American Missionary | Page 6

America
is the fact that most of the students entering the new Christian college
in Canton were formerly Sunday-school scholars in America. Most of
these converted Chinamen who return to their own country are said to
take their part in various forms of Christian work. What an inspiration
to the patient teacher, who spends an hour or more every Sunday in
trying to Christianize a single Chinaman, to think that, in this indirect
way, he, or more frequently she, may be helping on the conversion of
China.--_The Congregationalist._
These very just remarks are equally applicable to the work the
American Missionary Association is doing so largely and effectively
among the Chinese on the Pacific coast. A letter from Mr. Pond gives
us this corroborative item:
"On Monday evening, November 26, we expect to hold a farewell
meeting for Joe Jet, once one of our missionary helpers, who is going
back to China to superintend missionary operations for our Chinese
Missionary Society. He takes over $1,100 with him, contributed for this
purpose by the Chinese connected with our mission. To this Missionary
Society, our Christian Chinese contribute regularly each month, from
twenty-five to fifty cents. They aim to do quite a large work, which
they hope that the representatives of the Board will superintend, but the
whole expense of which they mean to bear."
* * * * *
The American Missionary Association has been greatly afflicted in the
death of Mrs. George A. Woodard, the wife of the Principal of Gregory
Institute, Wilmington, N.C. She was a most devoted missionary,

consecrating her earnestness and fidelity to the cause of Christ. She will
be sadly missed by the colored people of Wilmington, and by those
who are inmates of the Teachers' Home at Gregory Institute.
* * * * *
SYSTEMATIC SPENDING.
BY REV. C.J. RYDER.
The pastor of a Boston church recently handed to the District Secretary
of the A.M.A. $1, saying as he did so: "That one dollar is really more
than some hundreds of dollars. It is the gift of a poor woman in my
congregation who depends upon her own labor for support. She gives
this dollar to the A.M.A. from her hard economy." It may be that God's
decimal pointing is not the same as ours in many cases.
On a table of the same district office of the A.M.A., there stands a little
brown pasteboard box. In it are some tracts offered for sale. All the
proceeds from their sale go into the treasury of the Association. These
tracts were printed at the expense of a poor woman who has spent a
long and useful life in service for others. She comes into that office
now and again to see if her gift is increasing. She is not fashionably
dressed. No! She never drives to the Congregational House in a
carriage. I doubt if she often enjoys the luxury of a street-car ride,
although she is upward of seventy years of age; and yet she never
comes through that office door but she brings with her the bright glory
of spiritual sunshine, and the wealth of her Lord's own presence. She is
pinching herself in almost painful economy that she may have $100 to
give to this great mission work before she dies, and
"Her great Redeemer shall call her to inherit The heaven of wealth long
garnered up for her."
Now let us turn a moment to the other side of the A.M.A. work. I hold
in my hand a letter written upon this scrap of paper by a colored boy in
the South and sent to one of our missionaries who had come North:
"_Oct. 21._ My Dear Friend, Mr. Brown--I wish you would if you
please if you please send me three dollars and a half now if you please
send it I want to buy a good little shot gun please send it."
These facts present the double responsibility which the A.M.A. sustains
to its constituency in this vast and complex missionary work. None of
these facts are exceptional in character. The Association must so
present its work to the churches as to "constrain" them to give; drag

them by the chains of Christian duty to give; those who can of their
abundance abundantly; those who must of their penury, with this
tremendous self-sacrifice.
An old colored preacher in Georgia, in my hearing, preached on
"Pasteboard Christians." He said: "Brethren, did you neber see a
pasteboard box? It's mighty nice; maybe all covered with gilt paper;
looks right stiff and stout, but you just set it out in the rain and see it
when it goes 'pooh,' and am all omnatiously busted. It am jest so with
some Christians. They comes to meetin' with good clothes on; they
looks drefful fine! But you