Letters - 1899.11.21 Extract from Annual Letter
Excerpt
Ning Taik
Nov. 21st, 1899
The chief event of the past year with regard to myself and my work has been my change of station. In February of this year I left Keng Tau in Hok-chiang to come to Miss Boileau’s help here at Ning Taik. Miss Boileau gave me charge of the women’s school immediately upon my arrival in Ning Taik, and the work in that school is an ever-increasing joy to me. We can only take twenty-five women on account of the limited accommodation, and the last term we had our full number as again this term. One thing delights me immensely, the intelligent grasp these women have of the truth, and their evident experimental knowledge of the love of God. To-day I was teaching Exodus 16, and as I spoke for awhile on the expression, “every man according to his eating,” I felt obliged to tell the women what pleasure it gave me to teach them because they had such big appetites for their spiritual food! They drink in the spiritual teaching with such evident enjoyment that it is a real delight to unfold to them the scriptures. I tell my beloved fellow-worker, Miss Boileau, that I am reaping where she has sown, for most of these women under my teaching, when they first came here, were quite ignorant of their Bibles, and some did not know how to read a character.
Eleven of our present number read both Old and New Testament with comparative ease; the result of nearly two years at school, and a good result for that comparatively short time. One old woman called, according to Chinese etiquette, “Old Grandmother,” came to school at the age of sixty-one. Her dear old face beams with joy as she listens to the truth concerning Jesus, and so very often I have been astonished ast the knowledge she has of the things that belong unto her peace. The other day I asked this question on Rom. 8:16, “Has the Holy Spirit made you to know that you are a child of God?” and she answered with beaming face, “Yes, and I know that Jesus is in my heart.” No one is more ready than this dear woman to speak of her Savior’s love.
As to the district, I have not had very good health at Ning Taik, so I have visited very little, but on the few occasions when I have gone out with our Bible-women, I have been delighted with the earnestness of the Christians. On one occasion I was visiting in a village about two miles away, when a young man came into the house where I sat with Bible-woman, his Testament in his hand, and he told me that he too had been “Seeking the lost.” Whilst telling me of all he had done that day, his face beamed with joy and he said, “Oh! it was such a pity I was alone, for I had such a lot of hearers, and my voice got tired too soon.”