A N article in “The Woman’s Mission-, ary Friend” describes a party of mis sionaries emerging, from the jungle and into an open space in which was situated a good sized village'. This town went by the name of Mperetes. As soon as the party arrived the entire village turned out in pell meli shape to see them, as missionaries seldom got through that way. In fact this par ticular village never saw a missionary, evi denced by the looks of wonder upon the ladies in particular—the first white women that they had ever seen. The little band spent- the day in preaching the gospel. At the end of .it, the chief of the town came out and courteously presented his gift of meal and two ' bantams, a custom of the village in honoring those whom they delighted, to see. A Belgian would not have gotten such a welcome, although the people appreciated their driving out thè Cannibals, but they also taxed them heavily and took away their women for themselves, bringing much hatred against them. At the end of the day, the missionaries went to sleep with thè drum of the Moonlight Dance sound ing in their ears. The next morning they left the village much aginst the will of the people and their chief, yrho insisted on their remaining and giving them the gospel. After they had traveled a short ways out of the town, a group of girls about thirteen1 years of age followed them, insisting all the time that they should come back and remain with them. Whether this was a custom of the country was not stated in the article. The inference was that it was something unusual. After the girls had accompanied them one mile they turned and went again to their village. The missionaries of this same party had occasion to return to this village within a year and found nothing there but thick, coarse grass and deserted
homes. The people had all died without the gospel, which they could have had as well as not for ,the price of an automobile. A boy, about fifteen, son of a chief, came to the Lukunga Mission. He commenced with the first chart, but made such rapid progress that in eight months he was.chosen as one ,of the assistant teachers, teaching school half the day and going to School the other half. When vacation came he was ahead of some who had been there three years. When he returned home he gathered the people together and held serv ices on Sundays and taught school week days. He wanted his people to know the glorious gospel he had learned. He has since been baptized, with twenty-six others.. —Missions. At Mombaso, British East Africa, the Church Missionary Society has scored a triumph. They made Christian instruction compulsory in their High School, and as a result the government established schools for purely secular' teaching;'although in one of them the Koran was taught on Friday. For a time the mission school lost pupils, but they shortly came back—even the' sons of leaders. One retired Arab governor came and offered to build a home in the mission compound for his two sons and defray the cost of their education, ^to keep them from the immoral influences of the Mohammedan town.— Woman’s Mis sionary Friend. INDIA It is felt that a mass movement will soon break, out in Northern India from the fact that incessant and insistent demands for Christian teaching and baptism come from thousands and thousands* The work is spreading through the largest and most
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs