He is met on the Pacific Coast (where his industry has already been of great value) with the cry, “Away with him back to China!” It has just been decided that he, being neither white nor black, cannot become a citizen in California.
A few Christian men and women have opened schools to teach John the English alphabet; the New Testament has been his reading book. Already some 300 are converted men, and members of the churches, and have formed Christian associations, in which they live in Christian ways.
And the question is: Shall we run in debt to the Chinaman, as we have to the Negro and the Indian? Would it not be well to keep in mind the Scripture saying now—“Owe no man anything, but to love one another”?
If wrongs emphasize claims, surely the three races of men in our own land have a most convincing claim upon the people of the United States. Who will respond to it, if the Christian people fail to hear and heed it?
REV. J. W. CHICKERING, D. D., BOSTON, MASS.
These numerous initials form the shortest mode of designating an interesting, if not unique, meeting I had the pleasure of attending yesterday, in the Congregational Church at Amesbury, Mass., Rev. Pliny S. Boyd, pastor.
They stand for “Sabbath-school and Missionary Monthly Concert”; the plan being to let the scholars do the reporting and the singing, with prayers from several teachers, and remarks from the superintendent, pastor and a visiting brother.
The triple work of the American Missionary Association was assigned for this occasion; and it was encouraging for the future of benevolent effort in the church, to see how promptly class after class repeated the answers allotted them.
Each will probably remember through life his or her part in the programme; and, from the whole, a very clear outline was furnished to the assembly of the numbers, needs, and capabilities of the Indians, Mongolians and Negroes within our borders.
I was happy to be able to confirm and illustrate some of those statements, and to urge upon that intelligent church, and the flourishing Sabbath-school, from which seventy were received into communion last year, the pressing, may we not say paramount? importance of that department of missionary effort.