EXPERIENCES OF SOME BAPTIST MISSIONARIES.
MISS CAMPBELL writes to the Helping Hand, from Chin-phin, China:— "Miss Ostrom, my brother, and I have come up here for a few days to try the temper of the people, and see if it would be feasible for Miss O. and me to come here for work, after my brother goes home. We do not intend to be at all aggressive this time, but just live quietly among them for a time. No foreign woman has ever been here before. Chin-phin is thirty miles north and a little east of Ka-yin-chu. We came through by chair in one day, being well out of the city before sunrise, and coming in here by moonlight. The city is situated in a lovely and populous valley, through which a beautiful river winds, and the land is very fertile. The city is six hundred years old. The wall is most picturesque, going up hill and down, partly in ruins, and beautiful with mosses and ferns. The valley is as completely surrounded by mountains as Ka-yin-chu. This was the last place visited by the rebels in '67 or '68, who almost entirely exterminated the inhabitants. They were followed by a fire, and the fire by a pestilence, so that not more than five per cent of the population was left, and people came in from other districts to occupy the vacant houses and lands. But now the small remnant has so increased that the intruders are being driven out. At the time there were so few inhabitants, the Catholics bought up large tracts of land, which they now rent in small fields to their members. There are, perhaps, a thousand members, and they and the Germans here have chapels in sight of each other, several miles south of the city. But we are the first to enter the city itself. It635is a great coal district, and in the city a great deal of paper is made. We find the people quiet and friendly. This being the time of wheat harvest, the women are very busy, but in the two days we have been here, thirty women have called, and a good many children." Miss Annie Buzzell writes from Sendai, Japan:— "It is just a year to-day since I reached Japan, and as I look back and try to count all the blessings of the year, I find it an impossible task, for the Lord's blessings have been countless, and great and rich. To-day I can only thank and praise his holy name for all the way in which he has led me, and for all the happiness he sends. I believe there is not a happier missionary than I in all Japan. Last week my own personal teacher came to me with a new joy in his face and shining from his eyes, and he told me how, while he was sick in bed, the Lord revealed himself to him in a precious way, and, from being a mere believer, with a faith not strong enough to lead him to follow the Lord even in baptism, he has become a rejoicing, happy Christian, ready and anxious to follow his Lord everywhere. This alone was enough to fill me with joy, but the Lord had more blessings in store for me. Last Sunday the young man who has helped me much in Sunday school was sick and could not come. There was a class of women without any teacher, and I had no interpreter. I could not let them go untaught, so I asked the Lord to help me, and, to my great happiness, the language, so far as I had a vocabulary, came readily to my lips, and I could make them understand me. And so I taught my first lesson in the Japanese language, and from now on I shall prepare the lesson in Japanese, and teach that class of women every Sunday. Miss Mead and I had a praise meeting that night." Miss Mead writes from Sendai, Japan:— "It seems to me if our straits were known some friends would gladly help us out, and if you could see our thirteen dear girls, you would say they were worth helping. I have been teaching a class without an interpreter this fall, and, although I make mistakes, I have greater freedom than with him sitting by. These hours are my five best hours during the week. I have hoped and prayed that the impulse for work would come from their own desire to serve God. They have, of their own accord, one by one asked to go out to the house-to-house work at every opportunity. God has given us such unmistakable blessings in these girls we do not feel we can give them up, but if we must, we will try to feel that it is ordered of the Lord. Our girls at present are studying and doing Bible woman's work."