writes as follows to the Editor of the Christian Observer : Dear Mr. Converse.-About a year ago, Miss Safford, the missionary from China, spent a few days at our house. She was such a sweet lady, and told so many nice stories about Chinese boys and girls, that we were very sorry, indeed, when the time came for her to leave us. Sister Mary and I had two nice dolls, named "Widget" and “Daisy," that we loved very much, and when Miss Safford told us how fond the Chinese girls were of foreign dolls, we thought we would send them out by her to China. Now let me tell you the funny part of the whole thing. The other day sister Mary and I received a letter with the funniest looking stamp on it, and post-marked Shanghai. And when we opened it, what do you think? It wa letter from our dear dolls, in China, and I send it to you to print. THE LETTER. was a We Our Dear Little Mothers-Have you forgotten "Daisy" and "Widget," your own dollies, whom you sent away off to China? We said we would write to you, but as we had to wait for Miss Safford, the missionary you gave us to, to move the pen for us, and she has been very busy, we could not send this letter one bit sooner. had a very rough time coming across the Pacific Ocean; the trunks rolled about with every motion of the steamer, and some days the steamer rolled from side to side, tossed by the big waves, all day long. However, we were packed so tightly that we lay quite still, and did not so much as get a bump, but Miss Safford, not being packed this way, was thrown down, one night, and sprained her knee badly. Then we had to stop with her in Japan until she got well. Japan is a very beautiful country, and the little Japanese dolls have funny looking mothers with yellow skins, and black hair, and eyes, who love to play with them as much as you used to like to play with us; but we Amèrican dolls did not understand the language of the Japanese, so we did not visit them. We have been in China some time now, and Miss Safford has given us to a Chinese mother, a little girl in one of her schools, named "Zeng Pao," or "Truly Precious." Our new mamma was very glad to get us. She smiled at us and patted us, putting us up her big sleeves, and then she smelt our faces over and over again. Oh, dear! we did not like that; you used to kiss us, and we think that was much nicer. Our new mother does not live in a pretty home like yours. It is very low and dark, and has a mud floor. She keeps us in a red box on the floor; and when she eats she takes her bowl of rice and sits down near us, and eats with two long, round sticks, which she calls "Kwantz." We cannot learn to eat with these sticks at all. Our Chinese mamma has very bright black eyes; and wears flowers and red cord in her black hair, and she dresses in blue. Her complexion is almost as yellow as 11 learning to read, and stu There are thirty-two pup It is spring now, and flowers in the fields aroun as pretty as you had in Good-bye, our dear Ame will forget, but always be I A Little Chin READ a story the ot the people of China and to learn to love each shore there was a hospit out over the water. A li the rooms near the windo out into the water. There were a great man not one of them stirred to father came running down "Save my child! Save "How much will you gi "Twenty cash," said he It is not enough," said am going to go so far as t "I will give you all I ha is thirty cash. She is only "I know she is only a g think you ought to give m boy he might be of some u a girl?" While they were talking sank and was drowned. her. Do you know why such pen in this country? Beca teaches us to love each oth are in trouble. Don't you ion in China? A Little Hind "Lord Jesus will you t taken my father to heaven, her village; so who have I Lord Jesus will you love m then some children in the s ing a noise which disturbed Jesus will you quiet those c noise, and I have spoken to and I can't pray with such and dull, for they are very full of life and fun, and enjoy ribbons. It is very hard sometimes along the street, to hear pe about them.-call them slav bravely, and are now begint A CHINESE STORY TELLER. dishes, sweep, dust, wash floors, clean lamps, wash their own clothes, etc., and thus lead busy lives. Christmas evening we had a tree in the schoolroom, and invited some of their friends in to see it. We had a little singing and speaking first, and then a fine time distributing the presents. Each girl had a handkerchief, a cake of toilet soap, a card, an American cent, and a little bag of crackers and candy. The handkerchiefs were folded to look like doors with the wings spread, and made the tree look very pretty. None of our schoolgirls have bound feet, though several of them had when they came into school, and it was a pleasure to take off the ugly bandages and let the poor missionaries' children, and sometimes, when they grew tired, one of them would read to the other two, from "Clare's Part," or some other missionary story. After a while, they thought they would like to earn some money. So they decided to give an entertainment. Before this, they had had little entertainments, with pins for admission, but now they thought the missionaries needed money more than pins. So they gave notice to sixteen of their mammas and cousins, and aunts and brothers and friends, that they were invited to come and buy tickets. "One cent for children, and two cents for adults." The entertainment was given in a large room in the minister's house, and seventeen people came to see it. One little girl was doorkeeper. another sold tickets of red card-board, on which was written "Admit one," and the third little girl took the tickets at the inner door. Costumes worn by their grandmothers adorned the little girls. The entertainment began, an older brother being pressed into the service to manage the curtains, or, rather, pull back the sheets. Tableaux, charades, and dialogues, "all made up by our own selves," were very well carried out. Ninety-two cents turned out to be the proceeds, and they will all be given to the missionaries; or, perhaps, will buy something for the missionaries' children, to be sent in the box of the big benevolent society next fall. These three girls have enjoyed their work so much that they are already making plans for next summer. They wonder if other girls and boys wouldn't like to form vacation benevolent societies, too. A Dialogue About a Missionary Hen. BY SOPHIE S. SMITH. HARRY-Mamma, can I have a missionary hen? HARRY-Why, don't you know? It is a hen that you put eggs under, and when she hatches out the little chickens, and they grow large enough you sell them, and give the money to the missionaries. MAMMA-Rather a long but very good definition. Who told you about the missionary hen? HARRY-Mr. Jones. He was telling us how to raise missionary money. MAMMA-And this hen was one of the ways. Well, what did this particular hen do? HARRY-She hatched eighteen chickens, and the man who owned her sold the chickens for four dollars and fifty cents, and gave it in the missionary collection. MAMMA-That was a good hen, and I am sure she will prove quite a success in the mission cause if she continues. LOSSING BAR bu glavo ul WILD. Ани one of the pioneers of the Woman's Missionary work; therefore, Resolved, 1. That the General Executive Committee of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society take charge of the reremains of the honored dead, and provide for them a suitable resting-place. 2. That the chairman of the committee appointed by the General Executive Committee. Mrs. Kennard Chandler, be requested to prepare an appeal to the women of Methodism asking for contributions, until a sum be procured sufficient to buy a lot, remove the remains, and erect a simple monument in some suitable place, and that she request our Church papers to publish this appeal. Shares to be ten cents. BY MRS. KENNARD CHANDLER. In the summer day of childhood, on the old plantation in Virginia. I first met the Rev. John Seis. He proclaimed the Gospel of liberty to the captive. A member of my Grandmother Ritchie's family listened. God's message came to her soul, and long before Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Anna Taylor, heroic wife of Bishop William Taylor, had loosed the bonds of captivity and set free her slaves, sending them to Liberia, the chosen center of African colonization. With childish imagining I tried to follow them across the mysterious sea to what then seemed an unknown land. No Livingstone had yet discovered the lakes Victoria and Nyanza. No Stanley had sailed up the Congo. The Dark Continent lay wrapped in sable night. But even then a Daystar had risen, a light had shined in the darkness Mr. Seis told us of a woman, a simple, sweet woman, who, years before I was born, had sailed across these same seas to carry the Book of God. the story of Jesus, to far away Africa. And thus early in my young life, on the formative. yet indestructible tablet of a child's mind, the name of Ann Wilindelibly engraved. As I listened to Mr. Seis I little thought that years afterwards, in the full tide of mis kins was for nearly 30 years, perfect and entire. Its plate lies before me as I write, bear- known ing the inscription: Ann Wilkins. Died Nov., 1857. Age 51 yrs. 4 mos. 13 days." With reverent hand the undertaker re Cox thril with proph would bec which sho through ju lor is pushi hand of po and throbb shall be stir the very ju the wide p praises of o But thre when Cox fo our parent years held truth. moved the precious remains to the casket In that earl we had bought. He remarked: · Here were, but is her right arm" "Give it to me," I said, and as I pressed it in my own, I gave this living hand in renewed consecration to the cause she loved so well, and, kneeling over that wide-open grave, filled with the pure, sweet air of heaven, baptized with glorious sunlight, across the more than a quarter of a century since that tired hand had rested across her breast, there came to me a quick vibration, almost as though the harp held by her angel hand had throbbed a double note of praise. O hands that ministered to the lowliest. now striking clear notes of praise on harps whose quivering chords send out endless notes of melody! O feet, so many times weary with the march and countermarch of life, now living in the crystal river, now tarrying beneath the tree of life whose branches, full-clustered, hang low, and now, with flying speed, some angelic message of love to convey! Upon her head I placed my hand-head that ached and eyes that wept, even as Christ might have wept, as she cried: "O Africa, Africa! would that I might gather thee into the fold!" The crown rests now upon thine uplifted brow, how richly studded with flashing jewels!" Mention has already been made in GosPEL IN ALL LANDS of the services of the re-interment in Maple Grove Cemetery, where a magnificent site has been donated by the trustees to the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. She sleeps within sight of the free roll of the glorious Atlantic, whose billows bore her toward her chosen field of labor. As we stood under the trees in the evening glow, while Bishop Harris read the impressive burial service, it was an hour never to be forgotten Africa pleaded as she never pleaded before, and to one heart at least Ann Wilkins, dead nearly thirty years, spake more eloquently than a Livingstone or a Stanley, or even our own trumpet voiced Taylor. he calls A pionee only a wom wilderness touching ar speaks of cl the accum whom she g house. Ma an era in th sions, and our work in noble mon Methodism shaft to ma her real mo lands. The women and such degrad we cannot A sudden was childles to mission monument seas. Her n now becom love, wroug and rare o Caroline came a gra Christian th To still a and straigh power that in India a Such monu man may have a share. All money not necessary for the shaft will be taken to the General Executive Committee of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, and sent directly to heathen lands. Send contributions to the respective Branch corresponding secretaries, or to the treasurer, Mrs. Kennard Chandler, Ocean Grove, N. J. About porteur brought is now p ing the two visi meeting been una here, we journeyed on over rough moun- A 175 Mile Ride on a Circuit in Mex- being a deep, narrow and fertile valley ico. BY REV. LEVI B. SALMANS. For 65 years past there have been a large number of English people living in this state of Hidalgo engaged in the mining industries. They have always been freely indulged in the practice of their own religion, and being from Cornwall, have been mostly Methodists. This with other things has brought the people of this state to what is for this country a high degree of toleration in matters of religious opinions and practices. We therefore found a wider open field for evangelization here than anywhere else in the Republic. Brother Barker was here for five years and has been followed by Brother Smith for two years. Last Conference Brother Smith had to report 11 regular preaching places established, besides a number of other places visited and friends made. These were scattered over a wide extent of country touching most of the centers of population in the eastern half of the state. Leaving Pachuca on May 28th Brother Drees and I started for a ten days' tour on horseback, throughout a part of this great work. The greatness of the work is chiefly in its possibilities and necessities, though the beginning thus far made is not to be at all undervalued. Pachuca is situated at the foot of the mountains on the southwest side of a high range, and is 8,000 feet above sea leve!. Over this range we went descending about 2,000 feet from the pass to El Chico. Here we laid over in the hottest part of the day and looked after a chapel we are building there, or rather that an Englishman is building for us partly with means he has collected from the native congregation, and partly with his own funds He has been for some years engaged in the reduction of silver ores, and at the same time has been preaching to a considerable congreration which he has gathered among the i 5,000 feet above sea level. Here grows the garden products used in Pachuca and other towns within two days' travel. These products are carried on the backs of men, women, children and donkeys, selling in one town to-day and another to-morrow, the larger towns usually having their market on Sunday. In this valley there is a very different sensation coming from the atmosphere to that experienced in the highlands of which Mexico is chiefly made up, and I sweat for the first time since I have been in the country. From here we made a long and wearisome ascent to nearly the altitude of Pachuca again, and descended to a long mountain ridge parallel with the Gulf and about 7,000 feet above it. There are no other ridges equally high between this and the sea, and so this mountain is green with its fertility caused by condensation of the water of the clouds which first strike here as they come from the Gulf. How pleasant did this place seem with its fruit trees and gardens surrounding almost every residence! Here is Zacualtipan where we were to spend four days. This is a county-seat, and has 5.000 inhabitants. We were at once, and as long as we remained, impressed with the better appearance of the people here than in the parts from which we had come. They were better dressed and more polite, and we entirely missed the low and most degraded class so numerous in Pachuca, and this in the presence of the fact that labor brings only one-third to one-half Pachuca prices, and is much less in demand. Before we left, however, we discovered the explanation. In the high. dry country the juice of the maguey plant is extracted and fermented for a few hours, and makes a perishable drink much like beer at home. This sells cheaper than milk and is been pro after thi has visit preacher Mexico We h mencing rained, any time the subs persons ways a who wou and man ing men The k didactic Rome w very bein were su ent dispe with Chi only m God and to come and the "false proach angels or of the Bi and unaj nite love and is 1 those wh We fo acters he pressed u with ear thus far to go to concerni very tou man with is the mo referred try. A Police ca arresting he was h The ar of peopl motion v |
