A Few of the Ways in Which Missionary Work Can Be Done
By B. F. Richards
FROM THE HELPING HAND MISSION, SAN FRANCISCO.
A Few of the Ways in Which Missionary Work Can Be Done.
A LITTLE boy from Fields Landing, California, writes us: 'I am a little boy ten years old. My papa pays me fifty cents a week to drive the cows for him, and I send one dollar, which is to buy one book of meal tickets to be used at the Helping Hand and Medical Mission to help feed the poor; and may God's blessing go with my mite.
'WILLIE G. WILSON.'
Chinese Confucian Temple.
Some of the boys at the Healdsburg (Cal.) College have organized what they call the "Boys' Missionary Society." During their spare moments they come together and make small ornamental, useful household articles, then sell them from house to house. The money thus received is sent to the mission for the purpose of furnishing and endowing a bed.
One sister in Santa Barbara, Cal., who is seventy-two years of age, while lying in her bed for about a year, with a broken hip, pieced several quilts, and then, with the assistance of another sister, who is seventy-four years old, the quilts were put together. The material for the quilts was purchased, together with sheets and towels, by another sister, and they were sent to us to be used in the mission.
We have come to a time when gardens will be planted. Would it not be an excellent time for father and mother to teach the children at home how to work for God? Have you a farm, or garden spot? then let the children have a portion of it, furnish them with suitable seeds for planting, then give them instructions in preparing the ground, tell them that they must take care of it, and whatever it brings forth let them give to the Lord's poor. As you deal out the seed to them, just before planting, gather the household together and ask God to bless the seed, that it may bring forth10a crop to His glory. Encourage the children to do little deeds of kindness, and parents will be richly rewarded by beholding noble men and women as the children grow older.
The other day I called at the San Francisco Morgue. Here I saw the remains of four men and one woman; two of the men were unknown, and as I looked into the face of each, I was sure I had seen their faces a few days before at the mission. But when I came to the third bier, I was not mistaken, for I was looking at the face of poor Donnelly, a man with whom I had prayed and labored so many times, and each time he would say, "Sometime I will turn; sometime I will be a better man." But I said, Donnelly, sometime you will let the chance to be saved go by just once too often. And so he did, for one morning, after a long-protracted spree, while walking in the park near the mission, the poor man fell to the ground dead,—life's race over, and what a record!
At the evening meeting in the mission, after the visit to the morgue, I had been telling the men what I had seen, and had been urging them not to wait, for there was danger in every moment spent in waiting. I then turned the meeting over to the men, and among the first to rise to his feet was a tall, fine-built, well-educated man, who said: "I am thankful that I am alive, for I have been with poor Donnelly many a night drinking in Chinatown. He is dead, and I am alive, and I will live to work for others from this time on. God has done a most remarkable work for me, and I praise His holy name."
One young man came to the mission, gave himself to the Lord, and for about a month had the privilege of speaking a word in praise to God, when he was taken sick and died in a few days. With this brother we can say, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord," for we expect to meet him in the "first resurrection."
Brother Whitney, who had been known by our people in this State, and in Kansas, was a member of the mission family for several months. He was faithful in his testimony for the Lord every evening in the meetings. He, too, was taken sick with pneumonia and lasted only a few days. We expect to meet Brother Whitney also when the Master calls to His sleeping ones to come forth.
