African Mission
BEXLEY STATION
Letter from brother John Day
The fact stated in the communication of brother Day is full
of encouragement. That large congregations, numbered by
hundreds, may be collected seventy miles in the interior, is a
circumstance which may well create attention. How greatly are we
needing an increase of laborers in the African mission. We trust
that God will fill the hearts of his people with gratitude for these
open and effectual doors of usefulness, and prepare us to enter
them.
As far as I have been, which is about seventy-five miles
interior, and say one hundred and fifty miles coastwise, I have
found the preaching of the word acceptable. I have preached to
say 1,000 persons 70 miles in the interior, and speaking low could
be distinctly heard by the whole. Not a whisper, not a stir, until I
had finished; every ear attentive, every eye fixed on me. All
around, where I preach, there is perfect order. They kneel
solemnly before their Maker, and seem to pray. Why! oh why! are
they not converted to God? A stranger would sometimes think
they are fit for the ordinances of the gospel; but we have baptized
fast enough for the glory of God.
I have no doubt that by many it may be thought, my time
has been badly spent; my efforts too widely spread; but the seeds,
thinly sown as they are, choked as they are by superstition’s
weeds, still show they exist. Brother Benham remarked to me,
having passed through the country where we had preached, “I call
them nominal Christians.”
I learned from brother Davis, that the nations among whom
he preaches, increase in their interest in the things of God. Brother
Purvis tells very interesting things of those among whom he labors.
I have been sick and weak the whole dries, so as to be able
to do but little, besides attend to affairs around me. Nearly all of
May and June, I was confined to my bed, but the Great One,
contrary to my expectation, has raised me, and although weak, am
in good health for me in the midst of the rains, a season which for
many years has injuriously affected my lungs. What cannot God
