ALABAMA.
Notes from Marion.
MRS. GEO. E. HILL.
Sundays are our grand working days. As we have services morning and night, the afternoon is left free to meet the people in other ways.
Sometimes the women come to the “Home” for a prayer-meeting, or the little children come in to hear Bible-stories told or read. Sometimes I have a Bible-reading for boys. They come, bringing their Bibles, and pencil and paper, and I read them some of the precious verses marked in my own Bible, or choose some story like that of the Shunamite, which they are not familiar with.
Many of them read imperfectly, and so lose the full meaning of the words, and we find that the “old, old story” becomes new and strangely sweet as we read it aloud to them, with fresh emphasis and expression.
An old man once said to me, “If I had a hundred dollar bill, I’d give it in a minute if I could read the Bible.”
Last Sunday, I invited several boys to come and see me. I seated them round a table, and gave them eight or ten copies of “Life and Light” and “Missionary Herald” to look over. Choosing for my text the pictures, I talked an hour with them, and selected an interesting fact or incident for each one to give that night at our monthly missionary meeting.
A fine, large missionary map has been donated to the church by the Sunday school in Weymouth, Mass., which is very useful in showing the people the great world, about which they know so little.
The girls’ sewing-class has sent $38 to the Mendi Mission.
Our Sunday-school numbers about eighty, and is the pleasantest and most orderly school I have seen at the South. The children come to their classes neatly dressed, after the Saturday’s washing and ironing, and give quiet attention during the hour. We find blackboard illustrations helpful in fixing the thoughts of the lesson. One Sunday, twenty maps of Palestine were handed in, in connection with the lesson.
The Sunday-school concerts are a special attraction, and are attended by many from other churches. At our last, several prominent white citizens were present.
We wish our friends at the North could see how well these colored children carry through the Bible Exercises and other recitations.
Every Monday at 4 P. M., the women meet at the “Home” for an hour of prayer. They have no clocks to tell the time by; but as most of them live in sight, I hang a white flag on the gatepost, fifteen minutes before the hour. We call this our “Gospel flag!”
The prayers of these women are marked by an unquestioning trust. They ask directly for what they want, without getting entangled in the formalities of more educated Christians, and they evidently feel that they speak into a listening ear.
Their faces often beam with pleasure as they hear the reading of the Bible. “What a glorious chapter this is!—it feels so holy!”—one of them said.
They need these hours of prayer, for life with them is hard, and pinched, and poor, and in their small houses of one or two rooms, full of little children, washing and ironing, and cooking, these mothers have no “closet” where they may shut themselves in for communion with Jesus, and get patience and strength for the day. But are not their prayers heard, as they stand by the tub, washing for the rich?—or bend over the cradle, in which, for some, there is always a baby—or cook the meal, which to us would seem so scanty? A woman once told me, that in slavery times, she went down in the garden, among the butter-beans, to pray—and there she had such a season of joy, that when she came in, and took her place at her master’s table, to brush away the flies, “’pear’d like glory was in de fly-brush!”
For the last five months, we have had an afternoon school for children under 14 years of age, here at the “Home.” A large room on the back gallery was fitted up for them, and here twenty-five children come every day and are taught from 1 to 4 o’clock.
Besides the ordinary book lessons, their young teacher instructs them in good manners, neatness and simple fancy-work, and gives each day a half-hour talk on birds, plants or animals, illustrated by pictures on the blackboard.
The children are quick to learn and eager for all kinds of information, which they take home and repeat to their parents, when the work of the day is done.
Some of these parents who cannot even read themselves, are “proud” to hear their children talk intelligently about Washington, or Napoleon, or Henry Bergh.
This is our third winter among the Freedmen, but we feel that we are just learning how to be missionaries, and how to get at the people, and meet them in their great needs. Are we happy in our work? Yes; happy and content. Even in our “small corner” we have the Master’s presence, and feel it a privilege to work among His lowly ones.