Up the Kongo we went. One day Mr. Lapsley, my comrade, was sick with fever. As we attempted to land, we saw women catching up their babies and running to the jungle and men getting arrows to shoot. I stood over Mr. Lapsley and called, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” and asked them if we could sleep there for the night. “To-morrow we go away,” I said. “No. Go away; go away,” they cried. So we started for the other side and landed on the sandy bank. We got out the tent and had Mr. Lapsley carefully moved into his bed. Walking up and down the river bank we could hear the excitement on the other side. At twelve o’clock at night it still was going on. At two in the morning, those people had not retired; nor had I. So we said, “In the morning something will happen.” Coming outside early, as we looked across the river we saw one of their war canoes filled with men starting up-stream, and then another. I ran to the tent and said to Mr. Lapsley, “Those people are coming; what shall I do?” He was there sick with fever, with no chance of running away. He said, “There is nothing that we can do.” He meant by this that the Master could do something. I came outside. They had started in our direction. I could hear their war-whoop. Just at this extremity a hippopotamus came. We shot him. Then the thought came, why not offer them this meat? They were crazy for meat. I waded in the water to my waist and beckoned to them, calling out: “Come this way, all of you. Don’t be afraid.” The nearest canoe approached me as I was wading in the water, and I surprized the first man by saying, “Leave your spear.” The next canoe load that followed I turned the hippopotamus over to, and then they began with their long knives to cut it up and fight over it. I went into the tent and told Mr. Lapsley that we were saved. It was no surprize to that servant of God. He was so near to the Master always that he believed He would save us.—William Sheppard, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
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KOREA, WORK AMONG WOMEN IN
As I was going along a country road one day, I saw a woman going along with a hoe, and behind her was a man with a burden on his back; and this burden, as we drew closer, we saw to be the form of a baby. It was wrapt up according to the custom. They climbed the hill and put the burden on the ground, and the mother threw herself upon the dead form of the child and cried out her broken heart, while the father began to dig the grave. We tried to comfort her the best we could, but her grief seemed too deep, and she did not understand that Christ was the only one who could comfort her. The following Sunday I saw in our meeting one of our women who had been a Christian only about six months, a woman who had been told by her neighbors that if she became a Christian a very dangerous spirit would haunt her and bring calamity to her. She did not falter, but by and by her only child, a little girl, whom she dearly loved, was taken from her. This Sunday, as she stood with the tears streaming down her face, she told how the beautiful little girl had died, but that she did not grieve so much, because, as she said, “I am going to meet her there with Jesus.” I could not but think of that other woman whom I saw heart-broken on the mountain-side just a few days before.—Lulu E. Frey, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
(1743)
Korean, The, as a Giver—See [Generosity].
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LABELS, MISLEADING
Not long ago this country woke up to the fact that with a good deal of our canned food we were not getting just what the colored label on the outside of the can led us to suppose. It was a shocking disillusionment to find that the label showed luscious peach jelly, when the inside of the can contained only some nicely prepared and flavored gelatine, quite innocent of any relation to peaches. The country at once had indigestion, and passed laws to keep the peaches and the labels in the neighborhood of the same can.