converted Indian grew in character and strength. For the last two weeks he has been with his missionary in evangelistic service. It is a delight to hear him pray. He gets hold of God's promises with the grip of a mighty faith. When he speaks the people listen as to one raised from the dead. They all know him-his life of sin, his repentance --and they marvel at the power of God that The Christian Indians at Quaker Ridge are to-day engaged busily upon their Y. M. C. A. building which may serve both for Association work and for church purposes. Here also comes a note from the president of the Y. M. C. A. of the Cornplanter Reservation. The writer is a young convert, a growing Christian. He invites us to a four days' meeting. "Let us pray," he says, "that every young man will give his heart to Christ as a Christmas gift." As we stand at the close of twenty-five years of missionary labor for these New York Indians and witness such splendid growth in the Christ-life our hearts take in the spirit of the Psalmist, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, for His goodness and for His wonderful works." ELON PIERCE, Superintendent Sabbath-school, Corn- has changed the darkened mind of this once pagan Indian, making him a "new man," a Presbyterian elder and a humble, loving, faithful, lay evangelist. Said a white man of him, "That Indian has unlimited credit at the tore." That simple statement of a "border white" bore overwhelming witness to the power of the gospel. As these words are penned notice comes for a dedicatory service in January at Cold Spring. Here, right in the heart of paganism and within stone's cast of the "Long house" where all the rites of the religion of Handsome Lake, the Indian prophet, are rigidly observed, the Christian Indians have erected a church building. Last week the Council of the Seneca Nation of Indians gave them fifty dollars for seating the church. HON. T. F. JEMISON. Ex-president Seneca Nation. For forty years an Indian mother rejected the Bible, when one night she gave herself to God, saying. "Infidelity will not do to die with. I accept Jesus from this day as my Saviour." She and her four children were baptized. The Presbyterian Indian Churches, Sabbath-Schools and Mission Schools, Ministers and Teachers, 1906 * In addition to the churches listed here, there are few churches in Sequoyah Presbytery which have not some members of Indian blood. Young People's Department Did you celebrate Washington's Birthday in your Sabbath-school, or are you to use the Board's program on another Sabbath near this date? Have your Sunday-school and young people's societies made the 15% advance in contributions asked for by General Assembly? Once in a while we are given a glimpse of letters written by the young people in our mission schools to those in the home churches, and share with our readers one of these rare experiences: "I haven't much education, for I had to work so hard in the field and only get to school on stormy days. I have only been to school about a year in my life, and that is the reason I am in the lowest grade with a little girl of nine, while I am twenty." "Before I came here I wanted to come so bad that I prayed God would let me come, and then I worked hard." One who has not been able to return to school this year writes: "I long to come back and maybe God has a way planned for me next year. We organized a missionary society last month and I led in prayer and told them about India and how the people live there. Next month I shall tell them about China. My people do not know one thing of India and China." ride from home to home with the gospel song and story, it is to find heart doors open as wide as house doors. "Perhaps the father is in the yard with his oldest boy sawing wood, or out by the barn mending a broken wagon-bed; perhaps the mother is washing clothes in the branch below the spring, or knitting before the fire with a careful eye for the younger children at play on the floor. But presently after a little the various members of the family gather from their different occupations, and together about the hearth join to sing some favorite hymn. Then in quietness the little company listen to the reading of Scripture and kneel for prayer. Sometimes there are many neighbors present, if the house be near the highway; sometimes it is a small circle of three or four, if it be a cabin remote in the woods. Sometimes it is the children that are in the centre of interest, coming shyly forward to tell their names or repeat a Bible verse just learned, or still more shyly with a gift of apples or a handful of walnuts. Sometimes it is the father that speaks simply of his love and desire for the right upbringing of the little ones on his knees, or confesses freely his need of a change in his own way of living. Sometimes it is the old grandmother lying in sickness with her children about her in tender anxiety, and lifting her voice to thank God she has lived to find Him at last. Here it is the miller bowed for prayer in the loft of his own mill; there it is the store-keeper admitting across his own counter that as a Christian he has not been true to his Lord. "But here and there and always it is the hunger and thirst after righteousness that is yearning for expression; always it is the innate religious sense of the true mountaineer struggling toward the light; always it is the preparation of the gospel of peace. The ministry of a mountain church is a ministry from house to house, and salvation comes by families. It is coming now, here on Shelton-Laurel; the fields are indeed white to the harvest, and only too wide for the reaping. Can any of us be weary in well-doing, in the Master's name?" Christianity. Our work among foreigners. Its unanswered opportunity. SEPTEMBER-Advance-Its Imperative Necessity. Increased field need. Increased help-funds and service. The Mormon hierarchy-its power and purpose. NOVEMBER-The Mexicans. Religion of the people. The power of the mission school. DECEMBER-The Mountaineers. Kinsfolk of the Covenanters. *This topic is intended especially for women's societies. For all printed matter apply to LITERATURE DEPARTMENT, 156 Fifth Avenue, Room 712, New York, N. Y. Map Talk on Missions among the Indians, .03 Mary Gregory Memorial Missions Among the North American In Our Indian Mail. dians (Historical Sketch) Our Little Red Neighbors Stereopticon Lecture Story of the Southern Ute Mission Wolf Point, Montana. Outlook on the Indian as He is To-day.. .01 Pictures (set of twelve) 1.00 By Canoe and Dog Train, by Edgerton R. Young $1.25 Our Life Among the Iroquois Indians, by Mrs. H. S. Caswell 1.50 1.50 On the Indian Trail, by Edgerton R. Young... 1.00 Redemption of the Red Man, by Belle M. Brain .35 SPECIAL AIDS. Prayer Calendar 1906, price 10c. per copy A roll-call of Home Missionaries and their stations for the entire year. A daily reminder of our representatives on the field. Home Mission Topics 1906. Supplied without charge. For general distribution or for repetition in church calendars and reminders. Map United States. Cloth 7 x 12 ft. Price, $3.00. engagement for the use of one of the seven sets of lantern slides. Their subjects are Alaska, Cuba, The Indians. The Mexicans in the United States, Mormonism, Our Country, Porto Rico. Home Mission Reference Library. press extra). Price $5.00 (Ex Ten good books in uniformly bound sets at less than half price. THE BOARD OF HOME MISSIONS Of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. Comparative Statement of Receipts for CURRENT WORK (exclusive of Legacies) for the Months of December, 1904-05 Comparative Statement of Receipts for CURRENT WORK (exclusive of Legacies) for the 9 Mos. ending Dec. 31, 1904-05 The Lien-chou Tragedy By Arthur J. Brown, D.D. It was hard to wait for letters regarding the appalling tragedy at Lien-chou, China. They did not arrive until December 11th, forty days after the first cablegram. Even now they are unable to state the full case as the Committee of missionaries and the American Consul-General had not finished their investigation when the last letters were mailed and as the only survivors of the massacre, Dr. Machle and Miss Patterson, had no opportunity to make an independent investigation before they left the field nor did they witness the murder of the others. From the letters that have come it appears that the missionaries themselves had no warning of the impending catastrophe. How secure they felt was illustrated by the fact that when Dr. and Mrs. Machle and little Amy left several weeks before, to attend the annual meeting of the Mission at Canton, Dr. Eleanor Chesnut and Miss Elda G. Patterson remained at the station alone with no thought of danger, nor did any sign of danger appear. Thursday night, October 26th, the Machles returned, bringing with them the Rev. and Mrs. John Rogers Peale, new missionaries who had reached the field just in time for the annual meeting. Friday was occupied with unpacking and house adjustments. Saturday morning when Dr. Machle went to the hospital, he found a noisy heathen festival in full blast close to the hospitals, one of the temporary structures having been erected partly upon mission premises. Fearing the effect upon his patients of exploding fire-crackers and strident music and the other distracting noises of a Chinese festival, and mindful too of possible danger to the American women from the juxtaposition of a great and excited crowd of Chinese, many of them of the rougher class, Dr. Machle picked up three little toy "cannon on the roadside" and sent a messenger to the village elders in the festival that he desired to see them. When they came out, he remonstrated with them, reminding them that a year before they had trespassed upon the mission property in their festival and that they had promised not to do so again. He urged them moreover that it was not right that idols should be worshipped on the property of Christians and he appealed to them whether they would not object if the Christians were to insist in conducting their worship in a Chinese temple. The elders admitted the justice of the protest and promised that the structure should be removed that afternoon. The crowd jostled about and Dr. Machle was struck by a stone and a bamboo, but he was only slightly injured and went on into the hospital and shortly afterward to his home, believing that the trouble was over. Some roughs, however, entered the hospital and seized several anatomical and surgical specimens that the physicians had used in their instruction of medical students. The excited Chinese paraded these specimens through the streets shouting that the bones were those of deceased Chinese and that the people could see for themselves with what contempt the foreigner treated them. The ignorant and superstitious populace, already on the verge of violence for reasons that will be discussed later. was roused to fury. A great mob speedily gathered and a few reckless men fired the hospitals. The missionaries took refuge in a cave about a mile distant. Mrs. Machle and her ten year old daughter Amy. Dr. Chesnut, and Mr. and Mrs. Peale were discovered and killed. |