SCHOOL AT MARSHALLVILLE, GA.
BY MRS. ANNA W. RICHARDSON.
Our school is very large, there being enrolled two hundred. Our great trouble is a lack of teachers. There are only three of us.
New facts regarding the people among whom we work are brought to us constantly. Yesterday four pupils entered school who were perfect wonders. The oldest of them is seventeen years of age, and the youngest perhaps ten. The oldest has been to church three times during her life, the others have never been. They have never been to Sabbath-school, and know nothing about Christ and God. They have never in their lives heard the word Bible. The oldest one has seen a preacher three times—the same man each time. They made their first visit to town, and beheld the first railroad car yesterday. They do not know who made them! Ever since their arrival I have been saying over and over, "Surely we have Africa at our very door." I cannot realize it. The responsibility is so great that it makes me tremble.
Many of our pupils have little or no religious training at home. We have a good many pupils whose parents are "Hard Shell Baptists," and do not allow them to go to Sabbath-school, and teach them not to pray for forgiveness of sins. A few afternoons ago, the pupils were all asked what they desired to be. One little boy raised his hand to say that he was going to be a "Hard Shell" minister, for they were already saved, and had no praying to do. This answer was a result of his training at home.
We have many features of encouragement connected with our work here. Especially are we pleased with the work that is being done by a class of our advanced boys and girls. There are ten of them out in the wooded country, teaching for three months those who cannot find their way to our school. Every two weeks, these pupils come in to give a report of their work. It is understood by them that it is a part of their duty to tell us just what work they do and how they do it. We supply them with reading matter for their pupils—especially are we careful to let them have Sunday-school books, etc. These pupils will be out of school three months, and will then return to their school work. Every one who is out is a Christian, and we feel that their influence for good is very great. It is a joy to us to feel that our little school here in this town is spreading its influence out into darker portions of the State. Each one of these pupils has no less than forty pupils in his school, so that the work of the school here at Marshallville reaches over six hundred souls! This is indeed a dark portion of the field, but God's loving care is about us, and we are content to labor here.