Strong Evidence of God at Work - 1838
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Introduction
After four years of work with the Ojibwe tribe in Michigan, Eleanor Macomber’s health broke. She returned to her native New York to recover. In 1836, she joined a mission to the Karen people of Burma (Myanmar). Late that year she settled alone in the village of Dong-Yahn where drunkenness was a way of life. She held evening and morning prayers and established a school. Within a year more than twenty Karen had converted to Christ and were meeting regularly as a church. Accompanied by some of these converts, she trekked to surrounding villages where she also shared the gospel and saw souls turn to Christ. Her opponents respected her even while resisting her influence. Today’s excerpt is from a letter Macomber wrote at Dong-Yahn on this day February 5, 1838.
Quote
“The work of God is still going on here. Three men requested baptism last Sabbath, and a number more will soon come forward. This is the more encouraging, as, just now, there is an unusual effort of the adversary to put the cause down. It is the season for funeral festivals; and for fifteen or twenty days they have been in constant celebration, which of course attracts much attention. But the priests, not finding their coffers so well filled as usual, have seemed to make an effort as for life; and there is no end to the fog of worthless stuff which comes from them. It would seem that there was very little else said or done than what their violence called forth. No one of the Christians can go abroad but they hear from every quarter ‘Jesus Christ,’ by way of contempt; and all who attend our meetings receive the same treatment unless they join the rabble. So that when any of them decide to come out and face the whole, which to a heathen is mountainous, there is strong evidence that divine grace has taken possession of their hearts.…”
Quoted in Eddy, Daniel C. Daughters of the Cross: or Woman’s Mission.