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Show 114 vehemently refusing to accept anything, saying, "Have I not received the benefits of the Church's instruction all these months? I give away my idol now because I don't care about it any more". We are happy to report that a special gift from America NEW WORK, made possible the renting of a set of buildings for women's work in a densely populated and quite unevangelized section of this city. The place was dedicated last February by a prayer-meeting of Christian women and is known as the "FU YING KUANG CHlH YUAN" which being interpreted means, "Women's and Children's Broaden the Knowledge Court." A Sunday-school is held here every Sabbath afternoon, with an attendance ranging from fifty to ninety people. During the week there is a morning kindergarten and an afternoon school for the older girls. The total number of pupils in the two schools is about fifty. On Tuesday afternoons the women who gather may hear the magazines read to them; on Thursdays there is a prayer-meeting; and on Saturdays a social hour. In addition to these regular appointments, two lectures and a musicale have been held. Mrs. Hubbard has had charge of the kindergarten, and Miss Phelps of the afternoon school and other branches of the work. It is impossible not to see the marked influence which this educational and religious center exerts upon the community. Some of the woman, we feel, are coming to believe the truths of Christianity as they heir them explained from week to week. The children, when asked, now tell us promptly that "prayer is talking to God," but the first, few weeks they gave us startling answers, such as, "Prayer is sticking your fingers into your eyes." A little group of children were one day sitting by the roadside near the Kuang Chih Yuan, singing very sweetly "Jesus Loves Me". That hymn finished, they sang another Miss Phelps hearing them, turned to a Chinese woman and said. ''How nicely their singing sounds!" "Yes", was the reply. "Before this place was opened they used to revile when they were at play: now they sing hymns." One of the smaller children caught sight of Mrs. Hubbard on the street one day and spoke out, evidently not meaning to be rude, but using the phraseology to which she was accustomed : "Oh, here comes the 'foreign devil.'" A woman in the same yard, hearing the remark, promptly replied: "Don't you know better than to call her that? You go to her school every day and she teaches you to keep your hands and face clean, to speak the truth and not revile people." Just after Easter, the leader of the Thursday prayer-meeting was speaking of the great commission which Christ gave to His disciples to "go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." She spoke of how people in every land are coming to realize that Jesus is the true and only Saviour, and then turning to some of the older school girls, she said: " Just think, three months ago you did not know anything about Jesus, but now you have learned who He is and what He has done for us. Some day every one in China and the whole world will know and worship Him '. Their faces lighted up with a quick glow of pleasure that sent its radiance far down into the missionary's heart, making it very glad. May this glow spread to the hearts of all who have helped by money or prayers to make this |