hey had
cut off,--spread them out before Mr. Riggs, and reproached him for
sending a little boy out into a storm so insufficiently clad; to which
Mr. Riggs replied that we had no idea he was going out into the storm,
that he was dressed for the house, and had we known he was going on a
journey, he would have been dressed for it. She would not be pacified,
however, and after bitterly reproaching Mr. Riggs for the death of her
grandson, she _demanded pay_ for it, as if money would make up to them
his loss.

That afternoon, at the woman's meeting, we learned that they had given
away everything they possessed, furniture, clothing, bedding, dishes,
and were absolutely destitute of the barest necessities of life. This is
one of their customs. They reason thus: Our child is dead; our hearts
are sad; life has no longer any attractions; take all we have. The
Christian Indian women in our church each gave something out of her
little property to help these poor heathen people, who in their
superstitious ignorance had made their lot so wretched. Taking this,
they returned home and demanded of the family of the other poor boy a
cow in _payment_ for the death of their child.

And there came to me this question: Is it possible that in the midst of
this beautiful free land of ours, there lives a people so densely
ignorant, so darkly superstitious, sunk so low in heathenism, as this
incident shows? And this is only one of many such incidents. May God
help us when such things are possible in a Christian land.

* * * * *

THE CHINESE.

* * * * *

THREE DAYS OF EVANGELISTIC WORK AT PETALUMA.

BY JEE GAM.

I reached Petaluma a little while before school began. The scholars soon
poured in and the attendance was the largest the school ever had. In
order to have a little preaching service, we hurried through the
lessons. At the conclusion of school, two hymns were sung. I then
preached to them of Jesus. They all listened very attentively and
appeared interested. At the close, I asked them to come again the next
evening and bring their friends. To my great surprise, the next evening
not only all the scholars came, but many outsiders; some of these had
years ago attended our school for some little time, but the majority of
them had never been inside our mission. I was informed, after the
meeting, that five or six of them were very highly educated in Chinese,
and that