HAMPTON, VA.
REV. H. B. FRISSELL.
There have been admitted to church membership in Bethesda Chapel during the year 31 persons—28 on profession of their faith and three by letter. Of these, 15 were Indians, one white, and the remainder colored students. With the growth of the school the congregation at the chapel has so increased as to make it necessary to add another wing to the building. Two prayer meetings have been kept up by the colored students, one on the Sabbath and one on a week day evening, the attendance and interest being well sustained. The Indians have their own prayer meetings, where they take part in their own tongue. They manifest a most earnest desire to know the Bible, and spend much time in reading and studying it.
Most of the students of the school have been enrolled as members of the temperance society during the past year. Considerable work has been done in the country about. One of the students organized a temperance society in the village of Hampton, and several interesting meetings have been held. The subject of local option is likely to come up in the fall, and the society hopes to make itself felt on the right side.
There has been an average attendance of 300 in Sunday-school. Forty students have been engaged in the Sunday-schools in the vicinity, three as superintendents and the remainder as teachers. One of the schools where the students have become interested has increased in numbers from 40 to over 200.
Thirty Bible students go out from the school on Sunday afternoons to read to the old people. They are everywhere received with a hearty welcome by those who have been deprived of the privileges which their children enjoy.
The Missionary Society of the school has raised $229. As the last winter was of unusual severity, the most of this amount was spent in the relief of the misery at our very doors. During the winter the students went out every week to mend the huts of the poor, to carry them bedding, clothes and food.
A Christian association has been formed in the school, so that those who come here from denominations that do not allow their joining our church may feel that they have duties here as Christian workers. So far as possible, the thought of their individual responsibility for the souls of those around them is impressed upon them.