Bro. Graves:
I am glad to be able to inform you that a few Sabbaths ago we had the privilege of attending to the dedication service of our new and beautiful chapel in presence of a large and quiet assembly of natives. Our congregations average about 700 souls, and sometimes it is said the number amounts to nearly one thousand. Could the good friends in Nashville, and other parts of Tennessee, who contributed towards this chapel, behold the immense crowds of perishing heathen who from time to time listen to the sounds of the glorious gospel within its walls, they would rejoice that they had been called upon to share a portion of the expense in the erection of this house of the Lord. Our Mission now possesses within the walls of this great heathen city, two commodious houses of worship, both admirably located, to secure congregations. - And we have just given out the contract for a small new brick chapel and school house, at our out station, the whole cost of erection and ground having been given to us by the foreigners at Shanghae. We have two Mission schools in operation, and are about establishing a third. I should lik[e] just to say to the Sabbath schools in Nashville and elsewhere in Tennessee, that we can sustain a Mission day school at Shanghae, for about $75 per annum, including teachers' salary, rent of schoolroom, books, &,c., &c. Any Sabbath school that will readily undertake to sustain such a school shall have sent to them the name of the teacher and pupils of their school, with regular reports, &c. I commend this matter to the friendly consideration of the superintendents and teachers. We have a great work here upon our hands, and we really do require the aid and prayers of our friends at home. Our field is a wide and glorious one, and needs only to be cultivated with persevering faith and untiring devotion, to secure under the Master's blessing, the most gladdening fruits, and that too, at no distant day. Already a few have been won, and buried with Christ in baptism from among this great and gloomy mart of heathenism, and several encouraging cases of ingiving are now on our lists. We not only receive friendly greetings when we travel every where about into the country, for days and nights together, even accompanied by our families, but we even enter within the walls of the interior cities, and boldly preach to listening crowds, the words of the glorious gospel of Christ. Yes, the Southern Baptists have now secured a footing, not only within and without the walls, but have secured an entrance into all this widely spread region round about. But now need here more help lo enable us to hold on to what we have secured, and to keep the footing we have already obtained, to say nothing of more enlarged operations in this wide and inviting field. Again and again have the laborers lo this field been thinned, but we must not forget that whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and we must not suffer ourselves to be discouraged by circumstances so entirely under the immediate control of the Almighty and All-wise Providence. Man in carnal warfare do not give up their cause in consequence of the fall of either officers or troops, but their great and immediate object is to fill up the places of the fallen. Shall the men of this generation be wiser than the children of the light! O, that the churches possessed the true spirit of the Lord Jesus their Head and Leader, then would there be no lack of men to obey his voice and go forward to do battle with those hideous idols, who dispute the ascended Master's right lo reign among the nations of the earth.Many thanks for the copy of the Tennessee Baptist, which so regularly reaches us.
Yong Seen Sang has returned to his family, having left a good impression upon the minds of all of his countrymen. Pray for us.
Believe me faithfully,
J. LEWIS SHUCK.P. S. Please send me a copy of your Almanac for 1851
=========== [From the Tennessee Baptist, January 11, 1851, p. 3. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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