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Title: The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889" ***
THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY.
DECEMBER, 1889.
VOL. XLIII. NO. 12
CONTENTS.
EDITORIAL.
OUR ANNUAL MEETING
FINANCIAL
THE DANIEL HAND FUND
THE LITERATURE OF THE MEETING
NOTICES FROM THE PRESS
THE "AMERICAN MISSIONARY"
BRIEF NOTES
ANNUAL MEETING.
PROCEEDINGS OF ANNUAL MEETING
SUMMARY OF TREASURER'S REPORT
THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION--ITS PLACE AND WORK.
BY SECRETARY STRIEBY
THE MISSIONARY VIEW OF THE SOUTHERN SITUATION.
BY SECRETARY BEARD
REPORTS OF COMMITTEES
ADDRESSES ON THESE REPORTS, BY MESSRS. WRIGHT, WOODBURY, TAYLOR, HIATT,
FISK, FOSTER, RIGGS, STIMSON, GOODWIN, AND SALISBURY
CLOSING ADDRESS BY REV. DR. TAYLOR
BUREAU OF WOMAN'S WORK.
REPORT OF SECRETARY
WOMAN'S STATE ORGANIZATIONS
RECEIPTS
* * * * *
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.
Rooms, 56 Reade Street.
* * * * *
Price, 50 Cents a Year, in Advance.
Entered at the Post Office at New York, N.Y., as second-class matter.
* * * * *
American Missionary Association
PRESIDENT, Rev. WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D., LL.D., N.Y.
_Vice-Presidents._
Rev. A.J.F. BEHRENDS, D.D., N.Y.
Rev. F.A. NOBLE, D.D., Ill.
Rev. ALEX. McKENZIE, D.D., Mass.
Rev. D.O. MEARS, D.D., Mass.
Rev. HENRY HOPKINS, D.D., Mo.
_Corresponding Secretaries._
Rev. M.E. STRIEBY, D.D., _56 Reade Street, N.Y._
Rev. A.F. BEARD, D.D., _56 Reade Street, N.Y._
_Recording Secretary._
Rev. M.E. STRIEBY, D.D., _56 Reade Street, N.Y._
_Treasurer._
H.W. HUBBARD, Esq., _56 Reade Street, N.Y._
_Auditors._
PETER McCARTEE.
CHAS. P. PEIRCE.
_Executive Committee._
JOHN H. WASHBURN, Chairman.
ADDISON P. FOSTER, Secretary.
_For Three Years._
S.B. HALLIDAY,
SAMUEL HOLMES,
SAMUEL S. MARPLES,
CHARLES L. MEAD,
ELBERT B. MONROE.
_For Two Years._
J.E. RANKIN,
WM. H. WARD,
J.W. COOPER,
JOHN H. WASHBURN,
EDMUND L. CHAMPLIN.
_For One Year._
LYMAN ABBOTT,
CHAS. A. HULL,
CLINTON B. FISK,
ADDISON P. FOSTER,
ALBERT J. LYMAN.
_District Secretaries._
Rev. C.J. RYDER, _21 Cong'l House, Boston._
Rev. J.E. ROY, D.D., _151 Washington Street, Chicago._
Rev. C.W. HIATT, _64 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio._
_Financial Secretary for Indian Missions._
Rev. CHAS. W. SHELTON.
_Field Superintendent._
Rev. FRANK E. JENKINS.
_Secretary of Woman's Bureau._
Miss D.E. EMERSON, _56 Reade St., N.Y._
COMMUNICATIONS
Relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to the
Corresponding Secretaries; letters for "THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY," to the
Editor, at the New York Office; letters relating to the finances, to the
Treasurer.
DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS
In drafts, checks, registered letters, or post-office orders, may be
sent to H.W. Hubbard, Treasurer, 56 Reade Street, New York, or, when
more convenient, to either of the Branch Offices, 21 Congregational
House, Boston, Mass., or 151 Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. A payment
of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member.
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.--The date on the "address label" indicates the
time to which the subscription is paid. Changes are made in date on
ladle to the 10th of each month. If payment of subscription be made
afterward, the change on the label will appear a month later. Please
send early notice of change in post-office address, giving the former
address and the new address, in order that our periodicals and
occasional papers may be correctly mailed.
FORM OF A BEQUEST.
"I bequeath to my executor (or executors) the sum of ---- dollars, in
trust, to pay the same in ---- days after my decease to the person who,
when the same is payable, shall act as Treasurer of the 'American
Missionary Association,' of New York City, to be applied, under the
direction of the Executive Committee of the Association, to its
charitable uses and purposes." The Will should be attested by three
witnesses.
* * * * *
THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY.
VOL. XLIII. DECEMBER, 1889. NO. 12
American Missionary Association.
* * * * *
OUR ANNUAL MEETING.
We return from our Annual Meeting held in Chicago with a deep sense of
gratitude to God and to the many friends who in various ways helped to
make it one of the most pleasant and profitable of our anniversaries. We
did not have the remarkable uplift of a munificent gift like that of Mr.
Daniel Hand, which made our meeting at Providence so memorable, but we
had, in the strength and appropriateness of the sermon, and in the
ability of the addresses, papers and reports, that which will render
this meeting a cheering landmark in our history.
* * * * *
FINANCIAL.
$500,000 FOR 1889-90.
Our financial exhibit, with the able report upon it, was one of the
encouraging features of our Annual Meeting. The report of the Treasurer
announced the gratifying fact that the books closed with all obligations
and indebtedness paid, and with a balance on hand of over $4,000. The
able Finance Committee gave a careful examination of the Treasurer's
books and papers, and made very commendatory report as to methods and
accuracy.
The National Council, at its meeting in Worcester, recommended that the
churches contribute to the Association for the coming year $500,000. The
Finance Committee after careful examination of the needs of the work
endorsed the recommendation of the Council, and the Association heartily
adopted the report. This sum, therefore, is what, in the judgment of
competent persons, is imperatively needed; and we, therefore, take
pleasure in going before our constituents, appealing for that amount.
* * * * *
THE DANIEL HAND FUND.
This noble gift, which awakened such enthusiasm at our annual meeting
one year ago, came with its echo of work well done during the year--an
echo which we trust will reverberate with steady force through all the
years to come. In the Treasurer's report the figures were given as to
the appropriations made from the income of this Fund during the year; in
the General Survey cheering statements were made as to the many pupils
it had stimulated to industry and education, and the buildings it had
erected; and in several of the papers and addresses, grateful mention
was made of the benefits conferred by it. We trust that other large
givers may be stimulated to follow in the footsteps of one who has so
wisely invested his money for the uplifting of the most needy in our
land.
A recent letter from Mr. Hand shows his deep solicitude that his gift
shall be used for the highest moral and religious purposes. He says: "I
have feared that the teachers might be more concerned for letters than
for morals. My bequest was given to you chiefly as a religious society.
Religion is the first, chiefest and best of it all."
* * * * *
THE LITERATURE OF THE MEETING.
This presents a genuine case of the embarrassment of riches. We never
had better. We wish all our friends might have the opportunity for the
careful study of it, for it is worth their time and attention.
Full reports of the proceedings were made daily in the _Chicago Inter
Ocean_. They were all gathered into a supplement, and have already been
widely scattered. Some copies are still on hand at our offices in New
York, Boston, Cleveland and Chicago, and can be had on application.
The annual sermon, as usual, will be printed with the Annual Report.
This number of the MISSIONARY (an enlarged number) will contain the
Minutes and the official papers, including reports and the speeches upon
them, (the latter necessarily somewhat abridged) Secretaries' papers,
and the closing address of Rev. Dr. Taylor. Other papers and addresses,
including the Representative Addresses, will be published hereafter as
far as practicable in subsequent numbers of the MISSIONARY or in some
other form.
* * * * *
NOTICES FROM THE PRESS.
* * * * *
FROM THE ADVANCE.
No meeting of the American Missionary Association has ever been better
than this last one. Dr. William M. Taylor, who with such consummate
felicity combines so many of the best characteristics of the Scotch, the
English and the Yankee, presided. The topics of the several papers and
addresses, though covering a large range of thought all converged to the
same main point, and were especially pertinent to the hour. Those who
had been invited to prepare papers showed, by the manifest pains they
took with them, their sense of the importance of the occasion. They
brought the results of their best and most earnest thinking. And it is
rare that such speakers are confronted by a more earnest, intelligent
and sympathetic audience.
The meeting was a good one in every respect; it is not easy to
overestimate either its delightfulness or its moral power. It is not
possible for a great society to place before itself a more eminently
Christlike purpose. It has been greatly honored of God in its results
thus far. And no decently intelligent history of America will ever fail
to note the vital and decisively critical part which, in the Providence
that overrules all history, has been given to this so timely and so
sagaciously Christian organization to take in preparing the various
despised races of America for good citizenship in our common country, so
that Negro, Indian, Chinaman and whatever other race representatives are
among us may sing in glorious unison: "My country 'tis of thee, sweet
land of liberty!"
* * * * *
FROM THE CONGREGATIONALIST.
The Annual Meeting in Chicago was remarkable in many respects. All the
sessions were good. There was no talking against time. There were no
displays of eloquence. No one spoke for effect. The ruling desire seemed
to be to get at the facts, and to learn the lessons which they teach.
Subjects were carefully grouped together, so that at the close of the
meeting one felt that the fourfold character of the work of the
Association had been fully and intelligently presented. Speeches were
almost entirely by those whose names were on the programme, and who,
therefore, had given time and thought to the matters on which they had
been invited to enlighten others. Every one came with the idea that he
_might_ speak, that he had the liberty of the floor, and yet few cared
to use this liberty. Debate is good, but on matters which concern the
treatment of more than ten millions of people--eight of Negroes, two of
mountain whites, besides Indians and Chinese--extempore addresses are
not the best use of time. As a result of this preparation, Wednesday,
the day when most of the papers were read, will compare favorably with
the best days of the American Board. The ability of the younger men in
our denomination was conspicuous. None of our great benevolent
enterprises will suffer in their hands.
While there was great seriousness, there was also evident hopefulness,
and an unshaken confidence in the power of the gospel to remove all the
difficulties in the race problem, the Indian and the Chinese questions,
and in the treatment of the Mountain Whites. While a unit in sentiment
as to the importance of the school, the convention seemed to be equally
a unit as to the importance of making it a missionary school, and of
keeping it in closest union with the church. The conviction seemed to
prevail that to separate the one from the other would, in the highest
degree, be unfortunate. It was evident, furthermore, that the work of
the Association has only just begun, that no backward step can be taken,
and that the churches ought to give larger sums for the support of the
Association year by year. It deserves, and will reward, their confidence
and generosity.
* * * * *
FROM THE CHRISTIAN UNION.
The Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association, held in
Chicago last week, and of which a full account will be found elsewhere,
brought out anew the directness and energy with which this society is
bringing its aid to the solution of some of the most immediate and
perplexing problems in this country. The Negro, the Indian and the
Chinese are the especial objects of its care, and it has rendered
immense service to these races in this country, not only by its direct
answer to the appeal for help which comes, consciously or unconsciously,
from all of them, but by its educational influence upon the country at
large. The importance of the race question in the South cannot be
overstated, and it is a question the very gravity of which makes all
partisanship on either side the gravest offense against the welfare of
the country. The American Missionary Association, planting itself
resolutely on the principle of equal justice to all races on our
continent, and holding firmly to the method of Christian education,
holds distinct leadership in the only direction which can bring
permanent peace and safety. There is no missionary work in the world so
urgent and so important as that among the Negroes of the South. It is
not often that the work of a great Association is so plainly marked,
commends itself so thoroughly to the support of the country, and
converges so directly upon those things which are most urgent in their
demand upon the best thought of the best citizens, as the work of the
American Missionary Association.
* * * * *
FROM THE INDEPENDENT.
The meeting of the American Missionary Association in Chicago had no
debated question to excite difference. All agree that the meeting was
one of the most earnest and effective in the history of the Association.
Beginning with the opening sermon of Dr. Meredith, and closing with the
address of Dr. Taylor, all the reports and addresses were thoughtful and
pertinent. Some of the papers on special topics were of a very high
order, and it may not be invidious to name the remarkable paper by
Colonel Keating, of Memphis, Tenn., which places him alongside of Drs.
Curry and Haygood among the leaders of thought in creating the true New
South.
* * * * *
FROM THE HARTFORD COURANT.
No society in all this country of societies is doing nobler or more
useful work than the one which has been holding its yearly meeting this
week in the city of Chicago; none more thoroughly deserves the favor and
sympathy (expressing itself in dollars) of the public.
Look at a few eloquent figures. This American Missionary Association,
not yet fifty years old, has one hundred and thirteen missionaries at
work among the Negroes, the sadly neglected white mountaineers and the
newly arrived immigrants in the Southern States. It has established and
maintains there one hundred and thirty-six churches; also five chartered
institutions of learning, eighteen normal and graded schools, and
thirty-seven common schools, served by two hundred and sixty
instructors. Among the Indians it has half a dozen churches and three
times that number of schools, sixty-eight missionaries and teachers;
among the Chinese in this country, sixteen schools, thirty-five
missionaries and teachers. Its expenditures during the year footed up a
little over $366,000--a little over a thousand dollars a day. What a
work these figures represent, not merely for the Christian religion, but
for civilization, for morals, for good citizenship!
The American Missionary Association ought to have at least half a
million dollars to work with, this year, and Hartford should show well
up toward the top in the list of contributors.
* * * * *
"THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY."
The rich treat which this number of the MISSIONARY presents may well
suggest the privilege and duty not only of reading, but also of
circulating it. Let each reader possess himself of these important facts
and figures--these broad views as to the great work laid on the hearts
of American patriots and Christians--and then hand the magazine to some
neighbor. Let us suggest farther, that the MISSIONARY, in its monthly
issues, is full of the same sort of facts and thoughts, and should be
more widely read--it should have a _larger list of paying subscribers_.
Please read the subjoined letter from a converted Chinaman and then "go
and do thou likewise."
LOS ANGELES, CAL., Sept. 25, 1889.
_Dear American Missionary:_
I am sorry to say that I have utterly forgotten to pay you
for the _American Missionary_ for the year 1889. Now I beg
your pardon for that. You know I have used to send the money
through our pastor Dr. Pond, but since I had left San
Francisco visiting missions in different towns and cities
and therefore the _American Missionary_ did not reached me
while I am away from Los Angeles, so my attention of paying
for it was dropped from that point. Now I sent you _one
dollars_ including a new subscriber, our brother Jue King.
While I am writing this note another brother came in who
wish to get one also, and therefore have to send you $1.50,
one dollar & 50 cents. This brother name Leung Chow, Los
Angeles. Address Jue King's to the same P.O. Box as mine and
oblige. God bless the American Missionary.
Respectfully yours,
LOO QUONG.
* * * * *
BRIEF NOTES.
REV. C.J. RYDER, DISTRICT SECRETARY.
A little swarm of "Busy Bees," in Dover, N.H., have been making honey
for the needy children in one of the missions of our Association. Their
gift, amounting to sixty-five dollars, has been used to furnish a
Reference Library for the school at Wilmington, N.C. Special rates were
kindly given us on books by the Congregational Sunday-school and
Publishing Society and other firms in Boston, so that this sixty-five
dollars furnished a number of very useful books. Have not these "Busy
Bees" in New Hampshire set a good example to other children's societies?
Speaking of the Sunday-school and Publishing Society reminds me of two
things. The first is the kindly interest and generous help of that
society in the work being done by the Association in various fields.
Literature is abundantly supplied from their press, and in some
instances they have sent colporteurs and missionaries into the various
fields, who do a grand good work.
The other thing suggested by reference to this society is a queer
contribution which was brought in to Mr. Hall, a missionary of the
Association at Fort Berthold, Dakota. I chanced to be there when it was
brought in. Mr. Hall had told the Indian boys and girls of the useful
work done by the Sunday-school and Publishing Society in different parts
of the land. It has always been the policy of the Association, as our
friends know, to present the other Congregational Societies in our
missions, and distribute the small gifts which it is possible for these
poor people to give, among the different societies and not absorb it all
in the Association. These Indian boys had not money to give to the
Sunday-school Society, but they saw a premium offered for killing
gophers. They are a mischievous little animal, devouring a large amount
of wheat, corn and other grain every year. The farmers pay two cents for
each dead gopher. The proof that the gopher has been killed is his tail.
Now these little Indian boys had been so interested in the story told of
the work being done by the Sunday-school Society, that they spent their
Saturday afternoon holiday snaring gophers. They brought the tails in
the envelopes of the society, as their contribution. I took some of the
envelopes, paying two cents apiece for each tail and brought them East
with me. On one envelope I found the following: "Richard Fox, one tail."
What could be more appropriate!
* * * * *
Another of our District Secretaries not long since took a cup of coffee
at a lunch counter kept by a colored man in Northern Ohio. After paying,
he spoke of the work of the American Missionary Association. The colored
man's face lit up at once.
"Are you in that work?"
"Yes, I am."
"Take back that fifteen cents, sir."
* * * * *
FORTY-THIRD ANNUAL MEETING
OF THE
American Missionary Association.
* * * * *
The Forty-third Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association
convened in the New England Congregational Church of Chicago, Ill., on
Tuesday, October 29, 1889, at 3 o'clock P.M.
The Association was called to order by the President, Rev. William M.
Taylor, D.D. The hymn, "I love thy kingdom, Lord," was sung, after which
the President read the thirty-fifth chapter of Isaiah and led the
Association in prayer.
Dr. Norman Seaver, supplying temporarily the pulpit of the New England
Church, welcomed the Association, and was responded to by Dr. Taylor.
Rev. N.A. Millerd and Rev. E.N. Andrews were appointed tellers, and
while the roll was being made out, Secretary A.F. Beard read the portion
of the Constitution relating to membership in the Association. Rev. J.C.
Armstrong, of Illinois, was elected Secretary, and Rev. E.S. Williams,
of Minnesota, Assistant Secretary.
The President was instructed to appoint a Nominating Committee.
The Treasurer, H.W. Hubbard, Esq., presented his annual report with
schedules and the certificates of the auditors. The report was accepted
and referred to the Committee on Finance.
Field Superintendent Rev. Frank E. Jenkins read the General Survey of
the Executive Committee. The document was accepted and the parts were
referred to the special committees to be appointed.
The President appointed the Nominating Committee as follows: Rev. G.S.F.
Savage, D.D., Rev. H.P. Higley, D.D., Rev. A.W. Archibald, Rev. A.B.
Allen and Rev. A.C. Hodges.
The Association was led by Secretary Strieby in a concert of prayer with
the workers in the field, Rev. Flavel Bascom, D.D., District Secretary
Roy and many others participating, by remarks or prayers, in the
exercises.
The Nominating Committee reported the following committees, which were
appointed:
_Committee on Business._--Rev. G.H. Ide, D.D., Rev. C.R. Bruce, Rev.
M.W. Montgomery, Rev. D.P. Breed, Rev. E.M. Williams.
_Committee on Finance._--F.J. Lamb, Esq., J.H. Moore, Esq., Pres. David
Beaton, Pres. Albert Salisbury and Rev. W.S. Rugby.
_Committee of Arrangements._--Rev. Norman Seaver, D.D., Wm. Dickinson,
Esq., Wm. H. Bradley, Esq., O.B. Green, Esq., Rev. F.A. Noble, D.D.,
J.H. Hollister, M.D., District Secretary J.E. Roy.
EVENING SESSION.
The exercises Tuesday evening opened with a selection by the quartette
choir of the New England Church.
The Association was called to order by President Taylor, and Rev. W.B.
Wright, D.D., read the Scripture and led in prayer. "Watchman, tell us
of the night," was then sung, after which Rev. R.R. Meredith, of New
York, preached the Annual Sermon, from Isaiah xlii, 1-4.
The sermon was followed by the administration of the Lord's Supper. The
following named persons officiated at the service: Ministers: Rev. H.P.
Higley, D.D., Rev. Graham Taylor, D.D. Deacons: S.D. Hastings, W.H.
Bradley, Wm. Dickinson, C.F. Gates, H.W. Hubbard and Chauncey Collom.
At the close of the communion service, adjournment was taken to
Wednesday at 8 A.M.
The benediction was pronounced by President Taylor.
WEDNESDAY MORNING.
The prayer-meeting from 8 to 9 o'clock was led by President E.D. Eaton.
At 9 o'clock, President Eaton was called to the chair temporarily, and
was succeeded by the Vice-President of the Association, Rev. F.A. Noble,
D.D.
The minutes of the previous day were read and approved.
The President, Dr. Taylor, then resumed the chair.
The Nominating Committee reported the following special committees, who
were appointed:
_Committee on the Chinese._--Rev. H.A. Stimson, D.D., Rev. E.P. Goodwin,
D.D., Rev. Wm. Walker, Rev. J.G. Aikman, D.J. Pike, Esq.
_Committee on the Indians._--Rev. A.P. Foster, D.D., Gen. C.H. Howard,
Rev. Clinton Douglass, Rev. C.V. Spear.
_Committee on Educational Work._--Rev. W.B. Wright, D.D., Rev. F.P.
Woodbury, D.D., Rev. Amos Dresser, Rev. H.M. Tupper, Rev. F.A. Ragland.
_Committee on Church Work._--Rev. Graham Taylor, D.D., Rev. Warren F.
Day, Rev. L.B. Maxwell, S.D. Hastings, Esq., O. Davidson, Esq.
_Committee on Mountain Work._--Rev. D.M. Fisk, D.D., Rev. S.E. Lathrop,
Rev. S.A. Norton, Rev. E.P. South, Rev. W.E. Barton, Robert F. Wheeler,
Esq.
A paper on "The American Missionary Association, its Place and Work,"
was read by Secretary M.E. Strieby, and referred to a committee to be
appointed.
Following this, Secretary A.F. Beard read a paper on "The Missionary
View of the Southern Situation," which was referred also to a committee
to be appointed.
The report of the Committee on the Chinese Work was presented by Rev.
Henry A. Stimson, D.D. and accepted, and an address was made by Rev. E.
P. Goodwin, D.D.
The Nominating Committee nominated the following special committees, who
were appointed:
_Committee on Secretary Strieby's Paper._--Prof. G.B. Willcox, D.D.,
Rev. J.F. Dudley, D.D., Rev. E.D. Hill, D.D., Rev. Flavel Bascom, D.D.,
Rev. C.W. Camp, Rev. W.L. Tenney, Rev. J.E. Snowden.
_Committee on Secretary Beard's Paper._--Rev. H.M. Tenney, D.D., Rev.
C.O. Brown, D.D., Rev. E.M. Williams, Rev. E.F. Williams, D.D., Rev.
Calvin Keyser, Deacon G.N. Palmer.
Right Rev. H.B. Whipple, of Minnesota, then addressed the Association on
"The Future of the Indian in our Country."
After which, remarks were made on the Chinese question by Dr. H.A.
Stimson and Rev. M.F. Sargent.
After announcements of committees and programme for the afternoon,
President Taylor pronounced the benediction, and recess was taken until
2 o'clock P.M.
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON.
The Association was called to order by Vice-President Noble. "Saviour,
visit thy plantation," was sung, after which Dr. Noble conducted the
devotional exercises for a half hour.
A paper on "The Future of the Negro in our Country," was read by Rev.
C.H. Richards, D.D., of Wisconsin, and referred to the Executive
Committee with power to publish.
Rev. C.F. Thwing, D.D., unable to be present as announced, forwarded
his address for the use of the Secretaries of the Association.
Rev. A.P. Foster, D.D., presented the report of the Committee on the
Indian Work.
Addresses were then made by Rev. T.L. Riggs, of Oahe, and Rev. C.W.
Shelton, Financial Secretary for Indian Missions.
After singing, "Sow in the morn thy seed," the Association was addressed
by Rev. W.B. Wright, D.D., on the Educational Work, presenting the
report of the committee and speaking in its behalf. Rev. F.P. Woodbury,
D.D., spoke also on the same topic.
After announcements, Dr. Noble pronounced the benediction, and the
Association took a recess until 7:30 P.M.
WEDNESDAY EVENING.
The Association was called to order by Secretary Strieby, who invited
E.W. Blatchford, Esq., of Illinois, to preside during the evening in the
absence of President Taylor. Professor G.B. Willcox led the Association
in prayer.
On being introduced by Secretary Strieby as representing the American
Board, Mr. Blatchford said:
"I have no authority from the American Board to convey to you any
special message; and yet I know that they will be glad to have me
express to you their sentiments of sympathy with you in your work. The
work is one. In carrying forward the work of the American Board and the
American Missionary Association we are obeying the same command of our
Lord: Go ye into all the world and disciple all. We are inspired by the
same prophetic promises, that the time will come when this world shall
obey the command of God as it is obeyed in heaven. In fact, this
gathering is in itself a type of the unity of this work; for as I look
around me I see brethren and sisters representing the different
societies in which we are all interested. I see them here from the New
West Commission; I see the workers and representatives of our Home
Missionary Society; I see, of course, many representatives of the
American Missionary Association, and those deeply interested in the work
of our American Board. So that we have here in this very meeting an
illustration of these words of the Apostle: 'One Lord, one faith, one
baptism.'"
Mrs. J.J.M. Angear, in charge of a Chinese Sunday-school in the First
Congregational Church, Chicago, spoke of her work, her Chinese choir
singing "Stand up for Jesus," and later a verse of "Sweet By and By," in
both English and Chinese.
Representative addresses then followed, Mr. Chin Kue speaking for the
Chinese, Mrs. Elizabeth Winyan for the Indians, Rev. T.L. Riggs
interpreting, and Rev. Mr. McClellan for the Negro. A verse of "Shall we
whose souls are lighted," was sung, after which Rev. W.E. Barton spoke
of the Mountain Whites.
President Eaton's paper was deferred, owing to the lateness of the hour.
After Secretary Strieby had led the Association in prayer and pronounced
the benediction, recess was taken until Thursday morning at 8:30 A.M.
THURSDAY MORNING.
Devotional exercises from 8:30 to 9 o'clock were conducted by Rev. E.S.
Hill. Vice-President Noble called the Association to order.
The minutes of the previous day were read and approved.
A letter to Secretary Strieby from Col. J.M. Keating, of Tennessee, on
the "Southern Problem," was read by Secretary J.E. Roy. A rising vote
was taken, expressing approval of the sentiments of the letter and
requesting the Association to publish it. Dr. F.A. Noble was instructed
to correspond with Col. Keating, assuring him of the Association's
appreciation of his address.
The report on the "Mountain Work," was presented by Rev. D.M. Fisk,
D.D., who followed it by an address.
District Secretary C.J. Ryder read a paper on "The Debt of our Country
to the American Highlanders."
"My Country 'tis of Thee," was then sung, after which Secretary
Ryder's paper was referred to the Executive Committee of the Association
with reference to publication.
President Taylor resumed the chair at this point and introduced Rev.
H.M. Tenney, D.D., who read the report of the committee on Secretary
A.F. Beard's paper. The report was accepted and referred to the
Executive Committee.
An address on the Church Work was made by Rev. C.W. Hiatt, District
Secretary of the Association, and was followed by several brief
addresses on the Mountain Work.
The report and an address was then made by Rev. Graham Taylor, D.D. The
report was accepted and its recommendations adopted.
After announcements, Dr. Noble was instructed to reply to Dr. Arthur
Little, of Massachusetts, in response to his telegram of greeting. After
the benediction by President Taylor, recess was taken until 2 o'clock
P.M.
THURSDAY AFTERNOON.
The Association was called to order by Vice-President Dr. F.A. Noble. A
verse of the hymn, "In the cross of Christ I glory," was sung. F.J.
Lamb, Esq., read the report of the Committee on Finance, supplementing
the report with a brief address. The report was accepted.
The report on Secretary Strieby's paper was presented by Prof. G.B.
Willcox, D.D. The report was accepted and referred to the Executive
Committee.
Following this, Secretary Strieby made a statement respecting the Hand
Fund. Dr. E.P. Goodwin, President Salisbury and President W.M. Taylor
spoke on the Financial Report, and the report was adopted.
The Association then adjourned to the chapel, and the church was
occupied by the Woman's Missionary Meeting under the auspices of the
Woman's Bureau of the Association. Mrs. George M. Lane, of Detroit,
Michigan, presided. The report was made by the Secretary, Miss D.E.
Emerson, after which addresses were made by the missionaries: On the
mountain work, by Miss Hayes, of Tennessee; on the colored people, by
Mrs. Shaw, of Georgia, and Miss Plant, of Mississippi; and on the
Indians, by Miss Barnaby, a native teacher.
The Nominating Committee reported the following list of officers for the
ensuing year:
_President_,
REV. WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D., LL.D., N.Y.
_Vice-Presidents_,
REV. A.J.F. BEHRENDS, D.D., N.Y.
REV. F.A. NOBLE, D.D., Ill.
REV. ALEX. McKENZIE, D.D., Mass.
REV. D.O. MEARS, D.D., Mass
REV. HENRY HOPKINS, D.D., Mo.
_Corresponding Secretaries_,
REV. M.E. STRIEBY, D.D., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.
REV. A.F. BEARD, D.D., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.
_Recording Secretary_,
REV. M.E. STRIEBY, D.D., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.
_Treasurer_,
H.W. HUBBARD, Esq., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.
_Auditors_,
PETER McCARTEE,
CHAS. P. PEIRCE.
_Executive Committee_,
_For Three Years._
S.B. HALLIDAY,
SAMUEL HOLMES,
SAMUEL S. MARPLES,
CHARLES L. MEAD,
ELBERT B. MONROE.
_For One Year._--ALBERT J. LYMAN.
A ballot was taken and the brethren named were elected. After the
benediction by the President, recess was taken until 7:30 P.M.
THURSDAY EVENING.
The Association was called to order by President Taylor. "Stand up,
stand up for Jesus," was sung, after which Rev. Simeon Gilbert, D.D.,
led in prayer.
The records of the previous sessions of the day were read and approved,
and the Secretary was instructed to complete the minutes.
The invitation to hold the next Annual Meeting in Northampton,
Massachusetts, was accepted.
President George A. Gates, of Iowa College, addressed the Association,
and was followed by an address by President Cyrus Northrop, D.D., of
Minnesota, and also by President E.D. Eaton, D.D., of Wisconsin.
The closing address of the Association was made by President Taylor.
The following minute read by Secretary Roy was then adopted:
When, just eighteen years ago, this city was smoldering in the
ruins of the great fire, which had consumed the holy and
beautiful house of this New England Church and the homes of
every family in it, the pastor, searching among the ashes
within these walls for some memento, found a charred leaf of
the pulpit hymn-book on which he was able to decipher these
words:
"Daughter of Zion, awake from the dust,
Exalt thy fallen head:
Rebuild thy walls, thy bounds enlarge,
And send thy heralds forth."
That hymn was sung at the first service in the rough board
tabernacle erected upon this spot.
We give thanks to God this day for the faith and courage by
which this people did awake from the dust and rebuild these
walls, and by which they have gone on building up their
spiritual temple and participating largely in the whole round
of service for extending the Redeemer's kingdom, a part of
which has been the inviting and the welcoming of this
missionary convocation to their sanctuary and to their homes,
and for which, to them, along with all others in the sister
churches who have joined them on this occasion in exercising
this grace of hospitality, we express our heartiest thanks.
We here call to mind with grateful emotion one of the manliest
of men, one of the truest disciples of Christ, Dea. C.G.
Hammond, who counted it an honor to have ministered at this
altar from the day of its setting up to the day of his
translation, and who for many years had served as one of the
Vice-Presidents of this Association, and had been giving
largely of his substance to its treasury.
At this closing hour, we are also thankfully reminded that the
First Congregational Church of this city was ready thirty years
ago to entertain this Association in the days of its weakness
and of its cross-bearing witness for Christ and for his lowly
poor: and likewise, ten years ago, to open its doors to receive
the same body then brought along by the providence of God to a
position of honor and extended usefulness.
And so we gratefully name the Union Park Church, which is now
lending us its pastor as one of our Vice-Presidents, and which,
with the other two churches mentioned, has furnished us with
the three grand annual sermons of Drs. Goodwin, Noble, and
Little, and the Plymouth Church, which, from the day of its
organization, with its testimony and its offerings, has stood
by this Association, and all the other churches of this
vicinage, grown now to be such a comely sisterhood, which have
shared with these others in the support of our work.
To the four great railway passenger associations, which have
extended to us their courtesies; to the city press, which has
so immensely broadened the influence of this missionary
convocation; to the gentlemen who, at no small sacrifice of
time and labor, have honored this occasion by their addresses,
reports, and clerical service; and to our honored and beloved
President, who has guided our deliberations with such skill and
grace, we express our obligations of thanks.
Rev. Norman Seaver, D.D., responded for the New England Church. He said
there was a saying that lightning never struck the same place twice,
yet, though it fell to him to welcome the Association, it had also
fallen to him to respond to this vote of thanks. He had asked Secretary
Beard what he would say on this occasion, and was answered, in his witty
way, "Tell us Godspeed, and we are glad to get rid of you." Dr. Seaver
felt that the local people were the recipients, and the visitors the
benefactors in what had been done. The President had inspired them with
his spirit; he had not withdrawn his presence, and very late might he
return to the heavens. Students and young ministers had been benefited
by listening to those many learned men and devoted servants of God, and
were inspired for future usefulness. "We are not the benefactors, we are
the recipients, and we wish you Godspeed."
After having sung the doxology, with the benediction by President
Taylor, the Association adjourned, to meet at Northampton,
Massachusetts, for its next Annual Meeting.
J.C. ARMSTRONG, }
} _Secretaries._
E.S. WILLIAMS, }
* * * * *
SUMMARY OF TREASURER'S REPORT.
EXPENDITURES.
THE SOUTH.
For Church and Educational Work, Land,
Buildings, etc. $255,083.84
THE CHINESE.
For Superintendent, Teachers,
Rent, etc. 11,070.75
THE INDIANS.
For Church and Educational Work,
Buildings, etc. 51,781.00
FOREIGN MISSIONS.
For Superintendent, Missionaries, etc.,
for Missions in Africa, income paid
to the A.B.C.F.M. 4,754.22
For Support of Aged Missionary,
Jamaica, W.I. 250.00
PUBLICATIONS.
For American Missionary, (23,200 monthly),
Annual Reports, Clerk-hire,
Postage, etc. 7,230.31
AGENCIES.
NEW YORK.--Woman's Bureau, Secretary,
Traveling Expenses, Circulars, etc. 1,361.74
FOR EASTERN DISTRICT.--District Secretary,
Clerk-hire, Traveling Expenses, Printing,
Rent, Postage, Stationery, etc. 4,589.59
FOR WESTERN MIDDLE DISTRICT.--District
Secretary, Traveling Expenses, Printing,
Rent, Postage, Stationery, etc. 1,246.33
FOB WESTERN DISTRICT.--District Secretary,
Agents, Clerk-hire, Traveling
Expenses, etc. 6,196.97
ADMINISTRATION.
For Corresponding Secretaries, Treasurer,
and Clerk-hire 12,505.00
MISCELLANEOUS.
For Rent, Care of Rooms, Furniture,
Repairs, Fuel and Light, Books and
Stationery, Rent of Safe Deposit Boxes,
Clerk-hire, Postage, Traveling Expenses,
Expressage, Telegrams, etc. 5,541.43
Annual Meeting 577.05
Wills and Estates 3,385.07
Annuity Account 407.93
Amounts refunded, sent to Treasurer
by mistake 122.77
-----------
$366,104.00
Debt Sept. 30, 1888 5,641.21
-----------
371,745.21
Balance on hand September 30, 1889 4,471.67
----------- $376,216.88
==========
RECEIPTS.
From Churches, Sabbath Schools, Missionary
Societies and Individuals $189,299.57
Estates and Legacies 114,020.41
Income, Sundry Funds 10,947.26
Tuition and Public Funds 34,126.69
Rent 506.36
United States Government, for Education
of Indians 16,408.85
Slater Fund, paid to Institutions 8,899.99
Sale of Property 2,007.75
---------- $376,216.88
==========
DANIEL HAND FUND, INCOME ACCOUNT.
Income received to September 30, 1889 $36,999.71
Amount expended $20,311.15
Balance in hand and appropriated 16,688.56
---------- 36,999.71
==========
RECEIPTS FOR THE WORK OF THE YEAR 1888-89.
For Current Work $376,216.88
Income from Daniel Hand Fund 36,999.71
Total ----------- $413,216.59
ENDOWMENT FUNDS RECEIVED DURING THE YEAR 1888-89.
The Daniel Hand Fund for the Education
of Colored People, Securities
received, face value $1,000,894.25
Foltz Endowment Fund, Estate of Rev.
Benjamin Foltz. (Balance) 500.00
------------- $1,001,394.25
H.W. HUBBARD, Treasurer,
56 Reade Street, New York.
* * * * *
THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION--ITS PLACE AND WORK.
BY SECRETARY M.E. STRIEBY.
We commemorate the forty-third anniversary of the American Missionary
Association. During these years, its place and work have become somewhat
definitely settled, and I take this occasion to set forth the position
that it now holds in relation to its constituents, its sister societies,
and the great work providentially thrown upon it.
1. The Association recognizes the control of its constituents. That
recognition was one of the corner-stones on which it was founded. It
sought its members and its funds from persons of evangelical faith and
practical morality. Of such, it offered membership to any one who
contributed to its funds. Thus broadly was it placed on a popular basis.
At length, however, it began to be felt by many of its supporters that
there were evils in this method--that the acts of the society were
liable to be regulated by the local attendance at each annual meeting,
and that such meetings might easily be "packed" to carry out a purpose.
The officers of the Association, true to the cardinal principles of its
founders of control by its constituents, welcomed the discussion and
cheerfully accepted the present constitution, which was adopted after
due deliberation. That constitution designates as voters, life members
and delegates from the churches, local conferences and state
associations. The Executive Committee believe that we have now reached a
satisfactory basis, but if it shall be the will of the constituents to
make further modifications hereafter, the fundamental principle of the
Association will dictate a ready acceptance of any change that will not
set aside the evangelical, missionary, and philanthropic basis on which
the Association was founded, and that will not impair contracts or
endanger invested funds. The Association belongs, under Christ, to its
constituents.
2. The work of the Association embraces all forms of effort in both the
church and the school. It was organized and chartered as a _missionary_
society. This was its fundamental aim. It was not till 1869,
twenty-three years after its organization, that the word "educational"
was put into its charter. But this change did not alter the character
of its work--_the school is missionary, the church an educator_--and
this church and school work are inseparably blended. The people among
whom it labors are children in knowledge, and will remain so for a long
time, for there are millions of blacks, mountain whites, Indians, and
Chinese in our country who cannot read and write. In Northern
communities where the children grow up in Christian homes and are
environed in cultured society, with the best of common schools, the
church finds the material for its membership, so far forth, prepared to
its hand, but among these millions of unlettered peoples the church, if
it is to be pure and intelligent, must be the outgrowth of the Christian
school; and the branches of the tree might as well be expected to grow
up without the roots, as such churches without these schools. The work
among them begins in the primary school, and follows them through all
departments of industrial, normal, collegiate and theological
instruction.
In all this long process the teachers are with them at every step--in
the shop, the school, the Sunday-school, the prayer meeting, and the
church, and often the principal of the school is the pastor of the
church. Thus the church, which grows up within or along side of the
school, gets the priceless boon of the personal example and influence of
these Christian teachers, in refining the manners and in making
character; and as the pupils are converted they enter the church to
become its stable members and intelligent officers. On the other hand,
the families in the church, with their kindred and friends, furnish the
pupils for the school and help to sustain it by their money and prayers,
both the church and the school being stronger by their mutual support
and more potent in their influence in the community than if they stood
apart. And even after the scholars have left the school and have entered
upon the business of life, the Association is especially fitted to
gather them into churches. It has occurred in several instances, in
starting new churches beyond the range of our schools, that we have
found them to be made up first almost wholly of graduates and students
from our different institutions, and that these have remained the most
intelligent and reliable members.
We have found, too, that when a church was thus organized where we have
no school, we are very soon importuned to start one. In localities with
a scattered population there might not be sufficient public funds to
open a colored public school; in many more places they would sustain the
school for only two months in the year, and in larger towns it sometimes
has happened that these public schools were of such a character that the
parents begged for a Christian school as a means of saving the moral
purity of their children. Thus, in every way, and under all
circumstances, the school and the church need and help each other. And
what is true of the colored people is equally true of the whites in the
mountains and elsewhere, among whom the Association is working so
auspiciously, planting its schools and churches in mutual helpfulness.
The suggestion that all the church work of the denomination in the
home-field be given to one society, and all the educational be
concentrated in one other society, deserves thoughtful consideration,
for it meets with this very serious objection, that it provides for but
one collection for work that now receives two or three. The experience
of our churches is conclusive against the hope that one enlarged
collection would be given to the one society. For a time, a brief time,
spasmodic efforts might, as in former cases, result in some special
contributions, but the new experiment would certainly be more
disastrous, if it should fail, than those already tried, because it
would involve far greater interests.
It is not to be supposed for a moment that such consolidation is
contemplated in order that the churches may escape the large
responsibility now resting upon them; and if economy and efficiency are
the only objects sought, we fear the result would be disappointing. Such
an arrangement would not save in the number of workers in the field, and
surely it is not wise business management to leave great interests
inadequately supervised. Even if the consolidated society were divided
into separate departments or bureaux, the supervision could not be less,
if efficient, while the combination would be likely to lead to
complications, and would weaken, in the several departments, the sense
of individual responsibility and take away the impulse of historic life
and achievement.
More work well managed and vigorously pushed seems to me to be the only
plan that will satisfy the Christian conscience or meet the approval of
the Master.
3. The work of the Association extends to all races of men. This claim
is sanctioned by the fraternal agreement existing between it and the
American Home Missionary Society, by its own history, and by the needs
of the field. The agreement with the sister society says explicitly that
the Association is "to pursue its educational and church work in the
South among _both races_." The history of the Association shows that at
the beginning the populations reached by it in America were _all white_
except the Indians and a few colored refugees in Canada.
Its home missions at the North and West were among white people: and so
were they even in the South before the war. John G. Fee and his heroic
associates in Kentucky, and Daniel Worth and others in North Carolina,
founded churches and schools only among the whites. Berea College was
for whites only, at the outset. It was not till the era of emancipation
with its overwhelming flood of freedmen that the Association turned its
direct and almost exclusive attention to them. It heard the voice of God
in the tramp of these millions marching out of bondage into freedom, and
in that voice it heard the call to itself, providentially prepared for
the new era. It answered the call, without, however, abandoning its
mission to preach the gospel to the whites also; and now, with its
schools and churches well established throughout the South, with an open
door to the whites, and especially to those in the mountain regions, it
hears the voice of God calling it thither. The ready adaptation of its
methods to these people, and the success of its efforts among them,
attest the validity of its call and the wisdom of its response.
4. The work of the Association is not a transient one. A New England
pastor at the beginning of our work for the freedmen, gave me a hearty
welcome to present our cause in his pulpit, telling me frankly he did so
the more cheerfully because he thought our work would soon be over--say
in twenty or twenty-five years. Now that good man believed that home
missions in the West, and in some of the older Eastern States, would be
needed well nigh on to the millennium, yet he imagined that the blacks,
just escaped from bondage, utterly poor, ignorant and degraded, would
(perhaps he hardly stopped to think how) rise in twenty-five years above
all need of help from any quarter in their upward struggle! But the
fallacy of such a supposition is realized more since these twenty-five
years have passed than it was then. It is now clearly seen that these
ex-slaves will require for three or four generations the most abundant
help to bring them up to the level of those Western settlers, including
the Swedes, Germans and Norwegians crowding in thither, who are
comparatively well-off and intelligent. And then, after that preparation
of the Negro has been made, the regular work of home missions will only
be fairly begun among them. The work for this people, therefore, is not
transient, and the missionary society that has it in hand has before it
not only a great but long-continued task.
And for that great work the Association has had a manifest call and
preparation, and has gained an experience and an influence of peculiar
value in its further prosecution. The Association has wrought itself
into the schools and churches, into the industries of the colored
people, the improvement of their homes, the preparation of their sons
and daughters for home and business life, and for teachers and preachers
and physicians; it has wrought itself into their better aspirations for
both this world and that which is to come. It has won upon the
confidence and respect of the white people by its unselfish and
Christian work, its kind but firm adherence to principle, and by the
blessing it has conferred upon both races in aiding the South in the
only true solution of its great problem.
The Association has become anchored to this great work by the large
amount of invested funds intrusted to its care. It has received
thousands of dollars from the Freedmen's Bureau, from the Avery estate,
from the gifts of Mrs. Stone and others, and added to all these is the
large sum placed one year ago in its hands by the munificence of Mr.
Hand. These several sums aggregate more than two millions of dollars--an
amount of endowment, we believe, without a parallel among our
Congregational societies for the home field. While no inconsiderable
share of these funds is in plant, and therefore increases instead of
diminishes current expenses, yet the Association is the only legal
custodian of these funds. They constitute, therefore, a strong evidence
of the confidence of large donors in its usefulness and stability and in
the importance of its work, and at the same time they make a strong plea
for current contributions to sustain that work. God has moved the hearts
of noble men and women to lay these firm foundations. Will not others
equally able and far-seeing in their benevolence add to these gifts and
thus extend these foundations, and will not the churches build thereon
with diligent and cheerful hands?
These forty-three years under review have been memorable in the history
of this Nation. They have witnessed the reign of slavery in the height
of its arrogant domination. They have seen the rising protest of
conscience and religion against that domination, with the mad resistance
of slavery, until it culminated in one of the bloodiest wars of modern
times. They have beheld a united Nation emerge from the conflict, and
not a slave in all its broad land. They have seen the uplifted hands and
hearts of the freedmen grasping for knowledge. And, last of all, they
behold the new power seated on the throne vacated by slavery, dooming
the colored man to a position of inferiority scarcely less degrading
than slavery itself.
Along all these lines the sympathies and efforts of the Association have
run. It pleaded for the slave in his bondage, when to do so cost odium
and ostracism; it joined with others in the appeal against slavery, with
the hope that righteousness would avert the calamity of war. When the
slave came forth free, it went with prompt hands to fit him for his new
position, and now, as he enters the long and dark struggle against
poverty, ignorance and race-prejudice, it girds itself for the great
struggle, armed with what have ever been its only weapons, the light of
knowledge and the love of the gospel of Christ. The contest may be long,
the work will be great, but the triumph must be sure. May the church of
Christ, the patriots of the land, and the abundant blessing of the
Almighty God strengthen and help us in this great undertaking!
* * * * *
THE MISSIONARY VIEW OF THE SOUTHERN SITUATION.
BY SECRETARY A.F. BEARD.
The Southern problem is a National peril. Problems are not always
perils. This is a problem large with political and religious perils, and
whether political or religious it can not be ignored, nor can its
consideration be postponed. It is here. It is our problem. It is nearer
to the South, and more immediate, than to the North, but it is ours. We
are not foreigners in any part of this country. It has been settled once
for all that we are to be fellow citizens in a common country when we
come from Boston to Chicago and when we go from New York to New Orleans.
The problem which belongs to a country to which we belong, is ours. This
might as well be understood. We have no right to take our hands off from
that of which we are a part and which is a part of us. No part can say
to another, it is not your concern.
This is true politically. Thrice true is it religiously--Christian faith
is not confined to State boundaries. It belongs everywhere. The problem
is not a new one. It has its roots bedded deep in history. When years
ago it began to be discussed by a few they were called agitators, as if
the discussion of right and wrong were itself a wrong, as if the letting
in of light upon the darkness were a deed of darkness. Nevertheless, the
Nation became thoughtful over the question of the rights of man. While
it was musing the fire burned, and an irrepressible conflict came. In
the issue it was settled that no man should be held by another man in
involuntary servitude in this common and inseparable country.
A quarter of a century has elapsed since this settlement of a problem
which involved the destiny of two races, and of our whole country. The
question now before the Nation and before the churches is a corollary
of slavery. It is the second section of the first chapter. The first
question was: How shall liberty be proclaimed to the captive and the
enslaved become free? The second is: Being free, how can the two
races--as distinct and separate as are the white and black races of
the South--now equal before the law, live side by side under the same
government, and live in Christian truth and peace? This is the
problem, and, like the first, it is irrepressible.
In one sense it is a new question--that is, a new generation of white
people has in part come forward to participate in the duties of
citizenship, since all men became men in the law of the land. To them
the question is practically new. The situation as they find it, is this:
The Negroes, who, twenty years ago, were four millions, are now eight
millions. The increase of the blacks above the increase of the whites in
the period of twenty years, is fourteen per cent. In his work on the
African in the United States, Professor Gilliam, having in hand the
figures of our Census Bureau, forecasts with the demonstration of
mathematics our population one century hence. We do not know what may
modify his figures, but he computes that at the present rate of increase
there are to be in the old slave States in one hundred years,
ninety-five millions of whites and double this number of African
descent. Therefore, whatever may modify, it is probable that before one
half an hundred years are over, the numbers of the blacks will furnish
them sufficient guarantee for their legal rights.
There are those in this presence who have seen the population of this
republic multiply itself nearly three times. Our childhood's geography
taught us that twenty-three millions of people lived in the United
States. Now our children learn that there are sixty millions. Twenty
years ago four millions of Negroes and eight millions to-day. Therefore,
as large as the problem now is to us, it will be greater for our
children if we err in our solution of it.
This race of African descent has been declared by constitutional
enactment to be entitled to whatever privileges belong to man, as man.
Standing on this, and beginning with nothing but the heredity of
hindrances, with the brand of color and the prejudice of race against
them, this people have climbed up from their low estate with a
remarkable progress. They have applied themselves to take hold of
knowledge as no other people ever did in the annals of history. They
have made great inroads upon their previous illiteracy. They have
rapidly acquired property. They have developed industrial skill, and
established the evidences of business facility. They have shown
themselves capable of good citizenship, both in the understanding of its
duties and the practice of them. They have vindicated the act of
emancipation and the decrees of citizenship.
Yet to-day their standing both as citizens and as Christians is opposed.
The question of their rights is discussed as if it were an open one, and
in the South it is coming to be increasingly denied. Under the plea that
it is unsafe for the black man to exercise his civil rights, there
arises a condition of affairs that can have no standing under our
government except a revolutionary standing. And the question whether the
rights of man as man shall be regarded, is to-day a more pressing
question than it has been at any previous time since the slaves were
declared to be men.
The Southern press, which both creates and voices public opinion,
reveals an attitude of mind increasingly hostile to the equal civil
rights of the black man, for the simple reason that he is not white,
which is calculated to fill the friends of American institutions with
gravest apprehensions, and which demands the serious attention of us
all. Almost every week discloses to us the fact that intimidation,
oppression and violence do override the government of the land, in its
application to the Negro people. Influential Southern journals have
pronounced the Fifteenth Amendment a living threat to the civilization
of the South, and declare that Christian statesmanship demands its
abrogation.
A thoughtful book published in New York, written in a calm and judicial
tone by an able lawyer in Virginia, in its chapter upon the future of
the Negro, says: "The social aspect of the Negro suffrage is certain to
_grow more_ threatening as the blacks increase. The motives which have
led the great body of whites to vote together in this age, must augment
in force in the age to follow. To day the rapid increase of the black
population constitutes a greater danger to the stability of our
government than any that is sapping the vitality of the European
monarchies. The partial disfranchisement of the Negro in the future
would appear to be inevitable, essential, if not to the existence of the
South, then to the prosperity of the Union." This is a temperate
expression of much Southern opinion.
Not a few hold the view that the education and advancement of the Negro
tends to create the race problem, and do not hesitate to say that if the
Negroes could only be kept as laborers in the cotton and rice and sugar
fields, in the furnaces and mines of the South, aspiring to nothing
higher and not antagonizing the whites in political matters, there would
be no race problem.
Six months ago we could quote from an editorial column written by an
ex-Confederate officer for an influential Democratic paper in the South
these words: "The duty of the white people of the South is plain. In the
spirit of _noblesse oblige_ we must sympathize with those who are
fitting the colored people for the duties of life, remembering what the
Negroes were to our forefathers and what our forefathers were to them.
No one can doubt that a Negro has a soul to save. That admitted, he is
as much entitled to the benefits of salvation as the white man. But", he
adds, "what do we see? Nearly all the bodies of Christians even, except
the Roman Catholics, shuffling to set the Negro apart and leave him
largely to his own ways, shuffling out of their responsibility according
to the gospel which they profess as their guide, and putting the Negro
apart in spite of the word of God, whom they worship, that he is no
respecter of persons. The Negro was brought over here by theft and
outrage. He is here to stay, and we must deal with him according to the
golden rule, and as we would wish to be done by if we were similarly
placed."
This is not a quotation from the National Council of Congregational
Churches, where such an utterance would both by nature and by grace find
expression, but it is from the pen of an officer of the Southern
Confederacy, who knows the light when he sees it, who keeps open an
honest eye, and who does not hesitate to speak from an honest mind. This
sentiment balances somewhat of that which pleads against the black man,
and not a few friends of this kind has the American Missionary
Association won to itself throughout the South. It never had so many who
are saying: "Yours is the most practical missionary work ever undertaken
by a Christian body." "You have won our confidence by your spirit and
your methods; you have our cordial sympathy." At the same time we
recognize the fact that both prejudice and partisanship are now making
strenuous efforts to create the judgment that the Negro should be
stripped of his civil rights and that his education is going on too
rapidly. For example, the _Southern Journal_, whose Christian sentiments
of six months ago, just quoted, with another editor to-day, comes to us
with another deliverance, probably nearer to the heart of most of its
constituency, saying: "The Negro is not a fit subject for Northern
missionary effort. Northern money is not wanted to build him schools,
and Northern teachers and preachers are not wanted to improve his mind
nor to save his soul. He should be let alone. He is out in the water:
let him swim. He should be left alone to work out his own salvation."
The editor who says we must save him is an ex-Confederate officer who
has always lived in the South. The editor who says he should be left
alone is a Northern man who has gone South to live. The first writes,
_noblesse oblige_. The second does not understand the language. He,
doubtless, has the largest constituency.
The pulpit also creates and voices public opinion. Our work is coming to
get many a good word from the Southern pulpit. But a Southern white
bishop--Bishop Pearce--did not write to unwilling ears when he said: "In
my judgment higher education would be a calamity to the Negroes. It
would elevate Negro aspirations far above the station which the Negro
was created to fill. The whites can never tamely, and without protest
submit to the intrusion of colored people into places of trust, profit,
and responsibility." This, you will observe, is from a minister of
Christ. It is from a bishop of a church. It is from one who prays our
Lord's prayer, given alike to white and black. "After this manner,
therefore, pray ye." "Our Father." This is from one who believes in the
baptism at Pentecost, when devout men from every nation under heaven
received the impartial benedictions of God. This from one who read the
story of Peter and the sheet. "Alas, my brother."
All this, then, is the atmosphere of the situation. Some prophetic souls
are looking out upon a most perplexing and perilous problem with
profound solicitude, and extending to us their sympathy and prayers for
our work. More, many more, are teaching and preaching that God has
created the Negro race to fill forever a place of inferiority, and that
he must stay down in the bog or in some way be destroyed. It is not
surprising, therefore, that ignorant white people should give form and
substance to these hostile opinions in scenes of violence and cruelty.
They believe in the inherent inferiority of the blacks, and have a
mighty fear lest this doctrine should prove to be untrue. The Negro,
twenty-five years ago in absolute poverty and illiteracy, has been
greedy for education, and has seriously thought of nothing but to rise
from his low condition.
The intelligent white man now, and to his great surprise, is all at once
confronted by the intelligent black man. They are not so numerous now as
to be an element to fear, but the whites are foreseeing the not distant
day when they can not be relegated to inferiority because of their
color. The calamity that Bishop Pearce deplores and would prevent is not
far away--educated Negroes with aspirations, in other words, men.
The general Negro illiteracy is gaining fast upon the white ignorance,
and the despised Negro is found to be living above many of his
illiterate white neighbors. This makes it easy work for designing men to
sharpen race prejudices, which by force and fear shall keep the Negro
down.
On the Negro side, he has been patient and forbearing. With these
outbreaks of persecution some are discouraged, and are ready to
surrender their manhood. On the other hand, some are no longer patient,
but are enraged. They would retaliate. They feel that defense against
wrongs is right. An influential Negro paper says, "EDUCATE, AGITATE,
RETALIATE. Does one strike me? With the power of God on high, back also
will I strike him." This feeling grows. Add to it the fact that the
Negro is developing the power of organization. There are leaders. They
are in their councils and conventions. They are feeling deeply, speaking
plainly, and organizing efficiently.
This is the situation! "How shall this problem be solved? How shall we
prevent the conflict between races?" A Southern author says: "These
problems have been solved in the past in four ways. By reducing the
weaker race to slavery, or by expulsion, or by extermination, or by the
amalgamation of the races. Slavery is out of the question--that is
settled. Equally repugnant is expulsion or extermination. Amalgamation
is abhorrent." Therefore, the problem will not be solved by any
historical precedents. The two races must live here in the same
sections, equal before the law, with mutual rights, and all rights must
be sanctioned and confirmed.
The American Missionary Association is living with this problem day by
day. It is trying to see it with the look of Christ. This Association
foresaw this question forty years ago. It took on itself the preparation
for it. It guided itself to meet the problem in the fields before the
armies in the South were disbanded. It went with its distinctive and
unpopular principles. It went in the patience and love of Christ. For
the most part it met a natural and unconcealed hostility. It did not
retaliate even in spirit, but it stood firm in spirit and in truth. It
has lived on in the South, and taught the same ever-living and
everlasting gospel for all men, of whatever race or color. Its record is
before the churches. They have never had reason to feel other than
grateful to God for its work. Beginning with a great number of little
primary schools, and with thousands of beginners in the alphabet of
learning, it has gradually passed into larger and more far-reaching
influences by teaching teachers and preachers, who shall go, and who do
go out and reach multiplied thousands.
In order that applied Christianity may have the power of self-help and
self-care, industries are introduced. In that the people are being
fitted to save themselves. All of our work from first to last is
missionary, and instinct with the motive of salvation; our schools are
means to an end; fitting preachers, teachers, mechanics, home makers to
meet the problem and the peril. It is not by education that the question
is to be solved. The missionary view is not simply the educational view.
This society is not an educational society. Education is not the panacea
for the ills of man. Ignorance is a great evil, but it is not the worst
one; sinfulness is worse and more difficult to cure. The one who is
educated may make trouble and not heal it; secular education can not
meet the problem; State education can not protect against the peril, but
sanctified education can, for it has in it the power of God. This
society is a missionary society which, like the American Board, teaches
in order to save. You can scarcely save ignorance. This means Christian
schools not only full of ethics, but vital with faith. It means also the
twin life of school work and church work. To put these factors apart
would be a great disaster to each; nay, it would put away from the only
society that can effectively, and we believe effectually, meet this
problem, the chief factor in the solution of the impending and serious
question. Education alone is not equal to this question, and those who
have won the ear and the sympathy of those who need to come under the
power of the gospel, who have been their friends and teachers, who have
their confidence and trust, are the ones to take this gospel to them and
show them how to take it to others. The schools reach parents, the
schools reach pastors, the schools reach the people, the schools are
intertwined with all the church life that has any hope in it. This is
the missionary view. When this people in the wilderness cried out in
their distresses, "Who will speak for us?" the Association spoke for
them. When they needed sympathy, sympathy it gave. When they needed
instruction, it went to them in the name of Christ. In his name it stood
for the Negro. In his name it stood by the Negro. In his name it stood
with him. It stands there to-day. It is his friend and counselor. When
the Negro is cast down, the churches will hear one voice and they will
wish their own society to be found faithful in this.
With this charter as a missionary society for schools and churches, we
present to the Negro race continually the personal hope of souls not
only, but the hope of the race. When they think that the progress is
slow we tell them that Christianity is sure. When they tell us that they
can not wait, but must organize and retaliate, we tell them to wait upon
God. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." We ask them to remember that a
quarter of a century, or a century, is a short time in the history of a
people. We point to a million--a round million--of Negro children in the
schools to-day. We are teaching them to be men. We are saving them to be
Christians. We teach them not to remain down and not to be put down.
Being men, they are to stand like men, but like Christian men, to
conquer prejudices by worthiness, to meet race hatred with only a
stronger purpose to command respect, not to render evil for evil, but
contrariwise, blessing; not blow for blow, but to go on upbuilding
themselves, deserving their rights, and remembering that a great element
in the solution of this problem must be an intelligent faith in God.
With this missionary view we stand firm. We have learned that the
Southerners of our own race, even when they hold their prejudices
against our principles, respect those who stand in a Christian way for
their principles; and that these principles will never be accepted in
the South by our holding them loosely, or in suspense, or in any sort of
abeyance. They respect us when we teach our people that they have all
the rights of manhood and womanhood; that they are to respect themselves
and to be worthy of self-respect; that they are not to consent in their
own minds to any assertion of superiority based upon the tint of the
skin, and that they are never to feel guilty for being black. We are
teaching the colored people to hold honor with themselves.
What this Association and other missionary forces have done and are
doing--this Association more than others--will be the balance of power
to prevent the dreaded conflict of races; _the balance of power_ to
settle the question; How can the two races live in the same section with
mutual respect for each other's civil and Christian rights? This may
take time. Christianity takes time. It is ours to take Christianity to
teach that the beginning of Christianity was the death blow to wrong
principles and evil practices of men, however well intrenched and
fortified these forces may be.
It is this which gives us courage to grapple with centuries of wrong and
to undertake the slow reduction of these evils. When Christianity came,
the era of conscience came, and in His gospel is the power of
intelligence and moral determination that shall not be overcome of evil,
but shall overcome evil with good.
"Men bound with right are strong:
Right bound with right in Christian faith
Will conquer a world of wrong."
The missionary schools and the missionary churches are, we believe, the
only safeguard against the conflict of races. They are the guardian
against this national peril. This being so, the churches must speed them
more and more. They must not hinder them nor tie their hands. The
guarantees of this peaceful solution are in the hands of the churches.
Multiply and hasten the Christian energies. Multiply the Christian
prayers that we may be workers together with Him of whom it is written,
"He shall not fail or be discouraged."
* * * * *
REPORTS OF COMMITTEES.
* * * * *
REPORT ON EDUCATIONAL WORK SOUTH.
BY REV. WM. BURNET WRIGHT, D.D., CHAIRMAN.
It is an ominous fact that in the South illiteracy is steadily
increasing. It is an encouraging fact that in the region surrounding our
chartered and normal schools illiteracy is steadily diminishing. The
colored people are multiplying more rapidly than the means of educating
them. If the supply of school accommodations to-day exactly equalled the
demand, so that every colored child of suitable age was provided for in
some school, there would be at the time of our next annual meeting
255,500 children asking to be taught their letters to whom we should
have to say, We cannot teach you. But the supply does not yet nearly
equal the demand.
In respect to education, the South is a dark sky rapidly growing darker,
but flecked with patches of lighter shade, which are gradually growing
brighter and larger. Such a bright space frames each of our chartered
and normal schools. Fisk University, Talladega College, Tougaloo
University, Straight University, in New Orleans, and Tillotson
Institute, at Austin, Texas, are doing work which vindicates each year
more distinctly the strategic sagacity which located them. In these
institutions alone nearly two thousand students of both sexes are being
trained to be light-bearers to their race. Besides these, each of which
is essentially a normal school, and includes a normal department,
eighteen distinctively normal schools are sustained at different points
of strategic importance. Two new schools have been established during
the year. Good work has also been done among the mountain whites. The
income from the gift of Mr. Daniel Hand has enabled the Association to
enlarge its school accommodations, and to assist more than three hundred
students, who, without it, would have been unable to attend schools of
any kind.
The committee would emphasize among special needs of the work, funds for
a girls' hall at Tillotson Institute, and for the endowment of a
theological school for training colored pastors. Two facts are
pre-eminently gratifying. The first is that in nearly all the schools of
the Association some kind of industrial training is provided, and that
the influence of such training is conspicuously shown in improved ideas
of home life and comfort among those connected by family or other ties
with our students. The second fact is, that in all our schools the
students are taught that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom, and that consequently the separation between religion and
morality, which is the supreme danger of the Southern black churches, is
perceptibly diminishing.
* * * * *
REPORT ON CHURCH WORK.
BY PROFESSOR GRAHAM TAYLOR, CHAIRMAN.
The mission of the American Missionary Association is shown to be a
_specialty_ and a _unit_ by its church work. It is the work of a
specialist among Christian organizations that alone could have produced
these churches. To meet the demands of an exigency which could not be
met by the pre-existent ordinary agencies, this child of Providence was
born of God and the times. For the accomplishment of ends for which no
means had been found, its methods were providentially chosen by a
process of spiritual selection. Its agencies are the accretions of the
Divine purpose in its progress toward the salvation of the undermost,
and the edifying of the whole body of Christ. To the production of its
unique Christian institutions the exclusive devotion to the study of the
peculiar conditions of these entirely distinct communities was
necessary. There have been generated by this devotion and acquired
through the experience of nearly half a century a knowledge and skill
which claim for this Association the recognition of the world as its
foremost expert in the successful application of Christianity to the
solution of the most difficult race problems of modern civilization.
And yet in the accomplishment of this great achievement, loyalty to the
common faith and to our own polity, as well as to the teachings of
experience, demanded only the new application of the old prime factors
of God's own choice, the _local church_ with its evangelism and
Christian nurture.
In the work of this Association these two great agencies are uniquely
one. The pastor is often teacher and evangelist. The sanctuary is
school-house and mission station. At twenty-three points on the field
God has made of these twain--the church and the school--one. The church
is the unit of this unity. For while the church is generally the
offspring of the school, the school finds both its profoundest reasons
for existence and its highest consummation in the needs and ends of the
church. In it the work both of the teacher and evangelist co-ordinates
and culminates.
It will not be so very long before these schools and colleges will find
their chief sources of supply in these churches, which although now so
dependent, must ultimately be depended upon to maintain and develop
their own institutions. Even now it is to be remembered that the appeal
of this evangelizing church work meets with the wider and more popular
response from the giving constituency of the Association, while the
educational institutions are more dependent upon the larger gifts of
interested individuals.
Moreover, it is the church which opens the springs of the family life
from which the schools must draw their scholars. And it is the church
which creates the environment necessary to the Christian homes, to which
the graduates are sent back again to live their lives, and from which,
as the heart's fulcrum, their saved lives can best lift up the lost.
These little church groups of evangelized and educated families are at
once the prime sources and the constituent elements of the new Christian
civilization which already heralds the coming of the kingdom to those
neglected, outcast peoples, to secure whose human rights, Christian
privileges and church fellowship is the first, loudest, longest call
upon the Congregational Churches of America.
Therefore, in the name of this Association, whose heroic type of
missionary and teaching service makes our whole membership and ministry
the more attractive and ennobling; in the name of its schools which
became churches, and its churches which are schools; in the name of
their 8,400 professing Christians, and their 15,000 Sunday-school
scholars, and the 1,000 converts of the year; in the name of the races
of three continents to whom the Father is sending these our brethren as
we are sent to them, we pledge the fidelity of the American Missionary
Association to the two-fold agency of its one work, the discipling of
these races by the evangelizing church, and the Christian nurture of its
schools. And we re-echo the call which the National Council makes upon
our churches for the $500,000 required by the exigencies and
opportunities of this year's work for the neediest and most helpless of
all our fellow-countrymen.
* * * * *
REPORT ON MOUNTAIN WORK.
BY REV. D.M. FISK, D.D., CHAIRMAN.
The formal report of your committee can without injustice be brief; not
because the field considered is narrow, or the work unimportant as a
missionary movement, but from the fact that a certain unity pervades
both, making it possible to comprehend in one view even the diversities
of a population of over two millions, and an area of above one hundred
thousand square miles.
The official summary of the year's work, on which we report, once again
sets before this Association the situation and its involved problem; a
situation full of contradictions, a problem at once serious but not
hopeless.
Here is the amazing spectacle of a self-isolated people, begirt with the
active life and thought of our eager times, yet sharing neither. Here is
an empire that is content to live in the past: having rich resources it
neglects to develop them; a productive soil but niggard crops. Amidst a
veritable Lebanon of forestry it has shanties for homes; with coal
deposits that are the envy of the world, its shivering women in
stoveless hovels attempt to defend themselves about their domestic toil
with coarse homespun shawls and slat-bonnets. In an age that has
harnessed mechanism, beast, and steam to the plow, scythe, sickle and
flail, these owners of mountains of iron and mines of power still
indolently vex a grudging soil with tools of such barbaric simplicity
that their intrusion is scarcely more than a provocation to weeds.
Here is needless poverty in the lap of potential wealth, thriftlessness
in the face of every seeming stimulus to diligence. Here is a
diversified landscape that should inspire and a climate that should
invigorate, but in place of vivacity and health we find apathetic
endurance and intrenched disease. Scrofula and its parasite kin are
domesticated in the debilitated blood, and pills, calomel, and death
jointly contend for the prolific cradle, and even when temporarily
defeated succeed in transforming childhood into unlovely age, without
the long interval of intermediate active, zestful manhood.
And yet, pitiful as is this exhibit of deficiency, these Highland
dwellers are none the less men and our brethren. Slavery robbed them of
their lands half a century ago, and roughly shouldered them off into the
mountain wilderness dowered with the pauperizing maxims of oppression,
notably the indignity of toil, and their shrewd native mother-wit has
been left to rust to dullard loss in the absence of schools worthy the
name; worse still, their natural devoutness has been warped by unworthy
shepherds, till superstition, bigotry, and gross immorality have taken
fierce possession of many a society, hearthstone and heart. If to-day
the schools are inefficient and some of the preaching blasphemous; if
self-satisfied idleness has turned over this mountain realm to want and
the slavery of low living, and (as ever) made woman at once the servant
and the victim of its barbarism, it is but another historic count in the
awful indictment of human selfishness. And all these crying deficiencies
are but make-weights with our conviction of responsibility to this
mountain flock of God, that often has been misled and unworthily
sacrificed.
The only problematical element in this matter is the measure of our
faith in God and man and all-prevailing truth. Wherever the ground has
been broken by faithful men there is a crop to show as returns for
invested toil. More than a thousand children are now under Christian
instruction in our schools. Our pupils are in hungry demand as teachers,
even to a minimum of years that to us would seem absurd (15 and 16
years). Over twenty churches are holding up a reasonable religion, as a
life rather than merely a profession. New fields plead for mission work.
Our already planted churches and schools are stimulating other
denominations to redoubled diligence in church planting. Courage is in
the tone and look of our frontier workers. The officers of this
Association feel in an aggressive mood. The question resolves itself
into one of faith and contributions. What, my brethren, shall be our
answer?
* * * * *
REPORT ON INDIAN WORK.
BY REV. ADDISON F. FOSTER, D.D., CHAIRMAN.
The committee on the work of the American Missionary Association among
the Indians respectfully report that they gratefully recognize the good
hand of God in the work already done.
Since the American Missionary Association took the work, the
expenditures have increased from $11,000 to $52,000, the out-stations
for direct evangelistic effort from seven to twenty-one, and the
churches from two to six. This last year, the Association has
established three new out-stations: the Moody station among the Mandans,
fifty miles north of Fort Berthold; the Moody Station No. 2 among the
Gros Ventres, twenty-five miles north of Fort Berthold; the Sankey
Station among the Dakotas at Cherry Creek. It has just put up a mission
house, with a room for church worship, at Rosebud Agency. It has
organized anew church at Bazille Creek, some distance out from Santee; a
branch church at Cherry Creek, on the Sioux Reservation, and is just
forming a church at Standing Rock, for which a building is now
completed.
This record is certainly gratifying and shows that the Association
appreciates the emergency, and is striving to meet it, so far as the
means put in its hands allow. But your committee feel also that never
before was there so great an opportunity as now brought before the
Christians of this land, and especially our own denomination, for work
among the Indians.
The relations of the Government and of the churches in Indian work are
now unusually harmonious and kindly. The present Administration is
thoroughly in sympathy with missionary operations, and will do nothing
to impair their efficiency. We believe it to be sincerely actuated by a
desire to promote the best welfare of the Indians, and ready to
co-operate with all good people in efforts in this direction. It aims to
educate every Indian child. We desire to see this done, and believe that
when the Government assumes, as it should, the primary education of all
Indians of school age, we shall be called on to turn our efforts to a
much larger work for direct evangelization.
Our opportunity is enlarging further by the breaking down of the old
pagan prejudices of the Indians. The testimony of all the workers on the
field is to this effect. The Indians are desirous of living as white
men. They are rapidly losing their distinctive Indian ideas and are
imbibing the notions of their white neighbors. This is seen in their
burials, which now are not uniformly, as of old, on scaffolds, but are
more and more interments. It is shown in their feeling and behavior when
death comes into their households. They no longer fill their houses with
hideous outcries, but instead seek the missionaries to inquire about the
life in the other world.
A further opportunity is to be noted in the fact that the Dakota Indians
have specially fallen into our care. Our chief missions are located
among them, at Santee, Rosebud, Oahe, Standing Rock, and outlying
stations. But the Dakota Indians number 40,000 in all, or about
one-sixth of all the Indians in the country. We have mastered the Dakota
language; and a Bible, hymn-book, dictionary and other books are printed
in that tongue. We have, then, special ability to carry on mission work
among them, and are bound to utilize it to the full. The time is ripe
for immediate action. It must be taken without delay if taken at all.
The opening up to white settlement of a large strip of land though the
center of the great Sioux reservations is to bring the Indian into
contact with the influence of white men as never before. It is
impossible that that influence shall be altogether good. The contact of
the Indian with the frontiersmen of our own people has resulted most
deplorably in the past, and we cannot hope for much better results now.
Rum and licentiousness are sure to work untold harm to the Indian unless
they are met by the gospel. This opening up of Indian territory to white
settlement lays, therefore, a most imperative and immediate obligation
on Christian people to protect the Indian from ruin by giving them the
gospel.
We are satisfied that nothing but the gospel will suffice. Education
alone can not save, and may simply give new strength to evil habits and
influences. It must be a Christian education; schools should be simply
preliminary and altogether subsidiary to the most energetic and wise
presentation of the gospel. The uniform policy of the American
Missionary Association in all departments of its work has been in this
direction, and we gladly recognize the fact that its Indian work has
steadily progressed with the idea of evangelizing the Indian.
We know very well that the Association is laboring for 8,000,000 Negroes
and for 2,000,000 Mountain White people and for 125,000 Chinese, as well
as 262,000 Indians. We know that the proportion of the Indians is
comparatively small. At the same time we urge that this disproportion is
to a large degree counterbalanced by the special opportunities we have
considered. The Indian problem is before us for immediate settlement. It
admits of no delay. Care for these few Indians now, Christianize them
now, as we may, and the Indian becomes as the white man, and our
missionary efforts will then be released for other fields.
In this special emergency we feel strongly the necessity laid on the
Association for an enlargement of its administrative force. Since the
death of our lamented brother, Secretary Powell, the force at the New
York office of the Association has been short-handed. We hope that the
earnest efforts which are being made by the Executive Committee to find
a suitable person to become another Secretary of the Association may be
at once successful. An emergency is upon us, and we say this with the
conviction that the demands of the Indian work are now so imperative as
to require a large portion of the time and thought of such a Secretary.
It is a necessity that such a Secretary should frequently visit the
field and be in constant communication with the workers.
* * * * *
REPORT ON CHINESE WORK.
BY REV. E.A. STIMSON, D.D., CHAIRMAN.
This is the smallest and least conspicuous department of the work of the
American Missionary Association, but the one that stands in the closest
relation to ourselves, and the one also that can show the largest
returns. The Chinese in America are few in number, but they are
scattered everywhere, as if God intended in them to put the spirit of
our churches to a crucial test, and, where that test is endured, to give
to his servants a prompt reward and an unanswerable confirmation of his
promises and of their faith.
These strange little men from "the land of Sinim," mysterious, silent,
capable, incredibly industrious, money-making, with their pig-tails and
their felt shoes, their "pidgin English" and their unintelligible
"turkey tracks," their wooden countenance and their "bias eyes," their
opium, and their "ways that are dark," who, in spite of restrictive laws
and brutal personal treatment, are filtering in everywhere, until they
may be seen crouched in the corner of any street car, and are a familiar
object in the village street--why are they here? here just now and here
so persistently? It is no mighty immigration of men, such as De
Tocqueville liked to dwell upon. It is no conquering host, no familiar
immigration. Whatever may once have been the attractive force of the
California gold fields, washing soiled linen can hardly be regarded as
satisfying a national instinct, or thumping through the long hours of
the night upon an ironing table a soul-filling amusement. Much may be
said of "the golden fleece," but these are no modern Argonauts. They are
money-making as our friends the Jews, but no "high emprise" or "grand
endeavor" fires their calm pulse, and much as has been written of the
coolie system and the "Six Companies," nothing has been adduced which
seems adequate to explain the movement.
The fact is, God is in it. He is crowding these heathen upon our
churches in these missionary days of an opening world, first of all to
prove our Christianity. Do we believe that all men are brothers? Do we
believe that the Holy Ghost who renewed our hearts can renew these? Do
we believe that the Lord who died for us, died for the world? Do we
believe--not that the world--but that this particular heathen as he
stands before us in his blue blouse, or sits at our side with his
reading-book, is as dear to our heavenly Father as you and I are? Do we
believe that we are to go to him with the gospel to find a way for the
truth into his heart, to bear his burdens, to win him by love, and that
without him we ourselves can not be made perfect? Do we believe, in
short, that God has brought him here to our door that we might learn
that if we have not a religion that will save, and will make us eager to
have it save a Chinaman, we have not a religion that will save
ourselves?
Seven hundred and fifty of these men already members of the churches
connected with our mission on the Pacific Coast! and who will say how
many more on the rolls of our churches from St. Louis to Boston! What
are these Chinese converts, the fruitage of our Sunday-schools and
prayer-meetings, our personal labor, but God's blessed seal set upon our
Christian faith! Here is the evidence. Ours is the conquering faith of
the world. It will save every man, for it has saved these men, no less
than you and me.
But this is not all. China's day has come. We hear from beyond the sea
of the new railway, the awful floods, the burning of the "Altar of
Heaven," and the strange stirrings of the mind of that mighty people,
the oldest, and judged by its persistent life, the strongest now on the
globe. Merchants tell us of its limitless trade: diplomatists speak of
its astuteness and of its new navy, second only to that of England;
scholars wonder at a nation of heathen with whom learning determines
rank, and where the "boss" and the fixer of elections are unknown.
Missionaries write of the throngs that gather in strange cities to hear
them preach, of the new gentleness and courtesy everywhere shown them,
and of the increasing number of young people pressing into the mission
schools.
In the midst of all this, when the Lord's voice is heard calling us to
lift up our eyes and look on the fields now white for the harvest, comes
word from our solitary watchman upon the watch-tower in Hong-Kong that
when he returned to his post, as he did last year, perplexed and
down-hearted, because not one Christian in all America heeded his call
and went with him to his field, to his surprise and joy the Lord has
been preparing his own servants in the person of Chinese emigrants
coming home from America, bringing with them not money only and
knowledge of the wide world, but the new-found faith; graduates of
laundries, but also of our Sunday-schools, members of our churches,
filled with an eager spirit to tell their parents, their brethren, their
neighbors, of Jesus Christ. Ah, dear friends, God's ways are not as our
ways. Let us not be slow to catch his thought and walk where he leads.
Here, then, is the call to us. Begin with the Chinaman at your door.
Recognize that the Lord Jesus stands before you in him. You prove your
own faith; you "do it unto" your Lord; you forward the plan of God when
you take him by the hand and gently entreat him for Christ.
For the same reason you will give your money to support the work of this
Association. No work has been more devoted, more upheld by prayer, more
Christlike, or, we may add, more deservedly successful than that under
the lead of our representative, Dr. Pond, on the Pacific Coast. He has
already surrounded himself with a band of trained Christian converts,
who would be a joy in any field, and who are making themselves felt for
good far and wide. Their influence reaches to Chicago, St. Louis, and
even Boston and New York. It is ours to see that the Christian city they
find here is not less Christlike than that which met them when they
landed on our shores, and that the hoodlum of our Eastern cities no more
represents the spirit of our churches than does he of San Francisco and
of Oakland. Let us be careful to show that our hand will be as promptly
raised to protect the helpless Chinaman from insult on the street as it
will be to lead his soul to Christ. Let us insist upon it, as Americans
and as Christians, that no distinction of race or of color shall stand
between any man and his rights, either in the State or in the Church.
Then may we hope that all--white and black, Chinaman and American--will
care less for rights and more for duties, and, in the joy of a true
brotherhood, will labor together to bring in the day of the Lord. In any
case, let us, with all our multiform machinery, our conventions, our
societies, our churches, be not so busy "saving souls" that we have not
care to save men and women.
* * * * *
REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE.
BY F.J. LAMB, ESQ., CHAIRMAN.
Your committee beg leave to report that they have had under
consideration the matters committed to them. They have been attended by
your Treasurer, and they have examined his reports submitted,
particularly the detailed statement of receipts and expenditures for the
year closed; also statement of trust funds of the Association; also
statement of resources and liabilities, and of the income of the Daniel
Hand Educational Fund for the same period. These statements come to us
duly vouched for by the standing committee of auditors elected by the
Association. A summarized statement of receipts and expenditures has
been printed and distributed at this meeting, which accords with the
detailed report. Other reports show that the invested funds of the
Association, aside from the Daniel Hand Fund, are $230,875.78, being
$500 more than in the previous year. From the statement of resources and
liabilities, we find that the various colleges, schools, stations,
buildings, and property constituting what may be termed the plant of the
Association, amount, at their estimated value, to $745,849. This is a
large sum, but the investment yields no pecuniary return to the
Association. It represents the fixed property with which the Association
carries on its work, and the figures may serve in some measure to
apprise us of the magnitude of the work being carried on by the
Association.
The Daniel Hand Fund is a separate and distinct trust, and its income
cannot be used for the general work of the Association, and may demand
some further notice before this report is closed. The general condition
of the fund is found on the printed abstract already mentioned.
We find the system of keeping the accounts clear, convenient, and well
adapted to exhibit from month to month the exact pecuniary condition of
the Association, and the restrictions upon drawing money from the
treasury well calculated to insure safety in that respect, and we find
the management of the Treasurer's accounts and office in all details
satisfactory and deserving our commendation. Comparing the gifts and
work of the Association for the last year just closed with the previous
year, and the recommendations of the Finance Committee a year ago, we
find that the year 1888 closed with a deficit of over $5,000, that the
amount of receipts for that year had been $320,953.42; that the Finance
Committee then recommended that the friends of the Association should
raise for the year $375,000 for its current expenditures. It is a source
of great gratification to find that this recommendation has been nobly
met, and $376,216.88 have been received during the year just closed, an
increase of over $55,000; that the deficit of the former year has been
supplied, and that the Association commences the current year with a
fund in the treasury of $4,471.67. This we deem substantial indorsement
of the Association and its work, by the churches, Sunday-schools,
missionary societies and its individual friends. This report might stop
here with congratulations for the prosperous year just closed, but the
duties so well done, and work so well performed, must simply furnish the
Association a standing place and vantage ground for a greater work on
its part, and grounds for greater sacrifices and gifts by its friends
for the year to come.
The National Council, representing the Congregational churches of the
whole nation, lately in session at Worcester, by a unanimous vote
recommended that the churches and friends of the work of this
Association raise for it for current expenditures for the year now
commenced the sum of $500,000. Is this magnificent sum too much to ask
for the year now auspiciously begun? Happily for your committee, we are
saved the necessity of elaborate or studied examination of the needs of
the work that has been done by the papers read and to be printed and
addresses delivered from the platform during the meetings up to this
time. You are thus informed more fully than we could hope to inform you
what these needs are and their urgency. But we may say that of the
8,000,000 Negroes in the South it is estimated only 2,000,000 can read
and write. Add to these the millions of poor whites in the mountains and
the red men of the West and the Chinese in our land, and we are fully
justified in asserting that the work of this Association equals in
magnitude any work of the church, and involves issues of Christianity,
and patriotism touched by no other work of our age. It is estimated by
the officers of the Association that through its schools and colleges
and the teachers furnished by them, who are instructing the children in
the South more or less every year, perhaps 175,000 are being reached and
instructed. Assuming that as many are reached by other missionary and
benevolent societies, we see the tremendous need that can not be
ignored. This burden is laid peculiarly and urgently on this society and
its contributing friends. Can we meet this duty with less than $500,000
for the current year? Your committee say, No. Perhaps you will be ready
to acquiesce. But let us see what this means. It means that every living
donor who contributed last year must increase his contribution 50 per
cent., or the number of donors must be largely increased. A large amount
was received last year from estates and legacies, namely, $114,020.41.
This resource is a variable quantity. The Association can not _depend_
on any increase from this source. Its confidence must be in the living,
who can give if they will.
Your Committee deem it proper to call more particular attention to the
magnificent gift of Daniel Hand to the Association. It is quite likely
that some may suppose, and some may have measured their gifts last year
in the belief, that the income of this fund was applicable to pay
current expenses of the Association. But this is not so. The Daniel Hand
Fund is appropriated to special work, which, although connected
generally with the work of the Association, is yet not a part of that
ordinary work for which this fund we recommend to be raised is to be
expended. Hence all friends of the Association must make and measure
their gifts to it understanding that the sum we propose must be raised
without any aid from the income from that million dollars constituting
one of the grandest gifts of our time. Shall this $500,000 for the
current work of the Association for 1889 be furnished to it? This is
God's work. The churches here represented and the friends of the
Association have the money. It can not be put to any nobler Christian
use; the needs demand it, and we recommend that $500,000 be raised for
the Association for its current work for the year now begun.
* * * * *
REPORT ON SECRETARY STRIEBY'S PAPER.
BY REV. G.B. WILLCOX, D.D., CHAIRMAN.
The paper by Dr. Strieby impresses your committee as an admirably
comprehensive and discriminating statement of the policy and work of the
Association. As to the reconstruction of our educational and missionary
societies, to the suggestion of which much of the paper calls attention,
and from which he dissents, we should do well to make haste slowly. Some
time in the future it may become practicable. But we discover no finger
of Providence pointing toward it at present.
If the thought were to reduce our societies to which these interests are
intrusted to two, calling for but two annual collections where we now
have three or four, it needs no prophet to foresee the effect of that on
the amounts collected. If the suggestion is of the reconstruction, not
of the societies, but only of the work--if it proposes that our
educational and missionary enterprises be so divided that no one society
shall to any extent conduct both--it has certainly an attractive look.
But is it more than a look? The educational institutions of several of
our societies were born out of the inmost life of those organizations
and lie on their bosom for nourishment to-day. To ask the American
Board, for example, to turn over its colleges and schools to some other
society, for that, of course, is involved in the plan suggested--would
be like asking one of our Christian mothers to send her babe to the
foundlings' home. Some of us are old enough to remember that the
venerable and now sainted Dr. Anderson was at first vehemently opposed
to the schools planted by the missionaries in India. It was confounding
things that differ. The work of a missionary society was not to manage
schools. The schools were discontinued. But the Board soon discovered
that it was doing its work with but one hand. The schools came back and
came to stay. Now we conservatives are rather jealous of our progressive
brethren calling for a reconstruction of the American Board. We know not
whereto this thing may grow.
If the colleges and schools of the American Missionary Association were
secular, if they had no vital oneness of life with its churches, there
might be room for the plan suggested. But they are as thoroughly
Christian in their aim as the churches. The churches are as
indispensably educational as the schools. As Dr. Strieby remarks, the
teacher is often the pastor. The pastor finds a great part of his flock
in the school. The teachers teach in his Sunday-school. The
prayer-meeting depends on them for its success. The unseen shuttles of
mutual sympathy, flying back and forth incessantly, are weaving the two
together, and working out the one pattern of the Divine life in souls,
that covers both. The plan proposed would, at least to the eye,
disentangle all complications. It would lay out the work in the
Year-Book with clean-cut precision. But vital things are not always
improved by vivisection. It would doubtless simplify our apprehension of
the organs of a _man_ to lay the lungs on one side of the table, the
heart on another, the liver on a third, and the brains on a fourth. But
how far it would enhance the vitality and usefulness of the man is
another question. There is an organism which is often, and without harm,
in that fashion distributed. But it is a mannikin--not a man.
The one most formidable evil among our colored countrymen is their
deplorable ignorance of the connection between religion and morality--or
rather the fact that religion, on its outward side, is morality. The
sable deacon who, when confronted with a list of his sins as dark as his
countenance, replied triumphantly; "Well, bredren, I'se broke ebery
commandment ob de ten--but bress de Lord, I'se nebber los' my 'ligion,"
was no monster of iniquity. He was only saturated and sodden with the
delusion which submerges Pagan, Mohammedan, and Papist alike, and throws
no little of its froth over Protestant, too often, that duties toward
God and toward man are not blended, or even dove-tailed together. But
they are weights in opposite scales. Be only devout in your penances or
your hallelujahs, and your life among men is of little account. Now,
that notion can not be corrected in such a people as that one with which
we have to do in the South by an occasional Sunday sermon. In the
day-school it must be reiterated morning, noon, and night in various
applications, line upon line and precept upon precept. And so, on the
other hand, teachers, as well as scholars, must be reminded by pastors,
with a little Puritan iron in their blood, of their Christian, as well
as educational obligations. One member of your committee who has had
practical experience in the Southern work reports that some teachers,
occasionally even now, need to be reminded of the Christian service that
the Association, as well as the Master, expects from them. But divide
these different functions, put the churches and Sunday-schools under
other auspices, and, self-evidently, that temptation would be so much
the worse. We must have groped out of the morning twilight toward the
millennial day much further than we have before any such plan can be
reduced to fact.
Dr. Strieby speaks in the paper of his clerical friend of twenty-five
years ago, who thought the work of the Association would be transient.
It reminds us of Mr. Seward's remark that three months would end the
civil war. We are in for a long campaign. The sad fact is not to be
blinked that, with the enormous increase of the colored population, the
illiteracy among them is greater to-day than at the close of the
rebellion. We have need to sing at times:
O, learn to scorn the praise of men:
O, learn to lose with God.
As Dr. Goodwin grandly told us yesterday, our work is under the Master's
order. Success is no concern of ours. But success, because it is His
concern, is sure. Every losing battle in His service turns in time to
victory. We remember in Count Agenor de Gasparin's "Uprising of a Great
People," how spell-bound, awe-struck, he appeared to be before that
magnificent ground swell of the loyal nation, rolling on, as a traveling
mountain range, to sweep the rebellion as drift-wood before it. The
eight millions of the freedmen and their children are rising. If, for
the present, there are refluent waves that sadden us it is God who
brings in the tide. "And when I begin," saith the Lord, "I will also
make an end."
* * * * *
REPORT ON SECRETARY BEARD'S PAPER.
BY REV. H.M. TENNEY, D.D., CHAIRMAN
The committee to which was referred the paper of Secretary Beard
respectfully report that the "Missionary View of the Southern Situation"
therein presented impresses us profoundly with the fact that the
sincerest piety is the most exalted patriotism. It commends itself to us
as worthy of the most serious attention of the thoughtful of both races
in the North and in the South. The gravity of the Southern problem, as
set before us, is little less than appalling. The colored race now looks
back over a quarter of a century of freedom and recognized rights. The
traditions and customs and conservative ties of slavery are broken with
its chains. The ideas, aspirations and manly instincts of liberty have
taken hold upon the colored people and are becoming controlling. The
intellectual progress of the many, the political and national prominence
of the few, the acquisition of wealth, and the marvelously
disproportionate increase in their numbers, serve to awaken the colored
race to self-consciousness and a sense of power. It is beginning to
demand its rights and to be impatient of their resistance and
suppression. The Samson of the past, bound, shorn and blinded, stands
to-day with fetters broken, with locks grown long, and with eyes yet
dim, but with the dimness of returning vision, as one who sees men as
trees walking. And whether he shall be carried on to complete
emancipation, intellectual and spiritual, a true manhood, or goaded to
madness, and driven to bow himself against the pillars of our national
and social temple, and pull it down to the common ruin of us all, is the
question of the hour. A race so situated, were there no other factors in
the problem, would be a peril to any people, and would call for the most
helpful effort and self-sacrificing zeal and Christ-like patience.
But the white man in the Southern situation is as serious a factor in
the problem as the black man. In a different way, the incubus of slavery
has rested as heavily upon him as upon his black brother. The illiteracy
is not all on one side. If we put ourselves in the place of our Southern
white brothers, and remember what human nature is, apart from the grace
of God, we may not greatly wonder, in view of the heritage of the past
and the real difficulties and perils of the present, that there is an
intensity of race prejudice, and a bitterness of caste spirit, and an
increasing hostility to the rising colored population which registers
itself in outbreaks of violence and bloodshed, in the defiance of law,
and in crimes against the ballot-box. We may not be greatly surprised
that there should be intelligent men who regard the education of the
colored man as a calamity, and deny his rights, and call for his
disfranchisement. The white man of the South needs emancipation and
Christian elevation as well as the black. We are the debtors of Christ
to both races. Leave these two races to themselves without the gospel of
Christ, and the conflict between them is inevitable, and it can be but
terrific and protracted, and a dark blot upon the Christian name and
civilization. Dr. Beard has well said that the problem can not be solved
by historic precedents. All talk of slavery or peonage for the inferior
race, or migration, or extermination, or amalgamation, is idle and
morally repugnant and politically dangerous.
The problem set for our solution by Almighty God is just this--as stated
in this missionary view of it: How, being free, two races as dissimilar
as are the white and black races, now equal before the law, can live
side by side under the same government and live in prosperity and peace.
This problem must be solved, and it must be solved aright. And we may be
sure that the ultimate solution of blessing for both races does not, and
can not, lie in any retrograde movement toward the old darkness and
bondage, but forward in the direction of the larger light and truer
liberty of Christ. If the colored race, as a race, seems to have reached
a point when "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing," its hope and
ours lie not in a return to ignorance and degradation, but in pressing
on to that larger knowledge and truer wisdom, the beginning of which is
the fear of God, and the fullness of which is a hearty recognition and
cordial acceptance and discharge of the obligations and trusts of a
Christian manhood and Christian citizenship. The condition of the
colored race, indeed, is but a necessary stage in its upward and onward
march. It is no other than we have always had reason to expect would be
reached. That the mile-stone of to-day marks so great progress is cause
for profound gratitude. The new features of the situation and the fresh
difficulties are those, and those only, which are incident to progress.
There is but one solution for the Southern problem, and that is the
solution for which this Association has labored from the beginning, and
which this paper urges. Christianity in its highest forms, an
intelligent Christian manhood, is that solution. It is an impressive
thought that it is the mission of this Association, more than all other
institutions and agencies, to develop that Christian sentiment among the
colored people, and indirectly among the whites, which shall create a
_balance of power_ which shall save the races and the nation from that
conflict which without it seems inevitable. This fact is a trumpet call
to us to press the work of the Association in its schools and colleges
and churches with renewed vigor and devotion.
And we would especially emphasize the necessity of preserving the unity
of the educational and religious work of the Association to this end.
Every teacher must be a missionary as truly as every preacher. And this
unity of purpose and effort must be felt. Church and school, as in the
past, must continue to stand together in the minds and labors of the
people that there may be no exaltation of education at the expense of
religion. In the dark days of slavery, it was faith in God that
sustained the Negro, that inspired his songs, and that made him strong
to endure and patient to wait. And it was by the power of God that he
was at last set free. Never did the colored man need that faith in God,
and in an overruling and guiding Providence, more than now, when the
goal of liberty and equality is so nearly attained, and yet strangely
delayed. Nobly do the leaders of the race realize that faith, and seek
to lead their brethren into it.
It belongs to this Association, by all the agencies at its command, to
teach this people to be patient and to wait upon the Lord, to endure
hardship, to leave vengeance with the Lord, and, accepting the
responsibilities of liberty and citizenship, to gird themselves to meet
them in the spirit and in the strength of a grand Christian manhood.
This the history of this people warrants us in expecting from them. To
this manhood, struggle and work we welcome them, and in it we pledge
them our Christian support.
Let this be the temper of those who hold the balance of power between
the races in the South, and in no long time the slumbering conscience of
the Southern white will respond. The noble utterances of the
Southerners, who already demand that the Golden Rule shall be applied to
the race problem, prove that it is already waking to life and power. It
will be felt then that it cannot be safe to sin against God, to despise
even the least of his children; that it must be safe to follow in the
way where he leads, to do his bidding, and to give equal rights to all,
and to treat all men as brethren. And thus the missionary view
prevailing, and the missionary solution accepted, the perils and
conflicts of to-day will disappear as the storm-cloud passes, and the
difficulties of race relations now anticipated will adjust themselves in
God's way, and in God's time--the way of Christian manhood and
brotherhood, of righteousness and of peace.
* * * * *
ADDRESSES ON THE PRECEDING REPORTS.
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF REV. WM. BURNET WRIGHT, D.D.
When that Egyptian King, of whom we all know, was carving those
memorials of his greatness which, even as brought to us by the magazines
of late, have interested us all so much, and when Egypt was the most
superb power in the world, slave women, of whom the mother of Moses was
one, were lamenting by the Nile. But the people then to be pitied were
not the Hebrews, but the Egyptians.
As I think of the future of my country, my anxiety is not for the black
race.
The two nations which seem destined to exert in the near future the most
intense and wide influence are Russia and the United States. Before each
of them God has set essentially the same task and appears to have
conditioned largely their prosperity upon the way in which they do it.
That task is to develop into full-orbed free men a vast number of
citizens who have been dwarfed and twisted by slavery. How to do this
most thoroughly and speedily is the superlatively important question for
each nation to decide. In Russia, there is no more acute observer than
Count Tolstoi: and Count Tolstoi has said to his countrymen, "What we in
Russia need supremely is three things; they are schools and schools and
schools." The American Missionary Association, in view of all that has
been said here these two days, seems to me to be repeating, with the
emphasis of an adequate experience, those same words; and I think Mr.
Hand has shown a judgment equal to his generosity in so wording the
conditions of his gift that it repeats the same thing. The Association,
whether intentionally or unintentionally, is telling us that what we
need in the South supremely is "schools and schools and schools."
By schools I certainly do not mean institutions which train only the
mind or the body, or both. I am perfectly familiar with the picture
which Mr. Maturin Ballou has drawn of the Alaska Indian using the
knowledge gained in missionary schools to raise a check. I know that
education which does not rightly train the will may be giving tools to a
burglar or weapons to a mad man. The anarchism in Chicago, but for the
education it controls, would have been like Bunyan's giants--able only
to gnaw its nails in malice and have fits in sunshiny weather. But the
American Missionary Association understands this thoroughly. In that
copy of the year's review which Dr. Strieby sent me, the report of the
school work was marked with a red pencil, that of the church work with a
blue one; but the two marks overlapped, the red and the blue, so
completely that all attempts to separate them were hopeless. Dr. Strieby
himself could not distinguish between the church work and the school
work of the Association. No man can. They are indistinguishable because
they have been inseparable. This is as it should be. This is essential
to their real success. This is New Testament preaching--discipling; and
that is what the Master told us to do. The danger of Count Tolstoi's
leadership in Russia is great, and it is solely this: that he does not
know that fact. The safety of your guidance, gentlemen, who conduct the
policy of this Association, is that you do. The education given by the
State and by the Federal Government has been and must necessarily be,
almost wholly secular. But the education given by this Association is
distinctly, not technically, religious. It is rooted and grounded in the
Bible. And if what I am saying appears to you trite, I am glad of it,
because it shows that on the substantial facts we are at one and need no
argument.
There are, however, two facts which sharply distinguish between the work
we have to do among our emancipated slaves and that set before Russia
among her emancipated serfs, and which make it more conspicuously
obvious than it can be in Russia that we need schools. We have, first of
all, to contend with the prejudice of color. We have been told how great
that is. I need spend no time in repeating this while the debates at
Worcester and in the Episcopal Convention at New York ring in our ears;
while Harvard seniors can not elect for class orator the ablest and
fittest man they have if he happens to be colored, without eliciting
from New York newspapers two-column editorials of amazement; and while
writers as wise, as informed, and as calm as George Cable, are unable to
write without showing their quivering apprehension of a race war. The
wickedness of this class feeling is conceded by all good men, and I need
not dwell upon it.
The cause of it has been largely overlooked, and therefore the remedies
so often advocated have proved futile. Until the cause is distinctly
recognized and acknowledged and remedied, the prejudice will remain. The
cause is this: All freeborn people in every age and clime have had a
contempt for slaves. That is very near the feeling--mark my words--they
ought to have. It was stronger in Athens than it has ever been in
Charleston. It is partly, and has always been largely, caused by the
wicked pride of mastership, but it has also been largely inspired by the
perception of those vices and inferiorities which his condition breeds
in the slave. Ignorance, deceit, cowardice, are contemptible; and
therefore men who know better fall into the way of despising those who
are ignorant and cowardly instead of trying to help them become the
reverse of all these things. In nearly every other nation--there are two
exceptions that will readily occur to you--save our own, as soon as the
slave's chains have been broken and the slave's vices eradicated, the
emancipated man has been absorbed among the class of freemen. There was
nothing left to suggest that he had ever been a slave. The people forgot
it. But the black man bears an ineffaceable mark that he belongs to a
race which has been enslaved; and it is, therefore, in ninety-nine cases
out of a hundred unconsciously but instinctively assumed that his is
still the servile character. There is no natural antipathy between the
white and the black races; if there were there could be no mulattoes.
The sole reason of the persistence of this caste feeling is that the
black man bears the mark saying to every one that sees him, "I belong to
a race that has been enslaved:" and unconsciously men assume, "Therefore
your character is still a servile character." The prejudice is deep; it
is almost universal; and so long as there is a God in heaven who led
forth the Hebrews and overthrew the Pharaohs, there will be no safety
for this Nation of ours until the prejudice is obliterated, as
completely as that which once existed and was more intense between the
Anglo-Saxon and the Norman. If, as has been the case in many another
land, there should arise an emergency threatening the existence of our
Nation, and there were one man, and only one, capable of steering us
through the storm into safety--some Lincoln or Washington--and if every
voter in our country knew that this man were the only one who could do
it, that man, if he were black, could not be elected President. Were
such an emergency to arise to-morrow, we should perish. We should perish
by suicide, and richly deserve all that we got. There is no safety for
our land until this prejudice of caste is gone. It never came by
argument; it can never be argued away. It can not be smothered under
legislation nor uprooted by resolutions nor effaced by tears. While good
men feel it they will fight it, but the majority will yield to it and it
can be decided in only one way. That way was well outlined by a colored
student in Hampton Institute in the debating club of that institution.
The subject for discussion was, "How Shall We Black Men Secure Our
Rights?" The last speaker was black as ebony, and had been bred in his
early years a slave. When he arose I expected to hear him repeat the
familiar complaints and suggest the familiar remedies. He did neither.
He simply said: "My friends, I do not agree with all that you have said.
I think, as you do, that the way white people treat us in the street
cars and hotels"--and he might have added, in churches, but he did
not--"is wrong, unchristian, and cruel." And when he said that, there
was a pathos in his voice which made me ashamed to be a white man.
"But," he added, "while I think as you do that it is cruel, I do not
think that the white people will ever stop treating us as inferiors so
long as we are inferiors, and I think that they will despise us as long
as they can. But when we get enough character in our hearts, enough
brains in our head, and enough money in our pockets, they will stop
calling us niggers!"
He was right--a thousand times right. We must face the facts and steer
by them, and not attempt to be guided by sentiment and emotions. So long
as the sight of a black face instinctively suggests to us rags and
ignorance, and servility and menial employments, just so long this
prejudice of caste will endure, and no amount of individual genius,
culture, or character will be able to brush the mildew of caste from any
individual black man's brow. That lady may be a Florence Nightingale,
but if I whisper, and whisper truly, that she came from the slums, that
her sisters are in the penitentiary, and her brothers are thieves,
society will never forgive her for not being in the penitentiary
herself. Society will pity her in ostentatious magniloquence, which is
far worse than contempt or neglect; perhaps it will clothe her with silk
and diamonds; but it will never treat her as it would not dare not to
treat any lady whom it felt its equal. As has been well said, what is
needed is not patronage nor pity, but fact--the recognition of fact.
When the sight of a black face shall no longer remind men that it
belongs to a race of which the immense majority close at hand are still
showing what we have driven into them by the lash and bound in them by
chains; when the black face shall have clothed itself in associations as
full of comfort and culture and Christian worth as a white man wears,
"Negro" will be as honorable as "Caucasian." And for this, through its
churches which are schools, and its schools which are churches, the
American Missionary Association is laboring and praying with splendid
success.
I would like to remind you of the second point, which is emphasized by
the statement in the report that a graduate, of Fisk University, with
his wife, another graduate, has gone to Africa under commission of the
American Board, and has there shown eminent abilities. Africa is the
only continent on the planet that has never had a history. For
millenniums it has been a locked closet. But in the providence of God
the gaze of Christendom is now concentrated upon it. All the passions,
good and bad, which push men are impelling the most adventurous and
energetic of our race to look or to go thither. Love of money, love of
adventure, love of power, love of man and love of God, are leading men
to look into the 200,000,000 dusky faces there from which the veil has
at last been thrown back. Meanwhile 8,000,000 of that race whose
Christianizing means the regeneration of a continent vaster than Europe
and the inauguration of a history perhaps to be more splendid than that
which Europe has wrought out in two millenniums, are here for you and me
to educate. Do you believe these facts are accidents? Do you believe
that He who maketh the wrath of man to praise Him and restraineth the
remainder of wrath has not ordained them according to the counsels of
his own will? There never can be a Christian education which does not
plant and foster the missionary spirit. Is it a dream? If so, let me die
before I wake. Is it a dream that among 8,000,000 of our fellow citizens
each of whom, as Dr. Strieby told us at New York, is qualified to live,
perhaps to thrive, in the climate which has proved a grave to
Anglo-Saxons, each of whom is qualified to visit Africa with a fair hope
of making himself received as a child returning unto his own household?
Is it too much to hope that, under the Christian education we may give
them if we will, enough will desire to preach Christ to the dark continent
to gem it with life and light as the sky is gemmed with stars?
I am too old to do it, but so complete is my conviction that the future
of the race in the coming century shall move toward Africa as in the
ages following Paul it moved toward the North and West of Europe, that
were I a young man, loyal and devoted to my Master, and trying as he
told his followers by Gennesaret to read in the morning and evening red
the signs of the times, I should not go to Africa, perhaps; I would go
to Tougaloo University, I think, and there devote all my energies and
powers to instructing black men in the meaning and scope and inspiration
and promise of the Master's words, "Go ye."
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF REV. F.P. WOODBURY, D.D.
I feel that I have learned a great deal to-day; and as the last speaker
spoke concerning Africa, an idea has come into my mind which I may
express. Here we have on one side of the great ocean, Africa; on the
other side, America. We have here a race conflict; on the one side eight
millions of blacks, we will say, and perhaps eight millions of
irreconcilable whites on the other. And these dominant eight millions of
white men maintain, with the utmost pertinacity--and they have the power
in their right hand so far as we can see--that they propose to rule and
keep down those eight millions of black men. I have seen the title of a
book recently published, "An Appeal to Pharoah," which is vouched for as
a calm and temperate discussion of the question whether, after all, we
are not going to get by this race difficulty by a great deportation to
Africa. It is a good deal to raise the question of eight millions of men
leaving one country and going across the ocean and settling in another
continent. But isn't there something in it after all? Might it not
compose the differences? I know that the cost would be very large, but
careful estimates go to show that the cost is not anywhere near the
amount we spent in our civil war. On the one side, we have these eight
millions of black men--ignorant, very largely superstitious, still
somewhat above those of the same color in Africa, and plunged here into
an antagonism which is deep, and bitter, and hopeless. On the other
side, we have these eight millions of white people who do not accept the
results of the war. Isn't it better that eight millions shall go? I
don't know. I think it deserves serious consideration.
But when the question arises for practical consideration, I think there
is another and a little deeper question that we ought to remember, and
that is this: Which eight millions ought to go? Is it these who have
been faithful to the American flag, who are straight in the line of
progress that this republic proposes to maintain, who are in the line of
the development of all the ages, who are looking upward? Or is it the
eight millions who are hopelessly side-tracked by the purposes of
infinite God, and who are standing here in this republic, undertaking to
maintain a conflict that is necessarily one of despair, as sure as God
is at the head of the universe? Expatriation if you please, deportation
if you will; but consider the question whether it shall be eight
millions of American patriots who are to be sent over to Africa or eight
millions who have come out of a rebellion and maintain their seditious
and rebellious attitude to-day.
My friends, we all know that we are going to live together. There is no
more baseless theory on God's earth than that we are going to take eight
millions of men and send them out of this country, because they want to
learn something, because they want to live like men and be men and
citizens, and because God has put them here for our work and our
education. I tell you, my friends, the immediate problem seems to me
only one form of a larger problem. What is the problem of the planet
to-day? Is it not the problem as to which of two theories shall maintain
itself concerning the masses which are at the base of society? Isn't
that the problem in every nation? Isn't it the problem here concerning
white and black, red and yellow alike? There is no possible doubt about
it. The labor problem, do you call it? Here is one theory which holds
that the masses shall be kept down. Here is the other system which
maintains that they shall be elevated. We have got to live with them in
the world, for I imagine there is nobody talking about sending them to
the moon. Don't you know, and I know that the world is growing smaller
every year? Talk about neighborhood--look over this continent. Germany
is here; Ireland is here; France is here; China is here; Africa is here.
We are neighbors to everybody. We are touching elbows across the ocean
all the time. If you send anybody to Africa, why, he is only next door;
and by and by we shall have air ships that will float up over there in a
few hours! How are you going to manage this thing? We have got to live
together in this world, and nearer and nearer to one another with every
generation; and this country may just as well be the field in which to
try the experiment out as any other country on the face of the globe. I
think we are going to try it out to the end. There are symptoms of it
all around.
But the conflict is here; it is in the air. It is not a conflict by
sword. You know they tell the legend among the old mediæval stories that
in one of the great battles on one of the plains of Europe, after the
quiet darkness of the night had settled over the scene, the field strewn
all over with the forms of the mangled and the dead, there were seen in
the shuddering midnight air to rise spirit forms maintaining the deadly
conflict there, and carrying on the battle of the day. It seems to me,
in some sense, true of us. The sword has done what the sword could do;
it can do no more. But the conflict is here in the air, pronouncing
itself with every event that drifts across our horizon. Harvard sets its
seal on the brow of Clement Morgan, and the Memphis _Avalanche_ has no
other word for him than to call him "that dusky steer with the crumpled
forelock."
My friends, we are going right forward in the field of conflict, which
is the field of victory. One with God is a majority, and we are
thousands with God. And we have on our side the weak and the helpless,
too. I don't want any better aid than that. You know that Burke in that
magnificent invective against Warren Hastings, when he rose to the very
climax of it and told the story of those atrocious tortures to which the
poor and ignorant and misguided peasants of India had been put, how they
had had their fingers tied together and mashed with hammers, and other
unmentionable things had been done to them, appealed to the parliament
and said that if they should refuse justice those mashed and disabled
hands, lifted high to Heaven in prayer, would call down the power of God
for their deliverance. Is it not worse to mash and disable a mind and a
soul than a hand? I tell you the prayers of the poor are on our side;
and if we had nothing of all this magnificent achievement of this
Association to look upon, we could look on those hands raised and those
souls crying out from the social bondage of to-day, as they did from the
physical bondage of a few years ago, and know that if God be for us we
need not care who or what is against us.
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR GRAHAM TAYLOR.
I have but a very few words to add to this report. The facts speak
louder than any statement of them can. When skirting the Asiatic shore
of the inner sea, that lonely traveler, Paul, heard a voice, he looked
across to the shores of Europe, and there in the night stood a great
colossal form, not of a naked savage, but a form clad perhaps, in the
panoply of the Macedonian phalanx, the representative of the Europe that
then was and was yet to be, the precursor, it may be, to the classically
informed mind of the missionary to the Gentiles, of that long procession
of great world conquerors. It was the Man of Macedon who stood there in
the might of his strength and cried, like the crying of an infant in the
night, the crying of an infant for the light, "Come: come over into
Macedonia and help us."
Now, my brethren, this was the cry of the strong for help. This was the
cry of the peoples that were following the westward course of the star
of empire. And yet, in their strength, they cried as though they were
the weakest of woman born. And when that missionary, in response to that
call, crossed the sea, though he came to that Macedonian city which had
been the battle-scene of the contending forces of the Roman empire, he
found access for the gospel into Europe through the open heart of one
woman--Lydia, a seller of purple. And there, sitting down by the water
course, where prayer was wont to be made, he just grouped those
individuals into that unit of God's operations on the face of the earth,
the local church. And this church was distinguished among the apostolic
churches for its family traits, for the infusion of feminine grace and
masculine strength, for the most domestic hospitality and the very
faults of the close attritions of human life. There he planted the seed
which has grown into our European and American civilization and
Christianity.
And so ever at the cry of the strong for help the gospel has had just
these three great prime factors to present for the solution of the
problems of every age: first, the home, with its priesthood of the
father and mother, the sanctuary of the house and the ministrations of
family life; secondly, the school; and thirdly, between the home and the
school, the church. When our Lord himself, from all possible sources,
made selection of the first among the many means he has chosen for the
redemption of this world, he chose a trained personality. As the medium
for the transmission of truth, no improvement, no change has been found
in all the progress of the gospel. By this trained personality--the
heart that has been led to live with Christ awhile, and then go forth in
his name and filled with his love to the hearts that have place for that
love and rootage for that life--this wonderful product of our Christian
civilization has everywhere been produced.
And I take it that in no one of the Christian agencies known to us are
these three methods so wonderfully unified, so inseparably united, as
the home and the church and the school are in the work of the American
Missionary Association. They are one and the same. They are
indissoluble. The long experience of this Association through this half
century of specialized work does fit it, as the report has said, to give
an almost commanding opinion in regard to the method of the work to be
pursued among these very distinct classes. From the field as well as
from the office, and from the experience of those longest at work, we
learn that the school finds its ultimate aim only in the church; that,
as a Christian agency, we are to work with the school only as a means to
the end of building up that body of Christ on the face of the earth
which is known by the name of his church. I do not see how the
separation to any extent of school and church work can fail to break the
unity of administration and hinder the progress of this gloriously
on-going work.
I have just one word to add in regard to the reflex influence of this
church work upon the home churches. My brethren, there has been a great
dearth in candidates for the ministry until very recently. It strikes me
that there is no such object-lesson in all our land, inviting men to
consecrate themselves to the noblest of purposes, as the heroic ministry
of this Association. It needs the heroic element to attract young men.
It needs something which is very plainly worth their while to live for
and to work for and to consecrate their energies toward, in order to
attract them from the allurements of business and material progress
to-day. The Indian service of the British Government, and even the
service of the great commercial companies, have that element of heroism
in it them which has attracted the very best brain and brawn of the
English race to India. So it seems to me we will have to hold up these
great organizations, which reach down to the hard places of the land,
which occupy places that require men to man them, in order to recruit
the ranks of our ministers. A man needs to know that he will have to be
all the more a man to be anything of a minister now-a-days, to attract
him into this great work. And this heroic type of Christian ministry and
of Christian manhood and womanhood, shown in the half century of this
society's work and existence, is to my mind one of the great attractions
upon the best, the strongest, and the most consecrated of those men and
women who devote their lives to the service of the church.
Its reflex influence upon every other branch of missionary activity in
the church is very plain. It is to-day--I do not hesitate to say it--the
hero of our organizations. It takes far less stamina, far less
consecration, I believe, to go to India, or China, or Japan than it does
to come out at the call of God and of this agency of His divine
Providence and enter many a field manned by this Association. In the
_personnel_ of our theological seminaries I have long noticed that the
choicest spirits, the men with the stamp of courage upon them, those who
are not working for place, but for Christ, and him alone, are the men
who take up this work. They are the men who, when they come back to the
schools of the prophets, thrill our hearts as no other men do with the
story of the conquests of Christ in their own hearts as well as out in
the hard fields which they cultivate for his sake; and there will be no
more glowing missionary meeting of the seminary with which I have the
honor to be connected than when the reports of this meeting shall be
carried back to the brethren. The prayers of the class-rooms, the
prayers of the missionary meetings, the yearnings of the hearts of the
men who are preparing to follow in the footsteps of those who have
heroically led the way, are the wires for these unseen and yet never
unused electric currents which unite the North with the South, the
frontier with the citadels of our common Christianity.
We know very well the danger of a false education, of a school without A
church, education without evangelization, a university without the heart
of Christ beating in it. Great are the joy and confidence felt in the
hearts of the constituency of this body that school and church are so
inextricably interwoven with each other that if you plant a school it
will develop into a church, and if the church comes it will eventually
and inevitably re-act, and in a most blessed way in spiritual and often
in material resources upon the school. We give largely to the school
because there is a home beneath it and a church around it.
I regard these churches of the American Missionary Association with
their evangelistic and nurturing agencies, prime sociological factors
for bringing in Christ's dear kingdom in this land of ours. It is their
mission not only to remedy evils, not only to restore rights, but to be
great constructive agencies of a new Christian civilization. For when
Christ came, he came preaching, not the gospel of the individual, not a
gospel simply to save that man, that woman, that child, but the gospel
of the Kingdom, the gospel which this great Association so effectually
preaches and not only preaches but applies and administers as well. And
the time will not be far hence when this whole subject of the
environment of the spiritual life will force itself so imperatively upon
the study of the churches at home that they will take the type of their
work and the inspiration for their new developments from the leadership
of this and kindred missionary organizations which have set them these
most brilliant examples of being ahead of the thought and the feeling of
their day.
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF REV. C.W. HIATT.
More than fifty years ago De Tocqueville gave utterance to these
prophetic words: "The most formidable of all the ills that threaten the
future existence of the United States arises from the presence of a
black population upon its territory." I think that that prophecy has
been iterated and reiterated before this convention until we ought
finally to let it rest as an established fact. I believe we are menaced
by these eight millions of people, who are twice as great in number as
were the people of the United Colonies when they broke from the
mightiest naval and military power in history; but I believe that the
peril that we are menaced by in the presence of this black man arises
from his perils. There is a peril from the black man, but it is a peril
secondary to the peril _of_ the black man upon this soil. I do not
apprehend any uprising by Uncle Tom; but Uncle Tom is dead, and his son
is here and his friends of a younger generation. These men are being
gnarled and corrupted and imbruted, and are massing themselves, touching
elbows one with another; and under the influences of the age in which we
live are becoming a factor in our civilization which, unless we modify
and change it under our Christian teaching, will render our Southland
like that island on the north of the Caribbean Sea where to-day it is
said that the name of Toussaint l'Ouverture, the original defender and
liberator, is a hissing and a reproach.
It was a fine augury of the future when the work for the ex-slave began
at Fortress Monroe in the atmosphere of religion. Mary Peake, meeting
the advancing multitudes of refugees, gospel in heart and primer in
hand, as by divine suggestion, laid the pattern of all our succeeding
toil. Side by side of mutual helpfulness God has placed the alphabet and
decalogue, the teacher and the preacher, the school-house and the
church. "What therefore God hath joined together let not man put
asunder."
The largest, grandest word in the title of this organization is
"Missionary." When that word drops out its work will be done, for its
call will have ceased. Our ultimate end and present purpose is, and
always should be, simply this--to save. We cannot lift our fallen
brother without the leverage of the cross.
No field is wider, none more difficult, than that to which our eyes are
turned, embracing as it does four of the five families of mankind. They
huddle together in the lap of Christendom, but feel no warmth. They are
a demonstration of the fact that civilization never touches barbarism
without polluting it. The Indian, finding his highest ideal in the rude
and tipsy defender of our flag; the Chinaman, taking home more
heathenism than he brings; the Negro, bound tighter by the vices of the
whites than ever he was by their iron chains--these three, ignorant of
the Christ and grasping the satanic weaponry of our sinful land and age,
together form the most discouraging of mission fields. Our laborers are
faced by all the serious problems of the foreign land--problems
unrelieved by a single romantic charm. When we send our missionaries to
Africa they go to labor among the Africans; and when we send them down
South they go to teach "niggers."
Notice, then, what the report of this committee signifies in the
presence of the fact that our laborers not only grapple with foreign
languages, conceptions, idolatries, habits of benighted peoples, but all
the time are hindered and assailed on every hand by these Bedouin Arabs
of our land--the minions of mammon and the slaves of caste. To gather
and hold and save in such a field as this, is task enough for the finest
corps in the army of the Lord.
In the presence of these well-known facts, the report of the committee
adds another chapter to the Book of Acts. It gladdens our hearts with
thrilling music--the music of ringing sickle and reaper's song. From all
over this mighty field, from mountain, and savannah, and shore, and
plain, we hear the resonant footsteps of advancing troops--a solid
regiment of converts marching in the army of our Christ and into the
fellowship of his Congregational Church. I want you to notice that this
church which we have planted in the South is just the kind of a church
to take these people and assimilate them, to save them and to preserve
them to their highest usefulness. And why? In the first place, because
it is a church that will take them in. I saw the other day this
inscription over a great arch erected in honor of our Pan-American
guests in the city of Cleveland, "Welcome All Americans." Well, the
Congregational Church has put three talismanic letters over the portal
of every church that it has planted in the South and in the West,
"A.M.A.--All mankind acceptable."
Every convert in our work has cosmopolitan views respecting the
brotherhood of man. This means that one thousand people have seated
themselves before an apostolic communion table. White, black, red and
yellow, side by side in harmony before the broken memorials of the life
of love. The spirit of color-caste is a post-apostolic devil. The most
eminent convert of the evangelist Philip was as black as a middle vein
of Massilon coal. Perhaps that is why they met in the desert and the
spirit compassionately caught Philip away. The purest church and the
purest ray of sunshine are alike--they absorb the seven colors of the
spectrum. When the Creator flung the rainbow like a silken scarf over
the shoulder of the summer cloud, he drew his color-line. Pentecostal
blessings fell at Jerusalem, and have fallen ever since on the
cosmopolitan church.
The second feature of this church that adapts it to ours field is the
open Bible. Every convert is armed with the shining sword--the sword of
the spirit, which is the word of God, like the sword in the hand of the
angel at Eden's gate, turning every way at once.
You do not hear of immorality, gross and fearful, within the precincts
of our Congregational churches. You do not hear of our people walking up
the hills of the beatitudes over the broken tables of the law. The
written word, like the Incarnate, goes into our congregations and drives
out all the sellers of oxen and of doves. The Word, also, is the
protection of these people against their greatest foe of this day--the
encroaching power of the Church of Rome. Do you know that that ancient
foe of liberty is stalking all across the twelve States of the South? Do
you know what it means to have the Church of Rome take in hand these
people of lowly and of feeble intelligence? We do not have to crossover
to Austria or Italy in order to discern her aims, for the Nun of Kenmare
has alighted upon our shores, and her alarming words are running through
the land. Rome knows no color prejudice, and the foot of that great
despotic power can rest just as easily upon a skin that is black as upon
a neck that is of the purest alabaster. And the Congregational Church
down South is the only champion against this papal see, for she has an
aisle wide enough for five races of mankind to march up to her communion
table, while the sword of the Spirit guards her portals.
Again, I wish you to notice this fact: That this Church which we are
planting is not only hiding a multitude of sins by saving these lowly
people, but it is serving the interests of the State as well. When we
remember that the polity of our church is a polity of liberty, that it
teaches that rights and duties go hand in hand, that it takes just as
much wisdom to elect the pastor of a church as the President of the
United States, we can see that the moral influence of this polity of
ours is serving the interests of our commonwealth. The Congregational
Church is carrying the Pilgrim idea into the soil of the Cavalier.
Straight University, Tillotson Institute, and these other schools, are
but the outcropping of that old stone down in an Eastern harbor that we
call Plymouth Rock. Down South are being planted those two principles
upon which the great superstructure of our liberty rests firm--a church
without a bishop and a state without a king. This is what
Congregationalism is carrying into that land long ruled by
aristocracies. It is giving these people who possess liberty the
knowledge of how to use it aright.
Finally we not only hide a multitude of sins, we not only serve the
State, but we reach forth a long arm to save the world. Awhile ago I was
in the study of Dr. Ladd. There, spread before us, were relics of his
well remembered cruise along the Nile. There were implements for rude
tillage of the soil, there were swords and spears beaten into shape by
barbaric artisans, there were the cats and lizards and toads, objects of
worship by unnumbered millions. Thus were displayed in object lesson the
savagery and idolatry of one of the largest families of man. The Doctor
placed his finger on the map at Mendi Mission. "There," said he, "I saw
a row of missionaries graves. Their headstones sadly told the tale of
the pestilential land. Two months, three months, nine months they
survived, and then fell to rise no more. No white man can endure the
clime."
Another time I was at a commencement of Fisk University. I saw Professor
Spence take two photographs, and hold them up before the gaze of five
hundred intelligent colored youths, whose faces fairly glowed as they
looked upon the well-remembered features of two of their alumni, who in
Western Africa, if I mistake not, are teaching the gospel of Christ and
enduring the rigors of the climate. And in the glowing features of these
five hundred folk, I saw the prophecy of a splendid recruiting of our
feeble forces in that continent which by and by shall not be dark. Ah,
this work is grand! We are putting the cross of Jesus into the dusky
hands that shall carry it not only to the land of the pyramids, not only
to the land of the ancient wall; but, as I believe, there will come a
day when some child now in our schools of the West, some Apache or
Dakotan, will rise with apostolic fervor, and going southward along the
isthmus and over the mountains will put this transfigured cross of
Christ into the pampas and the llanos through which the Amazon and the
Orinoco pour their majestic streams.
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF REV. D.M. FISK, D.D.
It may be fitting to add a few supplementary words corroborative of
the hopeful view taken in this report on the Mountain Work. At first
glance it does seem that this is a discouraging field. I need not
recapitulate what has been said in the report already before you. It
is sufficiently discouraging; the ignorance and poverty are not the
worst features. The position of the clergy in many sections--I am
happy to say not in all--is full of discouragement. The worst thing we
have to face is the apathy of the people. Their phrase, "We-uns never
asked you-uns to come here," is certainly most pathetic.
What do we propose to do about it? What do we propose to do with more
than two millions for whom Christ died, American citizens, in the very
heart of our Nation, around whom the currents of commerce and industry
swirl every day? Shall the greatest tidal wave of all time pass them by,
and they not feel it for a moment? More than all, shall the great gospel
of God, which is life, and hope, and peace, and home, for us, be nothing
for them?
I am happy to say that it is not all dark by any manner of means. Your
committee is hopeful, the members of this Association are hopeful, our
brethren on the frontier are hopeful. There are very many favorable
things, and one of the most favorable is their increasing numbers. Do we
stop to estimate what two millions of souls means? More than thirty
thousand cradles filled in a single year.
These men respect the Bible. They feel a superstitious regard for it;
they are not infidel people. They have a simple, childlike faith, and
the Bible word is to them final. Many things that many of us have to
contend with, the brethren there do not meet I mean in the field of
infidelity.
They have great respect for woman if she respects herself. I have the
statement of one of our workers in the South that a woman can go even
among these men when they are drunk, and if she respects herself and has
maintained her character she is perfectly safe in their midst.
This same writer tells me of a young man who went out from one of their
schools, and kept school in a certain place during the winter, When he
returned, he said: "Nothing would tempt me to go back there again." Not
so with the young ladies. It is one of the most astonishing signs of the
times that really into the feeble hand of womanhood is given the key of
the situation. They respect these girls, they reverence them and give
them a place of dignity in their hearts. That makes it possible for
these women to do a large and splendid work in the South.
Once let these girls that come under the influence of our Christian
Northern women who go there as teachers, and the graduates of these
various colleges and schools that we have planted, and are about to
plant in the South; once let common womanhood in the South that has been
so much under the heel of this oppression; once let girlhood feel the
power that has come go girlhood, that to them as young women in the
cradle of these hills, under this fair sky is given the power to turn
over in not less than thirty or forty years this whole country for God
and humanity, for enlightenment and for Christian peace;--once let that
idea get into the minds of these girls, and we have not the same problem
that we have to-day.
There is good blood there as well. There is a man in Congress to-day,
honoring himself and his district and his nation, who went to school
there, and I know not for how many years wore but one garment. I call
that pretty good blood when from such circumstances a man can come up to
such a large place.
There is a transition time with this whole section. New conditions are
being put upon them. They feel the outside movement of the world. A
friend of mine is now in the South who has brought up a large quantity
of lumber in a certain district, and when he finds the right man he will
plant a school there. Coal and iron are being extensively worked. My
brother here (the Rev. S.E. Lathrop) tells me that near Cumberland Gap
four hundred houses have gone up within a very brief time, and over two
thousand workmen are pushing into a section not before opened. It will
not come in an hour or in a day; but by and by, when these men face the
new life of our times, when they have once felt its pressure, and the
tremendous disparity between their manner of living and the high kind of
life of Northern homes and Northern hearthstones, they will move, and a
change will come over the spirit of their dreams. Even now, the native
preachers, who have been so hostile to our work, are coming to these,
our pastors, and asking for light on the Bible. Furthermore, our pupils
are going out and organizing county institutes, and the work is going on
everywhere.
There is a dark side to it, but I praise God there is a bright side. It
is like a dam. When the dam begins to go, it will go all at once. Youth
is on our side. In thirty years we shall not have the same problem we
have now--no, not in twenty years. Wealth is coming in. A large tract of
eleven thousand acres, containing some of the finest coal that the world
knows, is being developed. This means a great influx of population, and
this wealth is to be developed, and new material power is coming as an
auxiliary to our spiritual power. This wealth is being converted. A man
who five years ago was a godless man, and who owns to-day one-seventh of
these eleven thousand acres of coal lands, was converted. He was made a
Sunday-school Superintendent, but he could not say the Lord's Prayer;
yet he was determined that the Lord's Prayer should be repeated in that
school, and he hired a large number of small boys and gave them a dime
apiece and told them to learn the Lord's Prayer that week. They did so;
and when Sunday came, with a chorus to back him, he came on as a solo
performer.
A dear girl of my own acquaintance dressed, in one morning, fifteen or
sixteen women and children. They came around her and felt her all over,
and wondered at the complexity of her garments. I speak of this thing
because it indicates that that old apathy is breaking up, and they are
coming to look at new things and feel a new interest in the life outside
of themselves. And as this same dear girl taught from thirty to fifty of
these women, they listened eagerly, and the tears rolled down their
cheeks, and they said to her, "Oh, come and tell us more about Jesus,
for we want to be different kind of women, different kind of mothers."
There was one girl, coarse enough in fiber, heavy enough in build, gross
enough in appearance, who came out to one of our commencements, and went
back with the arrow in her heart, saying, "I would give all the world if
I had it, if I could write a piece and git up thar and read it like
them." She went home determined she would go to college. She was a large
girl, fifteen years old, yet did not know a single letter. She walked
fifty miles nearly, and came and said to the college president that she
wanted to work for her board, so that she could enter the school. What
could she do? He found that really she was incapacitated for doing
anything; but she said, "I can hoe corn like a nigger." Finally she was
set at some sort of work, and that girl, after three or four years, went
out as a school teacher into a district where young men dared not go,
where her eyes were blistered with the sights she saw--men shot down
before her face and eyes by the whisky distillers--and she was asked to
organize a Sunday-school there. When any one starts a Sunday-school he
is expected to preach, and so that girl had to become a preacher, and
to-day she is preaching the gospel of God and spreading the work there.
And yet she came from one of the very humblest classes.
There is a peaceful invasion of this people by themselves. This mission
of the people to themselves is one of the most hopeful things about this
work. And when they realize that they have a mission, Pauline in spirit,
unto their own people, then victory shall come to us.
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF REV. ADDISON P. FOSTER, D.D.
This Indian problem has been largely settled on its civil side. For many
years the friends of the Indians have been consulting together, and have
done their utmost to influence public opinion. And the Government has
heeded the call--as it always does--of a widely extended and wise public
sentiment; and, in consequence, our policy with regard to the Indian has
been very largely re-shaped. To-day, by reason of the Dawes Bill, land
is open to the Indians in severalty. There is a fair degree of law
secured for the Indians. The great questions pertaining to their outward
circumstances are under happy prospect of adjustment.
But, this being the fact, it simply increases the necessity laid upon us
to meet the requirements of the present day. The door is open for the
Indian to become a citizen; and in this land, whenever any man receives
the privileges of citizenship, it is incumbent upon us to see to it that
he is fitted for that sacred obligation by the church and by the school.
This is a necessity of our republic which we have recognized from our
earliest day. When our fathers came to this land, they located side by
side the school house and the church; and, wherever we have sought to
open the privileges of the suffrage, and the dignities, and honors, and
joys of citizenship, to any class of people among us, we have always
felt it to be an imperative necessity to see to it that they had both
these sacred training schools, the educational institution and the
religious institution, side by side.
Now to-day we have unusual opportunities. Everything seems to be coming
to a focus in regard to our work for the Indians. Never has the time
been so auspicious as it is to-day. Never have there been so many things
combining to show to us that if we are to improve the opportunity God
gives us to care for the Indian--this man who held this land before we
came to it and from whom we have taken our possession--we must do it
to-day. There are other great needs about us, other races and other
classes and other conditions; but there is no other class appealing so
intensely to the sympathies of all our people to-day, as is the Indian.
This is one great explanation of the remarkable increase of the work of
this Association among the Indians. How did it ever spring from an
expenditure of $11,000 annually to $52,000, as it is to-day? Partly
because the Government has been willing to aid, but still more because
our people throughout the land have been intensely interested in the
Indian and have been glad to help him. They have said by their gifts
that now is the time, and we must leap to improve this opportunity or
else it will slip away from us forever.
It is the conviction of your committee--and I can voice it most
perfectly--that we must improve this opportunity before it is gone, and
that this people who have long suffered at the hands of their white
brethren have a claim to our earnest Christian sympathy and to our
heartiest effort to put them upon their feet. They are more than ready,
they are anxious for our aid, they are crying to us for help.
Now, let me say that the American Missionary Association has always felt
the importance of working in evangelistic lines. It would be nothing if
it had not the church before it as an incentive. It works primarily
through the school; but always with the thought that the school is
secondary, and that the church is the one great aim before it. And
unless this incentive were before it, unless it recognized that its work
was to bring men to Christ, and to bind them together in Christian
churches, there would be but little to call for the great self-denials
of Christian workers in the field and many Christian givers in the
country at large. It is this thought that has ever been held up before
it--the thought that the church and the school go together, and that the
school is simply the handmaid of the church. We recognize the fact that
in Congregationalism especially, out of all forms of religious belief,
we cannot hope to make men earnest, effective Christians, caring for
themselves, managing their own affairs independently, and having in them
the heart to go out and work, unless we cultivate their minds as well.
And so this Association has sought, and this body of Christians that
represent the Association has sought, by gifts and by teaching, to
develop the thought that there always should be an educational work
going forward that there may be something to build upon. Christianity
needs education in order to give it its largest power.
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF REV. THOMAS L. RIGGS.
It was said of Dr. Williamson by an old Indian that he had an Indian
heart. I, too, have an Indian heart, and I can lay claim to that
possession as but few can. It would take but a very little while to go
from here into the very midst of our present Indian field. It took my
father and Dr. Williamson, when they first entered the field, some six
months to reach it. I could start to-morrow morning, and taking the cars
in this city, and reaching Pierre by the following night, could be
farther off by Saturday, farther from the border of the mission field,
than my father and Dr. Williamson could after they had travelled six
months.
I would like to invite you to go with me on a tour of inspection of the
mission field itself. I would take my two ponies and drive out to the
Cheyenne River, and take you to one of our out-stations, and show you
something of the influences at work in the field to-day. As we went up
the valley, we would see the Indian village located there, and in the
midst, on a rising piece of ground, the mission station. Over some of
the houses we would see a red flag flying. That is a prayer, a votive
offering; there are sick in that house, and that is a prayer to the gods
that healing may come, and that death may be kept from them. Over on the
right we would see the dance-house--a great octagonal house with an open
roof, in which the Indians gather night after night to dance to the
monotonous beating of the drum. That is a very common sound out in the
Indian villages, bringing to us always that thought of slavery to evil.
As we go up to the station itself, we would see something more of the
work than you have as yet been able to see. If it be on the Sabbath, as
we go in we would see a young man there, with his audience before him,
not a very large audience--old men, old women, boys and girls--gathered
on the rough benches, and very much as they are in their own homes. Some
of the old women have their hair down over their faces, the boys with
dirty hands, old men with their dirty blankets, and yet they are
gathered around there to hear the word of life. The preacher, as he
stands before them, tells them of God's wonderful love, and takes as his
text that most wonderful verse in the Bible, "God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son."
Then, as you look at the man who is preaching there, you would hardly
recognize in him one who thirteen years ago was a savage, a painted
Indian. As I look at him it seems a most wonderful thing that such a
change has taken place. I knew him as a savage; a splendid fellow he
was, and he is now a more splendid man than ever he was a savage; and he
is teaching the gospel of Christ to his own people. I have been out
there seventeen years, and if there were not another result to show for
those seventeen years of work than the lifting up of this Clarence Ward,
and making of him a man in Christ Jesus, I should be abundantly
satisfied.
There is another influence of which I would speak, the influence of the
home. Here in our happy homes we know but very little of what that means
to the Indian. An Indian has no home, in our sense of the word. Some
years ago I went with a party of Indians 175 miles west of the Missouri
River in the middle of winter. We climbed a mountain and looked away to
the east. We could see, I should think, 150 miles, and the Indian as he
sat there on the edge of a rock, covered his head up in a blanket and
cried. Said he: "This is my country, and we have had to leave it." That
was his idea of home--such a barren stretch as that, the snow glistening
in the sunlight. The Dakota Indian lives in a region, not in a place.
The Christian home coming into the midst of a village carries there an
ideal of which the Indian knows nothing, and he is taught by the power
of example day after day. The Christian woman in that home keeps her
house clean, keeps her children clean, and stands there as a persistent
example of the power of the gospel of soap, just as the man himself
there who has become a Christian no longer steals horses. A party going
out into an enemy's country would go as often for the sake of bringing
back stolen horses, as they would for scalps. The man who has become a
Christian is recognized at once as shut out from that privilege.
Reference has been made to the opening up of the reservation, and the
crisis is now upon us in connection with our Indian work. We have eleven
million acres of land there just west of the Missouri River to be thrown
open for settlement. Do you know what that means? Were any of you down
at Oklahoma this last season? It means the rush of a swarm of people,
good, bad and indifferent--chiefly bad and indifferent--and these
settlers will crowd themselves in as a wedge between the two divisions
of the Indian reservation, and we shall have Indians both to the north
and to the south. They will be exposed to influences from which they
have been kept as yet; influences which will tend to uplift in the
outcome, as well as to degrade. I thank God for it. I thank God that he
is bringing the white man into the midst of the Indian country. It may
seem that this is a heroic remedy. So it is, but it is time for heroic
remedies. We need to meet the question as it comes to us to-day. There
is a ranchman out on Bad River, who tells me that there is no such thing
as an Indian question. "Why," said I, "what are you talking about?"
"There is no such thing," said he. I asked him how he explained it. "The
simple thing to do is just to treat them as men, and that will be all
there is to it. That will settle it, and there will be no such thing as
an Indian question." Treat them as men and make Christians of them, and
we will settle the whole thing.
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF REV. HENRY A. STIMSON, D.D.
Referring to Dr. Goodwin's powerful address, I find myself transported
again to China; but the fact recurs to my mind that this is not a
foreign missionary society, but a home missionary one, and what we have
to do is to open our minds to the conviction that it is possible to do
at home plenty of work for the Chinaman. I am glad to give a little
personal testimony because what we need most of all is to be convinced
of the necessity to give time and strength and labor to win the
individual Chinaman to Christ. Not very long ago there came to my
knowledge in St. Louis an ordinary Chinaman, comparatively a young man.
He joined our church and I knew he desired to be recognized as a
Christian man. About a year before, he had been a member of a
Sunday-school where ladies were teaching Chinese. Before that our
newspapers had created great outcry about a case of leprosy in the city.
This Chinaman appeared at my house in great trepidation. He had been two
or three years in this country, and had been saving his money in order
to go back and see his mother's face before she would die, and he hoped
to be able to return to China in the following fall. He had learned that
there was a Chinaman, unknown to him, lying ill in a little laundry, of
a disease of which nothing was known, without friends and without care.
He took care of this man, leaving his own work for the purpose, and at
length he came to me asking where he could get a physician to attend the
patient. I gave him a note to one of the best physicians in my own
church, who went at once and saw the man, and he seeing it was a strange
form of disease, went to a specialist of skin diseases, who had the man
brought to a hospital in order to watch his disease. Rumors of this
reaching the newspapers, the reporters thought it a good opportunity to
make a story about leprosy, giving the number and street of an imaginary
laundry in the heart of the city. Instantly the patronage of the Chinese
laundries stopped. My Chinese friend was in the greatest distress about
it, and particularly about me, lest I should think he had brought the
contagious disease to my house. I could hardly persuade him to enter,
and then he told me there was no truth in the story of the newspapers,
and asked what he should do. What was the result of the story? The
Chinaman took care of his friend in the house and in the hospital,
paying considerable for his care, and when he recovered sent him to San
Francisco--in fact, spent about $180 on him, the whole sum he had saved
to take himself home to his mother, and he did this for a man who was as
utterly unknown to him as to you or me. He also came to me with a $10
bill to pay the doctor, saying it was not enough, but it was all the
money he had, and he would add to it by and by. All we want is testimony
as to the character of the Chinese. Here was a man not converted by
Moody or by any service, but by the ministry of an unknown Sunday-school
teacher; as the result of that simple agency he found a charity so
Christ-like as to do work like this. That little Chinaman brought to me
some of his companions, asking me to do something to help them to be
Christians, and as the result of his work a large Sunday-school is
to-day in operation. There is abundance of such testimony, I believe, to
be furnished throughout our land, which we should have before our heart as
an answer to the anti-Chinese mania which now and then sweeps over this
country. Help us to carry the gospel to these men of unmeasured
possibilities, whom God in his mercy has brought across the seas to
plead at our doors.
This audience can help the Chinese in a better way than giving them
money. That Chinaman was asked in my house the other day how many hours
he slept, and he said, "Two or three." "Are you ever troubled by
hoodlums?" "Yes, every day. They break the windows. Last week they broke
into my laundry and stole five bundles of clothes, for which I had to
pay customers $20." "Do you get no protection from the police?" I asked
him. He shook his head--yes, sometimes, but they were no good. The
Chinese have the same right to life and liberty that we have, and if we
get them that, they'll get the money fast enough themselves. We owe it
to the Chinese that they get protection.
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF REV. E.P. GOODWIN, D.D.
I rejoice that I can lift my voice at least in a word of commendation,
if such a word seem in any sense to be needed, in the furtherance of
this particular kind of work. I remind myself sometimes that this very
tone of apology is a tone that ought to set some of us, as ministers and
as brethren, to reconsidering our conception of the gospel. Why,
beloved, suppose it were an admitted fact that for the next hundred
years not a solitary Chinaman would be converted. What then? Do you
imagine that that fact would absolve us from allegiance to the commands
of the Lord Jesus Christ? You will remind yourselves--I am sure I remind
myself often--that in respect to our Christian work, the breadth of it
and the particular departments of it, we have absolutely no option
whatsoever: that when our Master said to his disciples, "Go ye into all
the world and preach the gospel to every creature," he made no exception
of those that might have almond eyes and yellow faces, nor of those that
might have black skins and woolly hair; that he took in, in that wide
sweep of his omniscient vision, every nation and kindred under the whole
sky, and that should exist until the kingdom itself should come.
If it could be demonstrated that it required ten times as much work and
ten times as much money to convert the Chinaman as anybody else, then
all the more because of degradation and superstition and idolatry and
hardness of heart--all the more must I storm the Gibraltar of that
paganism. The Master's principle seemed to be, "Give ye them to eat."
The fact of hunger is what lays the law upon the hearts of the
disciples; and by so much as men are more hungered--if there be one
nation more so than another--by so much as they are nearer to starving
for the bread of life, by so much the more are your heart and my heart
called upon in the name and in the sympathy of Jesus Christ, to respond
to that cause. Those disciples of that early day might just as well have
said, "Master, we can not feed all these ten thousand. We will pick out
those around us, the nearest at hand. We won't touch that set of lepers
just over there from Capernaum; we won't have anything to do with that
other set of outcasts and vagabonds drifted in here, some of them from
Samaria; we will have nothing whatever to do with these wretches from
Chorazin--gamblers and abandoned people of every sort."
What do you think would have been his response to that sort of argument?
I think if Peter had given him any such plea as that it would have cut
him off hopelessly from any apostleship. There would have been a new
band of apostles that would have been instituted then and there that
were willing to take the Master's command, take Him as responsible for
the authority and for the result. They knew better; they knew Him
better; and though they had their little scant loaves that would not
give a quarter of a crumb apiece to the great multitude, they said:
"That is not our responsibility; ours is to obey. It is His to furnish
when the resources fail." Brethren, that is my theory of missions.
Do you remember the little anecdote about Francis Xavier, that before he
went abroad as a missionary to China, while he was sleeping with his
room-mate one night, he startled him by rising in his sleep and throwing
out his arms with great urgency, as he said, "Yet more, oh, my God, yet
more!" His comrade wakened him and asked him what he meant. "Why," said
he, "I was having a vision of things in the East. I was seeing
missionaries tortured; some of them were being burned, some of them were
having their flesh torn from their bodies, and in many ways they seemed
to be suffering in their testimony for Christ's sake. And as I looked,
the tears came to my eyes, and a voice said to me, 'That is what it will
cost you if you go on this missionary tour. Are you willing to take the
cost?' And I said, 'Oh, Lord Jesus; yet more, yet more, if I may win
these perishing souls.'"
Brethren, it is the call of the hour. These people may become, in my
judgment, pre-eminently the missionary people. They have been called the
Yankees of the Orient. They are scattered every whither, in every
quarter of the world. I think it ought to shame us to have less
enthusiasm for these for whom Christ died than they of the Romish church
in the palmiest days of its missionary zeal. God help us that we may
stand true upon the Pacific coast and all through our land, and that for
every missionary church abroad there may be a score and a hundred. Dr.
Williams said, after thirty years' knowledge of the Chinese, that we
might evangelize China from one end of the empire to the other in half a
century if we were in earnest. God help us that we may labor and pray
for the coming of such a day.
Now I believe this: That, so far as the facts go, there is just as large
a percentage of results to be shown for work among the Chinese as for
work anywhere. Take it in our city, among some of the Chinese schools;
take it in San Francisco, take it in China itself. I received on
Saturday last a letter from Mr. Gray, of Hong-Kong, speaking of a young
man who had gone out from our church as his assistant in the work there.
Said he to me: "He is one of the most valuable helpers I could have. He
not only stands fast by his work, but he also seems to have spiritual
discernment to meet the peculiar difficulties we have to encounter, and
there are plenty of them. Here is a man, for instance, who says he would
whip his wife to death if he should hear of her accepting Christ. There
is another, a mother, who would let her child starve if she thought it
was being taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. But among this people there
is no more successful laborer that I know of than Sui Chung." I knew him
well. He came into our Chinese Sunday-school, which is held every
Sunday afternoon. I remember him distinctly, as giving, so far as I
could see, clear evidence of being born of the Spirit. And I bear
testimony to these young men now in my church--there are ten or a
dozen of them--that, so far as I know them and so far as I have been
able to talk with them in imperfect English or through Chinese
interpreters, their Christian experience is as satisfactory as that of
any others. Nay, I will say more than that. I will venture to say that
the Chinese brethren in my church are more earnest. They sustain a
Chinese prayer-meeting regularly every Sunday of their own accord in
their own language, and have kept it up ever since there were enough
of them to be united together. I frequently look in and talk with
them; and there is one thing about these Chinese that I greatly
respect--I never saw them pull out their watches while I was speaking
to them. I never saw any of them going to sleep; I never saw a look in
the face of one of them which indicated that he was not profoundly
interested. I was in their meeting last Sunday, and I told them about
Sui Chung. Most of these Chinese can read. Some of them are very
fluent talkers, and some are very intelligent. I suppose we have a
thousand or fifteen hundred in this city, and a very large proportion
of them, they tell me, can read the Chinese Bible.
Now, I have great respect for this people, if for nothing more than for
their history. We have a petty hundred years of history. How many
hundred have they? Any nation that can hold itself together for 4,000
years--or shall I say for more?--and that to-day constitutes nearly
one-quarter of the population of the earth, certainly deserves our
respect. Any people that can take our own handicrafts and beat us at
them--and they will do it in a good many directions, and make money,
even though you may disapprove of their way of living--deserve our
respect. Any people that can furnish diplomates fitted to stand side by
side with Bismarck and Gladstone, and our own embassadors say that they
can, certainly deserve our respect.
One thing more they desire of the Christian church, if it were only a
debt to be paid. I insist upon it, brethren, that at least Christian
England and Christian America ought to pay back to them in missionary
moneys at least an amount equal to that of which we have robbed them by
the infamous opium traffic, and to-day it is people from Christian
lands, more than anything else, who are furnishing the difficulties in
the way of the introduction of the gospel abroad.
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT ALBERT SALISBURY.
There are values even in this world for which we have no expression, for
which we have no definite standard, and of which we have no very clear
comprehension. They are values, none the less. But there is one standard
of value of which I think it may be safely said the American people have
come into a very clear comprehension, that is, of the weight of the
working power of a dollar.
Most of us know it by pretty thorough experience. We know what a dollar
costs, how hard it is to get, how hard it is to keep, how little we are
liable to receive for it when it goes. And, let me say it, I believe
there are no people on this Western Continent who have any more exact,
definite, clearly defined comprehension of what a dollar is, what it
will do, and what it will not do, than the managers of our missionary
enterprises.
Then, it is sometimes thought and sometimes said that these men who
conduct church work and missionary work do not know much about dollars;
that a dollar, a thousand dollars, or a million dollars, is a very
indefinite thing; and that they ask for a million dollars, or half a
million dollars, with a great deal of nonchalance, as if it were merely
a matter of asking. It is not so. When this Finance Committee indorse
the recommendation of the National Council that half a million of
dollars be raised for the work of this Association during the coming
year, they do it from a business point of view, and when the officers
and managers of this Association second this demand, they know what it
means. They know better than anybody else in the world knows how hard it
is to get half a million of dollars. For some years I went up and down
through the South and West in the service of this Association. I went in
and out of the rooms at No. 56 Reade Street, New York, and I must have
been very dull not to know pretty well the inside workings of this
Association. I have been among workers on the field. I know how closely
everything is reckoned, how carefully every penny is spent; and I know
how the demands of the work and the needs press upon the workers in the
field, so that they look back to those rooms in New York with the
feeling that somehow there is not a very great deal of liberality there,
that those officers pare very closely. But these workers in the field
have no such experience after all as the officers there at the centre of
things. Those members of the Executive Committee, those Secretaries and
the Treasurer, sitting there together, and facing the demands of the old
work and the new, have rolled upon them every day a sense of the value
of money and of the need of economy such as even the workers in the
field can not comprehend. I have been there, I am now outside, and I am
free to say whatever I please; and I make bold to say to you here that
the work which is alive and growing must have the most money. Increased
demands must cost. It is a law of nature. Now, then, when this Finance
Committee come forward to indorse this recommendation that $500,000
instead of $375,000 be raised for the coming year, they do not at all
reach the measure of the need.
There is only one thing necessary to get this money and more. It is a
pretty comprehensive thing. If upon the members of our churches in this
land as clear a sense of the need of what ought to be done and can be
done could be brought as comes to those in contact with the work, the
money would be forthcoming. How to make our people realize the facts in
this matter is the problem. Money will come when our people know how
much it is needed, how profitably it is spent, and how grandly it pays
dividends.
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF REV. WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D.
Last Wednesday evening at the Prayer and Conference Meeting of the
Broadway Tabernacle, one of the office-bearers of the church put this
question to me: "Can we hope to be instrumental in the conversion of the
Jews, so long as the present prejudice against God's ancient people
exists among us?" And that inquiry, taken in connection with the fact
that the Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association was to be
held here this week, led me to examine the Word of God, that I might
discover what incidental light is thrown on the subject of pride of race
by its histories and other contents, and I mean to-night to put the
result of my examination before you.
The first and most striking instance of its manifestation which we come
upon in Scripture is the treatment given by the Egyptians to the
Israelites. "Every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyptians," so
they counted themselves superior to the Hebrews, and subjected them to
the greatest indignities, grinding them under the harshest oppression,
and exacting from them, by the lash of the task-master, the most arduous
labor. But mark how their pride was rebuked and their cruelty punished,
under the moral and retributive government of God. Their land was
desolated by a series of plagues culminating in the death of the
first-born, and the people whom they had oppressed made their escape
from the most powerful empire then existing in the world, without
themselves striking a single blow. The Lord fought for them. Each of
these ten plagues was a Divine protest against that national pride which
arrogated to itself the exclusive right to power, privilege, immunity
and possession, and which met its merited punishment that day, when "the
Lord saved Israel out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the
Egyptians dead upon the seashore."
But the mention of the Hebrews in this connection may seem to some to be
most inappropriate. Were not they, it may be asked, virtually created
into a separate and exclusive nation, and taught to look upon themselves
as God's peculiar people? Did not they become proverbial for their pride
of race, and for saying on every occasion, "We have Abraham to our
father," and were they not especially the Pharisees among the nations?
Now it must be confessed that all these questions must be answered in
the affirmative, but when we widen our view and take into consideration
the great purpose of God in the formation and conservation of the Hebrew
commonwealth, we may see reason somewhat to modify our opinion. For the
settlement of the Jews in Canaan and their restriction within its limits
were not ends in themselves, but only means for the attainment of higher
ends which were to affect the moral and spiritual condition of "all
people that on earth do dwell." The promise made to Abraham was in this
wise: "In thee and in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be
blessed;" and it was for the purpose of securing the fulfilment of the
latter part of that promise that a special and peculiar hedge was
planted around the vine which God had brought out of Egypt. It was not
meant to be a permanent arrangement, but was designed merely for a
temporary emergency, until, as Paul has said, "the Seed should come" to
bless the world with his great salvation. It cannot, therefore, be
quoted as furnishing a universal example, or as giving any divine
approval to that pride of race of which we have been speaking. Moreover,
even when the Hebrews were selected by God for this purpose, they were
told over and over again that they were not chosen for anything in
themselves, and that they had no reason to plume themselves on the fact
that they were chosen. And when they degenerated into self-conceit on
the ground of their having been so highly privileged, they were finally
cast out of the land of promise. Nor is this all. In the system under
which they were placed by Moses, they were taught to look with
kindliness on those who came to sojourn among them, of whatever race
they might be. They were not, indeed, to be a missionary people, or to
seek to induce others to settle among them, but if others came to dwell
beside them, hear how they were to treat them: "Thou shalt neither vex a
stranger nor oppress him, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
"And if a stranger sojourn with thee in the land, ye shall not vex him.
But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born
among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in
the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Love ye therefore the
stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Exodus xxii. 21;
Levit. xix. 33; xxv. 35; Deut. x. 19). Lay these commands alongside of
recent legislation among ourselves with reference to the Chinese, and
then see what God must think of that blot upon our statute book in this
age of our boasted enlightenment.
Take, again, the account of the singular retribution that came upon the
people in the days of David because of Saul's treatment of the
Gibeonites. These aborigines belonged to the ancient Canaanitish tribes,
and were so astute as to impose even upon Joshua, and to obtain from him
a treaty on false pretenses. Still an agreement was made with them on
the terms that they should be permitted to live in the land, but that
they should be "hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of the
Lord." This contract was faithfully observed on both sides until the
days of Saul, who sought to slay them "in his zeal to the children of
Israel and Judah." And what was the result? A famine lasting for three
years, which was only removed at last by the giving up, according to the
ancient practices of the Gibeonites, of seven of Saul's sons for
execution. Now there is much in that old history that is difficult for
us at this distance of time, and ignorant as we are of the customs that
prevailed among these tribes, to understand. But no one of us can read
it without being reminded of our treatment of the Indian tribes that
linger among us still. Have we not broken almost every treaty that we
ever made with them? Have we not said, unpityingly regarding them, that
their destruction before the advance of civilization is inevitable? And
have we not forgotten that the God of the Gibeonites lives to be the
avenger of the Indians? If the hewers of wood and drawers of water were
not beneath his notice long ago, think you he does not see and chronicle
the wrongs of the Indians to-day, and shall not he render to every man
according to his works?
Before passing from the Old Testament to the New, I merely mention the
fact that among the ancestors of the Lord Jesus Christ we find two
belonging to alien races, namely, Rahab of Jericho, and Ruth the
Moabitess, whose very presence in that noble line is a prophecy of the
glorious truth that the Son of David was to be also the Son of man, the
Saviour of sinners of every name and nation, the kinsman of all races,
the brother of humanity, and that as he represents them all in his
priestly intercession yonder, so in each of them we may see a
representative of him here and now upon the earth.
But now what may we learn from Christ himself in the New Testament? It
is true that his personal ministry in the world was almost entirely
confined to the Jews. It had to be so limited at first, if his gospel
was to gather force for its triumphant march over the world at a later
day; but even during his life in the world he came repeatedly in contact
with men and women of races other than that of the Jews, and always in
such a way as to show his sympathy with them and love toward them. I
remind you of his long and earnest conversation with the woman of
Samaria, at the well of Sychar, and of the fact that she was a
descendant of that mixed nationality which sprung from the amalgam of
those heathen colonists that were sent by the King of Assyria to take
the places left vacant by the ten tribes whom he had carried away
captive. I recall to your recollection, too, his eulogy on the Roman
centurion, and his constant exposure of the contemptuousness of the
Pharisees in their attitude not only toward the publicans and sinners of
their own nation, but also toward Gentiles of every description. Think
of his dealing with the Syrophoenician woman. She was a Canaanite of the
old race, and, though at first he seemed to turn her away, yet
ultimately he gave her all she asked and more: and even his apparently
abrupt treatment of her in the beginning, if I read the history aright,
was meant to be an exposure and condemnation of the feelings commonly
cherished toward those of her nation by the Jews of his day. No doubt it
tested and strengthened her own faith. But we must not forget that the
whole conversation with her was meant to teach a lesson to his disciples
also. It was part of their training for their future life work. It was a
portion of their preparation for carrying his gospel to all nations. And
so he spoke out their own thoughts about the women, holding up a mirror
before them in which they might see themselves, when he said, "It is not
meet to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs;" and he
ultimately showed them that she was better far than many who would have
spurned her from their presence. So from the kindness showed to aliens
by the Lord himself, we may learn not only to beware of this leaven of
the Pharisees, but also to deal kindly and truly with men of every race,
and make them sharers with us in the blessings of the gospel.
But thus far we have not come upon any case where the difference was one
not only of race but of color. Even here, however, we are not without
scriptural instances to guide us. You remember that of Ebed-melech, the
Ethiopian. Jeremiah was, by the cruelty of his enemies, imprisoned in a
dungeon or water tank, and was sunk in the mire at the bottom.
Ebed-melech, learning his condition, went and informed King Zedekiah of
the real state of the case, and obtained a command to take an escort of
thirty men with him and deliver him from the dungeon lest he should die.
So with great tenderness the Ethiopian threw down rags to put under the
ropes which he let down, and by which he was to soften the pressures of
the cords under his arms as they drew him up therewith from his filthy
prison; and after they had thus delivered him there came to the prophet
this message of God concerning him; "Go and speak to Ebed-melech, the
Ethiopian, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:
Behold, I will bring my words upon this city for evil, and not for good;
and they shall be accomplished in that day before thee. But I will
deliver thee in that day, saith the Lord; and thou shalt not be given
into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid. For I will surely
deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall
be for a prey unto thee; because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith
the Lord." Here we have a kindness done by a colored man to Jeremiah,
and a message sent from God to the colored man acknowledging and
rewarding that kindness; but O! how many debts of that sort owed by men
among ourselves to the colored people have been forgotten or repudiated!
In the agony of the war, colored people fought in the ranks of the
Northern armies; and I have heard those who have belonged to the
Confederate side declare with tears in their eyes that the faithful
watch kept by their colored servants over their wives and families while
they were absent with the troops was beyond all praise. And yet in these
days we read every now and then of colored people shot down like dogs on
the slightest provocation, and prevented on the merest pretext from
exercising the rights of citizens of this free Republic, and men look on
and do nothing. But God may say something by and by, and when he speaks
men's ears shall tingle! We have another illustration of God's treatment
of a colored man in the case of the Ethiopian treasurer. He was
returning from Jerusalem, where he had been at one of the great annual
Jewish feasts, and as he was riding in his chariot he was reading aloud
to himself the book of the prophet Isaiah, when the evangelist Philip,
specially sent thither for the purpose by God's Spirit, addressed him,
and on being asked to come into the carriage with him expounded to him
the meaning of the passage which he was reading, and preached the gospel
from it unto him with such good effect that he was forthwith baptized on
the confession of his faith, and afterward went on his way rejoicing to
found that Ethiopian church which claims to this day to be one of the
most ancient Christian churches in the world. He was a man, for he was
moved by the truth as you and I have been, and he became a
Christian--"the highest style of man"--to show us that, as Peter said,
"In every nation they that fear God and work righteousness are accepted
of him." That which is highest in any man is his appreciation and
acceptance of the gospel! of Christ, and wherever we see that
appreciation we have not only a fellow man but a brother Christian, to
be treated by us as Paul requested Philemon to treat Onesimus--as "a
brother beloved." Nor let any one suppose that there is a single race
upon the earth that can not be so transformed and gladdened as this
Ethiopian was. Even Charles Darwin declared that after the Patagonians
it could not be said that any race is too degraded for the gospel to
elevate, and so he gave new emphasis, unwittingly, perhaps, but, if so,
all the more strongly, to the words addressed to Peter on the housetop:
"What God hath cleansed that call not thou common;" or those of Paul in
one of his epistles: "For there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all
one in Christ Jesus."
This topic is at present greatly occupying the attention of the
Christian churches in our land. It was before the General Assembly of
the Presbyterian Church in May last, and has been again discussed at the
meeting of the Council of Congregational churches in Worcester three
weeks ago, and in the Triennial Convention of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, which has just closed its sessions in New York. I will not seek
to criticise or to characterize the decisions at which these bodies have
arrived, save to say that in my judgment the Presbyterian Assembly faced
the difficulty more thoroughly, and disposed of it more courageously,
than either of the others. But I will say that there is only one
solution of a question of this sort. Every Christian, when he comes to
think on it seriously, must feel that to be the case. No compromise will
satisfy either party to it or will please God, and any settlement to be
permanent must be in harmony with the inspired statement that "God hath
made of one blood all the nations that dwell upon the face of the
earth." But such a result can not be brought about either in the state
or in the churches merely by legislation. You can not compel either by
physical or moral constraint the different races to meet on terms of
social equality. No doubt you can, and you ought to see to it, that men
of all races stand precisely on the same platform before the law and
have the same protection from the law. But to get rid of a prejudice you
must take a different method. You can not uproot that all at once. The
removal of that must be the result of education and of spiritual growth.
But when I speak of education I must add that it is not the colored
people alone that need to be educated here. The white people of all our
cities, whether North or South, require education as well. They need to
be taught that the Negro is a man, for at bottom that is not more than
half believed by multitudes. They need to be taught that the Negro may
become a Christian, and that there are possibilities of Christian
missionary enterprise in his race that are absolutely incalculable. They
need to be taught to look upon the different races of Indians, Chinese
and Africans among us as dignified and ennobled by Christ's incarnation,
and as purchased by his sacrificial blood equally with themselves. They
need to look upon the Christianized among them as brethren in Christ,
and then the rest will come of itself.
There has been great progress in these recent years toward the result of
which I speak. The present agitation concerning the color-line, as it is
called, is itself an indication of progress, and the day assuredly will
dawn when men of all nationalities and names shall come from the East
and from the West, from the North and from the South, and sit down with
Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob in the kingdom of our Father. But if
we as a Nation cultivate the spirit of the Pharisees, and continue to
despise those who are "guilty of a skin not colored like our own," we
may be sure that he who visited the Hebrew nation for their treatment of
the Gibeonites will send also some nemesis on us.
I can not but feel, beloved brethren, that in these meetings which
to-night come to a close, something has been done to help forward that
result which under the guidance of the Scriptures we all believe to be
the right one. We have had a series of most delightful conferences. Now
let us go back to our homes determined to take the seminal truths which
have been presented to us here, and scatter them wherever we are called
to labor. The seed may seem to be but a handful, and the soil may seem
unpromising as the rocky mountain tops--but be sure the result will be a
harvest that will shake like the cedars of Lebanon. And though it may
seem a little incongruous to quote from the Scottish poet--would that
everything he wrote were of as pure and lofty an inspiration--I will
venture to conclude with his well-known lines:
"Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a' that,
That man to man the world over
Shall brithers be for a' that."
* * * * *
BUREAU OF WOMAN'S WORK
MISS D.E. EMERSON, SECRETARY.
The Annual Meeting of the Bureau of Woman's Work of the American
Missionary Association, held on Thursday afternoon in the church during
the session of the business meeting in the chapel, was one of unusual
interest. Following the Report of the Secretary, there were interesting
addresses by missionaries, and a very effective address by Mrs. Geo. M.
Lane, of Detroit, Michigan, who presided.
The Report and some of the addresses will be published in separate
leaflets, and may be had by application to Miss Emerson at 56 Reade St.
* * * * *
REPORT OF SECRETARY.
A look backward over the twelve months since our last annual gathering
reveals much of interest and encouragement, that should fill our hearts
with gratitude that our woman's work has had such an influence in
bringing light and gladness to thousands of women and children, whose
lives have been cast in the dark portions of our Christian land. So
large an element of Woman's Work enters into the plan upon which the
field of the American Missionary Association is operated, and it is so
interwoven with the entire structure of its missions, that any report of
it as separate and distinct can be only partial. And yet with the more
systematic organization of woman's work in the raising of funds, we have
been able to assign special woman's work on mission ground, with most
satisfactory results, for to have a particular school or missionary has
stimulated the givers, and has brought courage and comfort to the
missionaries who have been thus sustained.
Our Woman's Work. What is it? Whom is it for? Who should do it?
What is it? It is to take to heathen mothers and sisters here in our own
country the glorious news of salvation for _them_; to bring the light
and truth of the Gospel to those who are groping in the fog of
superstition and a wrong conception of Bible truth; to plant the
Christian school; to establish the Christian home as an object lesson;
to show mothers how to train their children to honor and obedience, to
mingle with the needy and helpless, and by sympathy and tact secure such
changes in the homes as will lead to their permanent improvement; in a
word, to follow the example of our Lord Jesus, by living and teaching
the blessings of intelligence and godliness among those in our home-land
for whose improvement and well-being we are peculiarly responsible. The
American Missionary Association has ninety-four schools, and in most of
these more women than men are engaged. It is the duty of the missionary
teacher to avail herself of every opportunity which her relation with
her scholars affords, either in day or boarding school, to inculcate
Christian truth, to warn against the evils which she finds common among
the people, to teach by example and precept the living Word, as
manifested in the life of Christ. The wonderful change wrought in those
who are brought under the influence of such consecrated missionaries,
testifies to the value of woman's work in missions.
But who are these for whom we are peculiarly responsible, and why is
there so especial need of _woman's_ work?
They are our eight millions of negroes, of whom probably not more than
one-fourth may be said to have felt the corrective influence of the
Gospel upon their lives. Perhaps only those who have come in contact
with these people for the _sole purpose of helping_ them to manhood and
womanhood, can comprehend the tremendous incubus of bad habits, stunted
growth, blunted susceptibilities, with which they struggle. It is
painful to note the limitations of those even who have had the best
advantages. Yet they are ever reaching upward, and the struggle is
bringing out noble qualities of character, showing the possibilities of
the race. We have had a goodly recompense for Christian labor among
them, and does not this increase our responsibility for the
three-fourths that are yet to be helped to a good understanding of
themselves and their duty toward man and God? And no one will question
that in the development of the best _womanhood_ there rests the surest
hope of the elevation of this wronged, and even now, greatly oppressed
people.
But our woman's work finds also its mission among the needy whites of
the South. It seems almost incredible that there should be found, within
thirty-six hours' ride of our Northern towns, so dotted with schools and
churches and Christian homes, a section of our country where there have
been in hiding, in the ravines and on the mountain sides, two or more
millions of our American people, in gross ignorance and superstition.
But such is the case, and as always, the women are the greatest
sufferers. Doubtless the Negroes have the largest claim upon us, because
of their past history, their present wrongs, and their great numbers,
which have become so startling as to make it imperative that we yield no
jot of advantage gained, but rather increase our efforts every year for
their intellectual and moral improvement. Yet the work for the mountain
whites is _just now_ especially urgent. A missionary of much experience
expresses the view, that if we can bring the forces of Christian
education to bear mightily upon these mountain people for the next ten
years, they will themselves become a power as our allies in the great
battles of the future against immorality and false doctrines. A few
weeks since I met in North Carolina near the Great Smoky Mountains a
mother and daughter, the latter about eighteen years old. A school for
mountain girls had been opened there, and the daughter had attended the
last year. On entering she could not read a word, but now was in the
Fourth Reader, and studying arithmetic and geography. The rich, soft
color that came to her cheeks, and the kindling light of her eyes, told
of the brightness this school had brought into her life; this Christian
school, for here too, she had learned the way of eternal life. Even the
mother's eyes sparkled like stars as she looked with admiration upon her
"learned" daughter.
But our door stands wide open also towards the Indians and Chinese, and
all the arguments that appeal to us so strongly for the disenthrallment
of women in heathen lands, appeal with equal, yea greater force for the
heathen in our own land, whom the _Gospel only_ can make free.
Such is our great and urgent call for work for woman in the field of the
American Missionary Association. Who should do it, and how? Who but the
Christian women of our churches, either directly or by substitutes? Some
can go, of those who have prepared themselves for the highest and best
quality of Christian service. They should be thoroughly trained and
disciplined teachers, but not this alone. Every teacher should be a
careful and intelligent Bible student, able to instruct from the word of
God, practical and earnest, self-sacrificing and co-operative, ready to
do what seems most necessary, even though it should not call into action
her finest mental qualities. Let those who cannot go, send a substitute,
but let none fail to seize the opportunity for a part in this blessed
work, for the salvation of our country, and its protection as a
Christian land.
There are now twenty-six State organizations for Woman's Work in our own
country through our Congregational Churches, which co-operate in the
work of the American Missionary Association. Some have increased their
contributions during the past year; others have not fallen below the
standard they had fixed for this field, but have not made any annual
advance. With a very few, co-operation has not yet extended beyond a
study of our work. But a study of the field is encouraging, for a
knowledge of the need brings responsibility to do all possible to meet
it, and soon we trust these also will be contributing Unions. To
facilitate the study of our field, our monthly magazine has been sent
free to many ladies' societies, our literature has been distributed, and
more than sixteen thousand copies of missionary letters have been
circulated among the ladies. Would not the value of organization be
shown in the larger flow of funds annually for a work of such pressing
necessity as this? We rejoice that some have already demonstrated this
value of united effort. More than one State Missionary Union,
recognizing the importance of this work and remembering that in drawing
upon the benevolence of all the Congregational Ladies' Societies in the
State, it should not do a small thing, has raised the support of four or
more missionary teachers for an entire school. And the officers of the
Union have taken pains to stir up the pure minds of the ladies in each
auxiliary by way of remembrance of this particular field.
But there are those not in the State organizations, whose help we
record, as Sunday-schools and Christian Endeavor Societies. Many such
have during the year asked for a special object for their contributions.
What can the Secretary do? The particular things that can be
accomplished with forty or fifty or seventy dollars are indeed few, but
these sums combined may sustain a missionary for a year. So each such
contribution is made a share of the four hundred dollars necessary for
the purpose, and something definite is accomplished. What is it? This. A
faithful Christian woman is sent to the field, where, in a neat cottage,
she makes her home life an object lesson to the colored people or the
mountain whites or the Indians for many miles around. Their homes begin
to improve. Her day school, held in the little church near by, attracts
not only children, but young men and women, and even young married
people. A Christian Endeavor Society is formed. The Sunday-school and
church take a new start under her teachings. Other Sunday-schools and
Christian societies are maintained through her influence, and so the
small contributions accomplish a large work.
Private individuals also have aided us. What a blessed privilege to be
able out of one's own income to put worthy missionaries into such a
field.
There has been an increase in aid rendered in sewing, a form of help
that is very valuable in keeping our boarding schools and mission homes
furnished, our sewing schools provided with basted work, and clothing
ready for worthy but needy students. As with money, so with sewing, we
could use wisely very much more than has been received.
We acknowledge also the kindness of ladies in furnishing books and
papers adapted to the need. The young people, especially among the
Negroes, are acquiring a taste for reading, and with their emotional and
excitable natures, they take readily to sensational literature, with its
startling illustrations. A neighborhood or society collection of books
and papers will usually contain some of such a stamp, and you maybe sure
they will not always discriminate in favor of the most instructive
reading. Therefore select for them as you would for your own sons and
daughters, what is attractive and healthful, and withhold all else.
And now we are just starting upon a new year. Four hundred and
seventy-six laborers have been called into the missionary ranks of the
American Missionary Association. One hundred and ninety missions are in
operation, with their widening influence and ever growing needs. Of our
one hundred and forty-two churches there are fifty-seven which have not
at present any Northern missionary associated with them. The difference
in the development of these churches, as contrasted with those which
have the influence and help of Northern teachers, is so marked, as to
constitute a most urgent appeal for more missionaries--faithful
women--to gather in the young people, interest and instruct them, to
live among them, an example of economy and thrift in housekeeping, of
neighborly kindness, of faithfulness in church obligations and of
consistent Christian life. I do not hesitate to affirm that in the
field of the American Missionary Association such provision is next in
importance to the preached word. Neither can take the place of the
other. Either is at a disadvantage without the other. And yet there are
fifty-seven of these mission stations this year, _now_, without such
beneficent woman's ministry, waiting only for additional funds, the new
money necessary to provide reinforcements.
I appeal to you, Christian women, in your organized capacity as State
Unions; and as individuals--stewards to whom perchance our Lord has
entrusted a goodly inheritance--for help to the American Missionary
Association in this almost overwhelming responsibility. Send us the
missionaries for these needy fields.
I appeal to you in behalf especially of the wronged and helpless women
and girls of these ten millions of our own countrymen, American born,
whose only hope is in the sympathy and the help of the Christian people
of our own land. We do not live in the day of small things, but of great
needs and large opportunities. Surely now, if ever, is the time to
"enlarge the place of thy tent and stretch forth the curtains of thy
habitation. Spare not, lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes,
that thou mayest spread abroad on the right hand and on the left, and
possess the nations of our land."
* * * * *
WOMAN'S STATE ORGANIZATIONS.
CO-OPERATING WITH THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.
MAINE.
WOMAN'S AID TO A.M.A.
Chairman of Committee--Mrs. C.A. Woodbury, Woodfords, Me.
VERMONT.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. A.B. Swift, 167 King St., Burlington.
Secretary--Mrs. E.C. Osgood, 14 First Ave., Montpelier.
Treasurer--Mrs. Wm. P. Fairbanks, St. Johnsbury.
MASSACHUSETTS AND RHODE ISLAND.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.[1]
President--Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, Cambridge, Mass.
Secretary--Miss Nathalie Lord, 32 Congregational House, Boston.
Treasurer--Miss Ella A. Leland, 32 Congregational House, Boston.
CONNECTICUT.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. Francis B. Cooley, Hartford.
Secretary--Mrs. S.M. Hotchkiss, 171 Capitol Ave., Hartford.
Treasurer--Mrs. W.W. Jacobs, 19 Spring St., Hartford.
NEW YORK.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. Wm. Kincaid, 483 Greene Ave., Brooklyn.
Secretary--Mrs. Wm. Spalding, 6 Salmon Block, Syracuse.
Treasurer--Mrs. L.H. Cobb, 59 Bible House, New York City.
OHIO.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. J.G.W. Cowles, 417 Sibley St., Cleveland.
Secretary--Mrs. Flora K. Regal, Oberlin.
Treasurer--Mrs. Phebe A. Crafts, 95 Monroe Ave., Columbus.
INDIANA.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. C.B. Safford, Elkhart.
Secretary--Mrs. W.E. Mossman, Fort Wayne.
Treasurer--Mrs. C. Evans, Indianapolis.
ILLINOIS.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. B.F. Leavitt, 409 Orchard St., Chicago.
Secretary--Mrs. C.H. Taintor, 151 Washington St., Chicago.
Treasurer--Mrs. C.E. Maltby, Champaign.
IOWA.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. T.O. Douglass, Grinnell.
Secretary--Miss Ella E. Marsh, Box 232, Grinnell.
Treasurer--Mrs. M.J. Nichoson, 1513 Main St., Dubuque.
MICHIGAN.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. George M. Lane, 47 Miami Ave., Detroit.
Secretary--Mrs. Leroy Warren, Lansing.
Treasurer--Mrs. E.F. Grabill, Greenville.
WISCONSIN.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. H.A. Miner, Madison.
Secretary--Mrs. C. Matter, Brodhead.
Treasurer--Mrs. C.C. Keeler, Beloit.
MINNESOTA.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
President--Mrs. E.S. Williams, Box 464, Minneapolis.
Secretary--Miss Gertude A. Keith,
1350 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis.
Treasurer--Mrs. M.W. Skinner, Northfield.
NORTH DAKOTA.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
President--Mrs. A.J. Pike, Dwight.
Secretary--Mrs. Silas Daggett, Harwood.
Treasurer--Mrs. J.M. Fisher, Fargo.
SOUTH DAKOTA.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. A.H. Robbins, Bowdle.
Secretary--Mrs. T.M. Jeffris, Huron.
Treasurer--Mrs. S.E. Fifield, Lake Preston.
NEBRASKA.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. T.H. Leavitt, 1216 H. St., Lincoln.
Secretary--Mrs. L.F. Berry, 724 No. Broad St, Fremont.
Treasurer--Mrs. D.E. Perry, Crete.
MISSOURI.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. C.L. Goodell, 3006 Pine St., St. Louis.
Secretary--Mrs. E.P. Bronson, 3100 Chestnut St., St. Louis.
Treasurer--Mrs. A.E. Cook, 4145 Bell Ave., St. Louis.
KANSAS.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
President--Mrs. F.J. Storrs, Topeka.
Secretary--Mrs. George L. Epps, Topeka.
Treasurer--Mrs. J.G. Dougherty, Ottawa.
COLORADO AND WYOMING.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. J.W. Pickett, White Water, Colorado.
Secretary--Miss Mary L. Martin, 106 Platte Ave.,
Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Treasurer--Mrs. S.A. Sawyer. Boulder, Colorado.
Treasurer--Mrs. C.T. Goodell, 24th and Eddy Sts.,
Cheyenne, Wyoming.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. Elijah Cash, 927 Temple St., Los Angeles.
Secretary--Mrs. H.K.W. Bent, Box 426, Pasadena.
Treasurer--Mrs. H.W. Mills, So. Olive St., Los Angeles.
CALIFORNIA.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
President--Mrs. H.L. Merritt, 686 34th St., Oakland.
Secretary--Miss Grace E. Barnard, 677 21st. St., Oakland.
Treasurer--Mrs. J.M. Havens, 3329 Harrison St., Oakland.
LOUISIANA.
WOMAN'S MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. R.D. Hitchcock, New Orleans.
Secretary--Miss Jennie Fyfe, 490 Canal St., New Orleans.
Treasurer--Mrs. C.S. Shattuck, Hammond.
MISSISSIPPI.
WOMAN'S MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. A.F. Whiting, Tougaloo.
Secretary--Miss Sarah J. Humphrey, Tougaloo.
Treasurer--Miss S.L. Emerson, Tougaloo.
ALABAMA.
WOMAN'S MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. H.W. Andrews, Talladega.
Secretary--Miss S.S. Evans, 2612 Fifth Ave., Birmingham.
Treasurer--Mrs. G. Baker, Selma.
FLORIDA.
WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Mrs. S.F. Gale, Jacksonville.
Secretary--Mrs. Nathan Barrows, Winter Park.
Treasurer--Mrs. L.C. Partridge, Longwood.
TENNESSEE AND ARKANSAS.
WOMAN'S MISSIONARY UNION OF THE CENTRAL SOUTH ASSOCIATION.
President--Miss M.F. Wells, Athens, Tenn.
Secretary--Miss A.M. Cahill, Nashville, Tenn.
Treasurer--Mrs. G.S. Pope, Grand View, Tenn.
NORTH CAROLINA.
WOMAN'S MISSIONARY UNION.
President--Miss E. Plimpton, Chapel Hill.
Secretary--Miss A.E. Farrington, Raleigh.
Treasurer--Miss Lovey Mayo, Raleigh.
[Footnote 1: For the purpose of exact information, we note
that while the W.H.M.A. appears in this list as a State body
for Mass. and R.I., it has certain auxiliaries elsewhere.]
We would suggest to all ladies connected with the auxiliaries of State
Missionary Unions, that funds for the American Missionary Association
be sent to us through the treasurers of the Union. Care, however,
should be taken to designate the money as for the American Missionary
Association, since _undesignated funds will not reach us_.
* * * * *
RECEIPTS FOR OCTOBER, 1889.
THE DANIEL HAND FUND,
_For the Education of Colored People._
FROM
MR. DANIEL HAND, GUILFORD, CONN.
Income from October, 1889, $960.00
========
* * * * *
CURRENT RECEIPTS.
MAINE, $165.76.
Alfred. Cong. Ch. 11.56
Bangor. Corelli W. Simpson. Engravings
for Hospital, _Fort Yates, Dak._
Ellsworth. Mrs. Phelps,
_for Teachers' Home, Lexington, Ky._ 1.00
Fryeburg. Cong. Ch. 10.54
Greenville. Cong. Ch., 15.55,
and Sab. Sch., 12 27.55
Island Falls. Cong. Ch. 10.00
Litchfield Corners. Cong. Ch. 12.00
New Castle. Second Cong. Ch., to const.
S.D. WYMAN and MRS. AURANUS MILLEE L.M's 60.00
Patten. Cong. Ch. 15.00
Portland. George C. Frye, Chemist, Medicines,
val. 15.06, _for Hospital, Fort Yates, Dak._
South Bridgton. Cong. Ch. and Sab. Sch. 17.11
Wells. "A Friend." 1.00
NEW HAMPSHIRE, $274.05.
Alstead. Cong. Ch. 9.00
Canaan. Mary A. George 5.00
Franklin. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 20.00
Great Falls. Ladies' Home Miss'y Soc. 10.00
Hanover. Dartmouth College Cong. Ch. 67.20
Mason. Cong. Ch. 5.30
Nashua. First Cong. Ch. 20.00
New Ipswich. Proceeds of Children's Fair
(2 of which _for Indian M._) 10.80
Pelham. Cong. Ch. 35.00
Pembroke. First Cong. Soc. 18.25
Peterboro. Union Evan. Ch. 31.50
Portsmouth. "In as much Circle" of King's
Daughters of North Ch., _for furnishing
room, Girl's Hall, Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 30.00
Raymond. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 12.00
VERMONT, $217.20.
Benson. Cong. Ch. 16.80
Bethel. Cong. Ch. 2.56
Brandon. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 6.00
Brattleboro. Center Cong. Ch. 81.00
Essex Junction. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 16.00
Guildhall. Cong. Ch. 3.50
Hubbardton. D.J. Flagg 5.00
Newport. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 8.50
Sharon. A Friend, 1; "X.", 1 2.00
Sharon. Communion Service, _for Jonesboro,
Tenn._
Springfield. F.V.A. Townsend, to const
MRS. ISABELLA WATERMAN L.M. 30.00
Townsend. Mrs. H. Holbrook 1.00
West Brattleboro. Cong. Ch. 14.84
Westminster. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 14.00
Westminster. West. Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch.,
_for McIntosh, Ga._ 16.00
MASSACHUSETTS, $4,599.69.
Amherst. First Cong. Ch. 30.00
Andover. Phillips Academy _for Boys' Hall,
Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 25.00
Andover. "Pansy Band," _for Pleasant Hill,
Tenn._ 16.72
Beverly. Sab. Sch. of Dane St. Cong. Ch.,
_for Student Aid, Fisk U._ 25.12
Boston. Woman's Home Miss'y Soc., 400,
_for Woman's Work_;
35 from Shawmut Mite Soc.,
_for Indian Sch'p._ 435.00
"A Friend In Boston,"
_for Building Fund,
Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 250.00
Woman's Home Miss'y Ass'n 30.00
Dorchester. Second Cong. Ch. 95.87
Mrs. Walter Baker, 30, Mr.
Hardwick, 10, Mrs. Means, 10,
Mrs. Wales, 5, Miss Carruth, 5,
Miss Salmon, 5 65.00
"Friends," by A.C. Hopkins,
_for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 60.00
Harvard Cong. Ch. 37.40
Mrs. Eliza Bicknell 4.00
Roxbury. Highland Cong. Ch.,
_for Indian M._ 15.00
Ladies of Immanuel Ch., _for
Freight on Bbl. to Pleasant
Hill, Tenn._ 2.00
Im. Ch., Mrs. M.M. Graham 1.00
West Roxbury. South Evan. Ch. 24.51
------- 1,019.78
Brimfield. First Cong. Ch. 8.64
Brookline. Harvard Ch. 57.38
Brockton. Porter Evan. Ch. and Soc., to const.
CHAS. H. REYNOLDS, SIDNEY E. NICKERSON
and MRS. JANE B. JENNINGS L.M's 104.48
Cambridge. Mrs. C.A. Phelps' S.S. Class,
_for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 10.00
Cambridgeport. Pilgrim Ch., 97.14;
First Cong. Ch., 1 98.14
Campello. Mrs. S.A. Southworth, _for Freight
on Boxes to Chapel Hill, N.C._ 3.00
Charlestown. Winthrop Cong. Ch. and Soc. 66.12
Chelsea. First Cong. Ch., 38.50;
Sab. Sch. of First Cong, Ch., 15 53.50
Concord. Trin. Cong. Ch. 22.54
East Cambridge. Miss M.F. Aiken,
_for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 4.00
Everett. Cong. Ch. 39.74
Fitchburg. Rollstone Cong. Ch. 80.00
Framingham. Mrs. Elizabeth E. Guernsey,
_for Mountain Work_ 1.00
Franklin. Y.P.S.C.E. of First Cong. Ch.,
_for Grand View, Tenn._ 15.00
Gardner. First Cong. Ch., to const
CHAS. F. READ and MRS. SETH HEYWOOD L.M's 60.00
Greenfield. Second Cong. Ch. 58.95
Groton. Union Cong. Ch. 145.80
Harvard. Cong. Ch. 15.00
Haverhill. Mary Merrill, Package Patchwork,
_for Sew. Sch., Sherwood Tenn._
Holliston. "Bible Christians," 47;
Cong. Ch. and Soc. 40.50 87.50
Housatonic. Cong. Sab. Sch. 50.45
Hyde Park. First Cong. Ch. 24.00
Lawrence. Trinity Ch., _for Freedmen and
Indian M._ 32.19
Lawrence. United Cong. Ch. 5.00
Lee. "Friendly." 1.50
Ludlow Center. First Cong. Ch., Ladies' Soc.,
_for Tougaloo U._ 10.00
Mansfield. Ladies' Miss'y Soc. 10.00
Medfield. Second Cong. Ch. 78.38
Milton. First Cong. Ch. 30.50
Middleboro. Central Cong. Ch., 46.73;
First Cong. Ch., 13.14 59.87
Newton. Eliot Ch., 120;
First Cong. Ch., 75.08 195.08
Newton Center. Mrs. Sarah C. Davis,
_for Indian M._ 200.00
Norfolk. Union Cong. Ch. 5.60
North Attleboro. Frank Bennett,
_for Mountain Work_ 5.00
North Brookfield. Union Cong. Ch. 13.18
North Chelmsford. Second Cong. Ch. 21.00
North Leominster. Ch. of Christ 21.43
Northampton. A.L. Williston, 170;
"A Friend," 9, _for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 179.00
Northampton. Edwards Ch. Benev. Soc. 160.00
North Middleboro. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 32.65
Oxford. Woman's Miss'y Soc., _for Freight
on 3 Bbl's. to Kittrell, N.C._ 6.50
Oxford. "Oxtord." 5.00
Peabody. Second Cong. Ch., 5; West
Branch of Second Cong. Ch., 2.75 7.75
Reading. Cong. Ch. 18.00
Randolph. Miss MARION BELCHER, to
const. herself L.M. 30.00
Rockland. Miss Cordelia Shaw, _for
Freight on Bbl. to Fisk U._ 2.00
Salem. Crombie St. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 67.00
Saxonville. Edwards Cong. Ch. and Soc. 10.93
Sharon. Cong. Ch. and Soc., 30,
to const. J.W. PERRY L.M.;
Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch., 10 40.00
Somerville. Day St. Ch.,
_for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 15.00
Southampton. L.C. Tiffany's S.S. Class,
Cong. Ch., _for Theo. Student Aid Fund_ 20.00
South Egremont. Cong. Ch. 14.06
South Deerfield. Cong. Ch., 34.15;
Sab. Sch., 12.93 47.08
South Framingham. South Cong. Ch.,
(50 of which _for Mountain Work_) 174.54
South Hadley. First Cong. Ch. 23.50
Springfield. Miss Carrie H. Bowdoin 10.00
Springfield. Y.P.S.C.E., First Ch. of Christ,
_for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 5.00
South Weymouth. Miss S.B. Tirrel's S.S.
Class, Second Cong. Ch. 4.82
Townsend. Mrs. Ralph Ball, _for Freight
on Bbl. to Sherwood, Tenn._ 2.00
Wakefield. Y.P.S.C.E., _for Mountain Work_ 3.00
West Boxford. Cong. Ch. 8.85
Westhampton. Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch. 18.78
Westhampton. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 13.58
West Medford. ---- _for Boys' Hall,
Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 30.00
West Springfield. Ladies' Mission Circle
of Park St. Ch., _for Pleasant Hill,
Tenn._ 50.00
Winchendon. First Cong. Ch., 13, and
Sab. Sch., 17.30 30.30
Winchester. Ladies' Western Miss'y Soc.,
_for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 90.00
Winchester. S. Elliott 10.00
Worcester. Mary A. and Joanna F. Smith 50.00
Yarmouth. Rev. John W. Dodge,
_for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 50.00
Hampden Benevolent Association, by
Charles Marsh, Treasurer:
Agawam 20.25
Holyoke. Second 83.31
South Hadley Falls 9.91
Springfield. South 46.30
------- 159.77
---------
$4,249.69
ESTATES.
Dunstable. Estate of Mary Wilson, by
Wm. P. Proctor, Ex. 50.00
Enfield. Estate of J.B. Woods, by Rev.
R.M. Woods, Trustee, to const. MISS
CHARLOTTE A. LATHROP L.M. 50.00
Groton. Estate of Samuel C. Rockwood,
by George S. Gates, Ex. 300.00
---------
$4,599.69
CLOTHING, BOOKS, ETC., RECEIVED AT BOSTON OFFICE.
Kennebunk, Maine. Mrs. Mary P. Smith,
Box of C., _for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._
Campello, Mass. Mrs. S.A. Southworth,
2 Boxes, _for Chapel Hill, S.C._
Cambridgeport, Mass. By Mrs. R.L. Snow,
Box of Bedding, _for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._
Gardner, Mass. Y.P.S.C.E., Package
of Papers, _for Jellico, Tenn._
Hopkinton, Mass. King's Daughters, Bbl.
of C., val. 50, _for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._
Oxford, Mass. Woman's Miss'y Soc., 3 Bbls.,
_for Kittrell, Ala._
Rockland, Mass. Ladies' Sew. Circle of
Cong. Ch., Bbl., _for Fisk U._
Roslindale, Mass. Miss F.H. Wiswall,
Box Hymn Books, etc., _for Talladega, Ala._
Roxbury, Mass, Ladies' Benev. Soc. of Immanuel Ch.,
Bbl., val. 31.54, _for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._
Townsend, Mass. By Mrs. Ralph Ball,
Bbl., _for Sherwood, Tenn._
RHODE ISLAND, $730.96.
Little Compton. Mrs. Antrace Pierce 5.00
Newport. United Cong. Ch. 30.00
Providence. Central Cong. Ch. (25 of which
_for Girls' Hall, Pleasant Hill, Tenn._
and 10. _for Talladega C._) 625.00
Providence. North Cong. Ch. 44.71
Providence. Sab. Sch. of Beneficent Cong.
Ch., 25, Miss Burrows' Class, 1.25,
_for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 26.25
CONNECTICUT, $2,705.00.
Berlin. Mrs. Sophia Savage, _for
Tougaloo U._ 10.00
Bridgeport D.H. Terry, 10.,
L.B. Silliman, 5, _for Tougaloo U._ 15.00
Bristol. Cong. Ch. 19.27
Buckingham. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 3.29
East Granby. Cong. Ch. 3.65
Ellington. Cong. Ch. 148.70
Granby. South Cong. Ch., 13;
First Cong. Ch., 6.12 19.12
Hadlyme. Cong. Ch., 4.; Mrs. E. Geer, 1. 5.00
Hartford. Students' Association of Hartford
Theo. Sem., 34.81; Mrs. Charles T.
Hillyer, 30.00 64.81
Hartford. D.R. Howe, _for Tougaloo U._ 25.00
Lisbon. Cong. Ch., bal. to const.
REV. Q.M. BOSWORTH L.M. 7.00
Middlebury. Cong. Ch. 10.01
Monroe. Mrs. F.A. and H.L. Curtiss 10.00
Plymouth. Cong. Ch. 46.00
Poquonock. Cong. Ch. 53.20
Portland. First Cong. Ch. 6.91
Preston. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 15.00
Putnam. Second Cong. Ch. 20.94
New Britain. Prayer Meeting Coll. Center Ch.,
_for Tougaloo U._ 34.24
New Britain. Normal Class of South Cong. Ch.,
_for Student Aid, Normal Inst.,
Grand View, Tenn._ 7.31
New Haven. United Ch., 268.52;
College St. Ch., 10.00 278.52
New London. First Cong. Ch. 50.06
Newington. Cong. Ch. 79.95
New Preston. Mrs. Henry Upson, 4;
Mrs. Stanley Williams, 1,
_for Conn. Ind'l Sch., Ga._ 5.00
Northford. Cong Ch. 15.00
North Madison. Cong. Ch. 12.00
Norwich. Broadway Cong. Ch. 211.88
Rockville. Union Cong. Ch. (65 of which
_for Tougaloo U._) to const. MISS LUCINDA
BAILEY, MISS ELLEN. L. WILSON, MISS
CELIA E. PRESCOTT, LUTHER H. FULLER
and ISAAC M. AGARD L.M.'s 168.05
Stamford. First Cong. Ch. 16.61
Terryville. Elizur Fenn 10.00
Thomaston. Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch.,
_for Sch'p, Santee Ind. Sch._ 17.50
Thomaston. Cong. Ch. 12.65
Tolland. Cong. Ch. 5.02
Wallingford. Mrs. Clara Beebe Darling,
ad'l, _for Chapel, Darling Station,
Fort Yates, Dak._ 100.00
Wallingford. H.L. Judd, _for Student Aid,
Tougaloo U._ 70.00
Wapping. Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch. 7.27
Watertown. Cong. Ch. 24.79
Watertown. Sab. Sch. Class, by Mrs. Fred.
Scott, _for Student Aid, Fort Berthold,
Ind. Sch._ 15.00
West Hartland. H.L. Wilcox,
_for Conn. Ind'l Sch., Ga._ 6.00
Winchester. Cong. Ch. 14.00
Woodbury. North Cong. Ch. 11.25
Woman's Home Missionary Union of Conn.,
by Mrs. Ward W. Jacobs, Treas.,
_for Woman's Work_:
Bridgeport. L.H.M. Soc. of
North Ch. 50.00
---------
$1,705.00
ESTATE.
Plymouth. Estate of Eliza Bull, by Ira B.
Bull and Geo. M. Welles, Executors 1,000.00
---------
$2,705.00
NEW YORK, $838.67.
Albany. "E.M.E." 10.00
Amsterday. Mrs. Chandler Bartlett 2.00
Aquebogue. Cong. Ch. 3.20
Brooklyn. Tompkins Ave. Cong. Ch. 400.00
Churchville. Cong. Ch. 31.05
Clifton Springs. Mrs. W.W. Warner, Box of C.,
Val. 46.65, _for McLeansville, N.C._
Deansville. Y.P.S.C.E., _for Student Aid,
Avery Inst._ 10.00
Hudson. Mrs. D.A. Jones 15.00
Ithaca. Sab. Sch. First Cong. Ch., _for ed.
of a girl, Santee Ind. Sch._ 35.00
Jamestown. Sab. Sch. of First Cong. Ch. 10.39
Kelloggsville. Miss C.L. Taylor 50.00
Lebanon. Thomas Hitchcock, 5; Ladles Aid
Soc., 5; Alfred Seymour, 5; Mrs. Servilia
G. Childs, 2; Mrs. J.H. Wagoner, 1; J.A.
Head, 1; G.G. Grosvenor, 50c.;
C.P. Day, 50c. 20.00
Munnsville. Cong. Ch. 5.00
Napoli. Cong. Ch. 7.32
New Lebanon. "A Friend" 4.00
New York. Broadway Tab., J.T. Leavitt 100.00
New York. Mrs. H.B. Spelman,
_for Student Aid, Atlanta U._ 25.00
New York. J.H. Washburn, Pkg. of C.
Syracuse. Plymouth Ch. 26.00
Utica. Miss Caroline E. Backus,
_for Mountain Work_ 5.00
Warsaw. Cong. Ch. 14.71
Woman's Home Missionary Union of N.Y.,
by Mrs. L.H. Cobb, Treas.,
_for Woman's Work_:
Binghamton. Helpers H.M. Soc.,
to const. MRS. J.L.
MESEREAU L.M. 30.00
Geddes. Ladies Aux. 5.00
Lyssander. Ladies' Aux.,
to const. MRS. DESIRE A.
FULLER L.M. 30.00
------- $65.00
NEW JERSEY, $185.00.
Montclair. Womans' Home Miss'y Soc.
of First Cong. Ch. _for Marshallville
Sch., Ga._, and to const. MRS. LUCIA P.
AMES, MARY B. AMES and LULU
AMES L.M's 180.00
Paterson. P. Van Houten 5.00
Point Pleasant. Rev. S.Y. Lum, Box of
Books, _for Talladega C._
PENNSYLVANIA, $10.00.
Cambridge. First Cong. Ch. 5.00
Ridgway. Bible Class by Minnie J. Kline,
_for Oaks, N.C._ 5.00
OHIO, $1,706.04.
Cincinnati. Sab. Sch. of Walnut Hills
Cong. Ch., _for Grand View, Tenn._ 30.00
Cleveland. First Cong. Ch., 30.21;
Rev. W.L. Tenney, 15; Plymouth Ch., 5.85 51.06
Columbus. First Cong. Ch. 191.60
Columbus. "A Friend" Box of Bedding,
_for Grand View, Tenn._
Conneaut. Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch., 20;
H.E. Pond, 5., _for Student Aid, Fisk U._ 25.00
Fort Recovery. Cong. Ch. 5.00
Lafayette. Cong. Ch. 5.50
Lorain. "Wide Awake Soc." _for Student Aid,
Tougaloo U._ 3.55
Medina. Friends in Cong. Ch., by Mrs. E.F. Leach,
_for furnishing a room, new boarding hall,
Macon, Ga._ 50.00
North Bloomfield. Prof. F.O. Reed 5.00
Oberlin. Second Cong. Ch. 68.29
Oberlin. Rev. C.V. Speare,
_for Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 50.00
Oberlin. Young Ladies' Miss'y Soc., _for
Student Aid, Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 25.00
Oberlin. Second Cong. Ch.,
_for Jewett Memorial Hall_ 11.55
Pittsfield. Ladies' Benev. Soc., Bundle of
Carpeting, _for Tougaloo U._
Newark. Cong. Ch. 10.00
Strongsville. Elijah Lyman 10.00
Toledo. First Cong. Ch. 50.00
Wakeman. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 5.75
York. Cong. Ch. to const. MILO E.
BRANCH L.M. 32.00
Ohio Woman's Home Missionary Union,
by Mrs. Phebe A. Crafts, Treasurer,
_for Woman's Work_:
Chagrin Falls. Aux.
_for Miss Collins_ 7.50
Chester Cross Roads. St. Paul's
Miss. Band, _for Dakota
Indian M._ 3.00
Cleveland. First Cong. Ch.,
Y.P.S.C.E. 4.13
Conneaut. W.H.M.S., _for Miss
Collins_ 5.00
Hudson. L.H.M.S. 7.16
"Friends" 24.95
Painesville. M.S. Home Dept. 25.00
------ $76.74
---------
$706.04
ESTATE.
Ashtabula. Estate of Miss E.G. Austin,
by Henry Fassett, Adm'r 1,000.00
---------
$1,706.04
ILLINOIS, $743.83.
Atkinson. Cong. Ch. 10.20
Aurora. N.L. Janes 10.00
Buda. Cong. Ch. 114.86
Chicago. Mrs. F.E. Brush,
_for Student Aid, Fisk U._ 104.00
Chicago. Ladies of South Park Ch. 2.50
Crete. Phineas Chapman 50.00
Elgin. Sab. Sch. of First Cong. Ch.,
_for Mountain Work_ 9.41
Elgin. "A Friend" 5.00
Elmwood. Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch.,
_for Student Aid, Fisk U._ 3.00
Mattoon. "Friends," by Mrs. A.F. Cushman,
_for Sch'p Endowment Fund, Fisk U._ 15.00
Morrison. William Wallace 10.00
Lawn Ridge. Cong. Ch. and Sab. Sch. 19.48
Lee Center. Cong. Ch., _for Student Aid,
Straight U._ 12.75
Marseilles. Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch.,
_for Student Aid, Fisk U._ 9.00
Payson. J.K. Scarborough 100.00
Peoria. Miss Etta Proctor's S.S. Class,
Sab. Sch. First Cong. Ch., _for Student Aid,
Fisk U._ 3.00
Princeton. Cong. Ch. 11.71
Princeton. Rev. F. Bascom, D.D., Box of
Books, _for Talladega C._
Prospect Park. Cong. Ch., _for Indian M._ 20.04
Oak Park. Young People's Miss'y Soc.,
_for Sch'p Endowment Fund, Fisk U._ 50.00
Turner. Cong. Ch. 3.13
Illinois Woman's Home Missionary Union,
by Mrs. C.E. Maltby, Treas., _for Woman's Work_:
Ashkum 0.56
Atkinson 5.00
Buda 3.50
Chebanse 5.00
Chicago. Park 22.75
Elgin 5.00
Oak Park 24.00
Peoria 50.00
Rockford. First 15.00
Rockford. Second 20.00
Sterling 8.50
Toulon 2.00
Warrensburg 14.44
-------- 180.75
MICHIGAN, $9,417.64.
Detroit. Parke, Davis & Co., Chemists,
Medicines, Val. 17.31. _for Hospital,
Fort Yates, Dak._
Grand Rapids. First Cong. Sab. Sch. 25.00
Hart. Cong. Ch. 6.02
Litchfield. First Cong. Ch. 8.16
Manistee. First Cong. Ch. 26.00
New Haven. First Cong. Ch. 4.11
South Haven. First Cong. Ch. 1.05
Wheatland. Cong. Ch. 25.00
---------
$95.34
ESTATE.
Olivet. Estate of William B. Palmer, by
Geo. W. Keyes, Ex. 9,332.20
---------
$9,417.54
WISCONSIN, $82.66.
Beloit. Sab. Sch. of Second Cong. Ch., 11.86;
First Cong. Ch., 5.50 17.36
Beloit. Sab. Sch. First Cong. Ch., Sewing
Machine, _for Straight U._; 2 _for Freight_ 2.00
Bristol and Paris. Cong. Ch. 24.62
Emerald Grove. Cong. Ch. 6.50
Madison. Clarissa L. Ware's S.S. Class,
Birthday Box, _for Lathrop Library_ 0.93
Madison. Clarissa L. Ware, Package Patchwork,
_for Sew. Sch., Sherwood, Tenn._
New London. Ira Millerd, Sr., _for Lathrop
Library_ 1.00
Rosendale. Mrs. H.N. Clark, _for Freight
to Sherwood, Tenn._ 2.00
West Salem. Mrs. Anson Clark 2.00
Whitewater. First Cong. Ch. 25.00
Viroqua. Mrs. J.R. Casson,
_for Freight to Sherwood, Tenn._ 1.25
IOWA, $226.60.
Atlantic. Cong. Ch. 9.22
Blairstown. MRS. J.H. FRENCH, to const.
herself L.M. 30.00
Burlington. First Cong. Ch., to const.
LUKE PALMER, JR. L.M. 36.50
Dunlap. Cong. Ch. 13.98
Genoa Bluffs. Boys' Intermediate and
Primary Classes, Cong. Sab. Sch.,
_for Student Aid, Straight U._ 8.00
Grinnell. Cong. Ch. 23.25
Marcus. "A Life Member." 1.00
Oldfield. Highland Cong. Sab. Sch.,
_for Indian M and Mountain Work_ 8.75
Sherrills Mound. German Cong. Ch. 4.00
Strawberry Point. First Cong. Ch. 12.15
Wittemberg. Cong. Ch. 9.00
Woman's Home Missionary Union of Iowa,
_for Woman's Work_:
Central City. Y.P.S.C.E. 2.00
Clay. W.M.S. 2.00
Des Moines. W.M.S. 22.02
Harlan. W.M.S. 1.65
Independence. Aid Soc. 5.00
Lyons 5.61
Miles. L.M.S., "Thank
Offering." 5.00
McGregor. W.M.S. 8.65
Onawa. S.S. Birthday Box 6.40
Osage. W.M.S. 2.90
Rockford. L.M.S. 0.05
Shenandoah. W.M.S. 5.55
Wells 0.50
------ 67.33
MINNESOTA, $93.55.
Hutchinson. Cong. Ch. 13.00
Lake City. First Cong. Ch.,
_for Williamsburg Academy_ 23.02
Minneapolis. Plymouth Ch. 45.65
Saint Paul. S.S. Class, _for Talladega C._ 2.25
Worthington. Union Cong. Ch. 4.38
Waseca. Cong. Ch. 5.25
MISSOURI, $40.00.
Kansas City. Clyde Cong. Ch. 40.00
Laclede. Clara Seward, Package Patchwork,
_for Sew. Sch., Sherwood, Tenn._
KANSAS, $12.00.
Manhattan. W.E. Castle 12.00
NEBRASKA, $113.26.
Cortland. "H.C.H." 5.00
Cowles. G.A. Harris 2.48
Hay Springs. First Cong. Ch. 2.25
Irvington. Cong. Ch. 15.00
Kearney. First Cong. Ch. 5.00
Nebraska City. Woman's Miss'y. Soc. of
Cong. Ch. 5.00
Omaha. First Cong. Ch. 78.53
NORTH AND SOUTH DAKOTA, $113.19.
Buffalo Gap. Cong. Ch. 6.25
Buxton, N.D. Ladies' Miss'y Soc. of
Cong. Ch., _for Mountain Work_ 80.00
Custer. Cong. Ch. 4.10
Lake Henry, S. Dak. Cong. Ch. 4.71
Yankton, S. Dak. Cong. Ch. 18.13
WASHINGTON, $5.50.
Roy. Mrs. Eliza Taylor 5.50
OREGON, $45.00.
Canyon. E.S. PENFIELD, to const.
himself L.M. 30.00
Forest Grove. Cong. Ch. 15.00
CALIFORNIA, $3,190.15.
Belmont. Mrs. E.L. Reed and Miss Harriet
Reed, _for Woman's Work_ 17.50
Redlands. First Cong. Ch. 19.25
San Francisco. The California Chinese
Mission (See Items Below) 3,138.40
Tustin. "Busy Bees" by Miss Mary Buss, 15,
and Package C., _for Student Aid,
Normal Inst., Grand View, Tenn._ 15.00
NORTH CAROLINA, $43.85.
Blowing Rock. F.W. Van Wagenen,
_for Blowing Rock, N.C._ 25.00
McLeansville. Rev. A. Connet, _for
Talladega C._ 14.60
Willmington. Sab. Sch. of Cong. Ch. 4.25
TEXAS, $25.00.
Dallas. Cong. Ch. 25.00
----------
Donations $13,862.30
Estates 11,722.20
----------
$25,584.50
TUITION, $466.01.
Lexington, Ky. Tuition 171.35
Wilmington, N.C. Tuition 6.00
Jonesboro, Tenn. County Fund 50.00
Jonesboro, Tenn. Tuition 1.00
Nashville, Tenn. Tuition 192.35
Pleasant Hill, Tenn. Public Fund 40.00
Pleasant Hill, Tenn. Tuition 3.00
Austin, Texas. Tuition 2.31
-------- 466.01
United States Government for the
Education of Indians 1,017.98
----------
Total for October $27,068.49
==========
FOR THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY.
Subscriptions for October $81.86
=======
RECEIPTS OF THE CALIFORNIA CHINESE MISSION,
from April 20th to October 16th, 1889.
E. Palache, Treas.
FROM LOCAL MISSIONS.--Los Angeles,
Chinese Mon Off's. 34.80. Annual
Mem's and other gifts, 20.50.--Marysville.
Chinese Monthlies, 27.80; Annual
Mem's, 6.--Oakland, Chinese Monthlies,
40; Annual Mem's, 24.--Oroville.
Chinese Monthlies, 15.85; Annual
Mem's. 34.--Petaluma: Chinese Monthlies,
10.50; Anniversary Coll., 5.75; Annual
Mem's and other gifts (6 of which from
Dea. A.B. Case) 56.50.--Riverside,
Chinese Monthlies, 17.55; Annual
Mem's 15.--Sacramento, Chinese
Monthlies, 36; Annual Mem's,
30.25.--San Buenaventura, Chinese
Monthlies, 14,10; Annual Mon's, etc.,
31: Chinese Special Offerings, 91.85--San
Diego, Chinese weekly offerings, 86;
Annual Mem's and other gifts, 53.45;
J.A. Rogers, 10; QUON NEUEY, 25,
to const. himself L.M.; Rev. and Mrs.
J.B. Silcox, 10; Col. E.F. French, 5;
Moses Frick, 2.50; Others. 3.--Santa
Barbara, Chinese Monthlies, 14.05;
Annual Mem's and other gifts, 43.75;
Pon Dan, 5; Yee Ock, 5; Gin Chow, 5;
Mrs. E.M. Shattuck, 3.50, balance to
const. REV. C.T. WEITZEL L.M.; "Lady
Friend," 5; Mrs. Josiah Bates, 4;
Cong. Ch., 32.25; Collection at Social,
10.50.--Santa Cruz. Chinese Monthlies,
36.10; Anniversary Coll., 10.80; Annual
Mem's, etc., 63.50.--Stockton, Chinese
Monthlies, 8.75; Annual Mem's. 35.--Tucson,
Chinese Monthlies, 7; Annual
Mem's, 18; "A Friend," 1.35 $964.95
FROM CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES.--Bethany,
(San Joaquin Co.) 4.--Byron,
6.--Crockett, 2.50.--Lorin, 6.40.--Los
Angeles, First, Woman's Home Missionary
Soc,. 43.10. Y.P.S.C.E., 4.50.--Murphys,
4.--Oakland. First, Annual
Off's, 120.85; Fellowship Fund,
22; Sab. Sen., Primary Class, 19.25;
Mrs. H.G. Noyes, 15, "Other Friends."
25; First Ch., Market St. Branch, 5.50,
Plymouth Ave. Ch., Dr. Geo. Mooar,
6.50; Dr. I.E. Dwinell, 5; Dr. J.A.
Benton. 5; Mrs. A.B. Sargent, 5; Mrs.
C.F. Whitton, 2.50; Mrs. M.L. Merritt,
2.50; Mr. and Mrs. F.A. Armstrong,
2.50; Others, 3.--Ontario, 47.--Redwood,
7.--Rio Vista, 15.15,--San Diego,
Second, Rev. F.B. Perkins, 5.--San
Francisco, First. Mrs. Hutchins, 5;
Miss Hutchins, 1.50; Mrs. Perkins, 1.80;
"Other Friends," 7; Third Church,
63.90.--Bethany Ch., from Americans
Annual Mem's, 67.50. Mrs. H.A. Lamont,
14; "W.C.P." balance to const.
REV. J.B. SILCOX and MRS. A.E. NOBLE
L.M's, 9.50; Dr. R.B. Hall, 10; J.M.
Stockman, 10; Mrs. S.C. Hasleton,
10; W. Johnstone, 5; T.S. Sherman,
5.--From Chinese Central Mission,
Monthly Off's, 46.90; Annual Mem's,
etc., 95.60; Barnes Mission, Monthly
Off's 8.25; Annual Mem's, etc., 8; West
Mission, Monthly Off's, 27.60; Annual
Mem's. 29; San Francisco Branch Ass'n
7.55, (25 of which from Chinese to
const. REV. J.F. MASTERS L.M.).--Saratoga,
10.--Woodland, 7.70 834.95
FROM INDIVIDUAL DONORS.--Messrs.
Balfour, Guthrie & Co., 500; Mrs. A.J.
Styles, 250.; Frank J. Felt, 50.; John
Jackson, 25.; Rev. Joseph Rowell, 10.
Rev. J.C. Holbrook, D.D., 10.; Mrs.
E.G. Chaddock, 5.; Rev. and Mrs. H.H.
Wickoff, 5 855.00
FROM EASTERN FRIENDS.--Bangor, Me.,
Hon. E.R. Burpee, 100.--"A Friend,"
10.--Brewer, Me., Mrs. Hardy,
100.--Norridgewock, Me., Mrs. Benjamin
Tappan, 2.--North Conway, N.H.,
First Cong. Ch., 10.; Rev. R. Henry
Davis, 10.--Amherst, Mass., Mrs. R.A.
Lester, 100.--South Braintree, Mass.
Rev. J.B. Sewall. 25.--Marlboro,
Mass., Miss H.J. Alexander, 1.50.--New
Haven, Conn., Mrs. Henry Farnum,
100.--Colebrook, Conn., Miss
Sarah Carrington, 20.--Cincinnati,
Ohio, Miss L.B. Sherwood, 4.--Richfield,
Minn, T.N. Spaulding, 1. 483.50
---------
Total $3,138.40
=========
H.W. HUBBARD, Treasurer,
56 Reade N.Y.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889" ***
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