The Newtown bee., 1900-12-14
Ten Pages.
Litchfeld County.
NEW MILFORD.

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH NTERKsTs.
 Wednesday, December 5. was . red
 letter day for Missions in New Milford.
 Three missionaries from North China,
 Revs W. P. Sprague, F. M. Chapin and
 H. P. Perkins, were present and gave
 thrilling accounts of their experiences
 in that land from which they had 90 re.
 gently escaped with their. lives. Ar
 Sprague spoke first in the afternoon, giv-
 ing an account of the manner of doing
 missionary work in China and the
 success that had attended their labors.
 MT Sprague Is quite veto ran having
 been 26 years at Kalgan. MT Chapin
 worked for i've years with MT Sprague
 at Kalgsn, but for the last 12 years he
 and Mr Perktns had worked together at
 Lin Ching. Mr Chapin was in the seige
 at Psking and spoke for an hour, show
 ing how marked was the hand of Provt., dence in all their experiences. One could
 hardly listen to his remarkably story
 without coming to the same conclusion
 that he did that an over ruling Provi-
 dence was guiding them and caused some
 of the efforts made by their enemies to
 destroy them, in reality to work for
 their salvation. This address was listen-
 ed to with the closest Attention and .
 strong desire to hear moro. In tbe even- ing MT Sprague gave an account of the
 remarkable journey through the desert
 of Gobi north into Siberia nearly 1000
 miles. Like MT Chapin in the afternoon
 MT Sprague related . number of in- stances where kind Providence seemed
 to have made special arrangemt nts to aid
 them in their undertaking. Readers of the Congregationalist will fad in the
 number for December a graphic &C., count of this journey,' far better than
 your correspondent can give, written by Rev J. Fl. Roberts, who was one of the company and had been stationed at Kal- gan with MT Sprague for some years. MT Perkins escaped by the southern route. His wife and six children left before him for Japan, but he reached there some days earlier than they did. Mr. Perkins did not dwell on the incidents of his es- cape but told in very instructive way the things which we wished to know about the present state of things in China. He aimed to correct the impression which he found quite general in this country, that all the Chinese were in deadly opposition to foreigners. He said the number was not so large as was sup. posed; in fact was comparatively small, but having the approval of the Empress DJwager, had been able to do vast l amount of harm. Some things were es. 1 pecially noticeable in the remarks of all | these men, and one was, tho entire ab- sence of any thing that looked like re- sentiment towards those from whom they | have suffered so much. Another was, their strong faith, that the work was not totally destroyed, but that 1t was yet | to be carried forward with greater suc- 1 cess, and they stand ready to go forward | in it as soon as God shall open the door l for them. There was no word of dis l from their lips. They 1 believe China is yet to be redeemed and | their faith ought to stimulate our faith | and the story of their suffering so nobly l ought to stimulate us to make some l greater sacrifice than we have yet made l in order that we may do our share in this | glorious work for Christ. There was | large atte ndsnce both afternoon and l evening, with quite good delegations from tBrookfield and Kent, and some l fl om other churches In the village.