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Show 32 The Missionary Herald January via Yokohama and was evidently censored. They say they are both very well and able to work long hours. They are engaged, besides their school work, in translating the New Testament, setting up the type and printing at least one page each day. In addition to this they have endeavored to increase their food supply by planting potatoes, sugar cane, bananas, and TE KANRE AND WIFE Dr. Bingham's assistant in the translation of the Gilbertese Bible mandioc; but the rats eat the potatoes and sugar cane, and the bananas have been attacked by a blight which kills many of the plants, so that their effort in this direction has not been very successful. This letter was dated Sep- Since its receipt I have letter dated Yokohama, from a gentleman whose California. He writes: tember 18. received a October 23, home is in 'Your sisters, Misses Elizabeth and Jennie Baldwin, in Kusaie, desire to have you informed that at the present time they are in good health. They are working hard, owing to the shortage of provisions, and up to the time I left there, on September 22, there was no relief in sight.' " When the Japanese took charge of the Caroline Islands, our missionary, Miss Jessie Hoppin, whose furlough was due, was given the opportunity of leaving her field and coming home via Yokohama. Since the missionaries who would be left on duty, Rev. and Mrs. Charles H. Maas and Rev. Carl Heine, were of German citizenship, and hence were to be interned at Jaluij with other Germans, Miss Hoppin decided that rather than leave the Marshall and Caroline Island field without any one of full American citizenship in charge, she would give up her furlough and stay by. She was at last reports at Jaluij, her stay being entirely voluntary and her movements unhampered except as regards sending or receiving mail. + From an Island on the Equator Rev. Frank J. Woodward lives at Abaian, but his work covers the whole northern part of the Gilbert Island group. His letters have to go to him via Australia, and his post is probably the most isolated of any of the Board's mission stations. Mr. Woodward, who is now at home on furlough, speaks most interestingly of his field. He says:- "The Gilbert Islands are crossed by the equator and form a part of Micronesia, being peopled by Polynesians. The group is composed of sixteen coral atolls, lying but a few feet above the high-water mark and inclosing within their protection lagoons that are often thirty miles long and half as broad. Perpetual summer broods here. "The people, still children in character and strength of principle, are Animists in religion. Having no temples or regular priesthood, reverence is paid to stones, sacred trees, birds, and relics of the dead. We have to combat the old-time heathen dance, with all its evil tendencies. |