Items and Incidents.
REV. W. C. POND, SAN FRANCISCO.
Statistics.—Our schools have not yet recovered, so far as attendance is concerned, from the shock they received through the riots of last July. But they are gaining, and should no untoward event occur, I hope that before this summer is ended they will be as large as ever before—as large, that is, as we can possibly sustain without an increase of means. Ten schools are now in operation, and seventeen teachers are employed. The aggregate number of pupils enrolled May 31st was 467, and the average attendance was 242. This is a gain over months preceding, and June promises something better still. The total number of Chinese who had attended the schools, for a longer or shorter period, from September 1st (the commencement of our fiscal year) to May 31st, was 1,178. Seventy-eight of these pupils give evidence of conversion. The whole number whom we have reason to believe have been born of God, during the last five years of our work, cannot be much less than two hundred.
Baptisms.—Six of our pupils were baptized and received to Bethany Church, San Francisco, on Sunday, June 2d. This makes the Chinese membership of that church number forty-four. These brethren had studied diligently the Confession of Faith and the Covenant, which they were called publicly to accept, and had approved themselves well through their five to eight months of “probation” in our “Association of Christian Chinese.” I have no doubt that both the Confession and Covenant contained words which they could not define; but I have also no doubt that “for substance of doctrine,” they assented to the one and consented to the other intelligently, honestly and devoutly. I shall never forget the evening I spent with them, questioning them as to their views and purposes and experiences as Christians. Not one of them but had come out of more or less tribulation, into this decided and outspoken Christian life. Friends turn their backs upon them and load them with reproaches, but they seem to harbor no feeling of resentment—only longing to impart to their persecutors the same blessing they have found for themselves.
On the same day the first Chinese child of our church was baptized, under the “Christian name,” as her father phrased it, of Lily Lee. This father was one of the first group of Chinese converts whom it was my privilege to receive to the church. He returned to Canton about two years since, and sought out, at one of the missions, a Christian wife; and so, in his one room in California, he has now a Christian home. On the same day, also, Wah Yin was baptized and received to the Congregational Church in Petaluma—the first-fruits, so far as church membership is concerned, of our mission there. He is a very interesting Christian, and has endured hardness, as a good soldier. He has been not only reproached, but whipped, by his countrymen, for the name of Christ. But he says “it didn’t hurt much,” and we should never have known of the fact, but that one who took part in it boasted of it openly.
Lu Lune, for nearly a year a missionary helper, was offered by his uncle a position as Chinese foreman at the salmon fisheries near Collinsville. The work there knows no Sabbath, and the Chinese settlement abounds in gambling and opium dens and in petty idol shrines. The position was, in a worldly point of view, very desirable, but Lu Lune refused to go unless he could have his Sabbath, and could be permitted to be just such a Christian there as he would be at the mission-house itself. It is a token of Lu Lune’s own desirableness that his terms were accepted, and he is there, trying, as opportunity offers, to preach Christ, and letting the light of a Christian example shine all the while. I may add that this is the fourth among the Chinese members of our church who has been placed in a position of trust by persons who knew nothing and cared nothing about their Christian professions. It is a tribute paid to their trustworthiness.
Lee Haim, recently appointed as a helper, has now been for two months in Sacramento. The increase in attendance and interest at the school speaks well for his zeal and aptitude. Under his influence, the Christian members of the school have rented a small building for a sort of Home, and he uses it as a chapel. I will quote a few words from his letter of June 6th, correcting his English a little, for, while he, like Wong Sam, excels most of his countrymen here in knowledge of Chinese, he is also like Wong Sam in his trouble with English idioms:
“Now, dear brother, Mr. Pond, I am happy to say to you a few words how the mighty God has done to us. He has prepared us a home, and leads many Chinese to come to learn the Word of Him, and to study your language, also. When the Sabbath-day is come, I am happy to go down to preach to them on “I” street, where the Chinese dwell. Some of our countrymen very anxious to hear, and some are not. I think our congregation of Christian Chinese will become large, though I am weak, and no one can help me to take a part on Saturday and Sunday evenings. Yet I remember a certain man in Cesarea, called Cornelius, had feared God, with all his house, and prayed to God always, and then God heard his prayer, and said to him, ‘Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.’—Acts x. 18. So I will ask God what we need. Then we receive. Oh, how glorious! So I wish you pray for me; so I will pray for you, and all your family and teachers.”
An Indian Gift.—Such gifts were not in good repute in the days of my childhood, but for me the name is now redeemed. A venerable Presbyterian pastor in the State of New York, who had himself previously made a generous donation in aid of our work, writes a second time as follows: “After reading the account of your work on page 150 of the May number of The American Missionary, at our missionary meeting, last evening, an Indian came forward and handed me fifty cents for your mission, with tears in his eyes. I hasten to enclose his offering, with those of others, making out for you a postal order for five dollars.” I know not what others may see in this brief epistle, or how others would receive that Indian’s gift; but to me it came as something surpassingly sacred. I certainly mean to make every donation go as far as possible; but some have in them their par value—simply that and nothing more. This came to me fragrant with incense and wet with tears—a vial full of odors, which are the prayers of saints—and to use it except with utmost care and earnest supplication seemed like sacrilege.
Our Stockton School.—Mrs. M. C. Brown, teacher at Stockton, says: “Ah Gun (otherwise Jimmie), one who had gladdened my heart by his consecration to Christ, left us December 29th, to go to Oregon. He had been a regular attendant at my school for eighteen months, and for the last three of his stay, I have every reason to think he was a true Christian. Three weeks since came the news that the vessel on which he sailed was wrecked, and Jimmie was among the lost. May he not even now be singing that song, known only to those who have ‘washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’? This is the first ripe grain, so far as I know, gathered from this school into the garner of the Good Husbandman.”