Generation
"At ten o'clock the small bell set in a frame in front of a building used for school and services is struck repeatedly, and along the path and across the grassy fields come trooping the picturesque figures of the natives gathering for the Sunday Meeting. The church building is really intended for school work, and a chapel is part of the building plan before the station for the next few years.
We enter the brick building and find it crowded full. Six hundred people are in the congregation, sitting crowded on benches, the men on one side--the right--and the women and girls on the left. The mission- aries sit in chairs along the walls in front. On the platform two native preachers and the organist, a fine looking black boy, conduct the ser- vices. There is a well played voluntary, then a hymn in Umbundu sung with such hearty good will and such a volume or rich negro voices. The numbers of the hymns are written on a slate hanging on the wall. I share one of the hymn books and follow the words. The tune is our famil- iar, 'Holy, Holy, Holy'. the pronounciation is easy, but I cannot always tell what elisions occur.
The service goes on much as at home, with singing, responsive read- ings. Scripture reading and prayer. When the offering is taken up dignified men receive it. Dr. Sanders preached the sermon today. I listen with a full heart, reading the story of saving grace written in living epistles in the faces before me.
After the church service I went to the youngest department of the Sunday School. It was held in the partly finished industrial building. Benches were brought from the church and set among the shavings. Some tiny folk needed an encouraging hand to help them. I quite lost my heart to the dear little black girl with solemn eyes whose wee fingers closed around mine and whose small feet pattered along besides my big ones. She had a handkerchief tied around her black wooly head, which is the common custom for girls. Her little dress was blue print and she had yellow and brown hoops on the wrist and ankle. The little face was so dear and sweet. Mrs. Tucker played the baby organ and had general exercises at the beginning and review at the end. The school seemed as good as ours at home, but the equipment was so inadequate for so many children. The lesson was on Jacob's Ladder and after it I was asked to speak. I told the little folk about the Brighton Sunday School children and their stopping in their play as my steamer sailed from America to pray: 'God bless Dr. Cushman and take her safely on her journey and help her to cure all the sick babies in Africa that she can', and of their plan to bring their pennies at Thanksgiving to buy medicine for the little sick children in Africa.
I went back to Miss Rawlins for dinner. One boy had come from a village quite a distance away with a sore toe. I suppose it began with a jigger bite. There was not a particle of skin left on the entire toe, and it was in a dreadful condition. It was washed with water and two drops of iodine and boric acid applied, and one piece of the last small bit of gauze, with a piece of clean old shirt over that; to tie it up Miss Rawlins just tore a handkerchief and put on a strip. The boy was so brave with the after pain which was severe. He sat on the bench in the porch holding his knee and rocking back and forth, but not making a sound. I rubbed the poor boy's leg awhile and Miss Rawlins gave him a plate of her dinner. I could not keep the tears back. It is so pitiful to see these dear people giving everything, and having such inadequate provision for the necessities for their work.
Before we were half through dinner a group of Ochileso boys study-
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