Letter from Rev. A. P. Davis
BUCHANAN, May 2 1st, 1 859
REV. A. M. POINDEXTER:
Dear Brother. — I hope you have long since received my
communication to you per M. C. S., and also many of the queries
in yours dated January 25th. Your favour was quite unexpected,
but was received with much pleasure. I felt that, although many
thousand miles separated us, I was thought of by you, which
affords much comfort in this distant land.
Our day school is very well provided for in point of a
teacher. I gave an account in some of my former letters of my
station; informed the Board that my charge took in the first and
second wards of the city of Buchanan. The second ward is three
miles distant from my residence. We have had a school there
numbering from twenty to thirty children. But for this point no
teacher is provided, though there is a number of children there. A
school has not been provided there by any denomination since the
Baptists left it. The people there, as at other places in Liberia are
poor, and can do but little to educate their children, though they
have employed sister Savage, a worthy member of my charge,
resident in that ward, to teach their children for a very small
compensation. If she could be allowed a small sum, say SI 00 a
year, that she might devote more of her time to teaching, till better
arrangement could be made, I should be glad. Bro. J. T. Neyle
well supplies the first ward.
I regret to say that my Sabbath school is not now in the
lead. It has fallen back considerably. I once could devote my
attention to it every day, but now I can only attend when I am at
home of Sabbaths, which is every other Sabbath, and sometimes
every third, as I go about sometimes. To make a Sabbath school
prosperous, it must have a good and faithful teacher. It numbers
thirty-five or forty. The community is not large, and is organized
into three societies -- the Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopalian.
And those who are influenced by money and numbers don’t come
to the Baptist.
In regard to what is being done for the natives, I believe
that God is doing among them a work, but it is difficult to tell to
what extent, as many of those who enjoy the greatest advantages
