The Reformed Presbyterian Standard and also 0\ir ... - Rparchives.org
The Reformed Presbyterian Standard and also 0\ir ... - Rparchives.org
The Reformed Presbyterian Standard and also 0\ir ... - Rparchives.org
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July 15. 1914.<br />
A FAMILY PAPER.<br />
mer. Cache Creek Mission school opened Sept.<br />
SOth, 1913, <strong>and</strong> closed May 22nd, 1914. A vacation<br />
of one week was given the children during<br />
the holiday season. Five of the-children were in<br />
school every day, making a total of 227 days<br />
each. Four of the children were a few days late<br />
in returning after the New Year. <strong>The</strong>y had an<br />
average attendance of 220 days each. One little<br />
girl was allowed to go to her home for six<br />
weeks on account of sore eyes, one eye being almost<br />
blind. One little boy was enrolled for 20<br />
days, but taken to Port Sill, where his older<br />
ibrothers <strong>and</strong> sisters attended. Six other children<br />
under school age attended often when their<br />
parents were in camp <strong>and</strong> when they came early<br />
to attend the weekly prayer meeting held at 4<br />
o'clock on Wednesday afternoons. Of the ten<br />
children attending regularly, only four knew any<br />
English when entering, <strong>and</strong> only one of them<br />
could speak <strong>and</strong> underst<strong>and</strong> it readily. All now<br />
speak, read <strong>and</strong> write the English. Special attention<br />
was given to committing Bible verses,<br />
teaching Bible stories, <strong>and</strong> instructing them in<br />
practical moral lessons. <strong>The</strong>y commit quite readily,<br />
but it is harder for them to get the meaning.<br />
Receipts for the year, $6,195.80; expenditures,<br />
$6,339.95; balance on h<strong>and</strong>, $1,666.17; request,<br />
$6,500.<br />
Dear Sir:<br />
<strong>The</strong> tracts you so kindly sent some time since<br />
have been read <strong>and</strong> given away to those who I<br />
thought would benefit hy them.<br />
<strong>The</strong> tracts put in words my experience of the<br />
living <strong>and</strong> ungodly modes of the people of the<br />
United States of America, setting themselves before<br />
God, let alone the life <strong>and</strong> teaching of Christ.<br />
I would have pleasure in distributing any literature<br />
you may forward for my reading.<br />
Yours truly.<br />
Eear Brother:<br />
I have received your letter <strong>and</strong> tracts <strong>and</strong> they<br />
are nearly all mailed out. If you have some new<br />
tracts, you might send me a few more. I am too<br />
old to h<strong>and</strong>le many more tracts, as 1 am nearly<br />
seventy-nine, <strong>and</strong> I have two or three hundred<br />
tracts of different kinds to distribute. I have<br />
been tracting for twenty-flve years, have paid out<br />
a great deal of money for tracts <strong>and</strong> mailing, 'but<br />
my work is about done. I nope I have done a<br />
little good. I will send you a dollar to pay for<br />
the tracts you have sent me. If I owe you any<br />
more, let me know.<br />
Yours in the Cause of Reformation,<br />
VISITING OUR CHINESE MISSION.<br />
Tak Hing, West River, S. China, May 18, 1914.<br />
I am seated in Miss Ella Stewart's room, in<br />
the ladles' house, just beside the girls' school,<br />
<strong>and</strong> I shall try to tell you something about the<br />
delightful time I am having here among your<br />
missionaries. I cannot tell of the love <strong>and</strong> loving<br />
hospitality of these dear friends. One has<br />
to be righf here <strong>and</strong> enjoy that to really know<br />
it, but I shall try to tell you about what I have<br />
seen of the work. My last letter told you about<br />
my trip up the river. I reached Tak Hing about<br />
eleven o'clock the day after leaving Canton. <strong>The</strong><br />
approach to the place is very fine. For sometime<br />
we were in sight of the city, <strong>and</strong> the Mission<br />
buildings are the firstthing one notices. I<br />
could see the church, <strong>and</strong> <strong>also</strong> two houses under<br />
LETTERS TO THE WITNESS BEARING COMerection.<br />
Have learned since that these are for<br />
MITTEE.<br />
If one can have a breeze it is not so bad, otherwise<br />
sometimes it is dreadful. Your body will<br />
Mr. Kemp <strong>and</strong> Mr. Taggart. <strong>The</strong>re is a finepagoda<br />
just before coming to the l<strong>and</strong>ing <strong>and</strong><br />
Dear Sir <strong>and</strong> Brother:<br />
I am In receipt of yours of the 1st inst. In reply<br />
I may say that I received the package of<br />
just be bathed in perspiration. You see this<br />
some of the hills across the river from Tak Hing place is only about ten feet above sea level<br />
tracts or pamphlets you sent at my request, on are the highest along the river. <strong>The</strong> hills back <strong>and</strong> with a tropical climate makes it trying.<br />
Psalms <strong>and</strong> Hymns. This is all I have received <strong>and</strong> the many trees, with the gray brick buildings<br />
nestled down among them, formed a very<br />
Both mission houses have a yard around about.<br />
up to date. I shall read with care this tract enclosed<br />
in your letter. Anything that may come pleasing picture. Soon a sampan pushed out er, <strong>and</strong> it smells like a lemon. Has a yellow<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are green grass <strong>and</strong> floweringtrees, among<br />
others, the beautiful magnolia, a large white flow<br />
to h<strong>and</strong> I will treat with consideration.<br />
from the l<strong>and</strong>ing <strong>and</strong> came toward us. <strong>The</strong> center. <strong>The</strong> leaves of the tree are dark green<br />
You will be surprised perhaps, to have me tell officer said, "That is Rev. Taggart coming for <strong>and</strong> very glaSsy, making a fine setting for the<br />
you that I am a retired minister member of the you." And he was right. Very soon I was welcomed<br />
by 'Mr. Taggart. As the river was low, we green vines growing all over the wall. This is to<br />
flower. <strong>The</strong> yards are walled in <strong>and</strong> there are<br />
conference of the Methodist Episcopal<br />
Church. I did my work of over forty years in had to l<strong>and</strong> in the city, otherwise we would have break the glare <strong>and</strong> make it more easy on the<br />
lowa I saw notice of tract <strong>and</strong> sent gone down stream a little ways <strong>and</strong> l<strong>and</strong>ed by eyes. I wondered why the two compounds were<br />
for a few to send to some of my Methodist the church. As we came up the steps of the not together, in place of having just a path between<br />
<strong>and</strong> the two walls, but I was told that<br />
preacher friends that they might know your l<strong>and</strong>ing, I said to Mr. Taggart, I believe you do<br />
position. When a youth, I attended school for not keep your Ijack yards any cleaner than we was not a path, but a public road, <strong>and</strong> could not<br />
some time at Lennox Collegiate Institute, since do in India. He laughingly replied, "Miss Anderson,<br />
this is our front yard." Ever since I<br />
be 'bought out. Once a road, always a road In<br />
changed to Lennox College, at Hopkinton, Iowa.<br />
I remember well, how I enjoyed discourses I came I have been trying to decide which is the<br />
heard there from the <strong>Reformed</strong> <strong>Presbyterian</strong> minister,<br />
the Reverend Doctor Roberts. If you have<br />
dirtier, China or India, or which has the worst<br />
odors, <strong>and</strong> I have not yet reached a conclusion.<br />
a copy of the church paper of the Reformer <strong>Presbyterian</strong><br />
Sometimes I think India is ahead, <strong>and</strong><br />
Church at h<strong>and</strong> that you could send me, I<br />
would thank you if you would do so. I will enclose<br />
stamps to pay for it.<br />
after having to hold my nose some more in this<br />
city I think China is ahead, sure. One does not<br />
wonder that so many people die of filthdiseases.<br />
I know your people. I know your work. I You wonder far more that any of them life. As<br />
know you hold high doctrines along your line of we passed along the narrow streets of the city, I<br />
advocacy. I wish you great success in your work.<br />
I am fraternally,<br />
saw many things that reminded me of the Indian<br />
bazarra. <strong>The</strong> stores are very much the same, all<br />
exposed to the view of the public. Rice, flour,<br />
<strong>and</strong> other dry food stuffs in large baskets. One<br />
thing was new. Every here <strong>and</strong> there we had to<br />
share the road with a big fat pig that waddled<br />
along, <strong>and</strong> we passed by shop after shop where<br />
pork meat was offered for sale. I wondered<br />
what our Mohammedan friends in India would<br />
say if they had to pass along the street <strong>and</strong> have<br />
to share the room with a pig. I am sure they<br />
would say "Repent, Repent." So many little<br />
children on the streets <strong>and</strong> many of them had a<br />
smile <strong>and</strong> word for Mr. Taggart. China has<br />
lots of little nurses, too, I notice, but in place<br />
of baby being carried astride the hip, he is<br />
carried in a cloth tied around the body of the<br />
baby <strong>and</strong> then up over the arms of the little<br />
girls. Tne people are so much fairer than our<br />
people that one's attention is attracted, especially<br />
are the dear little Chinese habies white <strong>and</strong><br />
pink, <strong>and</strong> many of ^heni^vi«=y pretty <strong>and</strong> all so<br />
cunning lookiug. 1 thought we were just going<br />
down a path from the city to the mission house,<br />
but I was informed I was on a public road.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are no wheeled conveyances in this part<br />
of China. You ride on the river or you walk on<br />
the l<strong>and</strong>. We pass hy the hospital <strong>and</strong> on up<br />
between two high gray brick walls, until we<br />
reach the building where Mr. Taggart lives. I<br />
could not say his home, for it is <strong>also</strong> the home<br />
of Dr. Wright <strong>and</strong> family, <strong>and</strong> Mr. <strong>and</strong> Mrs.<br />
Kempf, <strong>and</strong> Mrs. Doig. I was so pleased to<br />
meet Mrs. Taggart <strong>and</strong> dear little baby Martha.<br />
She is just about seven months old, but is more<br />
like a baby of ten or twelve months. A beautiful<br />
child <strong>and</strong> not only the darling of that home, but<br />
the pet of the whole mission. Mrs. Mitchell is<br />
staying with her sister. She had to leave Loh<br />
Ting about three" months ago on account ot<br />
rheumatism <strong>and</strong> is still quite poorly, can hardly<br />
walk. It is not easy for her to remain in Tak<br />
Hing <strong>and</strong> have her husb<strong>and</strong> left all alone at their<br />
own station, several days away from her, <strong>and</strong> in<br />
rather an unsettled part of the country.<br />
My headquarters are with the Taggarts, but I<br />
am rooming in the other mission house with the<br />
single ladles, <strong>and</strong> have Miss Ella Stewart's room.<br />
I have it I know, because it is the coolest, best<br />
room in the house at this season of the year. It<br />
is hot <strong>and</strong> steamy, more like our climate in July<br />
<strong>and</strong> August, than the dry heat of May in India.<br />
China.<br />
I found the mission houses plainly, but neatly<br />
furnished, nothing costly, but an effort made to<br />
have things home-like. In the evening I went to<br />
the little corner of the yard by Mr. Robb's house,<br />
where rests the precious dust of those who loved<br />
not their lives, but freely poured out life itself,<br />
that China might know about Christ. Dr. Maude<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e <strong>and</strong> on either side Mrs. A. I. Robb <strong>and</strong><br />
Miss Torrence. All young in years <strong>and</strong> service in<br />
China. It did not take them long to do all that<br />
the Master had for them in active service, but<br />
they are still laboring in China through the li^es<br />
they touched <strong>and</strong> set on firefor God. As I stood<br />
by the grave of Dr. Ge<strong>org</strong>e <strong>and</strong> thought of her as<br />
I knew her the year I was with you in Beaver<br />
Falls, talented, young, winsome, beautiful in person<br />
<strong>and</strong> character, surrounded by those who loved<br />
her <strong>and</strong> that she loved, giving up all for China's<br />
suttering ones, <strong>and</strong> in three short years to be<br />
gone, I asked myself was it worth the price <strong>and</strong> I<br />
knew that if, from the heights of glory, she could<br />
speak, she would say I was gl-cid to be counted<br />
worthy to do this, <strong>and</strong> my own heart said, Christ<br />
is worthy of even this measure of love <strong>and</strong> devotion.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se graves of your missionaries here in<br />
Tak Hmg are a challenge to the home church, to<br />
enter in <strong>and</strong> possess the l<strong>and</strong>.<br />
I must close <strong>and</strong> leave the rest for another<br />
letter.<br />
Lovingly, your sister,<br />
EMMA DEAN ANDERSON.