قراءة كتاب The American Missionary — Volume 50, No. 1, January, 1896
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"

The American Missionary — Volume 50, No. 1, January, 1896
and money. What is God's way? "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, and prove me now herewith, saith your God, and see if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing." Have we done it? Have we brought the tithes all in?
We use much more wisdom in material things often than we do in spiritual things. Can we not learn a lesson from the farmer? What does God say to the farmer! "Sow, and ye shall also reap." But the farmer says, "I cannot; I haven't enough. If I had plenty I would sow, but I haven't. My family could not live as well as my neighbor; we could not set a good enough table; we might even have to go hungry." But the command comes again: "Sow, and ye shall also reap," and I venture to say that there is not a farmer in this country of ours but who would go hungry, yea, he and his children would go bare-footed, but he would take some portion of the grain that he had and throw it broadcast over his field, knowing that it would lie there and decay, but trusting in the Lord that it would come back to him after many days. Why cannot we use the same wisdom in spiritual matters?
But there is something that is of more value even than money. It seems to me that the one thing we need is more consecrated women in our churches, women that have more love for their Master and for his cause, women that do not do this work from a sense of duty, but because they love their Lord and Saviour. It seems to me we ought to put love in the same place where Christ put it, on the same pinnacle where Paul put it: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, it profiteth me nothing; though I understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing; and though I give my body to be burned, and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing."
My dear friends, if we only had this love, this consecration, we would be interested in everything that interests our Master. And hearing of our sister in the mountains who knows nothing of him, we would hasten to go ourselves or make it easy for others to go and tell her of His love. And thinking of our colored sister in the South who is oppressed and down-trodden, if we loved Him we would hasten to go with joy and tell her of the yoke that is easy and the burden that is light. And remembering our Indian sister who is so in the dark and is so destitute of knowledge we would find a way to tell her of Him who is the light of the world. And knowing of our Chinese sister here on our shores, who looks forward to a heavenly home for her husband, though she has no such hope for herself, we would go and tell her—or see that some one else told her—of Him who said: "Whosoever cometh unto me shall have eternal life." Our work then would not be done from a sense of duty but as the expression of our love and joy, and all we would ask in return would be the words: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me."
ADDRESS BY MISS ANNETTE P. BRICKETT.
In the few minutes which are assigned me in which to bring before you the work of our Indian mission and boarding school at Fort Berthold, among the Rees, Mandans and Gros Ventres, there is no time for me to discuss the "Indian Problem," about which I am not at all wise, nor to talk of the Indian character, nor to defend it against the numberless unjust opinions and popular newspaper and magazine prejudice with which you are all so familiar.
I think you want to know all that I shall have time to tell you of our past year's work, our encouragements, our difficulties and successes.
There has been an increasing spirit of loving, gentle, helpfulness among our school girls, both in the home and school life. We have all gladly noticed that our boys have become more courteous and thoughtful. Many of them have learned for the first time, under their wise and consecrated matron, the value of strict adherence to God's great law of obedience in the forming of manly characters and in the making of happy homes.
Our older Ree girls came back to school this fall more neatly and cleanly clad than ever before. Some of them made tasteful calico dresses for themselves with which to return to us. Several of these older girls, under the leadership of one of our ladies, organized themselves into a "Cleaning Club" at the close of school in July and have kept faithfully at work all through the vacation, each week meeting at a certain house and giving the poor little log home, with its mud-plugged walls and dirt floor a most vigorous and thorough "scrub." After the beds had been made up cleanly with sheets and pillow cases, which were in each case the property of the school girl at whose house they met, and putting up cheap scrim curtains at the two little windows, then these students of scrubology, on a stove, shining with a perhaps unprecedented coat of blacking, prepared before their somewhat dazed parents a neat and wholesome meal of such simple material as they had, set it out on a white covered table just as nicely as they are taught to do at school, and invited their parents to eat with them. This improvement has not been merely spontaneous. It was a principle of the society that each girl who had been thus assisted should do all in her power to keep the home clean and neat, and our girls have greatly delighted us by the brave way in which they have kept this pledge.
This past year several of our older boys and girls have, without urging or even suggestion from the teachers, told us of their earnest desire to go out into the world and attend a higher school. They were quite prepared to enter the school at Santee and though reminded of the opposition they would undoubtedly encounter in getting permission from their ignorant and in some cases heathen parents, as well as that of the Government Agent, they have still been quite determined. "Maimie," one of the girls, first asked consent of her uncle and aunt with whom she has her home. They both refused, being unwilling to have her go so far away and also to lose the small help which the little money Maimie earned by doing extra work at school brought to them. Both the uncle and aunt are members of our church and our prayers that Christian principle might triumph in this case and make these two an example to the rest were answered, for soon "Hand" and his wife "Alice" cheerfully went to the Agent and told him of their previous unwillingness but also of their present decision that they were glad to have Maimie go away and learn more of God's ways so that she might better teach and lead her people.
John, one of the boys, has met with much bitter opposition from his people who are under the influence of the Catholic priest at the Agency. They have forced him into the Government school, which is of a grade entirely below his present attainments, and he is much discouraged, but we still trust that God's plan for our boys and girls, into whose souls he has put these aspirations, will be worked out in His own time and way.
Our church members who are as yet but "babes in Christ" have had numerous testings this year, which, while they have been times of severe trial to us as well as to them, have been but passing clouds, which have only for a time hid from them the "Guiding Hand," and which has made them all the more strong and distinct as members of Christ's body.
There have been disappointments in the past year; a few of those from whom we hoped much have become careless and indifferent. But more have grown in spiritual strength and are manifesting the new spirit of godliness in their lives in many practical ways; in neater personal appearance, in better houses and cleaner homes, and in much more industrious attention to their farm