INDIAN STUDENTS.
The fifteen Indian students who have been studying at Hampton remain there through the summer. Many of our readers will look with interest for some news of them, and be glad to hear of their continued progress and content. Like the other students who remain, they work through the summer, chiefly on the farm, thus earning money for their clothing and support. They are allowed a day and a half in school each week, and thus, under a regular teacher, their instruction is kept up in the English language, with object lessons, and phonetic practice, writing, arithmetic and geography. They also meet for an hour every evening, from eight to nine, with a few of the other students, under the care of a teacher, for conversation, and games that are exercises in talking. This conversation class is thus far a great success, enjoyed by the Indians and the other students who take pleasure in helping them.
They also have their Sunday-school class, and a prayer-meeting, in which most of them are very constant and devoted attendants. The devoutness of their simple prayers in Cheyenne and Kiowa cannot be doubted by a listener, though understood only by the Great Spirit to whom they are addressed.
At their first meeting, a gentleman present spelled out the question with the card letters for one of the young men to answer: Why do you like to learn? Letter by letter the startlingly impressive answer followed, “Because it makes me a man!”
THE WET SEASON ON THE WEST COAST.
It will be borne in mind by those who have special interest in our Mendi Mission that it is still the rainy season, to which all the peculiar perils of the West Coast of Africa are to be encountered, and with great risk to the health and life of those who are not fully acclimated. We have had weekly letters from our colored missionaries there, to as late a date as Aug. 13th, who have been passing the first test of their ability to endure the climate and resist the African fever. None of them have entirely escaped the touch of its hot breath and icy hand, and yet it seems to have for the most part passed them lightly by. Two of the female missionaries have been very sick. One, Mrs. Dr. James, died early in the season.
Thus far, then, we are encouraged to believe that, as we hoped it would prove, men and women of African descent endure the risks of transplanting and of naturalization far better than those who have neither themselves nor their ancestors been “to the manner born.” And, if these perils at the threshold can be encountered better by them than by others, we may surely hope that the less malignant influences which pervade the atmosphere will not undermine their strength, as it does with those who are foreigners by both blood and birth.
It behooves their friends on this side the ocean, who believe in the power of prayer, to keep these missionaries constantly in their minds and in their hearts, and to pray the Lord of the harvest, who has already raised up and sent forth these laborers into the field, that He will enable them to bear the heat and burden of the day.