The American Missionary | Page 8

Hamilton starts off with over fifty pupils in Sunday and day school, and hopes soon to have members enough so that he can take steps to call a council and organize a church. The brethren of Alabama are greatly encouraged by this movement. Heretofore we have had no church or school between Montgomery and Mobile, one hundred and eighty miles. Now the distance is divided, Alco standing about half way between the two places.
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CHILDREN'S DAY.
BY REV. J.E. SMITH.
The 9th of June last was a grand day for the young people in the First Congregational Church at Chattanooga. The church was tastefully decorated with appropriate Scripture mottoes, choice evergreens, beautiful flowers and sweet singing canaries. There was present a large number of adults and a larger number of clean, sweet, hopeful children, and many laughing, cooing babes in the arms of their Christian parents, who like faithful Hannah and good Mary of old, had brought their babes to the house of God to present them to the Lord. After the rendering of a beautiful voluntary by the organist, the whole congregation joined in singing that grand hymn, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!" The pastor then read a few passages of Scripture selected for the occasion, giving a short comment on the same, and prayed for God's blessing on the young. While the congregation joined heartily in singing, "Heavenly Father, send Thy blessing, On Thy children gathered here," Christian parents who desired to present their offspring to the Lord, having been invited, came forward and stood before the altar with their little ones in their arms. Six bright-eyed, innocent babes were, on the faith of their believing parents, consecrated to God in the Christian ordinance of infant baptism. It was a most beautiful, pleasing and impressive service.
After singing, "Take my life and let it be, Consecrated, Lord, to Thee," the pastor invited all children, calling them by name, who were ten years of age and had been baptized in the church when infants, to come forward. The church, then, through its pastor, at a cost of twenty-three dollars, presented to each child, (nineteen in number) a beautiful, well-bound copy of the Bible, with the following written on the fly leaf: "This Bible was presented to ---- by the First Congregational Church at Chattanooga, in commemoration of his infant consecration to God at her sacred altar, by his Christian parents. John 5:39."
After taking a collection of ten dollars and twenty-four cents for the Congregational Sunday-school and Publishing Society, we sang "God be with you till we meet again," and the benediction was pronounced. Thus, a very interesting and we trust profitable service of an hour and twenty minutes was ended.
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THE INDIANS.
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LETTER FROM MISS COLLINS.
No facts in this field can be of more interest to the readers of the MISSIONARY than those contained in the following thrilling account of the conversion of three young Indians in Miss Collins' mission field. We give the facts as written by this self-sacrificing missionary.
Last Sabbath, Mr. Riggs came up from Oahe and we had communion, and there were five children baptized and seven grown people, and seven more were examined and advised to wait till the next communion. It was a most interesting season.
Three of the young men were the leaders in the Indian dance. They have always been the head ones in all Indian customs. A year ago, one of them said in the dance that he should follow the Indian customs a year longer--give himself up to them wholly and try to be satisfied, and if he had in his heart the same unsatisfied feeling, the same longing, that he then had, he should throw it all away.
On last New Year's day, the same young man, "Huntington Wolcott," came to me and said--"Last night I arose in the dance and told them that I had given the old customs and the old Indians a fair trial, and that they did not satisfy, now I should leave them forever and give myself to God, and if any others were ready to follow to arise and so make it known. The other two leaders arose, stood silently a moment, and walked out." From that time they have given themselves up to singing, praying and studying the Bible. They had, for two years, been halting between two opinions, attending the school, church, etc., and the Indian feasts and dances, too. These three having come out so boldly on God's side, has made a great change in our work here.
Poor old Running-Antelope feels very sad. It is his desire to keep the young men from learning Christianity and civilization as long as he can. He wants them to have everything in common, and to feel that for