AFRICAN MISSION
Missionaries — John Day, A. P. Davis, B. J. Drayton, J. H. Cheeseman,
S. Pervis, William. A. Johnson, W. W. Stewart, with six additional
teachers and interpreters — total 13.
BEXLEY STATION
This station is occupied by brother John Day. Though his
health has been at different times feeble, but little interruption to
his missionary work has been experienced. Under his care is a
school of about forty-five boys — some of these are colonists but
most are natives. They are required to labor a portion of every
day. Referring to these youths, our missionary says: “The
religious instruction they have received, shows itself in their good
behaviour. To see them bow their heads around their frugal meals,
while one of their number raises his voice in grateful thanks to
their Maker for his bounty, and devoutly asks his blessing upon it,
is enough to fill the heart of the spectator with joy. They quietly
eat their poor meals, and cheerfully rise to engage in any work
assigned them.” Again, he says, in pleading for the means to
enlarge his school: “I do not like to say much about a school under
my own direction, but I suppose there is not one of the kind more
interesting in the whole colony. I wish some member of the Board
could visit it. I think what has already been accomplished, would
afford sincere gratification.”
In addition to the management of the school, brother Day
has supplied regularly the church at Bexley, and as often as
possible, has gone into the interior preaching among the native
towns. “I think,” he writes, “a large extent of the Bassa country is
ripe for the reception of truth. As far as I have been, which is
about 75 miles in the interior, and say 150 miles coast-wise, I have
found the preaching of the word acceptable. I have preached to
1000 persons, 70 miles in the interior, and speaking low, could be
heard by the whole. Not a whisper, not a stir, until I had done,
every ear attentive, every eye fixed. All around where I labor,
there is perfect order. They kneel solemnly before their Maker and
seem to pray. I am ready to cry, why,
О
why are they not
converted to God. A stranger would sometimes think they are fit
for the ordinances of the gospel.”