Letter of Rev. B. J. Drayton
CAPE PALMAS, LIBERIA, Feb., 1859
Dear Brother Poindexter:
I have the pleasure to acknowledge the receipt of your
kind and encouraging note. I thank you for the very kind
expressions of advice and caution intimated by you, and feel that
they belong to me particularly. I hope to improve from them.
Please never withhold useful hints, as I need instruction and
encouragements.
I am quite thankful to have to record the progress of our
interest here, and that there is a growing disposition on the part of
those to whom we minister, to assist in pushing forward the work.
While we are yet destitute of a place of worship, and are compelled
to worship from house to house, still we have our encouragements,
by having many who gladly come to hear the “word of life.” Just
here, you will please suffer me to implore the Board, through you,
to lend us a helping hand this one time-beseech them for the cause
sake at Palmas, to grant us S200. Brother Crane has kindly
donated $70 -- that with the above amount from you, we will
struggle and do the balance ourselves. We have the frame nearly
completed, and a site. Without a house we will have to feel and
endure many mortifications. My little flock is willing, but poor.
Think, O! think of this, we are poor!
Our native school, I am happy to inform you, is
progressing very well indeed-the children are improving, and the
parents gladly listen to the wholesome story of the cross. I feel
that heaven will yet bless abundantly the labors which are being
spent for their salvation, and even within the last two years more
inquiries have been made about Jesus than ever have been in years
past. This interesting people must have the gospel, they must be
taught prayerfully and systematically, and I know the harvest of
the Lord will be abundant and joyful. How precious in our eyes
should be their salvation, and with what meekness and humility
should we enter upon the work. “Who is sufficient for these
things?” The Lord’s power I imagine will make his people
sufficiently adequate.
1 have had with me Brother Richard II. Stone and wife,
who were in waiting for the steamer from England, to convey them
