THE VALUE OF MISSIONARY SCHOOLS.
MISS FREDRICKSON, a Baptist missionary at Rangoon, Burmah, writes as follows to the home officials in regard to schools and their relation to the work of saving souls:— “I do heartily believe in schools, because I see nothing else that can take their place in bringing the young under continued Christian influence. . . . Of all the girls who have gone out from the school, forty-seven are now actively engaged in the work of the mission, mostly in school work; some are Bible women, others are wives of native pastors, and many have married and established Christian homes. The customs of the country are such that a young girl cannot go out as a Bible woman, because the heathen have no respect for them, and will say very unkind things about them. When they go out as teachers, they have large opportunities for Christian work among the heathen, which they could not gain in any other way. The school is the opening wedge. “The results of the school work are not to be measured always by figures and apparent results. We have lately had a striking illustration of that. A native of India who was in the British army, a Mohammedan, was baptized in Pegu, gave up his work, and came to Rangoon, and is working among the Mohammedans here. He is an earnest worker, and, humanly speaking, is doing a work no other can do, because he is finely educated, and knows all about their religion and books, and knows the Bible, too. He was seven years in a mission school, and left it apparently as he came into it, a heathen. But he never forgot the scripture which he learned there, and the Holy Spirit used it to lead to his conversion. “One of the girls from the school was at home during the vacation; her parents took her to the pagoda to worship. She refused, saying, ‘It is only brick and stone, and cannot hear or help me.’ She is not a Christian, but her faith in idols is destroyed. I am convinced that the school is an important means of evangelization, and without it our work would suffer all along the line. The government schools are not turning out the material of which we can make Christian workers, nor are they such as we would wish to educate our Christians in.”