Missionary Work in the School at Cooranbong, Australia
[THE description of the missionary enterprises of our school in Cooranbong will be read with special interest just now when attention is being turned toward the needs of Australia. We are indebted to a private letter written by Sister Hattie Andre, one of the instructors in the school, to Elder G. A. Irwin, while he was in America, for this article.] On each Wednesday, from ten to eleven o'clock, one hour in the school is devoted to a missionary meeting. The officers of this meeting are students, and most of those taking part are students. This is a part of the regular school program. Our students are all expected to be present, and we seek as far as possible to give each something to do as frequently as we can. This we think is a good training for the youth, and it gives them experience in literary lines as well as in missionary work. Just now we are making an effort toward supporting foreign missionaries in some of the islands or in China or India. The faculty have subscribed twenty pounds, and the students are seeking in various ways to raise as much, or more. Of course most of them are poor, and have but little if any ready cash. Brother Davis has volunteered to pay twelve pounds ten shillings to the students who will clear one acre of land on the school farm, thus helping the school, and at the same time helping the boys to earn their money to help support a missionary. Other boys are earning money by chopping wood. Besides this they are planning a missionary garden, the proceeds of which they will use in helping support a missionary. There is also some talk of a missionary garden for the girls. The girls are making useful articles of various kinds, which they sell to the people in the neighborhood and to the shops in Sidney. The little children of the preparatory20department are also arranging for a missionary garden. The little articles that they are making this year they sell, and for the first half of the year use the money to help the work in Queensland; for the last half they propose to help the Burmese work in India. In the Sabbath-school we are also inventing every way we can think of to train the students for Sabbath-school and missionary workers. We have organized a Sabbath-school normal class. There are seventeen young men in this class. For half an hour before the teachers' meeting each week special instruction is given in the best methods of teaching; and then on Sabbath one of the members of the class teaches the class, and all the other members hold themselves in readiness to teach any class in the school whose teacher may be absent for the day. In the afternoon two or three of them go to the home of an aged brother and sister who can not attend service, to study the lesson with them. Two others go to another family to hold a Sabbath-school and Bible study. Two others go to Mandalong to hold meetings with some people there. Besides these, other visits are made, and papers and tracts are distributed in various places. Several of the girls go to Dora Creek and hold children's meetings. Some go to Martinsville also. On Sunday, two of the boys, with either Brother Chaney or Brother Fulton, go to Awaba to hold meetings; and Sunday night Brother Fulton takes two of the boys and goes to Martinsville. He is now planning to hold a regular series of meetings to bind off the work in that place. The plan is for him to take two young men with him, having previously instructed them, to assist in the service. Perhaps all three of them will take some little part in the service each evening. This is the plan that I have longed to see carried out. I think that in our schools there should be a minister who can associate with the boys and teach them how to do actual work. And this Brother Fulton takes real pleasure in doing. Brother Fulton is also doing his best to get the church to work. They are considering the matter of supporting a missionary in some foreign field. With all this work, you can imagine how busy we must be; but we are all happy in it, and praise the Lord for some humble part in his work. The spiritual condition of the school is the best that I ever have known it. The students all seem to realize that they are here for a purpose, and are putting forth their best effort in the right direction.