, moreover, for this baby knows nothing of nationalities and their narrow patriotisms.

The baby is Ankeen, a tiny, laughing, black-eyed, four-year-old Armenian girl, brought to this country from Erzerum by Robert Stapleton and his wife, missionaries. The Stapletons and their charge spent the summer in Chicago, and though no attempt is made to get the child to talk on the war as she saw it, there are times when her experiences crop out.

For instance, the party was crossing a river on the cars. Ankeen looked out and saw the moving stream. She was filled with childish terror and screamed, “Oh, don’t throw me in there, will you? Please! Please! You won’t, ’cause they threw my baby sister in the river.” And the little face was hidden in the small hands.

At another time she saw some soldiers on the march, and once more she shrieked in terror, “Oh, they’ll shoot us! They shot my mamma and papa! I saw them!”

It is a view of war through a baby’s eyes—unbiased, uncensored, unprejudiced.