I am conscious that after three months here I see many things in a different light from that in which I first saw them. I have learned that there are some peculiar hindrances to teaching the Indians, so that it is by no means always easy. I have learned, also, that the teachers, with all their happiness in their work, see enough of sickness and ignorance and evil many times to make their hearts ache.
Yet the cheerful view I received at first was not a false one. There is more to make one sad here than in many other places, but there is also much to make one glad. There is the constant contact with young life, the opportunity to see how much the every-day blessings of home and school are worth to those who have not had them, the sympathy that comes from a common purpose frankly avowed, and in addition there are abundant opportunities and favorable conditions for teaching these boys and girls to love Christ, and to feel concerning themselves,
“He’s fitting us to enter
Into His service sweet.”
I think nearly all who are here, both teachers and scholars, feel that this lonely little cluster of buildings away off on an Indian reservation, is, for them, one of the best places the earth contains.
THE CHINESE.
BY REV. W. C. POND.
“A great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries.”—1 Cor., xvi, 9.
What Paul experienced at Ephesus, we find to be true in our humble work among the Chinese in California. We are grateful that the door is open, and that it is as great and as effectual as it is. We cannot deny that there are also “many adversaries.”