The people might be divided into two classes—either “in all things too religious,” or “full of fornication and drunkenness, with feet swift to shed blood.” The hills rock-ribbed, the quiet valleys with moss-covered stones, clear flowing brooks and running ivy, are not adapted to engender lukewarmness. A talented man is apt to be a preacher or desperado—sometimes both.
About four or five months ago I made my first visit to McKee, the county seat of Jackson Co., Ky. I found a small village having a court-house, jail, poor-house, two or three hotels, about the same number of stores, several dwellings, and a small school-house, but no church. It lies in a small basin-shaped hollow, with high hills on all sides. On public days, citizens may be seen pouring in from every valley until the streets are flooded with people, and some of the people flooded with whiskey.
On inquiry, I found they had no Sunday-school, and preaching, perhaps, only once in two or three months, when a circuit rider might chance to be passing. I immediately helped them to the organization of a Sunday-school, and made an appointment to preach there every other Saturday and Sunday through the winter. I have met the appointments, and we now have a Sunday-school with a membership of over seventy-five, with a good library and lesson papers. A Temperance Society has been organized with over five hundred members. The Saturday and Sunday meetings are regularly attended, and the people are now very anxious that a suitable building should be erected for school and church purposes. A subscription of over five hundred dollars has already been raised by the citizens of McKee, and as soon as a thousand dollars can be obtained from some benevolent source, we shall lay the foundation for something permanent.
AFRICA.
EXTRACT FROM A LETTER FROM PROF. CHASE.
Jos. Smith preached this morning a good plain sermon upon “The Way of Life.” He had to speak through an interpreter, but got along nicely. The congregation was a strange one. Only two of the women had hats. Most of them wore turbans made of striped handkerchiefs, wound around in artistic styles.
During the services a tithing-man passed around, a cane in hand, keeping the children in order, and waking up those inclined to drowsiness.
Avery Station.—This is rather a pleasant spot. The river makes three bends here, and the mission house is so placed, that from the front veranda we get a view about half a mile up and down the stream, of water, rocks and green, the thick growth of trees, bushes and vines, most of the way coming down to the water’s edge, and at some points dipping into it. The yard is surrounded by a low well-kept hedge, sprinkled with little pink blossoms. In front are cocoa-nut trees, with their clumps of yellowish green nuts encircling the trunks about twenty feet from the ground; an orange tree, a cinnamon tree with its dark green fragrant leaves, and several pretty shrubs of various kinds. Beyond the hedge, on a point sloping toward the river, is the coffee “farm” (of three acres) covered with trees about four feet high, looking very much like pear trees. In the rear is a clump of banana trees with a few bunches of unripe fruit. In the distance is the mill, whose irregular roof of bamboo is looked down upon from the veranda. Nearer by is the chapel, an unpretentious yellow structure with a school-room in the basement. The house is one-story, raised several feet above the ground, having a wide veranda on three sides, and containing six comfortable rooms, besides kitchen, &c.