AFRICA.
SUNDAY-SCHOOLS IN CENTRAL AFRICA.
A Paper read at the State Sunday-school Convention, at New Britain, Ct., May 26, 1880, by Albert Burton Jowett a native of the Mendi Country, West Africa.
I represent the Sunday-schools in the Mendi country of Western Africa. These are located in the interior, about a hundred and fifty miles north of Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. The first Sunday-school among the Mendi was established at Kaw Mendi. This place was the site selected for a mission by Messrs. Raymond and Steele, who accompanied the Amistad captives to Africa, when they left Farmington in 1841.
At this school, my mother was a pupil, and had for her instructor, Mar-groo, one of the Amistad captives who had been hopefully converted.
There was a good day-school at this place, and also one at Freetown, a hundred and fifty miles north, which had been kept up for twenty-five years by the Church Missionary Society of England.
My mother has often told me that the missionaries were very much pleased because the Mendi boys passed a better examination than the boys at Freetown, who had had all the advantages of that sea-port city.
Mr. Burton, a missionary who went to Africa from Connecticut, while traveling up the Bar-groo river noticed a fall of water in a wooded country, and determined to establish an industrial mission at that point.
There was no saw-mill on the coast, so Mr. Burton put up buildings for a mill; some one gave him the necessary machinery, and he opened a station and named it “Avery.” A church and some dwelling houses were built, and a community of people gathered who bought logs, converted them into lumber, and conveyed it to the coast for sale. A school was opened in the basement of the church, and a Sunday-school was convened on Sundays. My father is a teacher and interpreter at this station. This Sunday-school and the one at Kaw Mendi are the only ones in the Mendi country proper, where there are about 2,000,000 people. There are Sunday-schools on the Sherbro Island, but the people there belong mostly to the Sherbro tribe.
Our Sunday-schools constitute one of the means by which our young African friends acquire the simple truths taught by our blessed Saviour. I do not know how it is, if I am in the wrong, pardon me, but I do believe it is much more difficult to teach in Africa than in America, because we have no books in the Mendi language and the children know but little English. Our Sunday-schools in comparison with those in America are very small. The bell for school rings at 2 o’clock, and the teachers go round to the houses where they fear the children do not care to come, and bring them to the school. Before bringing them in to the Sunday-school, a shirt is given to each scholar, as many of them wear no garments at home. This is made of English cloth and supplied by the missionaries; when they return from school, it is laid aside to be worn the next time the school assembles. The instruction is mostly oral—the teacher asking the pupils questions and then requiring them to repeat the answer until they are able to say it.
A good deal of time is spent in singing, as the children readily learn the words and music of the Gospel songs, even though they do not understand the meaning of the English words. They are very fond of singing indeed, and the missionaries listen to their songs with much delight, and give them a great deal of credit for them. As some of the children never attend day-school, the alphabet is taught in the Sunday-school.
We have a portion of the Bible, and a few hymns, translated into the Mendi, and hope some time to have books in the language, so that greater progress can be made.
We have some active members who go about into the small villages and act as home missionaries among the people. These frequently bring in new scholars to the mission: and what do you think causes the increase of our members, more than most any other circumstance? Some kind friends in America and England have been sending us illustrated papers, nice little books, and small cards with letters of nearly every color and size.
Such things are very attractive to the little natives. I wish you could know the good you can do, by sending your missionaries in Africa such attractive papers and cards, for those whom the missionaries cannot reach will be instructed and influenced by them in their homes. The children who are brought in, take these papers and fasten them up in their houses for ornaments. The books and cards are offered as prizes to those who commit portions of the Scripture accurately.
We have no Sunday-school Conventions like this one, but sometimes we have Concerts.
Within the past few years, all our missionaries have been Freedmen from America, and one of them was for a time connected with the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University. They taught us some of the Jubilee Songs, such as “Steal Away to Jesus,” “Mary and Martha,” and “The Hocks and the Mountains Shall All Flee Away.” The people had never heard the like, and were very much delighted with them.