FROM A TEACHER.
Dear Friends: I would like to give you some facts which show the need of the continued work of the A. M. A.
Let us visit a school-house where a large congregation is gathered in and around the house. A dark man is preaching. Judging by the loudness of voice and furious gesticulations, and the groaning and fervent “Amens” of his hearers, he must be saying something very important. But hark! He declares that Jesus cursed. His text, as he read it and repeats it to prove his assertion, is: “I do curse to-day and to-morrow,” etc.—Luke xiii, 32.
Another time we find the same man giving the history of the ten commandments, saying that God gave Moses one set of commandments and Moses went down and read them to the people. They said they were too hard, so Moses broke the stones and went back and told the Lord that his commands were too hard, so God gave him some easier ones.
Again, this minister is proving that Jesus was baptized by “mersion.” He says that when Jesus came up out of the water, he ran so fast to the wilderness that no one could keep up with him, but they tracked him by the water that dripped from his clothes. They tracked him in this way forty days before they found him.
Some of the people near that school-house are anxious for better instruction, and have applied to the Association for a minister.
Another school-house, two miles from one of the A. M. A., has been used for meetings held by a regularly licensed minister who does not know a letter. Some of his members say “his sermons beat the ’postle Paul,” and if noise and violent gestures count, probably they are right.
There are many such preachers as those I have told you of, but where the true light is brought by the American Missionary Association and other missions, they are driven out, or are coming to the light to prepare for better work.