Another says, “I, with three others, have been making matches to the amount of ten dollars, and should have made more, but the people are pretty well supplied.  I am going to dig my father’s garden, and my mother is going to give me a quarter of a dollar for digging it, which I shall give to the missionaries.  I am going to do all I can, and to earn all I can, and save all that I have, to support the missionaries.”

Another says, “I am going to leave off buying candy.”  What is that?  Can little girls and boys do without sugar-candy?  I am afraid that many of you, my dear children, would find it difficult to go without it.  But let me quote all that this child wrote.  “I am going to leave off buying candy and such little notions, unless it is necessary, and save every cent that I can get and give it to the missionaries.”

Now, my dear children, I do think that if you would save some of those cents which you spend in buying candy, fire-crackers, and similar things, and buy Bibles and tracts for the poor heathen, you would do much more good with them.

I want to tell you about a little boy who belonged to one of my schools in Ceylon, who has, as I hope, gone to heaven through the means of a tract which cost only two or three cents, and which was the cause of his coming under my care.  After he had attended preaching for some time, he begged me to admit him to the church.  As he was quite young, not eleven years old, I was afraid to receive him.  This feeling, perhaps, was wrong.  He never joined the church on earth.  He has, however, I hope, gone to join the church in heaven.  When he was about eleven years of age, he was attacked with the cholera and died.  In this country, when children are very ill, the father or mother will catch up a cocoa-nut or a few plantains, and run off to the temple, and say, “Now, Swammie, if you will cure my little boy or little girl, I will give you this cocoa-nut, or these plantains.”  The mother of this boy saw that he was very ill, and she told him that she wished to go to make offerings to one of her idols, in order that he might get well.  But he requested her not to do so.  “I do not worship idols,” said he; “I worship Christ, my Saviour.  If he is pleased to spare me a little longer in the world, it will be well; if not, I shall go to him.”  The last words he uttered were, “I am going to Christ the Lord.”

Now when you think about this little boy, I want you to ask yourselves, whether it is not better to give two or three cents to try and save the soul of some poor little heathen boy or girl, than to spend them in buying candy, and other useless things.