PAM. tsisc. i L n n Ll-U, A Missionary Leaflet. * * ¥ * f» Timothy Stand-by ¥ ¥ ¥ * * * BY JOSEPH CLARK. * <5* t 5 V V v Ohio Sunday School Association COLUMBUS, OHIO SA V V 9 s V ¥ TIMOTHY STAND-BY ON GITTIN THE MISSHUNABY VISHUN. (Copyright, Joseph Clark, 1908 .) Brush Fork, Ohio. My Deer Sister Mandy: It’s rite smart kool this evenin, and fer the first time this summer a cupple of sticks is a-burnin in the fire place. Marthy is a-sittin at my side, and we’re onct more enjoyin a little wood fire. I’m doin my best to skratch off a letter to you on a tablet. I never like to write a let¬ ter to you without givin you a pictur of the sur- oundins, so’s you can reely live on the spot while you’re a-reedin of the let¬ ter. That’s what Sunday- skool teechers in these days calls “the settin of the lesson.” Of korse you’ve learned long afore this that the biggest thing in Brush Fork, next to our oil well, - is the Brush Fork Metho¬ dist Sunday-skool, of which yure Bruther Timothy is the Suprintendent, and yure cistern-law, Marthy, is the “Elermenterry Su- . */ ^ . printendent.” That’s Mar- thy’s new title. It sounds -' mitey high-ferlootin, but don’t get skeered, fer Mar¬ thy don’t reely hold no diffrent posishun in the skool frum what she has bln holdin fer nigh on to forty yeers. Back in the seventies Marthy wuz just a common Infant Klass Teecher, and she had infants in her klass all the way frum children in arms up to infants dost on to twelve in lone-legged trowsers. In them days she wuz the only teecher fer the hole bunch. Mandy, I’m sure you remember them times, when the teechers give away blue and red tickets in the Sunday-skool, and when it used to take half the Sunday-skool hour fer to git the tickets swopped fer a pictur card. Well, after awhile Marthy got a blackbord. Then she wuz called Primary Teecher. She wuz teechin just the same klass, only she had a different title. Then she got to goin to Township and County Convenshuns, and afore ennybuddy knowed it, and without even askin of the preecher, she had her klass divided into four grades. She had a cradle roll, beginners, primaries, and junyers, with a teecher fer each grade but the cradle roll. Then she give out that hereafter she'd be knowed as the Elermenterry Suprintendent, and she wuddent be called nuthin else. Gee whiz! when Marthy’s sot, she’s sot. I fergit half the time what her new title is, so I’ve rit it on the swetter band of my hat fer reddy refer¬ ence, “lest I fergit,” as Mr. Kiplin sez. So Marthy’s posishun now aint no diffrent frum what it haz bin, oniv she’s doin things some diffrent and lots better; and she aint tryin to do the hole thing herself. There wuz a time when Marthy would work in the wurd “elermenterry” every time she spoke to enny¬ buddy, but since our new English Persidin Elder haz bin a-speakin of Marthy’s klass as the bellementerry department, Marthy’s kinder quieted down on that pint. Well, Mandy, I m gittin off the track, fer I didn’t start in to rite about the elermenterry department, but about the missliuuary revival what’s broke out in the Stand-by family and the Brush Fork Sunday-skool. And it’s all on ackount of Marthy's pyoneer spirit. She’s allers blazin the way fer sumthin new. Way along last spring she got track of a Sunaay-Skool Konference of the Young Peeple’s Misshunary Movement, at Silver Bay, New York, and she to onct begun to harp on my goin. She sed I needed a misshunary revivul, and I needed it bad; that I’d gone crazy on Sunday-skool work without catchin on to the grate objeck of the Sunday-skool. She sed that the “eddikashun and the savin of the people in the nayborhood wuzzent enuff. If the Sunday-skool had enny misshun at all it wuz to help save the bole wurld.” She sed that the wurk of improvin skools fer their own gratefikashun wuz selfish, and that I orter wurk to make skools better so that the skools mite make the wurld better by sendin money and misshunaries and prayers into the misshun fields.” She sed that “no Sunday-skool could do that unless it had a bigger vishun of the Kingdum than its own little church or its own little nayborhood.” Oh my! Mandy, Marthy got awful excited. She stood up on the other side of our sittin room table like as if she wuz makin a speech at a banquet, and sed, “Timothy Stand-by, the wurld will never be brawt to Christ till the Sunday-skool gits the misshunary vishun, and Dr. Bailey wuz rite when he said, ‘It’s the bizness of the bole Sunday-skool, and it’s tbe bole bizness of tbe Sunday-skool, to carry tbe bole Gospel to tbe hole wurld, as quick as possible. Glory!’” Then Marthy went on and sed, “Timothy Stand-by, I ain’t got no use fer you as a Sunday-skool man if yure sot on goin along at a poor dyin rate without a bigger vishun of the wurk than Brush Fork, or Isreel Town¬ ship, or Sheepskin County, or the State of Ohio, or the United States of Ameriky. If you’re goin to be wurthy the name of a wurker in the Kingdum you’ve got to git a wurld vishun, and I’ve got a feelin in my bones that the place fer you to git it is at Silver Bay.” I tried to put in a wurd or two of objeck- shun, but Marthy wuz too quick fer me, and went rite on. She sed, “Timothy, there aint no use of havin an oil well a-pumpin out oil day and nite, and swellin our bank ackount without a-using of it; and there ainc no use of puttin up enny excuse fer not goin.” Well, to make a long story short, I went! I can’t tell you all about the wunders of that Konference, but I kame back with the vishun,” and Brush Fork Sunday-skool is now a-wurkin misshuns to beet the band. The first thing I did wuz to appint a Misshunary Kommittee. I didn’t put on it a lot of good sisters what had been wurkin on the Woman’s Furrin Misshunary Society fer fifty yeer; but I hunted up some youngsters what had bin sittin around waitin to be asked to do somethin, and wuz just reddy fer a chance to show what they could do. I ap- pinted them, and then asked them to come down to the house on Monday evenin, fer sup¬ per. Then after supper I took them in the parler and told them about the Silver Bay Meetin, and got them all stirred up on makin Brush Fork count fer somethin in the big wurld. I only needed to pull the string, and Marthy preeclied a misshunary sermon fit fer a Bishop. Why, iuandy, afore we got away from that meetin the Kommittee had formed themselves into a Misshun Study Klass on kinder original lines. I had brought home with me from Silver Bay, Trull’s “Manual of Misshunary Methods for Sunday Skool Wurkers,” and on page 18G, we found a list of books fer general equipment of Suprintendents, Teechers and Mishhunary Kommittees.” The hole outfit costs only about three dollars. Somebuddy moved that we buy it and afore we could say skat the money wuz on the parler table and the seckertery of the Kommittee wuz instrukt- ed to send to our denominashunal publishin house fer the books. When they come the Kommittee is goin to form itself into a little readin sirkle and read the books a turn about, until each member of the Kommittee has read the whole bunch. By that time, Mandy, they’ll all have the vishun. That’s the thing to git— the vishun. At the next meetin of the Sunday-Skool Board the Kommittee is goin to ask it to order fer the skool a set of six charts published by the Young Peeple’s Misshunary Movement, mounted on wood rollers, and a big Misshun¬ ary Map of the World, about 7x12 feet, and a Juvinile Misshunary Library of ten volumes, and a thousand envelups—duplex envelups— containin two pockets (one fer the reglar skool offerin and the other fer a weekly misshunary offerin), and a kabnet fer misshun¬ ary kuriosities frum furrin countries, and a markin-outfit fer makin sines and charts. One of the clover boys on the Kommittee is goin to make a bullitin bord to hang up in the entry of the church fer misshunary nctices. Oh, Mandy, we’re goin into the biz- ness rite. The hole outfit won’t cost mor'n twenty dollars, and that’s nuthin kompared to what it will do fer the kollecshuns. The Kommittee is a-goin to recommend that we git a misshunary pledge of at least two cents a week frum each member of the skool, and ask the skollars to pay it weekly in the duplex or double-pocket envelups. It's kinder got wispered around alreddy what we’re a-plannin and the boys and girls is crazy to begin to use the duplex sistem; it’s rite smart novel you know. Miss Snyder, the teecher of one of the Junyer klasses has alreddy sent fer six copies of “Uganda’s White Man of Wurk,” and is goin to take it up with her boys one evenin each week. She will have the first Misshun Study Klass in Brush Fork Sunday- skool. Oh, Mandy, it’s grate. Glory! Marthy aint sed nuthin about it yet to a livin sole but me; but she’s a-plannin (if the oil well keeps on a-runnin) to make the skool a Christmas present of a majick lantern fer to show up picturs on misshuns. I don’t know just how such a thing will take in the skool, fer there’s an awful prejudis agin majick lanterns in Brush Fork since the Moovin Pictur Show opened up in Skirvin’s meat market. But Marthy sez she’s goin to risk it, and she’s a-trustin on the Lord to help her out. We’re goin to begin the new Misshunary skeem, the Lord willin, on October 1, and I’ll watch the way it wurks in the first quarter and report when I rite my next letter. There’s one thing Marthy and I are prayin fer hard. We are prayin that inside of a year some of our young peeple will heer the call of God to a furrin field or to some part of our home misshun field, and that soon Brush Fork Sunday-skool will not only be preechin the Gospil to the peeple in Isreel Township, but that it will have reel live misshunaries a-wurkin among the heethen and among the furriners in our big cities and out on the frunteer. Glory! I’ve fished out some of the fixins I brawt back frum the Holy Land and am preparin to make the first kontribushun to the Kuriosity Kabnet when it comes. I’ve got a little of the Jordan water left, and a shepherd’s rod and some pressed flowers, and some shells frum the See of Galilee, and a lot of things that will give the kabnet a start. Just as I’m closin this letter Sam Putty- man brawt in the mail, and in it came one of the addresses which wuz give at the Sil¬ ver Bay Konference, on “The Smoke of a Thousand Villages.” My! I’m glad to git that, fer it stirred the Konference frum top to bottom. I’m going to have it red out loud at our next teachers’ meetin. It will do lots to get the teechers to see the vishun. The “vishun!” the vishun!” That’s the thing to git! The “vishun!” If you aint got it yet, I hope you’ll git it soon, Mandy, fer life aint wurth livin without the “vishun!” Come out and see us soon. Fruit’s plenty, and the farm looks butiful. And, best of all, the oil well’s still a-runnin. Glory! Yures truly, TIMOTHY STAND-BY. NOTE:—Trull’s “Missionary Methods for Sunday School Workers” can be had for fifty cents, postpaid, by sending to The Sunday School Times Co., 1031 Walnut St., Philadel¬ phia, Pa. The Booklet “The Smoke of a Thousand Vil¬ lages,” or The Missionary Opportunity of the Sunday-school, by Dr. Joseph Clark, will be sent for ten cents, postpaid, if ordered from the Ohio Sunday School Association, Ruggery Bldg., Columbus, O.