Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1893-09-08
A MISSIONARY COLUMN.
Home and Foreign Fields.

contained feast of good things. Refer
ence was made last week to Mrs. Alice
Coleman's address on Tuesday evening at
the Baptist vestry, but little idea was con-
veyed of the forcible lessons presented in
the two vivid pictures, so skillfully drawn
by the earnest woman who spoke. The
first was a description of the funeral of
young negro in Atlanta, Ga, which was
conducted with all the demonstrations of
of grief, the groanings, the wailings, the
intense excitement Several women falling
unnoticed in cOnvulsions) which would
characterize such a service in Africa ITSELF
among the untaught brothers and sisters of
these colored people. Closing ones eyes
one could hardly believe he was surround
ed by human beings and not by Infatuated
animals, and the impulse to flee from the
place would become almost irresistible
The funeral" as the colored people call
the funeral sermon, included the most Sc
we're and bitter arraignment of the mother
of the young man, whose life had been
one of disrepute, laying upon her the blame
of her sons departure from right ways.
Following this prayer was offered by
stalwart young negro, whose voice was alb
sOlutely indistinguishable above the wall
ings of the eight or nine mourners alone.
In all this scene of indescribable confusion,
excitement and uproar, wild, heathenish,
barbarous in the extreme, Mrs. Coleman's
guide and one or two other colored women,
like her, graduates from a Christian
school, were alone unaffected by the wild
frenzy which possessed the crowd.
The other picture presented by Mis-.
Coleman was of life in Spelman seminary,
where the fruits of Christian training and
education are shown in the quiet, self-con-
tanned, intelligent young colored women
who make up the membership of the
school. The inspiring Sunday evening
prayer service at the seminary was de-
scribed-several hundred young women
present, six or eight on their feet at once
to tell of what Jesus Christ means to them,
the spirited singing, the atmosphere of
worship and the absence of anything like
excitement or wild fanatcism; such were
the characteristic features of this gather
ing of colored girls and women.
These were, in brief, the widely con-
trasted pictures drawn by the speaker
The mission work in western China has
assumed wonderfully interesting aspect
since it has been so wildly brought before
our people in the two addresses of Rev. w.
NJ. Upcraft on Wednesday evening of last
week at West Brattleboro and on Sunday
the early history of mission work in China
the stations established and the work done
was along the coast. But some years ago,
by commercial advance, by spiritual ag-
erosion, by certain political changes, and
through privileges granted to England by
the Chinese government as indemnity for
the killing of an English ambassador in the
interior of China, the way began to be
opened to heretofore inaccessible points in
land in the great empire. Coincident with
the development in opening up of China
came wave of awakening interest in
placing missionary workers there.
One of the results of this interest was
the starting out of two young men from
Minnesota, Messrs. Upcraft and Warner,
strong, earnest, and anxious to be used, TO
go into inland China to establish a mission
station. They were pioneers in this work.
Reaching the Yang-ste Kiang, the great
waterway from the coast to the interior,
they embarked upon steamer which took
them up the river for thousand miles,
the point beyond which the government
forbids the entrance of foreign vessels.
From this place another thousand miles
was traversed in a clumsy Chinese boat,
made after the pattern of hundreds of
years ago, to the mountains of the interior,
where the river cuts them through, and
above which rapids make navigation i'm
possible. Here, at the junction of the
1ang-ste and a tributary, at the foot of a
mountain, is the city of Suifu, which,
with the province to which it belongs, in
reality an empire with a population all
told of some 10000, 900 persons, was given
to these two young men for their parish.
A people walled about with conservatism
and national pride, stepped in paganism
for centuries, looking with suspicion upon
foreigners, unable, in the concentrated sell
fishness inculcated by the teaching of a re-
ligion of dead doctrines, to comprehend
the spirit in which the truth was sent to
them by worshipers of living God,
through love of their souls-to such peo-
pie and to such difficulties came these two
brave young men. They lived for time
in the boat because of inability to procure
a house inside the city walls, but at last
the boatman must return down the river
In spite of their adoption of the complete
Chinese dress, even to the shaving of their
heads and the braiding in of queues, they
are foreigners" and the city is posted
with warnings to the people to look out
for them, for they are uncanny, they will
do them violence, their favorite food is
Chinese babies.
At length they secure a house, paying
5000 for the chance of getting it, only to
find it then occupied by eight other fam
lilies who must be gotten rid of. Here
they establish their "Truth hall, to which,
by means of placards, the citizens are in
vited. They come, suspicious, inquisitive,
unbelieving. Then the women come: and
Chinese women, once won, were stanch
and loyal friends always. Here the value
of the medical work became apparent, and
soon the women, whose fear had been that
the foreign teacher would eat their babies,
brought them TO be healed at his hands.
Thus, slowly and laboriOusly, fighting all
the way against suspicion and persecution
(Mr. Upcraft being twice stoned and
dragged outside the city walls) through
the medical work they were able to get to
the real work for which they were there
the bringing into the hopeless, faithless,
despairing lives of these people the faith
and JOY of living hope in a living Christ.
At last came the first fruits of all this
faithful sowing, and six candidates pre-
scented themselves, asking for baptism;
the first an old man of 20 years, the young
est a lad of Is. What was to be done
with them? No church council could be
called, for the nearest church was four
months journey away; there were no dea-
cons to be asked in, only two young mis-
-.