“CALIFORNIA CHINESE MISSION.”

Auxiliary to the American Missionary Association.

President: Rev. J. K. McLean, D. D. Vice-Presidents: Rev. A. L. Stone, D. D., Thomas C. Wedderspoon, Esq., Rev. T. K. Noble, Hon. F. F. Low, Rev. I. E. Dwinell, D. D., Hon. Samuel Cross, Rev. S. H. Willey, D. D., Edward P. Flint, Esq., Rev. J. W. Hough, D. D., Jacob S. Taber, Esq.

Directors: Rev. George Mooar, D. D., Hon. E. D. Sawyer, Rev. E. P. Baker, James M. Haven, Esq., Rev. Joseph Howell, Rev. John Kimball, E. P. Sanford, Esq.

Secretary: Rev. W. C. Pond. Treasurer: E. Palache, Esq.

A CHAPTER OF ITEMS.

Chinese New-Year’s.—Our Chinese brethren observed their national New-Year’s festival very happily, in their usual Christian way. With great pleasure do I remember my visit to the very comfortable head-quarters which our Oakland brethren have established. It is a two-story house, very neatly furnished with whatever is necessary to a Christian home, except that the male sex alone is represented there. It bears witness to the strength of the home impulse in Chinese hearts, such of them, at least, as have been touched by the love of Christ, and shows how soon—if only these immigrants were treated as others are—Christian homes, in the full sense of that good word, would spring into existence among them. When I reached the house, the rooms were already full of Chinese, and their teachers and friends. After greetings were over and refreshments tasted, several hymns were sung, and then I spoke to them of the “new commandment” which our Saviour gave us, and led them in prayer. Just as I was leaving, Rev. Dr. McLean, their pastor, entered with other friends. Before I had gone far, I met Rev. Mr. Condit, a Presbyterian missionary among the Chinese, on his way to the same place. And thus with greetings and exhortations, and good counsel and prayer, the day passed away. At our Central Mission House and the Bethany Home in this city, similar exercises were held, at which the same duty of brotherly love—for us “the lesson of the hour”—was pressed on their attention, and made the object of earnest and united prayer—prayer to which I, at length, see the beginning of a glad response.

Of this same festival, as observed at Sacramento, Mrs. Carrington writes: “The rooms were very tastefully decorated, and called forth much praise from the many who called. The scholars began the week by holding prayer-meetings; and during the week, as friends called, much of the time was spent in prayer and song. At a union meeting on Thursday evening, Dr. Dwinell was present and spoke to them.” Similar reports come from Stockton, Santa Barbara, etc. This festival calls, of course, for a few days of vacation in the schools, and involves a temporary diminution in attendance, but, in my view, the religious uses to which it can be put, amply compensate for any inconveniences it may involve.

Additions to the Churches.—Two of our pupils at Santa Barbara were baptized and received to the Congregational Church in that city, at its last communion. Three are expecting to be baptized and received to the Congregational Church at Sacramento, and seven to Bethany Church, San Francisco, at their April communions. Let me quote Mrs. Carrington once more: “I cannot tell you how my heart has sometimes been thrilled with joy at the faithfulness of those so recently brought out from darkness into the marvelous light. If people all through the land could know what devoted Christiana many of them are, they would feel condemned, as I do, for their own unfaithfulness.”

The Barnes School.—Dea. and Mrs. Simeon Hackley, who have so long and so usefully conducted the Barnes Mission School, have found that other cares, that cannot be thrown off, make it impossible for them longer to continue in the work. Both of them have been engaged in it steadily for nearly six years. Dea. H., a graduate of Hamilton College, having been forced by a disease of the eyes to suspend study at the Union Theological Seminary, and thus to give up his hope of becoming a foreign missionary, carried into secular life the missionary spirit. What he hoped for thus in youth, he found at length in this work, and to him and his like-minded wife have many souls been given as seals of their service here.

It is a real blessing that Mrs. C. A. Sheldon, who so successfully conducted the Bethany School for several years, has been restored to health, and, with the assistance of her daughter, is able to fill this vacant place. The school is growing in size and interest, and, we may hope, will be as useful in the future as it has been in the past.

Oroville Once More.—Miss Waterbury, from Oroville, gives an interesting account of some “great idol Masonic festival,” which occupied the last week of February in the Chinese quarter of that town. She says: “Crowds of people have come in from the country for miles around, dark and rough-looking, many of them. There were processions, day after day, in which I recognized some of our scholars walking. Some of the forms were tall and fine as you will ever see. They carried a huge monster, serpent or dragon of unearthly hideousness, designed to keep away the evil spirits. At their temple there was an unceasing din of cymbals and gongs, with the firing of crackers and bombs, and the outlandish shouts of a mob-like throng; and nearly opposite, across the narrow street, stands our humble mission-house, where on the three Sabbaths previous, Lee Haim had preached, at eleven o’clock, to a room-full of his countrymen. On the Saturday and Sunday evenings of this festival, the Chinese crowded in so that we dismissed school, and Lee Haim preached and sung to them in Chinese. Every seat and every standing-place was filled. They wanted to hear. I am sure some poor, dark minds got a little Gospel truth for the first time, and, with some of them, all they will ever hear until the revelations of the future world shall be made to their astonished vision. It was soul-inspiring to see the earnestness and energy with which he threw his whole soul into the work, and even more so, to see all the eyes, and ears, and mouths open to catch the new and strange things of which the preacher spoke. I could not understand a word, but I was refreshed in spirit and made stronger by it.” Of course, this crowd no longer hangs upon the word. In two or three days, most of them scattered to their little mining camps, and the school resumed its comparatively diminutive proportions. But God’s word will not return to Him void; and while we know not which shall prosper, either this or that, we know that “he that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless return again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”