COMMEND your children often, especially when well merited. It will serve as an incentive to them to do better next time; it lightens the burden, cheers the heart, and awakens good and kindly thoughts.
Admonish in kindness. Nothing is gained by harsh, unkind words. They beget a feeling of stubbornness and rebellion in some, depress the spirits of others; and still others form a habit of strong indifference in order that they may overcome the depressing effect. A harsh manner of correction is a misrepresentation of God’s dealings, and drives the child’s affections from home and God. A harsh voice and unkind words grate upon the heart and harden it, and nothing but the continual dropping of softer, kindlier tones can soothe and soften such a condition.
Who chides you when an accident befalls you that incurs loss? The accident alone startles, disappoints, and corrects the child, to some degree. So speak kindly, and administer admonitions and corrections with careful thought.
Do you treat your companion and children as kindly as you do those whom you call your friends? If you do, nothing will cause them to leave home untimely. Keep your pleasant face and kind words for your home ones. They will appreciate and remember these with pleasure, while life lasts. We can not expect life’s current to flow untroubled, so prepare for the battle, bearing the bright shield of kindness, cheerfulness, and forgiveness.
An irritated spirit repels every one, and only makes ourselves and the offender worse. “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” Prov. 16: 32. “The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.” Prov. 19: 11. “He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.” Prov. 14: 29.
Never intimidate your children. Do and say things to cause them to aspire to noble thoughts and deeds. Talk of the good in the people you know or meet and in the things about you. It will ward off and undo the unlovely habit of criticism, and develop the better qualities of thought and action. Evil traits and evil things should be spoken of only to point out mistakes and teach lessons. The peace and harmony of many homes is broken up by an ill-natured spirit in the father or mother.
“We must subdue a hasty temper, and control our words; and in this we shall gain great victories. Unless we control our words and temper, we are slaves to Satan. We are in subjection to him. He leads us captive. All jangling, and unpleasant, impatient, fretful words are an offering presented to his satanic majesty. And it is a costly offering, more costly than any sacrifice we can make for God; for it destroys the peace and happiness of whole families, destroys health, and is eventually the cause of forfeiting an eternal life of happiness.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. I, page 310.
The home should be a heaven begun on earth, the place on earth where each member of the family finds a calm, sweet resting place.
Necessities for the Sick-Room
A SET of dishes should be selected for the sick-room, and these should be washed by the nurse, and never mixed with the dishes used by the family. The nurse should disinfect all bed and body linen used by the patient, and also keep the sick-room and all its belongings free from infection. Nothing contaminates the atmosphere more than dust, and nothing creates worse air-dust contamination than the spilling of foul discharges on floors, rugs, and bed and body linen, and allowing them to dry. All such foul matter should be wiped up at once with a moist disinfected cloth, which should be burned. A broom is out of place in a sick-room. It only scatters the dust into the air. The only safe disposal of the refuse from a quarantined room is cremation. The nurse in charge of a case of contagious disease should avoid direct contact with other members of the family, especially children. If she must mingle with others, she should have a special gown for the sick, which should be discarded with her cap on coming out, and always worn in the room, and she should disinfect her hands before touching anything outside of the room. All these simple, commonplace quarantine regulations, faithfully carried out, would save thousands of lives yearly among the children of the land, and also greatly lessen the cost to common people for illness and funeral expenses. Nothing would pay better than for the heads of all American households to be their own health officers.—Dr. Kate Lindsay, in the October Housekeeper.
The Child that Really Counts
THEY had been through college together—three of them. Even all through college days they were wise in domestic affairs. Especially were they full of lore concerning the proper upbringing of a child. Models of beauty, of strength, and of goodness would be the dear little children that one day should call them by the sacred name of mother.
Three years after they had left school, two of them, still unmarried, went to visit the other one, who was married, and the happy mother of a child—a real, living child nearly two years old.
It was with something awestricken in their faces, something noble and stirring in their souls, that they drew near to their friend, to her child, who was, spiritually, to a certain extent, their child also; for had not their counsel, their convictions, gone to shape the character that it must have?
When ten days had elapsed of the two weeks’ visit they were to make, they could contain themselves no longer. They must speak; they did—the two visitors between themselves.
The child was ugly! It was ill-natured! It was spoiled! They resolved to say nothing to the mother, their traitor college chum; they would heap no reproaches upon her; they would only depart. But their “over-soul” spoke in spite of them. It spoke in their faces, in their repressed manner, in their air of melancholy and discontent. Finally the poor mother blurted out in the face of their disapproval and despair, “O girls, please don’t take it so hard! This isn’t the child I was going to have; but it’s the one I’ve got.”
There in the cruel light of day is disclosed a child on which everything in the world depends, and how much are we doing for him—the child we’ve got? The child we were going to have, the child we ought to have, the child we would like to have—these unreal children of imagination, ambition, desire,—have become a modern fetish. For their preservation and development we pursue many sciences, we keep in motion many movements which cause us to study, write, preach, and run about the world.
But the child we’ve got—what of him? Are we keeping close to him? Do we know his mind? Is his heart beating in our heart? Or by any fearful chance have we left him alone?
She was an old-fashioned mother listening to the outpouring of the heart of a “new mother,” troubled and worried about the many things embraced in the13child problem of the day. She said: “Do not let much learning make you foolish and mad. There is just one thing fixed and indispensable in bringing up a child. Make him feel that he is loved.”
Is not that a consoling thought to the mother disappointed in the child she was going to have? There still remains to her hope, the happiness, the fruitful labor, of loving the child she has.—Harper’s Bazar.
Simple and Effective Home Treatments
INSOMNIA is a most distressing condition. It may be palliated by the employment of what is known as the heating compress. The heating compress is made and applied as follows:—
Take a piece of bleached cheese-cloth, two yards long, and fold it lengthwise into three thicknesses. Begin at the end and roll it into a loose roll. Wet it in cold or tepid water, and wring out the dripping surplus. Wrap it round the body, over the abdomen. Over this wrap a flannel binder, and pin it snugly down the side with a few safety-pins. Over this it will be best to pin an oiled silk or oiled muslin binder. The flannel binder should overlap the cotton one a little. The flannel and oiled silk are best sewed together in one binder. In a short time after being applied, a gentle heat is felt all through the abdomen. The gentle heat dilates the abdominal blood-vessels, reducing the tension of those in the brain, thus inducing sleep. The sleep generally continues many hours.
Sore throat is a common ailment associated with influenza, colds, and fevers. It is therefore important to know how to treat it. Nothing is better than the cooling compress. This must be properly applied. Many use this, but do not get the benefit from its use because it is carelessly applied.
The usual way it is done is to wet a cloth and put it around the neck, then to bind over it a wad of flannel three or four inches thick, and a comforter or two over that. That only makes a heating compress, and invites the blood to the throat, thus increasing the inflammation. The only way is to wet the end of a short towel for about six inches; place it across the neck, and wrap the dry part round the neck and over the wet part, pinning it fast. Evaporation will go on from such a compress all night, keeping the throat cool, and taking out the inflammation. There is no danger whatever of taking cold. This same treatment may be used in the treatment of inflamed joints, etc., with good results.—Selected.
How to Manage Boys
A young teacher who has great success with a class of little “ragamuffins” in the worst quarter of a large city, was asked at a school-teachers’ meeting to tell something of the method by which she had transformed the lawless street urchins into respectable little citizens in so many cases.
“I haven’t any method, really,” said the young woman, modestly. “It is only that I try to make the boys like me, and I say ‘don’t’ just as seldom as I possibly can in my work with them. They had learned to lie, steal, and fight; and truth, honesty, and courtesy were unknown terms.
“So I began by telling them a story every morning about some boy who had done a brave, honest, or kind thing, and held him up for their admiration. And after a while I asked them to ‘save up’ good things they had seen or done to tell at these morning talks. Their eagerness about it, and pride, when I was pleased with their little incidents showed me they were being helped.
“There was just one boy who seemed to be hopeless. He was apparently indifferent to everything, sat for weeks, during the morning talks, with a stolid expression, and never contributed anything to the conversation. I had begun to feel really discouraged about him, when one morning he raised his hand as soon as it was time for the talk to begin.
“‘Well, Jim, what is it you have to tell us?’ I asked, encouragingly.
“‘Man’s hat blew off as I was comin’ to school. I ran an’ picked it up for him,’ he jerked out, in evident embarrassment at finding all eyes fastened on him.
“‘And what did the man say?’ I asked, hoping that a ‘thank you’ had rewarded his first attempt in the right direction.
“‘You young scamp, you’d have off with that if I hadn’t kept my eye on you!’ said the boy in the same jerky fashion.
“‘And what did you do then?’ I asked, in fear and trembling.
“‘Didn’t do nothin’ but jest come along to school,’ said the boy, soberly. ‘I reckon he didn’t know no better, prob’ly he hadn’t had no sech teachin’ as I’ve got,’ and he lapsed into silence with an air of perfect satisfaction.
“I think he had a pretty severe rebuff, but he has told a great many pleasant things since that day, so you see he was not disheartened.
“Some people would say, I know, that I ought to tell them how bad stealing and lying and fighting are; and yet as long as they will listen to me while I say, ‘Do be honest, do be truthful, do be kind,’ I shall not keep the other things before their minds.”
The young teacher sat down as modestly as she had risen. It was unanimously voted that, whatever might be said for other methods, hers—which she did not even call a method—had commended itself.—Selected.
A Few Helpful Suggestions in Maintaining Health
EACH morning immediately after rising, take a cool shower spray or full bath, wipe dry quickly, and follow by vigorous rubbing with the hands until a good reaction is brought about. Avoid very coarse towels. These applications should be as cold as can be borne, and short. The colder the water, the shorter should be the application. The whole treatment should not require more than three minutes. If the shower-bath is not accessible, a little cold water in a basin will answer the purpose, using a sponge or the bare hand in applying the water. Dress quickly, and take a brisk walk for half an hour in the open air, or take some special exercise. Do not carry exercise to the point of fatigue or exhaustion. If faithfully followed, this will be found to be a most wonderful tonic, and an almost sure protection against cold.—Selected.
Buying Words
The story of Bible translation is an interesting one. Often the missionary has had to search long to find the right words. In an interview with Dr. Gunn, who has been translating the New Testament into Futana, the language of one of the New Hebrides Islands, this experience is related:—
“When I first started translating any portion of the Scripture, I found a great difficulty in getting suitable words for certain expressions. After some years in the island I offered to pay the natives at a fixed rate for every hundred words they brought me. The more intelligent of the younger men would write down lists of words, sometimes getting from the older men words that were not in general use, and I paid for all those that were new to me. I gave them a present equal to about nine pence per hundred. In this way I added considerably to my vocabulary.”
Mother's Influence
The chaplain of a prison once stated that one of the most distressing experiences of his prison life was with a murderer sentenced to death. The man remained stolid and unmoved by any appeal to his moral sentiment or to his conscience. As the chaplain bade him farewell at his execution, he said, “I’ll tell you why you couldn’t do nothin’ for me. Other men’s mothers taught them religion when they were little. My mother was a drunken thief!”
God puts a child’s mind, like a white scroll, into the mother’s hand. He alone fully knows what she writes there.—Selected.
Creamed Cabbage
SLICE enough cabbage to make two quarts. Soak it in ice-cold water for an hour, drain, and put in a saucepan with two quarts of boiling water. Cook ten minutes, drain and cover with the same amount of fresh boiling water. Cook until the cabbage is tender, drain again, chop coarsely, put into a saucepan with two rounding tablespoons of butter, a salt-spoon of salt, and one rounding tablespoon of flour made smooth in a cup of milk. Simmer, and the cabbage is ready to serve.
The Laborers Are Few
By L. D. Santee
L. D. SANTEE
THERE'S a weary longing in brain and heart,
A pain that I can not make depart,
As I think of the crowds that walk in sin,
The tares that the tempter has gathered in,
Of the waiting ones in the dark that stand,
Fainting for bread from a Saviour's hand;
Soon will the years of probation end,
But whom can the Lord of the harvest send?
The fields to be gathered are broad and white,
And the grain for the sickle is fully ripe;
But the reapers,—O, how few on the plain!
While, alas! is wasting the golden grain!
The day is waning, the sun's glad light
Will soon be followed by gloom of night,
And many a sheaf that the wind has tossed,
For the lack of the reapers will be lost.
The servants of darkness are busy, too;
Their snares are legion, the broad fields through,
And many a soul for whom Christ died,
By the snares of the wicked is turned aside.
With no one to gather the golden grain,
'Twill be bound with the tares in bands of pain,
And I pray, with an aching heart and brow,
“O Lord, send reapers, and send them now.”
Soon will the last sheaf droop and fall,
And the mantle of night will cover all;
The work of the reaper will then be done,
And the grain that is saved will be gathered home;
But, O! must we plead, and plead in vain,
For reapers to gather the precious grain?
Once more we pray, and we plead with tears,
For reapers to work till the Lord appears.
Chicago, Ill.
The West Indian Training-School
By GEO. F. ENOCH
Some Unique Features
GEO. F. ENOCH
The West Indian Training-school will occupy a unique position in our school family. So far as the writer knows, it is the first large school that we have started within the tropics. It has already a large constituency to draw from. The tropical feature of the school brings in several interesting variations from the ordinary school program.
To begin with, it is summer all the time. Nature is always in her brightest dress. Crops grow the year round. It is always possible to have the students learn the lessons of seed-time and harvest. School work can be easily carried on the year round. Books for a time, and then the book of nature for a time, can be so interchanged that neither need become irksome. In northern climes, school is usually in session during the bleak winter, and vacation is the season of the growing plants. Such a situation can not take place in this school.
Not only will it be possible to continue the studies the year round, but many students will be compelled to stay at the school until their work is finally completed. The faculty, in such a case, need not worry lest vacation influences should undo the good derived from the work of the school year.
The industrial feature of this school is also interesting. It is not industrial from choice alone, but from compulsion. For years the Lord has instructed us that we should connect industries with our school. Here is a good-sized school starting on its course, not with industrial work as a side issue, or as an experiment, but as a part of its very life. It must prosper or fail with its industries. The chief reason for this is that the majority of our young people will land on the grounds with scarcely more than a shilling in their pockets. The school will have to take their mind and muscle, and in some way convert it into support for the school.
If the right sort of educators will take hold of this proposition, and push it through to success, it is evident that this very condition will make for strength, both for the institution and for those who shall be trained therein.
A good farm of one hundred acres has been secured. The land is good. The railway crosses one corner of the farm, with a station only one and one-half miles away. Good markets are handy. For the export trade, bananas, pineapples, oranges, and grapefruit will be raised. For the home market all tropical grains, vegetables, and other crops can be planted. The farm has not been under cultivation for several years, and will have to be cleared of the bush that has grown up. Not only will those in charge of this school be able to raise that which is good for food, but that which is pleasant to the sight as well. In these lands of perpetual sunshine, beneath summer skies, where no cold breath of winter ever hinders or blasts vegetation, the possibilities are beyond description. Palms, ornamental shrubs, ferns, and fragrant flowers of every sort will grow or blossom the year round. O how much these people need a model school, from which they can go to make their homes and surroundings beautiful!
WEST INDIAN TRAINING-SCHOOL HOME
Other industries, such as carpentry, tailoring, shoemaking, and the manufacture of Panama hats, will be connected with this school. Already there are more than twelve young men and women working as hard as they can, receiving only their board, their labor going to their credit on tuition as soon as the school can be started. This should be encouraging to us, and give us a practical example of the mettle of the West Indian young people.
The General Conference brethren have indorsed this school, and their treasurer is ready to receive any donations that the Lord may impress the hearts of our people to give. This plea demands something more than an interested reading. You need not send a donation to the West Indies. All you need do is to pay to the treasurer of your church to whom you pay your tithe whatever the Lord impresses you to give, being sure to have it sent in as for the West Indian Training-school.
Some of our people think that there15are too many calls. If we would only stop to think that every call from the regions beyond means an opportunity to invest in souls, we should regard it a great privilege. Like the scarlet thread that is woven into the texture of the dollar bill, even so the scarlet thread of the blood of Jesus Christ runs through every dollar that comes into our possession, and we must spend that dollar with that in mind. There is enough money spent unnecessarily by our people to equip many such a needy enterprise. Can we read the words of the Master. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me,” and be unresponsive? Self-denial has been well defined as denying one’s self for the benefit of others, or for the future.
“There’s a cry from the dark to-night
That haunts the darkened room,
From that other sheep, on the broken
steep,
At the edge of eternal doom.”
We feel sure that there will be a hearty response to this pressing plea. What will you do?
A Ship-Load of Gold Sovereigns for Missions
By E. H. Gates
A few days ago there arrived in Sydney a ship loaded with gold sovereigns for missions. It happened on this wise: The new extension of the Pure Food Café was dedicated on August 19. After an excellent dinner had been served to about ninety guests, all adjourned to the new room and listened to some good music and the reading of interesting papers by different members of the café staff of helpers. At the conclusion of these exercises, Brother Fisher, the manager of the café, read the following recommendation, passed by the union conference council last September:—
“That we recommend our various conference committees and managing boards of our institutions to consider the advisability of giving each year, from the ordinary income of these conferences and institutions, a donation toward foreign mission work.”
Brother Fisher then stated that the café family had been making an effort to carry out this recommendation, and that all had united in practising economy in various ways in order to save something for the island missions.
At the conclusion of his remarks, he lifted a covering which concealed some object on the table, and revealed to the gaze of all in the room a miniature ship made of pearl-shell from keel to top-mast, loaded to its utmost capacity with gold sovereigns. On one of the sails soon was printed the well-known words, “The isles shall wait for thy law.” In an appropriate speech Brother Fisher, in behalf of the café workers, presented this ship with its golden cargo to the writer for the use of the island missions. It was found that the value of the cargo amounted to twenty-five pounds. The suddenness of the surprise nearly only took away the breath of the writer, but he managed to express his thankfulness to the happy-faced café family for the handsome gift.
No sooner were we seated than a boy connected with the café stepped up, and in a few well-chosen words presented a small silver tray containing a guinea in silver coins, to the writer, and with it a card on which were written the words, “The light that shines the farthest shines the brightest nearer home.” This was also for the foreign missions.
Our missionary department is more thankful than can be expressed for these tokens of the deep interest on the part of our people in the foreign missionary work. In our island missions are millions and millions of souls groping in the dense darkness of heathenism and Mohammedanism, who must go to ruin unless we send them the light of the gospel truth. Our mission department must have large sums in order that facilities may be furnished for carrying on the work in the great East Indian field. The Philippines have two workers, but must soon have a mission house of its own in order to save exorbitant rents. We can delay no longer to furnish means for a church and mission in the city of Singapore, and land in the country for a school and a printing-press. Java with its nearly thirty million inhabitants has one Sabbath-keeping family, and must soon have a school.
New Guinea calls loudly for workers who can give the present truth. Hundreds of other islands have never heard the gospel sound. These gifts by our faithful people make it possible for us to open up new fields from time to time. May we often be surprised by receiving ship-loads of gold.—E. H. Gates, in Union Conference Record.
A Country Visit
By Ida E. Thompson
IDA E. THOMPSON
ONE of the first decisions, after determining to go to Amoy for a vacation, was that a visit to the country would be one of its chief delights. The day came, and about one o’clock one afternoon Brother and Sister Hankins, Brother and Sister Wilbur, Brother Keh and his daughter, one of our native pastors, and myself boarded the steam launch which would take us to a country village, about three hours’ distant. The launch was well filled with natives going to the country, as well as with cargo. Brother Keh told us to provide ourselves with stools, as no conveniences would be found on board, but being unaccustomed to such a fashion, we failed to do this. We found across the end of the launch several planks, about five inches wide, on which had collected a crowd of men, with their tobacco and opium pipes, ready for the journey. Finally we found sitting space.
Upon arriving at the country village, we found a contrary tide; and as we were to take sampans propelled by one man by oars, for the remainder of the trip, we waited for the tide to turn. While waiting, several of us went into the village for a stroll. This being my first visit in the country in China, I was anxious to see as much as possible, yet felt it was not wise to go far, as a large crowd followed to see the curious foreigners. There are no foreigners living at that place. The streets were very narrow, and it seemed that at each turn was a pigsty and a chicken roost; and a goodly number of pigs and chickens were allowed their liberty.
We wished to purchase a few articles, such as rice and vegetables, for the evening meal; but in this place what we know of the Chinese language served us to no purpose. We bought what we could by pointing to the article, and holding out a piece of money which we considered a fair price. Brother Keh, who went out with the other party, was readily understood, so they called on a native doctor who had heard some of this truth and reported himself to be keeping the Sabbath.
A short time before sunset, three sampans were engaged to take us the rest of the way to our country station, To Gong. These sampans differ from our Canton sampans, in that they have no seats. The top is covered with bamboo matting supported by bamboo poles, very similar to the covered emigrant wagons in the Western States. On the floor was a bamboo matting, on which passengers16were to sit or to recline as they chose.
We should have reached our destination in about two hours; but one boat being old, and its owner unaccustomed to such long trips, we were much delayed, reaching the chapel at 8:20 P. M. Even though we were not expected, and no appointment had been made, Brother Keh opened the door, and soon we had a congregation of forty or fifty natives. There is no other chapel within several miles.
We foreigners made the sampans our headquarters day and night while in the country. After service, our boatman rowed us out into the stream, where we slept until morning. At daybreak our friends from the chapel were on shore, motioning for us to come over, as they had brought us warm water with which to wash, and some drinking water. They said breakfast would be served us later in the chapel, where the native pastor’s and school-teacher’s families lived. About nine o’clock the signal was given for breakfast. We went over, and found two large stone crocks of rice water, and one large crock of rice, a bowl of duck eggs scrambled with chopped onions, a bowl of fried fish, some malt honey of native manufacture, and some bread which Brother Keh had brought from Amoy for us. The meal was ready to be spread on the little wooden table, covered with a white spread borrowed from Sister Hankins, so as to suit the foreign visitors. It is needless to say we all enjoyed the meal, as we are quite native when it comes to rice eating. After breakfast a visit was made to the surrounding villages, as we also have interested ones there. In the afternoon several neighbor women came in to see the foreign women, whereupon we sang a few gospel songs with them, and our two Bible women gave them a gospel talk.
Before leaving the place I walked the entire length and breadth of the village, which consumed less than forty-five minutes. I met two of the women who had been at the afternoon service. Each brought a bamboo stool out into the street, and motioned me to be seated. I complied with their request, but could not speak a word to them, as our dialect is not understood in that province. I motioned a few things, and then took my departure, feeling they were friendly indeed, and pitying them because they know not the truth of God and his Son Jesus. This village has probably less than four hundred inhabitants, but is surrounded by a number of villages within twenty minutes’ reach of it. We were told there were ten or more reliable Sabbath-keepers here. The boys’ school had about twenty in attendance, but was at that time taking its vacation.
The two Bible women go from place to place, teaching the women, and not without results. Some believe. The second and last evenings we were there a company of from forty to sixty came together to hear the Word. The chapel would not accommodate this number, but they accommodated themselves to the out-of-door space about the door and windows.
Brother Keh believes this is a good work, and that others will be gathered. After meeting, the brethren and sisters came down to the boat to see us off. About ten o’clock our boatmen rowed us out into the middle of the stream, lashed two sampans together, and hoisted the sail of one, ready to float down stream, a few hours later, to meet the launch bound for Amoy the following morning. Before six o’clock we were up making preparations for the rest of the return trip.
The night had been clear, beautiful moonlight, so we could see the banks and surrounding mountains. The river is so crooked that one feels as if he were sailing on a small lake all the time, with the four banks in view. As we near the mountain, we wonder where the turn in the river is, for there seems to be no opening; but when once to the mountain edge, the boat turns, and is apparently in another lake, as before. Along the banks are rice-fields and green grass, so much to be appreciated by us who live in Canton, shut in by narrow streets.
We arrived at Amoy at about eleven o’clock. The entire distance along the river is lined with villages, which as yet have not heard the truth. Brother Keh says he feels he has a duty to teach the near villages, as this was his birth-place.
You can not understand what a village means, as it does not correspond to one of our villages at home. A place here—tiny, only a few houses—may have several hundred people, and many of the villages we saw had more than a hundred houses. The country is unlike our home country, with farmhouses scattered along the road. Here people settle in a group, forming a village. One reason for this is the security it affords against robbers. The Chinese son rarely lives apart from the father’s home. In the country he usually has a small house built beside the father’s, thus the villages are formed. Sometimes families of the same name compose a village.
We counted eight such villages from the launch at a bend in the river. To Gong is a market town having no shops to speak of, but on market days articles of all kinds are brought and displayed in stalls in the streets, and then sold at auction or by street vendors. How shall these thousands of China’s villages be taught the truth which we hold dear? How shall they hear of the God who created the heavens and the earth? Just now I recall the words of Jacob to Joseph: “Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I.” Jacob was concerned about his dear ones, and Joseph, obedient to a loving father, was willing to serve.
Perchance some who may read these lines have heard our Father’s tender voice calling them to inquire of the spiritual welfare of their far-away brethren. Can you answer as did Joseph?
Canton, China.
Waiting for the Message
By H. W. Miller
H. W. MILLER, M. D.
Christ has a few yet who are waiting—yes, waiting—for some one to bring them this last message of warning. What else is delaying Christ’s coming? Think of China’s four hundred and twenty-six million waiting, from whom he said, over twenty-five hundred years ago, some would be gathered. “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” Rom. 10:14.
God has chosen to call men through the agency of his servants. It ought to be the question of every one, Am I going to permit myself to act as a messenger of light? In the words quoted above, Paul refers to those who have never heard of God, and these are the heathen in our present age. Yes, over half of the population of the world to-day is in Asia, waiting to hear of a God of compassion and love. Christ’s last command to his disciples to go to all the world comes to us as a people in tones that will not cease until the world is reached with the gospel, and the work is completed.
Honan, China.
One Out of Every Five
By Mrs. F. Howard Taylor
ONE fifth of all the women of the world are found in the homes of China. One baby girl out of every five is cradled in a Chinese mother's arms, unwelcomed and unloved, unless by that poor mother's heart.
One little maiden out of every five grows up in ignorance and neglect, drudging in the daily toil of some poor Chinese family, or crying over the pain of her crippled feet in the seclusion of a wealthier home. Among all the youthful brides who day by day pass from the shelter of their childhood's home, one out of every five goes weeping in China to the tyranny of the mother-in-law she dreads, and the indifference of a husband she has never seen.
One out of every five, at the close of earthly life, passes into the shadow and terror that surround a Chinese grave, never having heard of Him who alone can rob death of its sting. One fifth of all the women are waiting, waiting, in China, for the Saviour who so long has waited for them.
What a burden of responsibility does this lay upon us—the women of Christendom!—Mrs. F. Howard Taylor.
Death of Brother Malachai
OUR workers in Fiji have suffered a great loss in the death of Brother Malachai, a young man aged twenty-one, who had just completed three years of training in the Avondale School, and returned to his island home. He longed to tell his people the message which was so dear to him, but must do in his death what he could not do in his life. Almost his last words were, “Jesus, my Saviour; Jesus, my Saviour.”
