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Title: The American Missionary — Volume 33, No. 12, December 1879
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The American Missionary — Volume 33, No. 12, December 1879" ***
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VOL. XXXIII. No. 12.
THE
AMERICAN MISSIONARY.
* * * * *
“To the Poor the Gospel is Preached.”
* * * * *
DECEMBER, 1879.
_CONTENTS_:
THE ANNUAL MEETING.
PARAGRAPHS 353
THE FINANCIAL OUTLOOK 354
PROCEEDINGS 355
GENERAL SURVEY 356
REPORT OF FINANCE COMMITTEE 368
THE FREEDMEN.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATIONAL WORK 368
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON CHURCH WORK 370
PROVIDENTIAL CALLS: Rev. M. E. Strieby, D. D. 372
THE NEGRO IN AMERICA: Prest. R. H. Merrell, D. D. 378
CHURCH WORK IN THE SOUTH: Rev. C. L. Woodworth 384
AFRICA.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE 388
THE MENDI COUNTRY: Rev. G. D. Pike 390
THE INDIANS.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE 394
THE INDIAN QUESTION: Rev. H. A. Stimson 395
THE CHINESE.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE 401
AMERICA AND CHINA: Rev. J. H. Twichell 402
* * * * *
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,
56 READE STREET, N. Y.
* * * * *
PRESIDENT.
HON. E. S. TOBEY, Boston.
VICE-PRESIDENTS.
Hon. F. D. PARISH, Ohio.
Hon. E. D. HOLTON, Wis.
Hon. WILLIAM CLAFLIN, Mass.
ANDREW LESTER, Esq., N. Y.
Rev. STEPHEN THURSTON, D. D., Me.
Rev. SAMUEL HARRIS, D. D., Ct.
WM. C. CHAPIN, Esq., R. I.
Rev. W. T. EUSTIS, D. D., Mass.
Hon. A. C. BARSTOW, R. I.
Rev. THATCHER THAYER, D. D., R. I.
Rev. RAY PALMER, D. D., N. J.
Rev. EDWARD BEECHER, D. D., N. Y.
Rev. J. M. STURTEVANT, D. D., Ill.
Rev. W. W. PATTON, D. D., D. C.
Hon. SEYMOUR STRAIGHT, La.
HORACE HALLOCK, Esq., Mich.
Rev. CYRUS W. WALLACE, D. D., N. H.
Rev. EDWARD HAWES, D. D., Ct.
DOUGLAS PUTNAM, Esq., Ohio.
Hon. THADDEUS FAIRBANKS, Vt.
SAMUEL D. PORTER, Esq., N. Y.
Rev. M. M. G. DANA, D. D., Minn.
Rev. H. W. BEECHER, N. Y.
Gen. O. O. HOWARD, Oregon.
Rev. G. F. MAGOUN, D. D., Iowa.
Col. C. G. HAMMOND, Ill.
EDWARD SPAULDING, M. D., N. H.
DAVID RIPLEY, Esq., N. J.
Rev. WM. M. BARBOUR, D. D., Ct.
Rev. W. L. GAGE, D. D., Ct.
A. S. HATCH, Esq., N. Y.
Rev. J. H. FAIRCHILD, D. D., Ohio.
Rev. H. A. STIMSON, Minn.
Rev. J. W. STRONG, D. D., Minn.
Rev. A. L. STONE, D. D., California.
Rev. G. H. ATKINSON, D. D., Oregon.
Rev. J. E. RANKIN, D. D., D. C.
Rev. A. L. CHAPIN, D. D., Wis.
S. D. SMITH, Esq., Mass.
PETER SMITH, Esq., Mass.
Dea. JOHN C. WHITIN, Mass.
Hon. J. B. GRINNELL, Iowa.
Rev. WM. T. CARR, Ct.
Rev. HORACE WINSLOW, Ct.
Sir PETER COATS, Scotland.
Rev. HENRY ALLON, D. D., London, Eng.
WM. E. WHITING, Esq., N. Y.
J. M. PINKERTON, Esq., Mass.
E. A. GRAVES, Esq., N. J.
Rev. F. A. NOBLE, D. D., Ill.
DANIEL HAND, Esq., Ct.
A. L. WILLISTON, Esq., Mass.
Rev. A. F. BEARD, D. D., N. Y.
FREDERICK BILLINGS, Esq., Vt.
JOSEPH CARPENTER, Esq., R. I.
Rev. E. P. GOODWIN, D. D., Ill.
Rev. C. L. GOODELL, D. D., Mo.
J. W. SCOVILLE, Esq., Ill.
E. W. BLATCHFORD, Esq., Ill.
C. D. TALCOTT, Esq., Ct.
Rev. JOHN K. MCLEAN, D. D., Cal.
Rev. RICHARD CORDLEY, D. D., Kansas.
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.
REV. M. E. STRIEBY, D. D., _56 Reade Street, N. Y._
DISTRICT SECRETARIES.
REV. C. L. WOODWORTH, _Boston_.
REV. G. D. PIKE, _New York_.
REV. JAS. POWELL, _Chicago_.
H. W. HUBBARD, ESQ., _Treasurer, N. Y._
REV. M. E. STRIEBY, _Recording Secretary_.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
ALONZO S. BALL,
A. S. BARNES,
GEO. M. BOYNTON,
WM. B. BROWN,
C. T. CHRISTENSEN,
CLINTON B. FISK,
ADDISON P. FOSTER,
S. B. HALLIDAY,
SAMUEL HOLMES,
CHARLES A. HULL,
EDGAR KETCHUM,
CHAS. L. MEAD,
WM. T. PRATT,
J. A. SHOUDY,
JOHN H. WASHBURN,
G. B. WILCOX.
COMMUNICATIONS
relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to
the Corresponding Secretary; those relating to the collecting
fields to the District Secretaries; letters for the Editor of the
“American Missionary,” to Rev. Geo. M. Boynton, at the New York
Office.
DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS
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 112 West Washington
Street, Chicago, Ill. A payment of thirty dollars at one time
constitutes a Life Member.
THE
AMERICAN MISSIONARY.
* * * * *
VOL. XXXIII. DECEMBER, 1879. No. 12.
* * * * *
American Missionary Association.
* * * * *
It is a real source of regret to us that all our news from the
field must be omitted for this month. Next month we shall be
flooded with good tidings, we hope, from all quarters.
* * * * *
Friends sending us remittances will please address H. W. Hubbard,
Esq., Treasurer, he having been promoted from the Assistant and
Acting Treasurership on the retirement of Edgar Ketchum, Esq. Mr.
Ketchum still remains on the Executive Committee.
* * * * *
By a mistake at the Chicago newspaper offices, the name of
Mr. Samuel Holmes was omitted from the list of our Executive
Committee as printed by them, and that of Mr. Andrew Lester
retained. The facts are just the other way. Mr. Lester having
resigned, was made a Vice-President, and Mr. Holmes is still a
member of the Committee.
* * * * *
The MISSIONARY is this month devoted to the reproduction of the
Annual Meeting. We wish all our readers could have been there to
learn of our work, our situation and our prospects, and to gain
those enlarged views of the duty and the opportunity which lie
before us in all directions. This grouping of proceedings and
papers is the best substitute we can offer.
We print the annual survey of the Executive Committee nearly in
full, rather than in abstract, as heretofore, as giving that
general view of the work, without which it cannot be appreciated
in its extent and variety. Instead of covering several pages with
the formal minutes of the Annual Meeting, we condense them into a
shorter compass, as giving equal information in a more readable
form. The Annual Report, when published in full, will, of course,
contain these as well as the reports of the Committees in detail.
We have maintained our general division of the field, prefixing
the reports of the several committees to the papers and addresses
on the cognate subjects, by this classification making the whole
more valuable for reference and use. We thus propose to send the
annual meeting to those who could not go to it, regretting still
that the enthusiasms and impressions of a great assembly cannot
be transmitted by types and ink.
We regret the necessity which has compelled us to abridge
somewhat almost all the reports and papers following, but the
limits of a double number are easily reached with so much
material at hand. We have omitted entirely the valuable paper by
General Leake, on “Protection of Law for the Indians,” because
it has been printed in full in both the _Inter-Ocean_ and the
_Advance_, and because it is so long and yet so compact that it
cannot be condensed. It is well worth most careful study.
* * * * *
We are under obligations to our denominational newspapers for
their full and faithful reports of our meeting. The _Advance_, in
its regular edition and in an extra, gave full copies of the most
important documents and papers read, for which we have secured
a wide circulation; while the _Congregationalist_, through its
editorial correspondent, devoted a large part of its first page
to the report of the meeting, printed the larger part of the
annual report on its third page, and in its leading editorial
spoke good words of commendation for the Association, and of
exhortation to its friends.
* * * * *
THE FINANCIAL OUTLOOK.
Our work has, in the successful termination of the year, reached
an important crisis. We should be sorry to have any one think,
because the debt and the expenses of the year have been met,
that we are, therefore, about to retire from business and rest
from our labors. On the other hand, we are just ready to go
to work. It has taken a good share of our strength to carry
this back-load; and we have been crippled at the front by the
insufficiency of the buildings for our largest institutions. We
have been walking as men walk on the ice, holding back lest we
should venture too far and make some bad slip.
But that is all, we trust, of the past. God has been good to us.
We have prayed for deliverance and we have worked to be free, and
prayers and alms have come up together before God, and prayer is
always effectual when accompanied with such proofs of sincerity.
Now we are free to work. Our feet are on the solid rock of
solvency. The Lord has established our goings. The way is open
before us and the work lies ready to our hand. Our schools in
the South of all grades are opening this year fuller than ever.
Several churches are waiting to be recognized and put upon the
pilgrim foundation. The completion of the new building in Austin,
Texas, and of the four we hope soon to build at other points,
will give increased and much needed accommodations. Those who met
at Chicago urged us to enlarge the missionary schools among the
Chinese on the Pacific Coast; and the new departure in attempting
the education of Indian youths at our negro schools offers us
opportunities of more permanent influence in that direction than
we can hope for in any other way, while the tribes are subject
to be moved at will from one reservation to another. The African
Missions, new and old, are both calling upon us for attention and
expense.
What is the financial outlook for all this? Shall we be able to
meet these various calls with anything like adequate efficiency?
We answer, with a look of inquiry, Friends, it depends on you.
But our expression of inquiry turns to one of confidence as we
remember what you have done. We expect to do this larger work;
for evidently God calls us to it, and His friends have never
failed us yet.
We are encouraged, too, by the beginnings of the year. Our
receipts for the month of October and the beginning of November
are larger than a year ago. But, do not forget, they need to be
so all through the year. We will be as wise and saving in the
expenditure as we can; but we can be far more wisely economical
on an income which is reasonably adequate to the needs of the
work, than on a very scanty one. “The destruction of the poor is
their poverty,” says the wise man. Keep us in mind then and in
heart, we pray you, that we may all realize that God has brought
us out into this liberty that we may serve Him and our generation
better.
* * * * *
PROCEEDINGS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING.
The meeting place was the spacious First Congregational Church
of Chicago. At 3 p. m. of Tuesday, October 28th, President Tobey
assumed the chair, and Dr. W. H. Bidwell, of New York, conducted
the opening devotional services. Rev. J. G. Merrill, of Iowa, and
Rev. George C. Adams, of Illinois, were elected Secretaries.
The Annual Report was read by Rev. George M. Boynton, and the
Treasurer’s Report by H. W. Hubbard, Esq. In grateful response to
their cheering character the congregation rising sang, “Praise
God, from whom all blessings flow.” The hour following was
observed as a concert of prayer with the pastors and teachers in
the Southern field.
In the evening Dr. R. S. Storrs, of New York, preached a grand
discourse from Psalm cxviii. 23, “This is the Lord’s doing; it is
marvelous in our eyes.” President Strong, of Minnesota, and Dr.
Robbins, of Iowa, conducted the other services.
During the evening the following greeting was received by
telegram and read by Secretary Strieby: “The Prudential Committee
and the Executive Officers of the A. B. C. F. M. congratulate the
A. M. A. upon the successful termination of their year’s labor,
and bid them God-speed in their work for the coming year.”
ALPHEUS HARDY, _Chairman_.
On the next morning the following response was adopted by a
rising vote: “The A. M. A., assembled at its thirty-third
anniversary, receive with grateful appreciation the congratulations
of the Prudential Committee and Executive Officers of the
venerable American Board, and with thanks to God for the recent
enlargement granted to the Board, pray for the continued
Divine blessing on its glorious and expanding work.”
M. E. STRIEBY, _Secretary_.
Dr. Goodwin, of Chicago, then led in an earnest prayer for the
blessing of God upon the two societies and their common work.
Tuesday evening Secretary Strieby read a paper entitled
“Providential Calls,” and President Merrell, of Wisconsin, on “The
Providential Significance of the Negro in the United States.” These
will be found in this MISSIONARY. Field Superintendent Roy gave
“A Field View of the Work.” Rev. J. H. Twichell, of Connecticut,
read a paper on “The Relations of America and China,” of which
we reprint a portion. In the afternoon a paper on “The Necessity
of the Protection of Law for the Indians” was read by Gen. J.
B. Leake, of Illinois. These papers were referred each to the
committee having charge of the cognate subject.
The Finance Committee reported through Mr. J. W. Scoville,
approving the management of the Association and calling upon the
churches to increase their contributions to its treasury, so that
now freed from debt it might do a greater and a better work. The
report was followed by remarks from Hon. E. S. Hastings, Geo.
Bushnell, D. D., and Hon. E. D. Holton, of Wisconsin.
Rev. Henry A. Stimson reported for the Committee on Indian
Missions, and followed the report with an able address, giving
a sketch of the causes of the various Indian wars. An animated
discussion followed.
Rev. C. H. Richards read the report of the Committee on Church
Work, and was followed by District Secretary Woodworth and others.
The Committee on Educational Work reported through its chairman,
Prest. A. L. Chapin, of Wis., followed by Professors Willcox and
Chase, and Rev. Messrs. Bray, Boynton and Foster.
Rev. A. H. Ross, of Mich., reported for the Committee on Chinese
Missions, following the report with a brief address, and followed
by Rev. Mark Williams, of China, Jee Gam and others.
Dr. Dana, of Minn., reported on African Missions for the
Committee. He also, District Secretary Pike, and Dr. E. P.
Goodwin, made addresses.
For these reports in full or in part we refer to the following
pages; and for the officers elected for the coming year, to the
inside of the first cover.
The morning prayer meetings were led by Rev. James Brand, of
Ohio, and M. M. G. Dana, D. D., of Minn. The Lord’s Supper was
administered on Thursday afternoon by F. Bascom, D. D., of Ill.,
and Rev. Thomas Jones, of Mich. At this service a contribution
was taken, amounting to $437.46, for the Trinity School at
Athens, Ala., for which a special plea had been made in the
morning.
President Fairchild and Col. C. G. Hammond presided at the
morning and afternoon sessions of Thursday respectively.
A most interesting meeting was held on Wednesday evening, when,
after prayer by Dr. Geo. N. Boardman, of Illinois, addresses
were made by Jee Gam, a converted Chinaman, and now one of our
teachers in Oakland, Cal.; by Big Elk, a converted Indian, from
the Omaha Reservation, who was accompanied by Rev. Mr. Dorsey,
who acted as his interpreter, and by Rev. James Saunders, a negro
minister. These three told the story of their own religious
experiences and life. Prest. Alexander, of La., and Dr. Roy, of
Ga., followed, and pointed the illustration of this one humanity
and one Gospel.
Thursday evening the closing session was held, at which Mr. M.
H. Crogman, a graduate of Atlanta, and now Professor in the
Methodist school at Nashville, Tenn., made an address which, by
the vigor of its thought and the eloquence of its expression,
was a sufficient illustration of the capacities of his race.
President Tobey and F. A. Noble, D. D., also addressed the
meeting. Resolutions of thanks to the First Church and its
pastor, the people and press of Chicago, and the railroads which
had given especial facilities, were passed. A few last words from
Dr. Goodwin, and the benediction from Dr. Savage, of Chicago, and
the Association adjourned for another year.
It would not be right to omit the notice of the Ladies’ Meeting
held in the church parlors on Wednesday afternoon. Mrs. E. W.
Blatchford presided, and the large assembly was addressed by Mrs.
Prof. Spence, of Fisk University, and Misses Parmelee and Milton,
teachers at Memphis, Tenn.
* * * * *
GENERAL SURVEY.
From the Annual Report of the Executive Committee.
The report opens with brief obituary notices of Rev. Simeon S.
Jocelyn, a Secretary of the Society for many years and more
lately a member of the Committee; and of Rev. William Patton, D.
D., and Rev. George Thacher, D. D., Vice-Presidents; of Miss
Laura S. Cary and Mrs. Anna M. Peebles, valued teachers, and Miss
Rebecca Tyler Bacon, associated with Hampton in its early days,
who have also died during the year. These may be found in full in
the forthcoming Annual Report volume.
THE FREEDMEN.
The varying fortunes of the Freedmen through the year have added
another illustration to the many which combine to show that an
uneducated mass of men is always an uncertain quantity in the
national problem. That these once slaves in the South have been
wronged and abused there can be no doubt. Advantage has been
taken of their ignorance in contracts for labor, and in the
manner of their pay. They have been misled and intimidated in the
attempt to exercise their right of franchise. It would be useless
to deny the facts. The thousands who have left their homes and
associations in Mississippi and Louisiana for the chances of new
settlement in Kansas, are witnesses as powerful in their silence
as in their speech. They have not gone for nothing.
We have no apology to offer for those who have made it impossible
for them to remain in peace, and who have sought by force to keep
them from departing. But, on the other hand, it becomes us to
remember that these evils spring not so much from local as from
general causes. The same wrongs are perpetrated and endured,
to some extent, wherever there are similar states of society.
Ignorance is always at a disadvantage, whether it wants to work
or to vote. It is always in bonds to some power and will beyond
its own. New York, and perhaps even Chicago, knows something
of abused labor and a controlled vote. The local causes which
increase the evil may need thorough treatment, but that is not
ours either to prescribe or to administer. It is the general
cause which we may consider, and to which we are directing all
our energies—not to the restraint or punishment of those who do
the wrong, but to the removal of the ignorance which gives such
large occasion for the wrong.
For our work is foundational and steady. Amid all social and
political changes the need for it remains unchanged. We are not
engaged in pulling up the shallow roots of weeds, nor in planting
flower-beds with annuals, but in sub-soiling our Southern fields,
and so preparing the ground for crops of better quality from
year to year. The only permanent guarantee against the abuse of
any race or class, either North or South, is the diffusion of
Christian intelligence among the abused, and of the spirit of
Christian love among those who abuse them. This is our work.
We have no word of criticism for those who have chosen to remove
to another State. Liberty of emigration is one of the most
unquestionable rights of freemen. But there is no charm in the
name of Kansas which will make the ignorant or the timid either
wise or brave. Let the masses of the colored race be once armed
with intelligence, and they can stay or go with equal impunity.
Without it they will be anywhere at the mercy of either force or
fraud.
Nor is the work of the Association to be limited by any local
changes among the Freedmen. The removal of seven thousand men,
women and children from so vast a population leaves no noticeable
void; nor, even if the proportions of this exodus shall reach
the highest numbers at which it has been estimated, will it
perceptibly diminish the millions of a race which is year by year
increasing in numbers and in thrift.
The only plea which these facts make to us is, that we redouble
our efforts to forge for them the armor which alone can be their
complete defence.
The Association has not, therefore, felt itself called upon to
divert its efforts to the field thus newly occupied. If, as the
outcome of this movement, there shall be permanent and large
settlements of the colored people in new localities, it may
become needful for us carefully to consider the claim which they
may make on us for such service as we are trying to render their
brethren in the South.
We have cheerfully forwarded such gifts of money and clothing
as have been entrusted to us to local agencies, in which we had
reason to have the greatest confidence, for the relief of the
present distress, and have kept ourselves to our main work.
EDUCATIONAL WORK.
Our _eight chartered institutions_, in the eight leading States
of the South, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, have continued to do thorough
and faithful work. One has been added to the number of our normal
schools, making twelve in all. Twenty-four common schools have
been aided—six more than the previous year. The total number of
schools of all grades has been 44.
We have had in all 190 teachers in the field; of these 10 have
also fulfilled the duties of matrons, 6 have been connected with
the business department, and 11 have been pastors of churches,
but all have been actively engaged in teaching.
The total number of pupils has been 7,207—almost exactly the
number reported a year ago. These have been distributed as
follows: Primary, 2,739; Intermediate, 1,495; Grammar, 633;
Normal, 2,022; Collegiate Preparatory, 169; Collegiate, 63; Law,
28; Theological, 86. This shows an increase in the professional
schools, a decrease in the collegiate, and over 500 more in the
normal department than last year.
The reports of the _quality of the work_ thus accomplished have
been most encouraging. Greater regularity of attendance has
been attained than ever before, and the ambition to keep up
with the classes entered has been marked. The same persistence
in overcoming obstacles to entrance arising from poverty and
distance from the schools which marked previous years, has been
no less conspicuous during that just passed. The range of study
and instruction has been much the same as heretofore. The work
of the class-rooms has been too good to need to be materially
altered.
The _industrial and practical training_ has been that in which
there has been the most marked improvement and expansion. How to
work is quite as important a branch of knowledge for the colored
boys and girls as how to teach. Indeed, that they maybe able
to teach others how to work is a large part of their vocation.
How to behave themselves on the farm, in the shop, in the
work-room, sick-room and the kitchen, is as needful for them to
know as how to behave themselves in the school-room and in the
church of God. This training is receiving more and more wise and
thorough attention, and we are sending out young men and young
women better and better fitted to be the teachers and leaders of
society, as well as of the school.
Our schools and teachers have been evidently _growing in favor
and esteem_, both with the colored and white people of the South.
A most noticeable instance of the attachment of the colored
population to the schools, and their appreciation of their value,
was given very recently at Athens, Alabama. It became necessary
to give up the school at that place, or to rebuild at an expense
of not less than $5,000, which latter it was deemed impossible
to do. Word to that effect was sent to Athens. The grief of the
people was intense. It did not, however, expend itself in tears,
but became motive power. They offered themselves to erect the
needful building, pledged over $2,000 at once, and by gifts of
labor and material provided fully for it, and are at work upon it
now. They propose to make brick sufficient for its completion,
and a surplus to exchange for the lumber which will be required.
They are all at it. A blind man, who can do nothing else, offered
to turn the crank to draw the water. Whether they will be able,
in their extreme poverty, to accomplish all they have undertaken,
yet remains to be seen; but such zeal in a good thing is surely
worthy of special notice. When the colored people attempt to
co-operate with us to such an extent, we cannot desert them. The
school will go on.
During this year it appeared to the Committee that a sufficient
fund had been accumulated to warrant at least a beginning of the
permanent building for the Tillotson Normal Institute, in Austin,
Texas. The foundation is already laid, and the contract drawn for
the enclosure of the building. This great State, with its rapidly
increasing population of colored people, and its insufficient
provision for their education, demands the earliest possible
completion of this building, and the equipment of the institution
for efficient work.
With the four _buildings_ completed the previous year at Mobile,
New Orleans, Macon and Savannah, we are now in possession of
better and more permanent equipment for our school work than
ever before. But it is yet quite insufficient for its pressing
need, which is most felt in the necessity of enlarged provision
for boarding pupils, for it is, after all, in those who are
thus brought under the continuous influence of their teachers,
and away from the debasing surroundings of cabin life, that the
best results of mental and religious training are realized. The
call for such relief has been continuous and increasing in its
urgency; but we have been obliged almost to deny it a hearing in
the poverty and pressure of these past years.
The near future will, however, we trust, do much to relieve this
long-felt want, through the generous gift to the Association of
$150,000 by Mrs. Daniel P. Stone, of Malden, Mass., from the
estate of her late husband, of which, though it is not yet in
our possession, we have been fully assured. In accordance with
the expressed wish of the donor, this money is to be used in
the erection of buildings at Nashville, Atlanta, New Orleans
and Talladega. These buildings will largely increase the
accommodations of these institutions for the class of pupils
which has been named, and will greatly diminish the percentage of
expense for their education, as but few additions to the corps of
teachers already in the work will be required. In these normal
and collegiate institutions it is the variety of studies rather
than the number of students to which the teaching force must be
adapted. We may add fifty per cent. to the number of pupils,
and need to add only five per cent., perhaps, to the number of
teachers. There can be no more acceptable gift than that of these
new buildings for well-established schools—none which will so
add to their effectiveness.
A few school _buildings_ belonging to the Association have been,
of late years, _rented to local school boards_, in cases where
greater good could be accomplished for those for whose use they
were intended than by retaining them in our hands. It has been
a saving to our treasury, a widening of their usefulness, and a
bond of fraternity between the friends of education North and
South.
We may only, in passing, refer to the beginning in the
accumulation of valuable _libraries_ made in some of our
institutions. There is yet room for much needed enlargement of
this important branch of our educational service.
Two things yet remain to be done that our schools may be
placed upon a permanent and satisfactory basis, and these are
adequate provision for the maintenance of professorships and
of scholarships. We have been compelled to confine ourselves
chiefly to making appropriations for the salaries of teachers,
simply because without them there could be no schools at all.
This was the one thing indispensable from the very start. But,
increasingly, the need of _student aid_ makes itself manifest.
Gifts have been secured from churches, Sunday-schools and
individuals for this purpose, and more money must be raised from
similar sources. Yet it is evident that this must not be taken
from the fund by which the teachers are sustained. That would be
to increase the number of applicants, and, at the same time, to
close the doors at which they seek admission. We must not try
to lengthen the skirts of our coats by cutting them off at the
shoulders; they will fall off from us altogether if we do that.
This is our problem: both to maintain our teachers and to support
more students. It cannot be solved by any process of subtraction.
Can it be done in any other way than by addition to our income?
And it must be done, if we are to make our work tell as it ought
upon the vast negro population of the South. To overcome the
obstacles which stand at every step in the way of attaining the
thorough education needed by those who are to be the leaders
of their people, demands a power of will and an energy of
perseverance such as few individuals of any race possess, unless
they are assisted all along the way.
The origin and surroundings of these colored students must
be continually borne in mind. They have nothing to help them
in the homes from which they came; nothing to help them in
the prevailing sentiment of the white people toward them; the
fewest possible openings for such remunerative labor as is
ready for white students in similar conditions, and checks on
their ambition of every sort. Nor is it strange that they lack
that stamina which generations of culture and self-restraint
impart. Their help, both moral and material, must come from us,
and those who, like us, believe that they can be and should be
thoroughly trained before they are sent forth to lay foundations
for the upbuilding of their race. Student aid must be freely
and systematically given, or our higher schools will accomplish
their beneficent design at great disadvantage, and only to a very
limited extent.
But the glory of our schools and colleges is more than in all
else in their _religious character and influence_—that they
are Christian schools and missionary colleges. Indeed, they are
so completely at one with the church work that it is difficult
to draw a line between the two departments, and to tell where
the one ends and the other begins. A few particulars may best
illustrate the influence of faithful Christian instruction and
example. Of 52 graduates of Atlanta, 50 at graduation were
professing Christians, and none have fallen away. Later we hear,
“All the members of the classes to be graduated now profess to
be Christians.” A revival is reported during the year, and not
less than 30 conversions. Fisk reports several additions to the
College church at every communion, and as many more of those
converted there to other churches. At Talladega we hear of “a
precious work of grace; 37 were received into the church. All
but two of the girls, and all but four of the 45 young men, who
are boarding scholars, are professing Christians.” The pastor at
Hampton writes: “Nowhere can teachers be found more earnestly
evangelical, laboring often beyond their strength to bring souls
to Christ. 11 of the Indian students were, in March, received
into the College church.” At Berea, the graduates of this year
are all professing Christians. These are examples of the good
accomplished and reported. In several of the lower schools, also,
we hear of many being brought to Christ.
Nor are these Christian students idle in the Master’s vineyard.
They go out to _their school work_ in vacation time, and have
learned as they go to preach. The help which was given, the
previous year, to lengthen the short terms of a few common
schools, thus furnishing employment for our _student teachers_,
was thought to be fruitful of good results by our best and most
experienced instructors. It has been deemed wise to somewhat
enlarge the work in that direction.
108 teachers from Fisk, in 1877, taught 9,332 pupils. Over 10,000
pupils, during the year 1878, are estimated to have been taught
by those educated at Atlanta. On this basis, we feel justified
in estimating that at least 150,000 pupils have been reached
by our present and former students during the year. They also
go out to do Sunday-school and missionary work on the Lord’s
day. Talladega reached 1,200 Sunday-school scholars through its
students during the last year, and in all the years some 20,000.
A high educational official testifies that the students of
Tougaloo “almost invariably start Sunday-schools as soon as they
open their day-schools.” So the seed is sown not by the way-side,
nor on the rock, nor among the thorns, but where it “also beareth
fruit and bringeth forth, some an hundred-fold, some sixty, some
thirty.”
A few words, by way of bridging over to our church work, as to
our _Theological Departments_. They are four—at Nashville,
Talladega and New Orleans, which are ours altogether, and at
Washington, where we continue to share the support of the
Theological Department of Howard University with the Presbytery
of that city. There are 86 students in these schools, of which
number nearly one-half are at Howard University. They are sending
out ministers, well trained both intellectually and spiritually,
into our churches and those of other denominations.
THE CHURCH WORK.
The present _number of churches_ in connection with the
Association is sixty-seven. These are supplied with pastors,
some of them white ministers of experience and culture, who,
for health’s sake, are glad to be in the South; others, young
and earnest men, who prefer to devote themselves to work among
the lowly; others still are colored men, who have been educated
in our own or similar institutions, and who are doing good work
among their own people. Some of these are also principals or
teachers in the schools, thus doing double duty.
The number of church members is 4,600, of whom 745 have been
added during the year. This work has been under the supervision
of Dr. Roy. It has been a time for making acquaintance with
the men and the field, but his first visits have been full of
service in quickening and counselling those on the ground, and in
correspondence with the administrative force at home.
Three _new churches_ have been established during the year—at
Shelby Iron Works, Ala., at Cypress Slash, Ga., and at Flatonia,
Texas.
After a careful survey of the material and opportunity, we are
neither prepared to rush in and organize new churches wherever
it may be possible, nor to abandon the field as unfitted to our
polity. We could probably buy up a hundred churches within a
year at $100 apiece, and then should be worse off than when we
began, loaded down with useless burdens. There is nothing in the
nature of the South or in the character of the negro by which
the people of that region or that race are unfitted to be good
Congregationalists. It only demands intelligence and the power
of self-control. Where these have been developed by Christian
education there is readiness and preparation enough. Hitherto
our churches have flourished under the shadow of our schools
and of their graduates. But as the sun goes toward the west
the shadow broadens, and the field for churches of our order
is enlarged. There are some half dozen localities now waiting
and ready to organize Congregational churches, to which our
Field Superintendent will give early attention and assistance.
Discriminating and timely help at such points will accomplish far
more in the end than rapid and ill-considered assistance. Too
many churches, both North and South, die early, because born too
soon. We design and purpose to extend this work as fast, and only
as fast, as we may do it with the hope of permanent results.
A goodly number of these churches report _religious interest_
during the year, and, indeed, some of them are engaged in seasons
of special effort and ingathering at this time; for in the
South—strange as it may seem to us—the summer gives an interval
from farm work which is often and successfully devoted to special
Christian effort. A letter just received informs us of such a
series of meetings in one of our churches in North Carolina,
with a congregation of 200, who bring their lunch and stay from
morning till afternoon, and often till the evening service too.
The impression made by these churches upon ministers who went
among them for the first time last winter was very noticeable,
and their testimony agrees as to the decorum, as well as fervor,
of their colored congregations. Nor are they without the witness
to their progress, which is indicated by efforts looking toward
their _self-support_ and a participation in the general work of
missions. These all have _Sunday-schools_ connected with them,
in which are gathered 6,219 scholars, besides which some of our
teachers are engaged in Sunday-schools connected with other
Christian churches. The cause of _temperance_ receives constant
attention in both schools and churches. Juvenile and adult
organizations are found in nearly all of them, and the young men
and women go out pledged, not only to abstain themselves, but to
make it part of their mission to persuade others to follow their
example in this respect.
To the six _Conferences_ into which our churches were organized
one has been added during the past year—that of North Carolina.
The Georgia Conference takes the place of that of South-eastern
Georgia. The Congregationalism of the South is thus fully
associated. The meetings of these bodies are full of interest.
Their discussions are practical and admirably sustained. Their
fellowship is cordial and Christian, and their spiritual power is
in some cases remarkable. The South-western Conference, this year
held at New Iberia, La., was signalized by the quickening and
reviving of the churches represented, and by the conversion of
fifty souls.
_Councils_ are called for ordination of pastors from time to
time, and in all customary ways the churches mutually advise and
help each other.
We should be greatly remiss did we not call attention also to the
work done in the homes of the colored people by _devout women
who have given themselves to this missionary work_. The need
of such work can easily be imagined, but cannot be appreciated
fully without a knowledge of the facts. At Memphis, Tenn.,
Atlanta, Ga., Miller’s Station, Ga., Charleston, S. C., etc.,
faithful visitations have been made from house to house, and
Bible-reading, cottage prayer-meetings, practical instruction,
and occasional temporal relief, have been administered by lady
missionaries, while many of our lady teachers have cheerfully
engaged in similar work, so far as their engagements would allow.
No general organization of Northern women has been attempted in
this behalf, but of their own motion circles have been formed at
Detroit, Mich., Waukegan, Ill., Oberlin, Ohio, and other points,
whose object it has been to provide the expenses for these
messengers of mercy. The work, though limited in its extent, has
been fruitful of good results.
Before leaving this hurried review of the Southern field, we are
happy to say that our corps of workers, as a whole, has never
been more admirably efficient than now. There are fewer changes
in the force from year to year than formerly, and those who have
just gone for the first time into these schools and churches are
men and women of superior intelligence and character. We look for
grand work and great results, through God’s blessing on their
labors in the coming year.
AFRICA.
About the beginning of the current year, the Rev. Floyd Snelson,
who was at the head of the _Mendi Mission_, was obliged to
return to this country on account of the health of his wife.
We greatly deplored his loss, as we trusted much to his wisdom
and experience for a wise administration of our work in that
far land. To Rev. A. P. Miller were committed the position and
responsibilities thus vacated. He, with Rev. A. E. Jackson,
and their wives, Dr. James and Mr. White, constituted then our
missionary band.
On the 13th of February, Elmore L. Anthony was sent, _via_
Liberia, to join them. His various experiences as a slave, a
soldier and a student, had fitted him to take special charge of
the industrial work at Avery, though we believed him to be as
much a missionary in spirit as those who had preceded him. He was
submitted to a severe medical examination, and pronounced sound
in health; for we have concluded that those only of unimpaired
health should be exposed to the debilitating influences of a
tropical climate. He has so far fulfilled all our expectations.
We have just sent another missionary to the field. Nathaniel
Nurse, a native of Barbadoes, who has resided already in Liberia
five years, and who has been maintained at Fisk University for
the last two years by English and Scotch friends, sailed on the
fourth of this month. He has shown much enterprise in the past,
which we hope will be effectively applied to the missionary work
on the West Coast.
Our force consists then, at present, of these six men and the
wives of two. The men have endured the climate wonderfully well,
having suffered only temporary disabilities, and having been laid
aside but little from their work. Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Jackson
have not been as well, perhaps, because they were not in as firm
health before leaving this country, but have not been compelled,
as yet, to leave the Mendi coast, even temporarily.
Last year we had but a single _church_ to report, of 44 members,
at Good Hope Station. Since that time a church has been organized
also at Avery. These two churches now include a membership of 85,
and have 190 Sunday-school scholars in connection with them.
The _school_ at Good Hope Station has been in a condition
of growing prosperity, and has enrolled during the year 245
scholars, with an average attendance, as collated from the
monthly returns, of 156. At Avery the school has been small, the
children being frequently diverted by their parents to work of
various kinds. About a dozen children have been taken into the
Mission Home to be educated under permanent Christian influences.
A school has also been sustained at Debia, and a preaching
service.
The _industrial work_ has been carried on with energy, the mill
and property have been put in better order, some 16 laborers have
been employed in the saw-mill, the coffee plantation is beginning
to be productive, and we trust that this arm of the service will
prove increasingly a means of education to the natives and a help
in the support of the mission.
Our missionaries have not been content with merely maintaining
the work as they found it, but have been exploring the interior
to study opportunities for its enlargement. They found the people
peaceable and friendly, and open to their approach not only, but
inviting their permanent settlement. It is their plan to use
native Christians for preaching at _out-stations_ as far as they
may be able.
Our missionaries have had to labor under the disadvantage of a
very limited experience in organizing and carrying on either
church or school work. They all went directly from the college to
the foreign field. They have made fewer mistakes of judgment than
might have been anticipated. We regard this experiment of African
missionaries to Africa as practically solved. Their endurance of
the climate and their general success in the work are evident.
More and more clear to us, from year to year, is the connection
between our work on the American and the African continents.
And now, while our original mission field is again becoming
fruitful under these new conditions, the question is brought to
us in a way we cannot refuse to consider. Shall we, in addition
to this, undertake a new field upon the other side of the “Dark
Continent”? The generous _offer made by Robert Arthington_, of
Leeds, England, of £3,000, to this Association, to aid in the
establishment of a mission between the Nile and the Jub, and from
the 10th parallel of north latitude down almost to the equator,
compelled us, early in the year, to examine the field and the
possibility of undertaking it. A large committee, through books
and travellers, made as thorough investigation as was in their
power, and were supported by the Executive Committee, as a whole,
in regarding the proposed location as offering advantages in
accessibility over almost any of the new fields recently opened
in equatorial Africa; but they delayed any distinct acceptance
of the proffer until this fund should be swelled from other
sources to not less than $50,000. In this state of abeyance the
whole matter remained until a very recent date. Dr. O. H. White,
the Secretary of the Freedmen’s Missions Aid Society in Great
Britain, has been sanguine as to the willingness of the English
and Scotch brethren to further aid us in the establishment of
the proposed mission. He has already received contributions to
a considerable amount for this object, and at the last regular
meeting of our Committee, after careful discussion, the following
resolution was unanimously passed:
“Voted, that on condition of the receipt of £3,000 from Mr.
Robert Arthington, of Leeds, as offered to us by him, for the
establishment of a new mission in Eastern Africa, and of a like
amount from the British public, raised through the efforts of Dr.
O. H. White, the Association pledges itself to devote thereto the
sum of $20,000, and with the blessing of God and the assistance
of the friends of Africa in Great Britain and America, to
undertake permanently to sustain that mission.”
The Committee were encouraged to take this step by the fact
that the debt of the Association was no more an obstacle, that
several thousand dollars were already in hand from the Avery
estate, bequeathed for this very purpose, and by other, as they
thought, evident leadings of Providence in this direction. And
now if these conditions be met, and this new work at no distant
day be fairly entered on, the Mendi Mission on the West, and the
Arthington Mission on the East, will support one another in their
plea to Christian England and America for generous and prayerful
sustentation. Our foreign work will thus be more complete than it
can be with but a single mission, and we shall be able to present
a wide field for the generous devotion and self-consecration of
the sons of Africa now in this land.
This new field is among the real heathens, unclad, and with
their native barbarism made worse by all the atrocities of a
slave-hunting ground. That evil is, providentially, fast passing
away. During the past year Col. C. G. Gordon has overcome the
mightiest of the slave traders, and his large and desperate
force. When the influence of the Arab invaders is withdrawn,
with their unnatural stimulation of tribal wars and the ready
market they afford for human beings, other of the native kings,
under the influence of even a few Christian men, will follow the
example of Mtesa, who has lately forbidden the sale of slaves in
his dominions under pain of death. So the Lord has set before us
an open door, and no man can shut it. Shall we not go in and set
up our banners in the name of Immanuel?
THE INDIANS.
The Indians still remain under the care of the Department of the
Interior. We believe that the Administration earnestly desires
the promotion of their true interests, but the grievous wrongs
under which they have so long suffered still continue to be
visited upon them, and will so long as an impossible policy
is attempted to be carried out by an insufficient force. The
question as to the legal status of the Indian is now before the
courts. Until his rights there, and to hold property by a secure
tenure, are established, he will be exposed to provocations which
we cannot expect him to bear in silence.
To us was assigned, several years ago, the nomination of six
_Indian Agents_, who were to report to us as well as to the
United States Government. We trust that this work has been to the
advantage of these tribes, as our agents have, with perhaps a
single exception, maintained good character and reputation amid
all the temptations of that trying life. And yet our relations
to the Department are not what we could wish them to be. In four
of the six agencies where we make nominations, changes have
been made necessary during the past year. In two of them agents
have been appointed by the Department without our nomination or
approval, so that we have no longer any responsibility for the
agencies at Red Lake, Minn., or Green Bay, Wis., nor have we,
under these circumstances, the same motive as at first to secure
good men for these places, when they may be so easily removed, or
our nominations thrown aside for others backed by another kind of
influence.
_Our missionary at S’Kokomish_, Rev. Myron Eells, is still
patiently pursuing his good work. He is pastor of the church of
23 members, and has three other preaching stations. In these four
the attendance upon public worship is nearly 200; 110 children
are in the Sunday-schools; 128 families are under his pastoral
care. Mr. Eells has travelled among the neighboring people, and
diffused his influence over a wide area.
A new element in work for the Indians has been the _educational
work at Hampton_. 77 Indian boys and 9 Indian girls have spent
the year at the Institute, contented and studious, and responding
to patient and skillful teaching with marked and steady progress.
During the summer a number of them gained great credit to
themselves by their good conduct on the farms and in the families
of Massachusetts among which they were distributed. It is hoped
that the number of girls allowed to enjoy these privileges may be
considerably increased. Captain Pratt has obtained permission to
do a similar work at Carlisle, Pa.
The great feature of the advantage in this training is the
continuous influence under which these students are held. It is
indispensable to the best work as Christian educators of those
who are not helped by their home life. Our experience is the same
among the Freedmen, the native Africans and the Indians.
It may be, in the providence of God, in this direction, that the
Indian work of the Association is to be pursued and enlarged in
the future. The Committee recommend, for the present at least,
co-operation with General Armstrong in the work he has so well
begun in this direction. The result of his experience, thus far,
is his decided conviction that “there is no better way to elevate
the Indians than in negro industrial schools.” An effort in this
direction promises greater results, for the same expenditure of
money, than the attempt to found new missions among the Indians.
THE CHINESE IN AMERICA.
The condition and numbers of the Chinese on the Pacific coast,
after all the various agitations of mob, and State, and National
Congress, have not been materially altered. The sand lots have
still echoed with the blasphemies of Kearney and his followers,
and even some of the churches, with scarcely less vigorous
proclamations, that the Chinese must go. California has adopted
a new Constitution, though the question whether its Chinese
provisions are constitutional is yet unanswered. It discourages
immigration, imposes conditions on resident Chinamen, forbids
their employment by any corporation, and requires cities to
remove them beyond their bounds or locate them within prescribed
limits; and, finally, both houses of Congress, yielding to
political pressure, in the presence of the resident Minister of
the Chinese Government, ignored its solemn treaty, and declared
that no ship should bring to this shore more than fifteen Chinese
immigrants at any one time. We have to thank the President of the
United States for the veto which alone prevented this action from
becoming law.
And yet the Chinaman is, on the Pacific coast, in numbers not
increasing, but not materially diminishing. He does not come,
because he can do better elsewhere. He does not go, because he
has not yet attained the object of his coming. Meanwhile, several
Chinamen have, during the year, been naturalized in other States,
and the force has thus been broken of the decision that, being
neither white nor black, he cannot be allowed to vote.
_Our work_ has not diminished in our twelve schools under the
superintendency of the Rev. Wm. C. Pond. Only three less pupils
(1,489) have been enrolled than the year before. 252 has been
the average attendance all the year through; 21 teachers are now
in the service, including 5 Chinese helpers; 84 gave evidence of
conversion during the year, while 137 have renounced idolatry.
Mr. Pond says: “The total number of whom we have cherished the
hope that they were born of God, from the beginning of our
work until now, cannot be less than 235. The Congregational
Association of Christian Chinese has now 198 members, of whom 44
were received the past year.”
We believe that this work, with that of our Presbyterian and
Methodist brethren on the Pacific coast, is both acceptable to
God and approved of men.
FINANCES.
We come now to the statement of our financial history and
condition. With profound gratitude to Him to whom the silver and
the gold belong, and with renewed confidence in those to whose
stewardship he has entrusted it, we make this record: (1.) The
expenses of the year have been fully met; (2.) The debt of the
Association is entirely extinguished; (3.) On the 1st of October
the balance in our treasury amounted to $1,475.90.
It is sixteen years since the Association has been reported free
from debt. The expansion of its work, which the changes effected
by the war imperatively demanded, involved us in these unpaid
obligations, which increased upon us almost yearly until, in
1875, our debt was over $96,000. Then came the turning point. It
was diminished by a little over $3,000 during 1876; in 1877 it
was reduced by about $31,000, to $62,800. Last year $25,000 more
of it was liquidated, leaving, at the beginning of this year,
$37,389.79. And now we are able to say that that whole amount is
paid. $28,808.67 have been sent us for that express purpose. The
balance has come from our general receipts from the living and
the dead. And this has been paid in cash. We began to fear that
our constant plea in this behalf was injuring the support of our
regular work, and last year we set apart, to cover it, a residue
of western lands of sufficient value; but the debt is absolutely
gone now and not balanced against anything, and that property is
free to be converted to other uses.
The total income of the year has been $215,431.17—nearly $20,000
more than that of the preceding year. $15,000 of this increase
is, however, from bequests which have amounted to $50,034.16.
For the ability to make these cheering statements we thank God,
and in the remembrance of His past goodness we take courage. It
looked an almost impossible thing that that great debt of nearly
$100,000 should have disappeared, and that in these “hard times.”
But the way to know the goodness of God is to try some hard thing
in His name. To Him be the praise.
We would not leave the false impression, however, on the minds of
any, that these years of retrenchment have been easy years for
us, or that the past twelve months have been free from causes for
anxiety. Twice during the year we have been $10,000 behind last
year’s receipts or this year’s needs. We were greatly perplexed
in our unwillingness to increase the old debt or to incur a new
one, when, in one case, a large gift, and in the other a large
legacy, lifted us over the shallows and enabled us to set sail
again rejoicing.
CONCLUSION.
And now what is the significance of our present condition? We are
out of debt. We have the promise of a far better equipment for
our work in the way of buildings. The Mendi Mission is fairly
manned, and, we trust, on the way to a new and wide usefulness.
The Freedmen call for all the aid we can supply. All motives of
love for self, for country and for God conspire to urge us to
increase our efforts for their Christian education. Africa is
stretching out its right hand now, as well as the left, which we
have been trying so long to fill, and Christian England comes to
help us answer the plea. It has been demonstrated at length that
our Southern schools may help to solve the Indian as well as the
Negro problem, and the Chinaman is yet at our western gate.
Is not the voice of God to us like that He spoke through Moses to
those who had just escaped the taskmasters of Egypt?—“Speak to
the children of Israel, that they go forward.”
REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE.
The Committee on Finance, to whom was referred the financial
statement of the Association for the fiscal year ending September
30, 1879, as presented by the Treasurer, beg leave to report
that, in the discharge of the duty assigned to them, your
committee have carefully examined the accounts of the Treasurer,
including a detailed statement of receipts and disbursements,
also a statement of endowments and a full list of all the
property owned by the Association, the correctness of which have
been fully certified to by the Board of Auditors appointed by the
Executive Committee.
The total receipts of the Association for the year have been
$215,431.17. The cost of collecting, including the salaries
of the District Secretaries and all other expenses connected
with their offices, has been 5-84/100 per cent. of the amount
received. The cost of publication, including the distribution
of 25,000 copies per month of the AMERICAN MISSIONARY, has been
4-13/100 per cent., and the cost of administration 4-97/100 per
cent.
Your committee are impressed with the care, fidelity and economy
shown in all departments, and can suggest no way of reducing
the percentage of expenses except by enlarged contributions. It
costs just as much time and just as much paper to acknowledge
the receipt of $50 as it does of $100. If the patrons of the
Association will double their contributions they will lessen the
percentage of expenses one-half.
After long years of struggle the Association is now out of
debt and ready for an advance. The machinery is in order, and
the motive power necessary to keep it in motion is the earnest
prayers of God’s people and a liberal supply of the money
which is so rapidly finding its way to our shores. In view of
the grand work which has been done and the still greater work
to be accomplished, your committee desire to urge upon the
friends of the Association the necessity for a large increase
of contributions the coming year, so that the missionaries and
laborers in this good cause may “go forward.”
JAS. W. SCOVILLE,
SAMUEL HASTINGS,
GEO. BUSHNELL,
CHAS. L. MEAD,
W. G. HUBBARD,
JOSEPH H. TOWNE,
W. J. PHELPS.
* * * * *
THE FREEDMEN.
REV. JOS. E. ROY, D. D.,
FIELD SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA, GA.
* * * * *
EDUCATIONAL WORK.
Report of the Committee on Educational Work in the South.
After speaking of the importance, the providential and varying
character of the work, the report concludes:
As now conducted, the agencies of the Association are directly
concerned with all grades of instruction, embracing common day
schools, boarding schools, normal schools, chartered colleges,
theological and other professional schools; blending also with
mental, moral and spiritual culture the teaching of industrial
occupations, and a training in good manners and right behavior
in all relations. It seems best that the work should continue to
have this multifarious character, that it may mold the whole life
of this race as it rises into free manhood and full citizenship,
and bring a positive religious influence to qualify the whole
movement. Nevertheless, it is to be desired and expected that,
in the progress of events, the way will be open for systems of
public instruction to be introduced and maintained at the South
which will provide for the primary education of negroes as well
as white men, and so in time relieve the Association of much of
its elementary work. In this matter our wisdom is to fall in with
the indications of Providence, with no special anxiety either
to hasten or to hinder the steps of the movement, but to do our
utmost to prepare the way for wise and right action when it comes.
As a missionary society we must for a long time give chief
attention to the education of teachers and preachers for the
colored people. That must be done at the South, for Christianity
and civilization can never be regarded as fully established
among a people till from among themselves, in their own home
country, are drawn out trained teachers, leaders and ministers of
religion. Our normal schools, colleges and theological seminaries
must, therefore, absorb, in large measure, the vigorous efforts
and resources of this Association, that the foundations of these
institutions may be strengthened and their courses of instruction
advanced and improved, and especially that aid maybe judiciously
extended to the young men and women who come out of great poverty
to seek the advantages of these institutions and to offer
themselves for the service of Christ among their own people.
The report very fitly emphasizes this last-named need, and we do
earnestly commend it to the consideration and timely beneficence
of our churches.
The report shows unmistakable tokens of the Divine favor to this
department of our work during the last year. Notwithstanding
the pressure of hard times and the embarrassment of debt on
our Association, the work has been steadily maintained, the
number under instruction has been kept up, and in the normal
schools largely increased; the standard of scholarship in the
higher institutions has been advanced; strong testimonials of
appreciation of the quality of the education given from Southern
men of standing and influence, and from Northern visitors, have
been multiplied; and above all, God, by the precious work of
His Spirit on the souls of students in nearly every one of the
institutions under charge of the Association, has owned this
work, and taken it into full identification with the plan of His
redeeming providence. For all this let our devout thanks be given
to Him who permits us to co-operate in His good work of mercy for
a lost world.
As we enter on a new year of this missionary labor, the signs
are full of encouragement and hope. The Association is free
from debt, with money in its treasury. A Christian lady has
pledged a large benefaction for providing much needed material
accommodations for this educational work; the rising sentiment
of our nation is demanding new guarantees for the rights of the
oppressed Freedmen; old obstacles to the work are giving way,
and the return of financial prosperity gives promise of larger
means at the disposal of our churches for the Master’s work. May
we not hope, also, that a fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost upon
the churches, upon the executive officers of the Association,
and upon the whole working force of missionaries, teachers and
helpers on the field, may inspire all with a new spirit of holy
consecration, and lead on this educational work in a movement,
fresh and strong, towards the consummation which we seek and
which the Lord designs? For this let us fervently pray.
A. L. CHAPIN,
G. B. WILLCOX,
GEO. M. BOYNTON,
THOS. N. CHASE,
J. BRAND,
S. D. COCHRAN.
* * * * *
CHURCH WORK.
Report of the Committee on Church Work in the South—Abbreviated.
The annual report of the condition and work of churches in the
South under the care of this Association gives occasion for
gratitude and encouragement; for, while the numbers in themselves
seem not large, we are to remember that the work is comparatively
a recent one. In 1864 there were but four churches under the
fostering care of this body; in 1869, only twenty-three; while
now they have grown to sixty-seven, with 4,600 members; 745 of
these members were added to the churches during the past year,
and 85 per cent. of the additions were on profession of faith.
It is much to have 6,219 pupils in Sunday-schools, being drilled
in the first principles of Divine truth and into a better
knowledge that religion must mean righteousness. And when we
remember that the 7,207 scholars in the other schools are all
under positive religious influence of the sort we are accustomed
to, and the 150,000 pupils taught by teachers who have been
trained in the schools of the American Missionary Association are
indirectly receiving something of the same influence, we must
feel that the religious work of this Association in the South is
a large one.
A thoroughly good work has been done during the year in “edifying
the churches,” building them up into a sturdier virtue, more
rational views, and a more intelligent zeal. They are evidently
growing in the features of a healthy church life. At several
points there has been very encouraging progress in the matter of
self-help, in building churches and supporting the ministry—a
point of prime importance in the development of self-respect and
manly ability. There has been an awakened interest and effort
in the temperance reform, aiding to correct vices which have
been the Freedmen’s besetting sins. There has been a marked
improvement in the homes of the colored people, influenced by the
personal visitation of devout and sympathetic women who have gone
South for this very purpose. Following this hint, it is suggested
by some that perhaps Christian colored women, trained in our
institutions, of tried discretion and tact, maybe found fitted
for a similar work among their own class, and may find a large
usefulness opening to them as city missionaries. These churches,
too, in the expression of fellowship at formal ordinations, and
in the wide-awake meetings of their seven conferences, have
done something to promote that spirit of co-operation which the
colored man needs to learn.
But while we must give special care to the nurture and training
of these infant churches, and while it were to the last degree
unwise to rush into every opening and organize new churches
indiscriminately at every point where it may easily be done,
it is an important question whether the time has not arrived
when we may wisely do more in this direction than hitherto. We
have fortified our strategic points and entrenched ourselves in
educational fortresses that form a cordon of arsenals all around
the field, to supply material of war. Shall we not now deploy the
troops to feel the way forward, and, pushing out from our base of
supplies, begin to occupy the land?
A variety of reasons easily suggest themselves for giving greater
prominence to this part of the work. The educational needs of
the colored race seemed to demand it. With unquestionable wisdom
this Association lays chief stress upon its educational work in
the South; but it should not be forgotten that the Church is
a leading factor in that work. The schools help the churches.
Twenty or more of the churches are in more or less close
connection with the colleges and schools of this society, and
they are among the best and the most flourishing. The more the
negro is educated the better he likes our style of religion, and
the better he makes it work.
Moreover, the young ministers we are training need them as
fields. And now that we are raising up a conscientious, godly and
well-instructed class of pastors, where shall they find flocks
unless this Association gathers them?
Again, Dr. Strieby’s admirable paper last year showed that wherever
these churches exist, the thrift and material prosperity of the
colored man is greatly increased. He gains in self-respect,
economy, foresight, patience. He has a better home and more money,
and is every way more of a man. Now thrift is a potent civilizer,
and if we would help the negro in this respect we can do it largely
through the churches.
It is to such churches, too, that we may look for recruits for
that great missionary work in the dark continent which now
begins to open before the Christian world with such magnificent
opportunity. We look for new Livingstones among our colored
brethren of the South, and there is a call for them. The eyes
of English missionary societies are fixed upon the open door
of Africa, and it seems probable that they will want to send
out and support all the well-qualified colored missionaries we
can furnish. But this cannot be done unless there is a greatly
increased missionary spirit among the colored people themselves;
and to cultivate this missionary spirit we need more churches.
Nor will it do to excuse ourselves from this work on the plea
that there are other churches in the South to which the negro, by
immemorial traditions and long association, is better accustomed,
and still others which may be at first more attractive to him
than ours. The question is not, what would the untutored negro
prefer, but what will best secure his development and help him to
a nobler life and character. The other method of argument would
surrender him to the Roman Catholics at once.
As a matter of fact, the introduction of these churches of the
pilgrim sort is found to have worked well in two directions. It
improves our somewhat frigid method to be warmed up with the
African ardor; and it improves the negro to be toned down and
disciplined to self-control by our methods. A sound, healthy
religious life has been developed in many of our churches in ten
years, which could not have been developed in fifty years in
those churches where the ebullient spirit of the negro is allowed
to run to riotous excess unchecked.
It is a noteworthy fact also that our churches have had a large
influence upon the other churches about them. They have been
recognized as presenting a higher type of piety and character.
Their quiet methods of worship have made the boisterous methods
of their neighbors unfashionable. Their higher moral standards
have been a tonic to the conscience in the others. They have set
the negroes to clamoring for an educated ministry.
While, then, we would not multiply churches for the mere sake
of multiplying them, we deem the time opportune for laying
new stress upon this part of the work. We would increase our
constituency in the South in Christian churches which shall
share with us in the work of education and in home missionary
endeavor, and in the newly-opening foreign field; and we would
ever remember that to elevate the negro we must keep him in the
glowing presence of the cross, red with the heart’s blood of
Divine love, and of the crown, which may be his as well as his
white brother’s, in that great kingdom where there is neither
white nor black, but where “Christ is all and in all.”
C. H. RICHARDS,
F. P. WOODBURY,
A. P. FOSTER,
F. BASCOM,
J. F. DUDLEY,
D. PEEBLES,
U. THOMPSON.
* * * * *
PROVIDENTIAL CALLS.
BY REV. M. E. STRIEBY, D. D.
It is just a third of a century since the American Missionary
Association was organized. That period has been crowded with
stirring events, working marked changes at the time in the
opinions and history of mankind, and pregnant with other and
far-reaching consequences. In no respect has this been more true
than in regard to the races for whose benefit the Association was
mainly formed. Thirty-three years ago slavery ruled in America
with the iron hand, and with the purpose and prospect of enlarged
sway; now the slaves are free, and the far-reaching consequences
of that event are but beginning to be realized. Thirty-three
years ago tropical Africa was almost as much unknown as in the
days of Herodotus and Ptolemy; now its great central lakes have
been traced and mapped, the great mystery of the Nile sources
has been solved, and Stanley has traversed the continent from
Zanzibar to the mouth of the Congo. The far-reaching consequences
of these discoveries to commerce and to Christian civilization we
have not yet begun to realize.
The American Missionary Association was called into existence
to take some humble part in these events. The wisdom of its
existence was recognized at the outset by the few only; by the
many—even of good men—it was regarded with indifference or
hostility. We that took part in those stirring times find it
difficult now to recall their intense earnestness—the inexorable
control exercised by slavery over the pulpit, the press and the
forum, the unbounded anxiety of conservative people to avoid or
to crush the agitation, and their utter impatience with those
who persisted in it. On the 7th of March, 1850, Daniel Webster
made his famous speech in support of the Fugitive Slave Law, and
it is humiliating to recall the fulsome eulogies of that speech
that came from pulpits and theological seminaries, as well as
from politicians and merchants, and it arouses anew a sense of
indignation to think of the intimidation attempted toward those
who opposed that infamous law. But there _were_ men in all the
churches and in both political parties who were fully aroused to
the guilt and danger of slavery—who felt that the hour had come
when, through all opposition and danger, they must press for its
overthrow. Among these persistent agitators were not only such
stalwart leaders as John Quincy Adams and William Lloyd Garrison,
but a large number who may be represented by our late and honored
brother, Rev. Simeon S. Jocelyn, who, though one of the gentlest,
most amiable and most cautious of men, yet possessed a conscience
so unclouded, and a sympathy with the slave so strong, that no
fear of consequences could deter him.
Such God-fearing men had no commission merely to denounce and
destroy. Their call was to aid in spreading a Gospel untinctured
with the guilt of slavery, polygamy or caste prejudice. They
strove earnestly to induce the most honored and loved of
missionary boards, with which they had heretofore co-operated, to
throw off all responsibility for slavery and its attendant vices.
In this they were unsuccessful, and as they could neither cease
to labor and contribute for missions, nor work with societies
which they believed to be chargeable with that responsibility,
they could do no otherwise than form one that should be free from
it. In this way, and from this motive, the American Missionary
Association came into existence. It was formed in no spirit of
captiousness or fault-finding; not for discussion, but for work
in the Master’s vineyard. Hence it soon established missions
abroad—in Africa, Siam and among the recently emancipated slaves
in the West Indies; at home—among the white population of the
West, the Indians, and, even at that early date, among the
Chinese in California, the refugees from slavery in Canada, and
in the Slave States themselves.
Among the dark memories of those early days were the infidel
tendencies in the anti-slavery ranks. The reformers were so
goaded by the indifference and opposition of the orthodox
churches that some of them retaliated with bitter denunciations
against Christianity itself. From the outset the American
Missionary Association took decided ground against this tendency
and in favor of evangelical religion, and this not vaguely nor
without temptation to swerve. At the convention in Albany in
which the Association was organized, an influential Unitarian
suggested the probable sympathy and aid of that wealthy
denomination if the platform could be made sufficiently broad and
“liberal” to admit of co-operation. Its response was given in
its constitution, which required “Evangelical sentiments” as a
condition of membership; and that there might be no mistake as to
what it meant by “evangelical,” a star note was appended giving
its explicit definition—a creed as commendable for its brevity
as its sound orthodoxy. The elder Dr. Tyng once said: “I love the
American Missionary Association because it is true to Christ as
well as to the slave.”
Thus launched, and with this flag at its mast-head, the
Association responded to its first call, and sped on its way,
till from the terrific storm-cloud of war there sounded forth its
second call. That next providential call was to the work among
the Freedmen. It was so recent, and the response is so fresh in
mind, that a brief rehearsal will suffice. Abraham Lincoln voiced
the sentiment of the North when he said that the war was carried
on to save the Union. God revealed His own purpose to be not that
only, but also to free the slave. It was not two months after the
first cannon shot fell on Fort Sumter till the escaping slaves
found their way to Fort Monroe, and the force of circumstances,
in spite of all reluctance, compelled their recognition as free
men. Those escaping fugitives began their march from Egypt to
Canaan. A few scattered bands headed the column, but soon its
numbers swelled till the proclamation of emancipation, like the
words of God to Moses at the banks of the Red Sea, said to four
and a half millions of people, “Go forward.” When the sea opened
to them and closed upon the armies of their oppressors, they
were free; but they were, and are still, in the wilderness. Yet
two lines of spontaneous enthusiasm broke forth—that of the
ex-slaves for learning, and that of the North to supply it.
In that day there was no longer a question as to the need of
the American Missionary Association, or of the wisdom of its
existence. It was complimented with having “builded wiser than
it knew.” Churches and individuals chose it as their channel for
reaching this new field of patriotic and Christian labor. The
Boston Council of Congregational Churches of 1865 recognized it
as having been providentially raised up for the hour, and voted
a call to the churches to give it $250,000 for the year. The
Association promptly met this new responsibility, and organized
the necessary measures for collecting funds at home and abroad,
and with so much success that when the year was ended its
treasury had received a little more than the great sum named. It
has since moved forward with larger resources and a larger work.
Its income for the fourteen years from its organization till the
war began averaged $40,810.57 per annum; for the fourteen years
since the war, $279,269.18 per annum.
A third call comes to the Association—the call of this hour. The
early enthusiasm in the Freedmen work subsided. This new call
springs from no sudden revival of that enthusiasm, but rather
from that “sober second thought” that follows the reaction from
it, and which comes from the pressure of hard, stern facts. I
cannot, therefore, explain the present aspect of affairs without
reverting to the cause of that decline of interest. The zeal of
Christian people slackened when they found the work among the
Freedmen could not all be finished in fifteen or twenty years.
This was the general expectation at the outset, strange as it
may seem—nay, amusing, if the mistake were not so serious. The
orthodox and well-ordered Christian man has no doubt of the need
of _perpetual_ help for the West, and he cheerfully aids it
through the accredited channels, the Bible, Tract, Sunday-school,
Education, College and Church Building Societies, and especially
the honored Home Missionary Board; though those Western settlers
have behind them the culture of more than a thousand years,
with the personal education of New England homes, schools and
churches, and also the business training among the shrewd and
thrifty people. But these Negroes, who have behind them only
untold ages of barbarism and oppression, and whose homes are
huts, whose schools are few, whose ministers are ignorant, who
have no capital and no business training—when these people loom
up before this good Christian man, he is amazed and discouraged
if a few years, a few books and a few teachers do not end all
responsibility for them. His creed in regard to them is as brief
as his patience, and may be given in the words of the poet:
“They need but little here below,
Nor need that little long.”
In like manner the well-ordered citizen lost his enthusiasm for
the Freedmen. He had been so long under the strain of anxiety
about the war that he was weary of it and of everything that
reminded him of it. Then there followed a succession of events in
regard to the Freedmen that played upon his hopes and fears till
he was doubly weary of them.
First came the accession of Andrew Johnson to the Presidency
on the death of President Lincoln. Bright hopes arose. Lincoln
was too mild; but the stalwart war-Governor of Tennessee, the
unflinching Union man, the Moses of the colored people, as he
styled himself, he would do what Lincoln’s amiability would
have left undone. What a Providential ordering it was; the
silver lining on the black cloud of the assassination. But alas,
how soon the change! This Moses led the colored people not to
Canaan, but delivered them over to the murderous bands of the Ku
Klux; and the North, who again found the whole affair lying at
loose ends, was very much discouraged. Then General Grant was
elected, and hope again sprang up. The soldier-President would
take care of the Freedmen. He did; but the troops stationed at
the State houses of Columbia and New Orleans became at length
an intolerable vexation to the South and an utter weariness to
the again discouraged North. President Hayes brought again “the
era of good feeling.” The troops were removed. There was a time
of quiet for the colored people. Wade Hampton and Lamar pledged
the reciprocal good will of the South. I believe that these
leaders were sincere, but they little understood the import of
their pledge, or the mighty power that slumbered in the elements
beneath their feet, “We now witness the upheaval of that power,
the sweeping away of those pledges like the chaff of the summer
threshing-floor, the crushing again of the Negro, his relief
by flight to Kansas, and the symbols of Southern methods and
purposes revealed in the Chisholm murder and the Yazoo tragedy.”
These facts, this serious aspect of affairs, and the palpable
inefficiency of temporary remedies, are awakening the North
to a fresh sense of responsibility and to the use of thorough
remedies. One evidence of this is found in the turning tide of
political affairs. A still more ominous one is foreshadowed
in the enthusiasm gathered around the flag of the Union. In
1872 Charles Sumner—zealous Union man as he was—moved in the
Senate that the names of victories in our civil war should
not be inscribed on our national regimental flags, and in the
decline of public interest those flags lay neglected in the cases
where they were deposited. But a few weeks since the State of
Connecticut removed her flags from the State Arsenal to the new
Capitol in Hartford, when, lo, ten thousand veteran survivors
and one hundred thousand spectators, making the grandest popular
demonstration ever witnessed in the State, assembled to bear
those flags with honor to their new resting place. I believe in
the power of the ballot, and I revere the flag, but I want to
raise my humble voice in warning against expecting too much from
elections, and against the terrible effects of an appeal to arms.
Has not the nation awaited with anxiety many times for election
returns only to be disappointed in the permanent effects, and
have we not felt enough of the dread evils of war to stand aghast
at the thought of its renewal? Let me use the words of Paul and
say, “Behold, I show you a more excellent way.”
I present three pictures:
The _first_ shows a gathering of colored people peacefully
assembled to promote their political welfare. But see that rush
of armed men, the brief unequal struggle, and the flight of
those who met only to exercise a constitutional right. In the
background of the picture is a jail broken open and the venerable
Judge Chisholm and his little son clinging to his knees, and his
heroic daughter endeavoring to shield her father, all butchered
in cold blood. In that background is another scene. That strong
man, the leader of Ku Klux bands, whose hands are dyed with the
blood of innocent colored men, and who could show the medal which
the grateful South had given him, is himself murdered in open
day, because he dared to announce himself not as a Republican,
but as an independent candidate for office. The worst of all is
that there is no legal remedy for these crimes. The National
Government cannot reach them with punishment, and the State
governments will not. They can only be tried in Southern courts
and before Southern juries, and these have acquitted the murderer
of the Chisholm father and children and refuse to try Barksdale
for the Yazoo murder. Thus does the South make itself solid, and
wipe out in blood the least traces of dissent from its supremacy.
The North is moved by all this—indignant, determined, and well
it may be; for what now avails the four years of war and the
fourteen years of attempt at justice and conciliation?
But I show you _another_ picture. It carries us back a few years.
The Legislature of South Carolina is in session. Its members are
mostly black men. They have generally no property and pay no
taxes, yet they have taxed that already impoverished State to the
verge of destruction, not for public improvement, but to lavish
it upon themselves, in suppers, wines, personal perquisites, in
jobs and in railroad schemes. No more scandalous or reckless
plundering of a public treasury has ever been practiced in
America, and that is saying a great deal. Why is this little
handful of mock legislators allowed to do this? Why do not the
people rush in upon them and hurl them from the places they so
dishonor? Why? Simply because there stands as a guard a file of
United States soldiers—not themselves sufficient in numbers to
be formidable, but representing the National Government, and to
touch them is to touch it. The South is indignant, determined,
and do you wonder? The troops are now gone, the black legislators
are dispersed and white taxpayers are in their places; and rising
above all other considerations is the purpose of these taxpayers
that, at whatever cost, and by whatever needed methods, be it by
tissue ballots or by shotguns, those irresponsible plunderers
shall never come back again into power. You blame them; but I
fear you would do the same yourselves under like provocation.
If the General Government, by means of a bloody war, should
subdue the Western States, and then enfranchise in any one State
enough Indians to outvote the whites, and those Indians should
re-enact the plunderings of the Columbia Legislature, how long
would the West bear it? I suspect that very quickly every Indian
would be converted into a good Indian; but it would be in the
Western sense—he would be a dead Indian. Brethren of the North,
make the case your own. Put yourself in your Southern brother’s
place, and judge him by your own impulses. What, then, is the
true remedy for this great evil? To answer this we must honestly
consider what the real evil is. These South Carolina taxpayers do
not crush these black voters because they are black. They would
do the same to the “poor whites” if they, having the numerical
force, should enact the same wrongs. Nor is it because they are
Republicans. It would be the same if they called themselves
Democrats and did the same things. The trouble, therefore, is not
with the man’s color or party, but with the man himself—with his
ignorance, his degradation and his facility in being used as the
tool of designing men. _The remedy, then, is not to change his
color or his party, but his character._ All other remedies are
delusive, and it is a national folly and crime to tamper longer
with them. We have tried them; and to try them over again will
be but to swing like a pendulum between the soldiers in front
of the State house and the bulldozers at the elections. It is a
shame and a grievous wrong to leave matters as they are. It is a
wrong to the blacks to compel them to suffer in the South or flee
to Kansas. It is unfair to the South to put them to the dreadful
alternative of suffering or doing such great wrongs. It is a
shame for an enlightened nation to keep itself thus embroiled, to
the hindrance of its prosperity and the jeopardy of its peace.
Let me show you my _third_ picture, which presents “the more
excellent way.” In the foreground is a school-house and near by
is a church. Around and in the distance are pleasant little homes
and well cultivated lands. These are the instruments for working
the needed change; they will make the Freedman intelligent,
virtuous and industrious; will give him property and responsible
interest in the welfare of the State. But you say this is a
long process. Admitted; but what if there is no other? A slave
can be changed into a freeman in an hour, but to change him
into an intelligent man will take years; to transform millions
of ignorant, cringing and penniless men into intelligent and
responsible citizens and Christians will require generations.
The acorn favorably planted will germinate into an oak in a few
days, and though small, it is a real oak; but it will be many
years before its broad branching arms will give wide shelter, or
its girth and strength of stem will yield heavy timber. A few
such plants started in good soil and carefully tended will come
forward rapidly, but the wide growth on arid plains or in cold
swamps will long remain dwarfs. The rapid progress of some of
these colored people under adequate training shows what _can_ be
done; the backwardness of the mass shows what _must_ be done.
Here is the call to this Association to bear its part in this
great work in America. It is no light task and no short work.
The North is once more aroused to its magnitude as well as its
necessity, and in that great effort the better portion of the
South is ready to join us. God forbid that any delusive scheme or
guilty indifference should hinder its steady progress.
The wide Atlantic rolls between America and Africa, but a strange
connecting wire links the two together. The battery at yonder end
was charged with the dreadful electricity that arose from burning
villages, slaughtered people and captured slaves. The sounds that
swept along that wire were the wails of the “middle passage.”
The delivery at this end was the toil, the tears, and the blood
of the slave plantation. That connection is now broken. Does God
mean to establish no other? Yes, the battery is to be placed in
America, charged with the light of its learning and religion; the
hum of the wires will be the song of the returning heralds of
salvation, and the delivery will be the breaking forth of Gospel
light in benighted Africa. Such a change is worthy of God’s
wonder-working grace, and, thanks to His name, it has begun.
Converging lines of providential purpose have met. In 1856
Burton and Speke began the first movement in the great line
of modern discovery in tropical Africa; in 1858 they first
sighted Lake Tanganyika. In 1860 Speke and Giant set out on
the second expedition from Zanzibar; in 1862 they caught their
first glimpse of the Victoria Nyanza. Thence onward moved the
heroic procession—Sir Samuel Baker, Winwood Reade, Col. Gordon,
Livingstone and others, till last of all Stanley emerged at the
mouth of the Congo in August, 1877. A marked line of American
convergence also began in 1856 with the first shedding of blood
in the struggle with the slave power in Kansas. John Brown’s
raid came in 1859. The rebellion began in 1861; the slaves
were proclaimed free in 1863, and their education began almost
with the war. Other societies have their own coincidences in
this great work, but this Association having the distinction
of opening the first school among the Freedmen, it is a matter
of special interest with us that about one month after Stanley
reached the mouth of the Congo, we sent out our first company of
_colored_ missionaries to Africa, all of whom had been born in
slavery, were educated since emancipation, and, moved by the love
of Christ and of their fatherland, had gone thither to preach
the Gospel. This is to us the beginning of the other part of the
great work to which this Association is called, for Africa and
for America.
We have the appliances for the work in our schools, our theological
departments and in our churches; in our experiences in tropical
Africa of the terrible death-rate of white missionaries, and in
the comparatively good health of the colored. Moreover, our decks
are cleared for action by the removal of the debt that has so long
hampered us. We can now handle our sails and our guns. May the
winds of heaven waft us on our course! Then again we see a way of
relief from the retrenchment enforced upon us by the debt and the
hard times. Buildings were needed—some to be enlarged, others to
be newly erected—but all such claims had to be sternly denied,
much as it cost us to deny; but now, in the good providence of
God, the generous benefaction of Mrs. Stone comes to our relief to
supply just such buildings. The return of prosperity to the country
encourages us to hope that the added expense in sustaining the
enlarged work will be met. That return of prosperity—shall it be
a curse or blessing? Shall it be the mad rush of muddy waters urged
on by avarice and ambition, and bearing on its turbulent surface
only reckless adventure, wild speculation, extravagant personal
expenditure, unscrupulous public plunderings, ending at last and
again in the dead sea of stagnation, bankruptcy, and, worst of all,
in the wrecking of character, imprisonment, insanity, or suicide?
Shall it not rather be consecrated, that it may be sanctified and
perpetuated—like the beneficent waters of the Nile carried out
into channels of benevolence, purified as it is quietly borne
along and broken in smaller rills, bearing everywhere over this
sin-parched earth the streams of salvation, making it to bloom with
the beauty and fragrance of holiness and to bear fruit to the glory
of God? Christian people ought to begin with the rising tide of
this prosperity to enlarge the streams of their benevolence, lest,
before they are aware, they be swept into the irresistible current.
Especially do we ask the friends of this cause to recognize this
auspicious era and plan to meet in some adequate measure the vast
work before us.
The hour and the call have come. The nation is re-awakened to
its great duty to the late slaves; they are themselves awaking
to the glorious opening for them as citizens and Christians in
America, and they are enthusiastic to aid in redeeming the land
of their fathers. The possibilities of African regeneration are
enkindling the hearts of Christians in Germany, in Great Britain
and in America. God’s providence is opening the way and sending
His commands along the lines. Well may it be said to the Church
of Christ in America as Mordecai said to Esther, “Who knoweth
whether thou art not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
* * * * *
THE PROVIDENTIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NEGRO IN AMERICA.
REV. E. H. MERRELL, PRESIDENT OF RIPON COLLEGE.
The significance of the negro in America cannot be understood
without study in the light of the providence of God. It is not
presumption to seek in the course of events the divine thought;
it is rather presumption to assume that events occur without
a divine purpose. “They that love to trace a divine hand will
always have a divine hand to trace.” It is true that men have
committed unspeakable folly in attempting to force the thoughts
of the great God into the channels of their intellectual
pettiness. Philosophies of history written with a provincial
scholarship, under the eye of an unsound philosophy or the
extravagancies of religious enthusiasm, must from the nature of
the case be unsound; so a too particular and minute description
of the ways of Providence in the interest of a preconceived
theory of life, or of some specific reform or “cause,” leads to
fanaticism and exposure to contempt. There are sins committed
only by the good, if the solecism may be tolerated, and among
them is a profane assumption of knowledge in regard to the
purposes of God. But, on the other hand, it is greater folly
to assume that God has left the world out of His thought and
providential care, and that the course of the world is not made
by the efficiency of His word. It is absurd, also, to assume that
great providential courses are undiscoverable by the intelligence
of man. “When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather:
for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather
to-day: for the sky is red and lowering. O, ye hypocrites, ye
can discern the face of the sky; but ye cannot discern the
signs of the times.” We may make ourselves quite ridiculous
in attempting to literalize the tails, wings, breastplates,
teeth, hair, faces, crowns, shapes of the horse-like locusts
of John’s apocalypse; but it is quite within the reach of our
faculties to find the key to his book and to unfold its prophetic
instructions and consolations. The use of the tabernacle as the
dwelling-place of Jehovah’s glory it is possible to find by a
simple exercise of the ken of philosophic interpretation; but
the symbolic import of the coverings of fine twined linen and
woven goats’ hair and rams’ skins dyed red, we must leave to the
dogmatism of unlettered exegesis. It is not our fault, then,
that we are looking too intently for the ways of God through the
history of the world, but rather that we do not look aright.
* * * * If it be true that “the Most High ruleth in the kingdom
of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will;” that “He changeth
the times and the seasons; He removeth kings and setteth up
kings;” that “promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from
the west, nor from the south; but God is the Judge; He putteth
down one and setteth up another;”—if it be true that the Lord
“that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad
the earth” by Himself also, “frustrateth the tokens of the liars,
and maketh diviners mad;” that He “sayeth of Cyrus, He is My
shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure,” surnaming him, and
girding him, though he knew him not;—if, in short, the Lord is
God, and His providence extends over nature, over nations, over
individuals, over free acts, and over sinful acts,—surely we
shall not gather the significance of any great matter in the
world’s progress without such a study of the facts, and such an
interpretation of them as shall disclose the main trend of the
divine purposes.
I think I hazard little in saying that the foothold of the Negro
in the United States is providentially significant in relation to
a great onward movement for the evangelization of the world. And
in this statement I have more in view than the Christianizing of
the dark continent. In relation to this, it may signify much; but
in relation to the whole kingdom of Christ, it signifies more.
(1.) The truthfulness of this statement holds our conviction
when we view the facts in relation to the great end of all
history; and this is no transcendental or visionary gaze. It is
the perpetual characteristic of human folly to see events only
in their immediate relations; whereas, the present moment can
interpret nearly nothing. Philosophy concerns itself with remote
causes and ends. “Providence,” says Guizot, “hurries not Himself
to display to-day the consequence of the principle He yesterday
announced. He will draw it out in the lapse of ages. Even
according to our reasoning, logic is none the less sure because
it is slow.” God’s thought is from eternity; but it is only
because God has purposed that a science of history is possible,
or the end of history discoverable. Its philosophy is often based
on the assumption of the unity of the race; for the unity of
the race it is better to say, the unity of the divine purpose.
Said Augustine of old: “God cannot have left the course of human
affairs, the growth and decay of nations, their victories and
defeats, unregulated by the laws of His providence.” And as the
latest deliverance of philosophy we have from Professor Flint,
“The ultimate and greatest triumph of historical philosophy
will really be neither more nor less than the full proof of
Providence, the discovery by the process of scientific method of
the divine plan, which unites and harmonizes the apparent chaos
of human actions contained in history into a cosmos.” Suppose we
assume, as the end of history, the establishment of a kingdom of
righteousness, or the perfection of the members of the race for
an endless society; that the increase of wealth, the extending
of knowledge, the refinements of culture, have ultimate value
only in relation to such a kingdom or society; that the method
of procedure toward the attainment of this end involves the
encouragements and chastisements, the rewards and disciplines,
the pulling down amid building up, the slaying and making
alive, which belong to the law of discipleship for character.
Suppose, further, that we find ourselves living in a period
when the Christian world is peculiarly stirred with missionary
enthusiasm, and laboring to bring the whole world to membership
in the everlasting kingdom; and yet, again, that we have brought
to the midst of the most Christian nation millions of the most
barbarous people, and put in such relation to that nation that
the questions concerning them necessarily involve religious and
missionary aspects—assuming all this, and taking into view
the profound agitations, the vast numbers of beings involved,
the enormous commercial interests that have been staked, the
slow uprooting of inveterate race prejudices, the transforming
of societies, the hot wrath of God in sweeping commonwealths
with the besom of civil war, it becomes easily credible that
the Negro in the United States signifies a great providential
on moving the conversion of the world. To find in this Negro
problem nothing but the lust which brought him to our shores, or
the instrumentality of the wealth which he has been the means
of accumulating, or the object of a sentimental pietism which
would colonize him, or a nuisance for progressive abatement, is
to attempt to solve the puzzle of a bewildering maze without the
exercise of wisdom, or to have exit from a labyrinth without a
clew. But, with the right end in view, all the mysteries of it
are easily solved.
It has been recently said, by an able English writer, that the
great plague of 1348-9 “is a totally new departure in English
history, incomparably more important in its permanent effects
than the conquest of William, the civil war of the fifteenth
century, the civil war and the revolution of the seventeenth. It
has left abiding results on the present condition of England. To
it we owe the peculiar position of the English aristocracy and
the equally peculiar position of the peasant. It created the poor
law and the trades’ union. It was the origin of Lollardism, which
was itself the precursor of the Reformation. Fortunately, it
occurred after representative institutions had become a necessary
part of English political life, or it would have destroyed
them.” Under Providence, Lollardism and the Reformation were the
final cause of pestilence, and it might have counted far more
if the end had been more exactly understood at the time of the
desolations.
(2.) But that the Negro in the United States means, under
Providence, a forward movement in the work of evangelizing the
world may be inferred from _the moral and Christian element he
has forced into American politics_. The final cause of a special
Providence may not be apprehended by the large part of those
who are the witnesses of its procedure; but its drift may be
noted from the things they are constrained, under God, to think
and say and do about it. A nation may be girded to a task, even
without recognition of the hand or purpose of Him who girds; but
that nation will be saying and doing very significant things.
Now, the great enthusiasms of our political life for the century
following the achieving of our independence have resulted in
one way or another from the presence of the Negro. And this is
the same as to say that the Negro has been the unwitting cause
of the moral and religious elements in politics; for there are
no great enthusiasms which have not a basis in either morals
or religion. The courts, Cabinet, Congress, legislatures, the
pulpit, the platform, the hearth, have furnished the arena for
debate, harangue and purpose, which have enlarged our views
of the brotherhood of man, kindled an unexampled enthusiasm
for humanity, and deepened those moral convictions which are
the basis of sound character. But for all these superior
achievements in virtue, the black man has been the occasion,
and must have our thanks. Selfish men, irreligious men, profane
men, under the guidance of an unseen hand, have become the stout
advocates of the Christian principles of brotherhood and of duty
to carry a Gospel to every Creature. * * * *
This advocacy of righteousness toward man, and of the rights of
man as man, has become so much a matter of course with us that we
are likely to overlook its vast significance. Even on our Puritan
soil it was not from the beginning so. The “austere morality and
democratic spirit of the Puritans” even did not keep them clear
of sin of human bondage. “Their experience of Indian ferocity and
treachery, acting on their theologic convictions, led them early
and readily to the belief that these savages, and, by logical
inference, all savages, were the children of the devil, to be
subjugated, if not extirpated, as the Philistine inhabitants of
Canaan had been by the Israelites under Joshua. Indian slavery,
sometimes forbidden by law, but usually tolerated, if not
entirely approved, by public opinion, was among the early usages
of New England; and from this to negro slavery—the slavery of
any variety of pagan barbarians—was an easy transition.” But at
the time of the Declaration of Independence public sentiment had
already greatly changed.
In the original draft of this document there was a specific
indictment of George III., which was prophetic of the “furnace
blast” beneath which the nation for a hundred subsequent years
was to “wait the pangs of transformation” into a man-loving,
mission-promoting people. Mr. Jefferson, in the draft of the
immortal Declaration, reflected the public thought and feeling
so closely that he has been accused by many of plagiarism. We
seem thus early to find the pre-intimations of a nation in
its public acts ranging itself on the side of a vast scheme
of Providence. The indictment referred to is as follows:
“Determined to keep an open market where men should be bought
and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every
legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable
commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no
fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people
to rise in arms among us, and purchase that liberty of which
he has deprived them by murdering the people on whom he also
obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes committed against
the _liberties_ with crimes which he urges them to commit against
the lives of another.” Mr. Jefferson, in his “Works,” says:
“The clause, too, reprobating the enslaving of the inhabitants
of Africa was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and
Georgia;” and he adds, “our Northern brethren also, I believe,
felt a little tender under those censures; for, though their
people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty
considerable carriers of them to others.” It is as impossible,
at present, as it is needless to proceed from this initial point
through discussions for the formation of platforms and parties,
and from these to specific laws, and from laws to the violation
of them, and civil war. If a just God has been ruling among the
affairs of the nation, it is infidelity to doubt that He has been
guiding this vast and tumultuous slavery conflict to some great
end for the enlargement of His kingdom in the earth. The moral
and religious aspects of American political questions for the
last three generations have a Divine significance unsuspected by
the actors in our national drama.
(3.) But of greater significance still is the fact that the
coming of the Negro incorporates a missionary element in our
national life. In the large advance movement now making for the
evangelizing of the race, it is evident that the colored people
are not to go out through a Red Sea into a wilderness, to become
a peculiar people to whom shall be committed the oracles of
God, and from whom shall arise one like the Messiah. No person
is now so superficial as not to see that, whether we will or
not, the Negro has come to stay. He is becoming even more and
more an element in the sum of those experiences which we call
our national life. He has not come to fit himself to become an
uplifter; he is rather here to do that work which shall fit and
cause this new and great nation to become in a peculiar way the
uplifter of peoples. It is the resistance of this idea which
has been the fundamental reason of all our national turbulence.
Providence meant one thing; the selfishness of man another. God
has given unmistakably the “sign of the prophet Jonas;” man
sees nothing but the redness of a lowering sky. Can we fail
to be impressed with the fact that a being whose not remote
ancestors were, if not savage, at least barbarian, has now come
into the possession of every element of American civilization?
The negro has our language, dress, civil customs, religion,
domestic and social life, and in the main, our vices. He is a
voter, law-maker, executive, educator, freeholder, priest, and
head of a Christian household. He has reached high proficiency
in many branches of learning, and is skilled in all the arts
with which we are acquainted. In a vast number of cases, through
crime be it granted, he is bone of our bone and flesh of our
flesh. He is less a ward than citizen, and hardly more pupil than
instructor. His absolute severance from fatherland,—his history,
his tenacity of life and of race characteristics, yet, while
retaining race characteristics, his greedy absorption of the best
elements of civilization,—his poverty and his possibilities,
awakening our sympathies and challenging our benevolent
enterprise,—his tenacious hold upon our soil, our customs and
our hearts,—these and many things beside indicate that he has
come to stimulate, to lift us to a higher form of evangelical
enterprise than that exhibited hitherto by any people. We are not
merely to make missionaries of the black people; but we through
them are to be ourselves made missionaries. It seems to be the
will of God that the nation should set itself to the work of
Christianizing the world.
(4.) To add yet another evidence that the signs of the times
are to be interpreted in the line of advancing evangelization,
I would mention the genius of the Negro for piety. Colonel
Preston, who has written intelligently on the subject of the
religious education of the Negro, says that he has adopted
all the vices of the white race except suicide, duelling and
religious skepticism. His voice is not more flexible and pure
than, his faith is confiding and strong. And this is not a small
matter. The world doubtless has great need of brains, but it
has vaster need of character. Of the stones God can raise up
children to Abraham; but it requires no miracle to raise up
children to Plato. There is no fear for the brains of any race
that will accept Christianity. To virtue, knowledge will surely
be added. It is foolish for us Anglo-Saxons to assume that we
have found the best expression of religion. It would be like
the claim of the Pharisee, who assumed that the end of the law
was fulfilled in himself. The worldliness of the church is at
the present time more conspicuous than the churchliness of the
world. A person who lives simply according to the doctrine of
Christ is so singular as to get special notice in the church news
of the religious press. So long as it can be truthfully said
that “it is only by a special and rare experience that young
men in the church settle the question of their life-work by the
simple test of usefulness and duty; and if a young man is found
pondering the question in this view, it is regarded as a case of
unusual piety, and he is directed at once to the ministry; and
if an older man begins to inquire how he can do the most good
with his property, it is accepted as evidence of special growth
in grace, a ripening for heaven”—so long, I say, as this can be
truthfully said, it is perfectly within bounds to affirm that
the current expression of the religion of Christ is nothing less
than a shame. It is rational to hope that the Negro may help us
to a fitter expression. I admit his crudities, extravagancies and
immoralities, but he has a genius for religion nevertheless. It
has been conjectured that there was a period when the ancestors
of the Athenians were to be in no otherwise distinguished from
their barbarian neighbors than by some finer taste in the
decoration of their arms, and something of a loftier spirit in
the songs which told of the exploits of their warriors. But these
rude attempts were prophetic of their æsthetic triumphs; they had
a genius for the beautiful.
It seems to me that Africa is the fitting continent in whose
mysterious solitudes the greatest explorer of this generation
should die in service and on his knees. He symbolized the
possibilities of the Negritto race for the expression of the
life of the Son of God, and mutely prophesied of the ages to
come. This race, with its greed for civilization and its natural
capabilities for religion, is in vital connection with the
foremost nation of these latter times. Does not this signify the
incoming of a more thorough righteousness, a loftier faith, and a
great advance movement for Christianizing the world?
Whether I have correctly formulated the course of Providence
or not, it is clear that the Negro is in the United States for
a purpose, and that purpose is no petty one. He has been the
occasion of the most exhaustive discussion of the subject of the
rights of man, of the formation of a great national party, and
of the largest civil war of modern times. He is now the most
considerable element in national politics. If Providence is a
scheme of means and ends, in which particular events are chosen
to further great ends, and if a just God is presiding over the
destiny of our nation, it is simply illogical to conclude that
the foothold of the Negro on the continent is not a thing of vast
significance. And if this be true, every question concerning him
has a new importance. If Pharaoh had understood that the Hebrew
bondsmen were a chosen generation, he would have carried on the
brick business in a different way. This whole Negro question
needs study in a new light, “lest haply we be found even to
fight against God.” Governor St. John, of Kansas, in answer to
a question from the South, how to stop the Negro exodus, has
recently said:
“Rent the Negro land and sell him supplies at fair prices. Stop
bulldozing him. Respect the sanctity of his family. Make him feel
that he is just as safe in his person and family, and in all
civil and political rights, as he can be in Kansas or any other
Northern Slate. Then he will not want to come North. Unless you
do this, the Red Sea will open before him and he will pass over
dry-shod; and you of the South, attempting to stop him, will be
overwhelmed, as was Pharaoh and his hosts.”
These are sharp words, and their rebuke is doubtless needed. It
is probably not important to stop the Negro exodus. For both
the Negro and the white race it is needful that large numbers
be removed from the scenes of their old servitude. The Negro
will rise faster and will more readily be the connecting and
reconciling link between two antagonistic forms of civilization.
This is but a stage in those wilderness wanderings by which he
is being fitted to perform his part in the drama of the world’s
renewing. In Kansas and everywhere he must have chance to develop
according to what is in him, and there need be no fear that he
will not act his part well.
This theme suggests many practical matters concerning the
importance and the methods of home evangelization. These cannot
be discussed in this paper; but I wish to raise again the
question asked by large numbers of our most sagacious men, viz.:
whether, in view of what seem to be vast providential designs
concerning the inhabitants of this continent, our home work
is not suffering comparative neglect? This is my deliberate
conviction. For the colored man, at least, we are doing but a
fraction of what it would be profitable to do. He is very far as
yet from entering into his rest, and for long years yet we are to
share with him “the pangs of transformation.”
“Before the joy of peace must come
The pains of purifying.
God give us grace,
Each in his place,
To bear his lot,
And murmuring not,
Endure, and wait, and labor.”
* * * * *
CHURCH WORK IN THE SOUTH.
BY REV. C. L. WOODWORTH.
The subject before us is “Church Work in the South.” This
work, though it seems to be fundamental to every missionary
organization, has yet been sharply challenged both as to its
propriety and expediency. Put thus on the defensive, it may be
well to recur to first principles, in order to satisfy ourselves
that the church is the _unit idea_ in all Christian labor. And
to unfold that idea in the conversion of men, and to make it
potential in society, through the preaching of the Gospel and
the sanctified lives of believers, is the end of the family,
of the school, and of all the forces which go to civilize and
uplift communities. That work which does not aim at the church
as its end, however refining and ennobling it may be in itself,
fails, utterly and infinitely, to realize the ideal of the New
Testament, or the ideals of history as seen in the progress of
Christ’s kingdom in the earth. When, therefore, a society like
the one whose anniversary we are now celebrating presents itself
for our suffrage and our support, it becomes our privilege, and
perhaps our duty, to question its mission and its right to live.
Should it appear that secular education is the object mainly
aimed at, then we would say it has just as much right to live as
there is reason for the work it is doing. But if, on the other
hand, it should appear that the regeneration of men, and the
founding of pure and intelligent churches, is its central thought
and aim, and that all other instruments in its hands are but
tributary to this, then we would say it has just as much right to
live as there is force and authority in the last command of our
ascended Lord. This will become evident if we examine:
(1.) The _Commission_ under which a society like this does its
work. The warrant for a missionary society, as for all missionary
effort, is found in the words of our Saviour to his disciples,
just before he went up on high: “All power is given unto me in
heaven and on earth; go ye, therefore, and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you alway, even unto
the end of the world.” Analyze these words, as repeated by
three evangelists, and, we submit, they leave upon the mind the
single, distinct impression that the work he commissioned his
disciples to do was to teach or to preach Christ; was to call
to repentance, and show how sin could be atoned and remitted
through the blood of the Crucified. That message is given to
this society—the most important ever committed to men; and
to proclaim it freely and fully, all its resources of men and
of money, of learning and of influence, should be put under
contribution. This is the work than which nothing greater nor
grander can be conceived.
(2.) This will further appear if we study the _model_ of
missionary work, which is presented to us in apostolic labor and
example. If the _words_ of our Saviour define the work to be
done, the example of the Apostles defines and illustrates the
_manner_ in which it should be done. And beginning at Jerusalem,
we find that the Apostles and the company of the believers gave
themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. When
the endowment of power had come, they began to speak in other
tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. They were now divinely
empowered and set apart for their work. The Holy Ghost is now
their inspirer and guide, and when the multitude came running
together to see what this strange thing could mean, Peter, with
the eleven, stood up and delivered that searching discourse which
went with convincing and converting power to the hearts of 3,000
men.
Indeed, what is the Acts of the Apostles but a record of
missionary operations conducted by inspired men, who were
specially empowered and guided by the Holy Ghost, in which the
preaching of Christ was the all-absorbing theme? Peter and James
among the Apostles, and Philip and Stephen among the deacons,
were illustrious preachers in their day, and models of devotion
to the single purpose of winning men to Christ. Converts were
multiplied, churches organized, and believers made to feel that
the _one supreme_ work was to teach or to preach Christ. The
movement began on the day of Pentecost by preaching Christ, and
on that line it continued its triumphant way while the Apostles
lived. They neither sought nor asked for anything more. They were
content to wield the sword of the Spirit which is the word of
God. And so they preached Christ, “to the Jews a stumbling-block
and to the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which were saved,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
(3.) If we needed other evidence that this line of work is
the true one, we have it in the historical _examples of other
successful missionary work_ since the time of the Apostles.
We only need to examine those great religious movements in
history which not only lifted the Church, but started the human
race forward on higher courses of thought and life, to satisfy
ourselves that the Gospel was the quickening power, and furnished
the motive and impulse to the astonishing results which followed.
A single text ringing in the ear of the monk as he slowly and
wearily climbed Pilate’s stairs at Rome, on his knees, “The
just shall live by faith,” explains the Reformation. That was
the key-note to all the preaching and writing of Luther and the
Reformers. That truth lifted and saved men; that truth organized
the free thought and the Protestant churches of Germany, and made
the Reformation a success.
The Puritan movement in England, to some extent contemporaneous
with that in Germany, proceeded on the same principles. Men
mighty in the Scriptures were raised up to preach the word. They
relied on nothing but the simple Gospel of Christ. All the might
of king and council and Parliament could not crush a movement
having its sources in the word of God. It crystallized into
dissenting churches; it flowed beyond the British Islands on to
the continent of Europe and to the continent of America, taking
possession of a new empire and a new world.
The Methodist movement, under Whitefield and the Wesleys, was
still another uprising and following of the human mind after the
simple truths of the Gospel. Though educated men themselves,
they had almost a contempt for human learning and the wordly
appliances on which other churches so much relied. The preaching
of the word accompanied by the power of the Holy Ghost was their
_sole_ reliance. On that principle they organized their churches,
literally preaching the Gospel to the poor, and, at the end of a
century, had a membership outnumbering any Protestant church in
Christendom. It would be easy to show that modern missions, at
home and abroad, have been most successful as they have relied
most fully on the simple preaching of the word, and that the
building up of churches has been the saving power of communities
_intellectually_, _morally_ and even _materially_.
(4.) Applying now the facts and principles barely glanced at
in this review to the subject in hand, we shall find that, so
far as the South is concerned, pure and intelligent churches
are at this moment more a necessity even than schools are. The
education of the intellect is vitally important; but for its own
security it should rest on the broader education of the moral
nature. The former will make keen, sharp men, shrewd in business
and other transactions, but only the latter can be trusted to
make honest, faithful, conscientious men. While we insist that
_Christian schools_ are the true handmaid of religion, we must
not be tempted to substitute science and culture for piety, nor
to make schools stand for more than churches. The church alone
is fundamental, but for the best results they belong together
and should go together. Schools _can_ be made and _should_ be
made helps to religion; but we mistake their nature entirely
when we imagine that there is anything in the ordinary studies
of the class-room—the classics, the mathematics, or the natural
sciences—to sanctify the heart or subdue the will to God.
The colored race is vastly more run down on its moral side
than on its intellectual side. This is true of all degraded,
barbarous races. The direct effects of slavery on the colored
race were its moral effects. To be sure, it left the race poor
and uncultivated; but _that_ might have been borne and easily
repaired had it left the moral integrity of the race intact and
pure. The school of slavery perverted the moral nature, and until
_that_ is rectified, no process of intellectual education can
lift the race on to the high level of a true manhood and a great
future.
Men and nations are lifted and made truly great through their
moral qualities rather than through their intellectual. At any
rate, if history teaches any lesson it is, that no nation has
long exhibited great intellectual qualities which has not been
sustained by greater moral qualities; and that no nation, ancient
or modern, has become intellectually great that was not first
morally great. The age of Pericles in Greece, and the Augustinian
age in Rome, when the human mind in each of those countries
reached its climacteric, was preceded by those great moral
virtues among the people which made them severely simple, honest,
brave and true. Greece had her Homer, her Solon, her Æschylus,
her Euripides, her Sappho, before she had her Pericles. Rome had
her Romulus, her Numa, her Cato, her Scipios, and for mothers,
her Cornelia, her Marcia and her Portia, before she had her
Augustus. England had her Alfred, her Bede, her Wickliffe, her
Knox and her Reformers, before she had her Bacon, her Shakespeare
and her Milton. Germany had her Luther, her Melanethon, her
Calvin, her Zwingle, and her long line of Protestant confessors
and defenders, before she had her Goethe, her Schiller, her
Humboldt, her Herder and her Beethoven. The ancient nations,
whose masterpieces in literature and art are still the models on
which we form our taste, declined intellectually precisely as
they declined morally. The great age of English literature was a
greater age of moral heroism; and Germany’s highest intellectual
development is but the consummate flowering of the moral forces
which have come down from the Reformation. Both will decline as
the moral supports on which they rest are weakened or undermined.
In the light of the past, it would seem clear that if we merely
sought the highest intellectual development of the colored race,
we would educate most assiduously their moral nature—their
weakest and most neglected part. But this can be done effectually
only through a pure and intelligent ministry of the word. In pure
churches alone can moral instruction, based on Divine authority,
find its highest sanctions. The secular teacher, indeed, may
instruct in morals and religion, but his words do not carry the
sanctity nor the authority of him who ministers at God’s altar in
holy things. It is in the Church, where men speak in the name of
God, and where the soul is brought face to face with the claims
of God, that the highest moral motives are pressed and felt. And
hence we say, the Church _foremost_, and everything tributary to
the Church, because the Church deals supremely with the moral
nature, through which degraded races can alone be lifted.
(5.) There is a farther necessity for such churches, in order
that we may save the present and coming generation of educated
young colored men and women from skepticism and infidelity.
The moment we educate a young man or a young woman to read
intelligently, or to speak and write the English language
grammatically, we have educated them out of the old colored
churches. They will not listen to men whose vocabulary has more
sound than meaning, and who violate with every sentence every law
of correct speech. The white churches are not open to them in any
such sense that they feel at liberty to enter them on any footing
of Christian equality. Unless we provide for them something which
is more pure and rational than their own churches, free from the
clamors and excitements of mere animal passion, we send them into
the streets and away from the house of God. After a young man
or a young woman has remained in school long enough to see the
ignorance of the colored preachers, and has gained sufficient
intelligence to make moral distinctions, it is inevitable that he
should turn from such teachers, and revolt from such moral and
religious guides.
If they are compelled to judge religion only by the specimens
of it which they see around them, why should not a common
intelligence reject it altogether? Our education, therefore, must
either lead our students out of the old churches into infidelity,
or it must lead them into churches where an intelligent ministry
and a pure worship will satisfy both intellect and heart. I can
conceive no greater wrong we can do that race than to destroy
their faith in the religion taught and practiced in their
churches, if we do not supply them with a better. A race without
a religious faith is lost; and, while our education destroys the
old, let us be careful to put in the place of it the _new_ and
the _true_.
(6.) And, finally, pure and intelligent churches are a necessity
in order to create a reservoir of piety and ability sufficient to
nurture and bring forward the young men and women needed for the
work of redeeming Africa. If the colored race in this country is
ever to be broadened to the full conception of saving Africa—is
ever to be made capable of laying broad and deep the foundations
of Christian States on that dark continent—if it is ever to be
inspired to the effort of such an undertaking—the movement must
begin at the foundations of character, in the moral sensibilities
and convictions of the soul. And a movement that is wide enough
and strong enough to sustain such an attempt must begin at the
house of God, must have its roots in Christian homes, must be fed
in the closet, at the family altar, with the word of God and the
breath of prayer. The movement which saves Africa will be a race
movement; will be the light and pressure of Divine truth upon the
minds and consciences of the people, and a baptism of Pentecostal
fire consecrating them to the work. But to what agencies shall
we look for such mighty spiritual energies as are needed for
the recovery of a race to Jesus Christ? The Church is the vast
reservoir of spiritual forces, and she utilizes other instruments
as they are needed to accomplish her work. But if it should
happen that we should mistake instruments or methods for power,
even schools for the Church of the living God, we should soon
find that the body without the spirit is dead.
It would avail little if here and there one in our schools might
be persuaded to enter the African field. What could he do without
the prayers, the sympathies, as well as the moral and pecuniary
support of his race behind him? And what certainly would there be
of a supply or of a succession of laborers, unless the churches
were holding their members to the work and were pushing forward
their children to offer themselves in its behalf? The churches
alone can create a race sentiment broad and deep and potent
enough to bear up an enterprise aiming at the Christianization
of Africa. It is the Gospel, ministered by holy men, which
unifies and exalts communities. It is the Church, as the centre
and representative of divine power, which stands for God, and
the word and the ordinances entrusted to her keeping are his
only visible hold upon the world. If we would have Christian
scholars in training for Africa—as teachers, as preachers, or
as statesmen—they should come from homes and churches in which
the spirit of Christ, the spirit of humanity, and the spirit of
missions was as the breath of life. On the one hand, we want the
churches as the inspiring and sustaining power both for men and
money, and on the other, as the motive and model for the work
we are called to do. Our missionaries need to live and move in
an atmosphere of holy self-denial and charity, to be empowered
by the prayers and godly zeal of the great brotherhood of the
saints, in order to a full consecration. We can expect men and
money for the work in sufficient number and amount only as the
churches, like mighty reservoirs, gather and hold all their
forces of brain, of heart, of will, of wealth and of learning, of
piety and of power, for Christ.
* * * * *
AFRICA.
* * * * *
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.
The report on the Association’s work in Africa, submitted
to your committee, shows that the Mendi Mission has reached
once more a degree of prosperity and promise. In its church,
school and industrial work it has been prospered, and in the
plan of preparing and using native helpers do we find the
great principle of all successful schemes for disseminating
the Gospel wisely adopted. Furthermore, the signal fact seems
now already permanently established that the Freedmen are the
providential missionaries for the dark continent. They endure
the climate as Europeans cannot, and, as trained for their work
in the seminaries of this society, they evince a capacity which
fits them for a rare evangelical service in the land of their
ancestors.
But the matter to which it is especially fitting that your
attention be directed with unwonted seriousness is the conditional
decision recently arrived at by the Executive Committee of this
Association to accept Mr. Arlington’s offer of £3,000, and open
in Eastern Africa a new mission station. That indicates what all
interested in the great problem of Africa’s Christianization
should welcome with thanksgiving and prayer, viz., that this
Association is to take a new and advanced part in this latest
missionary crusade. Now its work will have a higher significance
and a wider reach; for under God does it more and more seem that to
this Association is to fall the high part of preparing the needed
missionaries for Africa. The relation of the educational work of
the Association to this grand enterprise becomes impressively
apparent. There is a compensation in God’s providence, and in this
instance it is inspiring to believe that our Freedmen, as the best
fitted agents, are to become the preachers of Christianity to
the land from which their ancestors were cruelly carried away as
slaves. Here, now, is something proposed which will tax our faith
and test our courage and consecration.
The field for the proposed mission seems to be wisely chosen, and
in the Nile basin, making one more in a chain of mission stations
recently opened, will this Association have its place and do its
share in redeeming the continent to which the entire church now
is turning with a yearning heart. It is somewhat significant
that the proposed field for this mission is in a portion of
the continent most desolated by the slave trade. Pre-eminently
appropriate is it that this society, so long the friend and
advocate of the slave, should carry the tidings of “the liberty
wherewith Christ makes men free” into the midst of tribes which
have suffered from this terrible traffic.
The full and studied report of the Foreign Committee, in the
April number of the AMERICAN MISSIONARY, on the character and
promise of the special field designated by Mr. Arthington, makes
it unnecessary for your committee to add anything touching
upon this point. The careful investigation made in the first
instance confirms the wisdom of Mr. Arthington in naming to
this Association the field he has. His own letter, published
in the March number, shows that he had conferred with the best
authorities as to the location of the mission, and that he has
chosen a district that offers unusual attractions for such a
station as this Association should establish.
We believe your committee but voice the feeling of all
friends of this Association when expressing the hope that the
conditions on which this missionary advance depends will be
promptly met, so that without delay measures can be adopted
to enter this open door, and improve this latest and greatest
opportunity of doing for the millions of the long-forgotten and
long-despised continent. It is very evident that the foreign
work of the Association is to become of increasing importance
and magnitude, for to it has providentially fallen the high
privilege of preparing the workers especially required in
African evangelization. With its old mission on the West Coast
rising now into fresh usefulness, on its new basis of depending
upon Freedmen missionaries and native helpers, and the projected
station south and west of Gondokoro, in a field full of promise,
it will become a great evangelistic power in Africa. The springs
and feeders of its work will be in those noble educational
institutions established in our Southern land, for from these
will go forth the colored men and women who will show of what
holy sacrifice and achievements they are capable.
* * * * *
We should not forget that to this Association belongs the honor
of inaugurating in this country the more recent phase of African
evangelization. At the annual meeting in Clinton, Iowa, in 1874,
was the first note sounded for a missionary advance into the
heart of the dark continent, and in the annual gathering of
1875 and every year since has it been a prominent subject for
consideration. Mr. Arthington was induced to make his offer to
the Association because of its early and pronounced sympathy with
this plan of interior missions in Africa, and we, of our own
belief, would be disloyal to the flag we first gave to the winds
of heaven if we did not gird ourselves for this new venture. This
Association cannot afford to be absent from the Christian forces
now entering the far land, for by Providence and the signal
history of past years, and its peculiar relation to the African
race, it is called to take its place, highest of all, in the
lustrous belt of missions that now extend from the Zambesi along
the chain of lakes to the region in the Nile basin which we are
to man under the name of the Arthington Mission.
M. M. G. DANA,
H. T. ROSE,
G. D. PIKE,
S. J. HUMPHREY.
* * * * *
THE MENDI COUNTRY AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD.
BY REV. G. D. PIKE.
The territory under view is bounded on the east by the River
Niger, on the north by the Great Desert, and on the west and
south by the Atlantic Ocean.
(1.) Its surface is varied by mountains, plains, forest and
rivers, while its coast is indented with bays and harbors of
grand proportions. Skirting the coast there is an alluvial region
extending for fifty miles to a mountain forest range eighty
miles in width; then follows an open plateau which extends to
the Niger and beyond. The soil of this plateau is described as a
rich prairie land, of such productiveness and beauty that it is
regarded by missionaries who have seen it as the garden spot of
the world.
(2.) The climate of the country is admitted on all hands to be
hostile to efforts for the advancement of its people, while the
coast has been fitly styled “the burial-ground of white men.”
A deadly malaria, poisonous both to man and domestic animals,
checks the progress of industries and the work of Christianity.
It is believed, however, that this malaria is more especially
confined to the low mangrove swamps of the coast, and that after
the forest belt is passed the open plateau will afford healthy
localities.
The sanitary condition of a country can be determined in a
measure by its domestic animals. The pestilential vapors of a
malarious region are said to be absorbed to a greater extent by
quadrupeds, living constantly in the open air, than by mankind,
living a portion of the time in-doors. The ancient Greeks
observed this fact, and incorporated it in verse centuries ago:
“On mules and dogs the infection first began,
And last, the vengeful arrow fixed in man.”
Now the open plateau we have mentioned may be called the
“cattle-belt of the Mendi country and its neighborhood.” Here
unnumbered herds of horses, cows and other domestic animals
abound, making it somewhat evident that the climate may be found
favorable for the development of an advanced civilization.
(3.) The products of this country are such as are common to the
tropics, and are very abundant. Coffee grows spontaneously.
India-rubber enough for generations could be easily obtained.
Vast areas of timber lands, characterized by trees thirty feet
in diameter, with spreading branches sufficient for the shelter
of a regiment, abound in the forest belt. Here are found great
varieties of dye-woods, and other woods that admit of a beautiful
finish. Lumber is in great demand, and the saw-mill belonging
to this Association is taxed to its utmost, and quite unable to
furnish a supply sufficient for the market near at hand. The
export of palm-oil from this locality is very great, and at
present is doubtless the leading article of merchandise.
It is quite possible, however, that within a generation the most
alluring wealth of the country will be its treasures of gold.
This precious metal is found in a belt extending from the Gold
Coast inland three hundred and fifty miles. Of the productiveness
of the gold mines or pits, as they are called, we can judge but
little otherwise than by the meagreness of the facilities of the
natives for collecting gold, and by the amount found among the
different tribes. From what can be learned I am led to believe
that the great enterprise that shall yet stir the thought of the
mercantile world in behalf of this region will be that of the
gold hunter. In support of this view we have facts before us like
the following: The king of the Ashantees is covered with golden
ornaments. He is served by his cook with a golden spoon. His
spies, to the number of a thousand, wear golden breastplates,
his officers carry gold-hilted swords, and his subjects use gold
dust for money. The chiefs of the land manufacture golden images
to display their wealth, while their attendants are embellished
with golden badges. Even on the great plateau, three hundred
miles inland, gold is the money of the country. In Bouré the
people do nothing but dig up gold, which they exchange for food
with the neighboring tribes. The indications certainly are,
that if so much gold is secured by native women, who wash out a
little surface sand in their simple gourds, mines of wealth must
lie beneath awaiting the more powerful machinery of an American
civilization.
(4.) We come now to notice the internal improvements projected for
opening up this country to commerce and the higher development of
its people. Lines of steamers ply from the Senegal to the Niger,
and ports are opened where trade is carried on equal in amount
to $20,000,000 annually. The Niger and its tributaries afford
navigable waters for 3,500 miles, enabling the merchant to proceed
with boats from Timbuctoo to the Atlantic. Steamers already ply
upon this river and inland trade is rapidly developing.
At present there are many obstacles to overcome, of which the
superstition of the natives is not the least. There is, however,
a project full of promise for reaching this country. By recent
surveys it has been ascertained that opposite the Canary Islands,
in latitude 28° north, running five hundred miles south-east in
the Great Desert, there is a sink two hundred feet below the
level of the Atlantic, extending to within one hundred miles
of Timbuctoo, the great city of Central Africa. This sink or
depression has a width of one hundred and twenty miles, and
contains sixty thousand square miles of land. Explorers agree
that a channel once connected its north-western extremity
with the Atlantic, where it terminated in a sand-bank, which
prevented the waters of the ocean from flowing into its bed. Its
mouth is formed between perpendicular rocks, and measures about
two and a half miles in width, and is blocked by a sand-bar,
three hundred yards across, with a height of thirty feet above
the sea. All that is needed is to excavate a ship canal three
hundred yards long through the sand-bar, and the inland sea will
be speedily formed. When this is accomplished the Mendi country
and its neighborhood will be a vast island, approachable from
many directions, and a belt of civilization will be closed in
until the whole area is blessed with peace and abundance. Then
“Afric’s sunny fountains” will “roll down their golden sands”
into the lap of the older civilizations, and receive in return
the riper and richer results of the heaven-born blessings of the
Gospel.
(5.) It is fitting, furthermore, that we consider the character
and condition of the people of this domain. As to their physical
proportions, we have reason to believe that back of the malarial
belt they are well formed, muscular and endowed with powers
of great endurance. The tribes of the interior drive down the
inhabitants of the forest range into the lowland, where the law
of the survival of the unfittest obtains on account of malaria
leaving alive the coarse, muscular men of the coast. Of the
mental capacity of these people a good illustration was seen
in Barnabas Root, a real heathen, who came to this country and
was graduated at a Western college and also at the Chicago
Theological Seminary, ranking among the best scholars of his
class at both institutions.
The capacity of this people is also indicated by some splendid
achievements on African soil. A native among the Vey people
invented an alphabet with two hundred characters, in which
communications could be sent by letter and the language preserved
in books. Still another contrived an instrument before the
invention of the telegraph, called an _eleimbic_, for conveying
sound, and by means of which messages could be sent for several
miles. Native women manufacture cloth, woven in different colors;
they also make a species of twine as delicate and useful as
any in the world. Clay vessels that hold water, iron axes and
implements of utility of native manufacture, also abound.
Timbuctoo, the queen city of the Desert, at the north-eastern
boundary of the country we are considering, contains 20,000
inhabitants, and is laid out with regular streets and well-built
houses. Here is found a great mosque with nine naves and a tower
286 feet high and 212 wide, while other mosques of great age
and importance greet the eyes in this wonderful city. These
indications of skill are found among native Africans, even if
due, especially in Timbuctoo, to the Mohammedan faith. Cities and
towns in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and further along the coast, are
the result in part of a foreign civilization, but still in some
measure attest the capacity of the real heathen.
These people not only evince capacity for the development
of material wealth, but for the science of government. They
evidently believe in experiments in governmental civilization.
For example, the king of Dahomey selects the most robust of his
wives for a body-guard and organizes regiments of amazons. These
are said to be most courageous soldiers and absolutely devoted
to their calling. He also displays his appreciation of object
lessons in temperance reform by keeping a drunkard on rum, that
his hideous aspect might deter the people from that vice; while
the boys who act as porters on the coast promote the observance
of Sunday laws by charging for their services on the Lord’s day
sixpence extra for breaking the Sabbath.
The question, however, with which we have chief concern relates
to the religious instincts or capabilities of these people.
These may be measured in some degree by the sacrifices they make
and by the notions they entertain. For example, among the Foula
tribe the offerings to the Fetish must be made by a “sinless
girl.” Among the Mendi, they believe in a supreme being who made
all things, who punishes those who wrong their friends; they
thank him for blessings, and blame him for trouble and sickness.
The fetishism of the African is based upon religious instincts,
and indicates the strength of his aptitude for faith, prayer and
self-denial.
We have not at command any comprehensive knowledge of the habits
of all the tribes of the Mendi country and its neighborhood.
We are able, however, to give some account of the unprejudiced
conduct of the Ashantees during a four years’ war, as observed
by two German missionaries held as prisoners at Coomassie for
that length of time. They narrate a condition of heathendom that
ought to inspire us to pray and labor for the enlightenment and
redemption of this wretched people.
The worst phase of their condition is exhibited in the practice
of offering human sacrifices. We are told that when the king
visits the burial-place of his ancestors he offers a human
sacrifice on approaching the skeleton of each one, and in this
manner some thirty persons are slaughtered. When about to repair
a roof at the burial-place after a storm, as many more victims
are offered to appease the wrath of the departed. On funeral
occasions many villagers are killed, till it pleases the king to
forbid the further shedding of blood. The arms of poor wretches
are cut off in midday, while they are compelled to dance for the
amusement of the king before being taken to execution. If the
victims will not dance, lighted torches are applied to their
wounds until the drums beat, and then their heads are taken off.
During the Ashantee war 136 chiefs were slain. According to the
belief of the people it was necessary to send a considerable
retinue after them to the other world. For this reason a
ceremony called a “death-wake” was instituted, at which, for
each Coomassie chief, 30 of their people were killed. If an
equal retinue was assigned for chiefs in other localities, the
slaughtered persons would number 4,080 souls. At the funeral
festivities of Kokofu more than 200 human beings were sacrificed,
the king beheading several with his own hand. On the death of
a prince many of his wives are slain, and if the number he
possessed is not deemed sufficient, the king adds a selection
of girls, who are painted white and hung with golden ornaments.
These sit about the coffin for days, but are finally doomed
to the grave as attendants for the departed. The apology for
such practices is given by the king of Dahomey in the following
language: “If I were to give up this custom at once, my head
would be taken off to-morrow. These things cannot be stopped,
as one might suppose. By and by, little by little, much may be
done. Softly, softly; not by threats. You see how I am placed.”
A missionary of much experience on the coast tells us: “The
practice of offering human sacrifices is founded on a purely
religious basis, designed as a manifestation of piety, sanctioned
by long usages, upheld by a powerful priesthood, and believed to
be essential to the very existence of the tribes where it exists.”
But, thank God, over these dark areas of Pagan land we believe
the “morning light is breaking.” Already about the Mendi country
and its neighborhood there are twenty-three central mission
stations, many, if not all of which are circled with tributary
“out-stations,” lighting the country like a galaxy of planets and
stars and suns. Here different religious societies have organized
more than one hundred churches, and one hundred times as many
converts, and gathered 20,000 children in its schools. To this it
must be added that nearly a score of dialects have been mastered,
and portions of the Scriptures printed in as many tongues; while
millions of real heathen have felt the blessed influence of the
Gospel. As you will see by the map, there is a belt of missions
from the Senegal on the north along the coast to the mouth of
the Niger, and up the Niger the native black Bishop Crowther has
located nine mission stations, manned by converted heathen, who
are pushing northward toward Timbuctoo, with their steamers and
other facilities for extending the work.
We, of the American Missionary Association, are in the heart
of this great domain. The Mendi tribe is supposed to occupy a
region hundreds of miles inland, and to number two millions of
souls. The work of our missionaries on that ground is fruitful
of suggestions and encouragement. The faith and aspirations of
all, I believe, was expressed by Mr. Anthony, a colored hero from
Berea, Ky., in his letter to New York: “If you had the money I
would say, send 100,000 missionaries to Africa at once.” The
Freedmen are rapidly fitting themselves to go up and possess this
land for Christ. Give us the money and we will send them forward.
At some of the fashionable watering-places by the shores of the
sea, during the past summer, you noticed chains of electric
lights illuminating the fairy-like towers and palaces and
abodes of ten thousand pleasure-seekers, who, amid music and
gayety and song, sported in the tide as it broke in billowy
grandeur on the snowy sands; darkness was changed to day, and
night abolished by the wonderful discovery of Mr. Edison. So, I
think, our missionary stations in Western Africa are electric
lights, dispelling the darkness and ushering in that light which
is the truth and the way. Mr. Edison maintains his luminaries
by batteries with positive and negative poles, two extremes
operating one over against the other. Not otherwise is it with
the lights of the missionary world. They must be supported by the
great batteries of prayer and sacrifice. Praying and giving must
be our watchword. Pray the Lord of the harvest that He send forth
the laborer into His harvest, and remember the words of the Lord
Jesus, how He said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
* * * * *
THE INDIANS.
* * * * *
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.
Your committee, to whom has been referred that part of the report
of the Executive Committee which concerns the American Indians,
beg leave to report as follows:
Another event has occurred, in what may surely be termed the
providence of God, to compel the attention of Christians to the
condition of the Indians, and to our methods of dealing with them.
Whatever may be said of the policy of the Government, the fact
is that the paroxysm into which the country is thrown at each
new Indian outbreak, the perplexed uncertainty which is then
manifested by our chief public officers, the conflict of orders
which issue from the different departments of the Government, the
passionate demands which are then made for radical changes in our
policy, and the general hopelessness of permanent improvement
in the condition of the Indian which that wide-spread demand
indicates—these conspire to prove that, if not a fundamental
change, at least a more intelligent aim is necessary in our
method of dealing with these, the most perplexing of our national
wards.
In the hope of furnishing a basis of discussion, and of guiding
the efforts of the Association in the new problems which are
arising, your committee venture to embody their suggestions
in the form of a series of resolutions, which we present for
adoption, if your wisdom approves them.
_Resolved_, That the aim of this Association shall be, as far as
possible and as rapidly as possible, to secure for the Indians—
1. A legalized standing in the Courts of the United States.
2. Ownership of land in severalty.
3. The full rights of American citizenship.
These three things, we believe, are essential if the Indian is to
be, not Christianized or civilized, but saved from extermination.
_Resolved_, That this Association most heartily indorses the plan
of the Indian Bureau to secure to as many Indians as possible
the advantages of education offered at such distant schools
as those at Hampton and Carlisle; at the same time we believe
that the system of boarding schools on the reservations, which
for many years have been maintained by the Government and the
missionaries, is the chief educational agency that must be relied
upon for bettering the condition of the Indian.
_Resolved_, That to this end the members of this Association will
do all in their power to make the Indian question a pressing
question until the attention of Congress is so secured and held
to it that the legislative enactment necessary to bring about
these changes be completely accomplished.
H. A. STIMSON,
A. F. SHERRILL,
S. R. RIGGS
WM. CRAWFORD,
M. B. WILDER,
JOSEPH HART,
E. P. SMITH.
* * * * *
THE INDIAN QUESTION.
REV. H. A. STIMSON, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.
I stand before you to speak upon the Indian question with an
inexpressible sadness. The hopelessness of securing justice or
mercy for the Indian oppresses me. I seem to hear the cry of the
Pilgrim’s saintly pastor, when the news came to him across the
ocean of their first fight with the natives of New England, “I
would that you had converted some before you killed any.” Our
injustice and oppression of the Indian are not the slow growth of
years, as they have been to-day shown to be in the case of the
negro; they sprang into being full armed, bitter and destructive,
like the spirits from Pandora’s box. As early as 1675 the devoted
John Eliot wrote to Gov. Winthrop from the wigwams in which he
was consecrating his culture and his life to their conversion:
“I humbly request that one effect of this trouble may be to
humble the English to do the Indians justice.” (Letter to Hon.
Mr. Winthrop, Governor of Connecticut. Roxbury, this 24th of the
fifth month, 1675.) The prayer has remained unanswered through
the centuries.
I am oppressed with the necessity of arraigning my Government and
my country of crime. It is but a short time since England was
horrified with the account of the barbarous atrocities committed
by an English governor upon the blacks of Jamaica. A committee
was at once formed, as an expression of the best sentiment of
England, for the purpose of bringing the perpetrators of the
crime to justice. Reviewing the work of the Jamaica committee, of
which he had been chairman, John Stuart Mill records its failure.
It was defeated not by the law, but by the grand jury, the
representatives of the people. “It was not a popular proceeding,”
he writes, “in the eyes of the great middle classes of England to
bring English functionaries to the bar of a criminal court for
abuses of power committed against negroes.” (Autobiography, pp.
296-9.) It is as unpopular to arraign our Government for abuse
of the Indian to-day. A single sentence, however, of Mr. Mill’s
gives me courage to proceed. He says: “The Lord Chief Justice
Cockburn’s charge settled the law for the future.” It may be that
some simple statements of fact may open the eyes of our people
and prepare the way for redress.
Early in the century Sidney Smith said of the English nation, in
reference to the possibility of converting the Hindoos to Christ:
“We have exemplified in our public conduct every crime of which
human nature is capable.” Those words stand to-day the terms of
the indictment of the United States in her dealings with the
Indians.
We have persistently _broken faith with them_. A volume of
testimony might readily be produced; but Gen. Leake’s able
setting forth of the history of our Indian treaties furnishes
all the proof necessary. But as a single illustration, take
this statement from a Government official. In seven of our most
important treaties with as many different tribes we have bound
ourselves to provide education for the children of those tribes.
At a low estimate there are 33,000 children of schoolable age.
The Government has provided accommodations for but 2,589. Add
5,082 as the number who may possibly be further accommodated
in the miserable makeshifts of transient day schools, and you
have but 7,671 as the total provision. (Letter of Acting Indian
Commissioner Brooks, April 28, 1879.)
But why begin this story? We have made the name Modoc one to
frighten children with for a generation; but the Modoc chief who
killed the brave Gen. Canby had first been himself betrayed, and
had his kindred killed under a U.S. flag of truce; and his women
had been violated and burned to death. (Bishop Whipple’s letter
to _N. Y. Evening Post_, Jan., 1879.) We fought the Nez Perces;
and when that able and manly chief Joseph surrendered, he did it
on conditions the flagrant violation of which on the part of our
Government is known to every Indian on the plains. (Mr. Tibball’s
letter of October 9, 1879, in _N. Y. Tribune_.) We have justified
the sneers with which Sitting Bull dismissed Assistant Secretary
Cowan in a council held before the outbreak of the last Sioux
war: “Return to your own land, and when you have found a white
man who does not lie, come back.” We furnished occasion for the
sorrowful words of the old chief who, after the Custer massacre,
came to the Whipple Commission on the Missouri and said: “Look
out there. The prairie is wet with the blood of the white man. I
hear the voices of beautiful women crying for their husbands, who
will never return. It is not an Indian war. It is a white man’s
war, for the white man has lied. Take this pipe to the great
Father and tell him to smoke it, for it is the pipe of truth.”
What a parody is this on our national history! We boast of a
father of his country who always told the truth. The Indian
knows our Government by the name of “Washington,” and the Indian
says “Washington always lies.” Gen. Stanley has said: “When I
think of the way we have broken faith, I am ashamed to look an
Indian in the face.” Gen. Harney said to the Sioux in 1868: “If
my Government does not keep this agreement, I will come back and
ask the first Indian I meet to shoot me.” (Bishop Whipple in
_Faribault Democrat_, Jan. 5, 1877.) Gen. Harney does not revisit
the Sioux.
We have _stolen_ from the Indians; we are stealing from them all
the time. I do not speak of the lordly robbery, in which the
strong possesses himself of the lands, and if occasion serve,
of the home of the weak, and justifies it by the right of the
stronger. I speak of the petty stealing of the thief. Three years
ago there came past my home a long procession of Indian ponies.
Where did they come from? They were the property of the Sioux
on the reservations west of us. In the face of the ordinance of
1789, which expressly declares that their lands and property
shall never be taken, nor their liberties invaded, except in
lawful wars authorized by Congress, in violation of the terms of
their treaties, and in disregard of the express declaration of
the President in response to the telegram of the agent, “Tell the
friendly Indians that they shall be protected in their persons
and property,” their ponies were gathered and driven off by
officers of the army acting under orders. The Indians were left
without their only means of transportation for fuel or food, and
no redress has ever been secured. No inventory of individual
personal property was kept, and the stolen ponies were scattered
through Minnesota, and what were left sold for a song in St. Paul.
Gen. Crook has recently said that the Sioux of the Red Cloud and
Spotted Tail bands have been robbed during the past winter and
spring of over a thousand ponies, which robbery the army, under
the new _posse comitatus_ act, is powerless to prevent. (Letter
of June 19, 1879, in _New York Tribune_.)
What I am saying must not be understood as an arraignment of
the officers of the army, or indeed of the chief officials of
the Government. The army officers have been almost without an
exception the firm friends of the Indian, and none have borne
more emphatic testimony to their bad treatment than such generals
as Sherman, Harney, Stanley, Augur, Howard, Pope and Crook. The
latter said the other day, in response to the remark that it
was hard to be called to sacrifice life in settling quarrels
brought about by thieving contractors, “I will tell you a harder
thing. It is to be forced to fight and kill Indians when I know
they are clearly in the right.” The responsibility is with the
representatives of the people, with Congress.
But to return to the indictment. We have _forced the Indians
to break the law_ by placing them under conditions in which it
was not possible for them to obey the law and live. This can be
proven by the records of many of the Indian reservations when
we have attempted to shut them in on lands where starvation was
inevitable. Of my own knowledge I can speak of a reservation on
which some 1,700 Indians were commanded to remain where there
was barely food for a grasshopper, and where in the month of
September the little children begged the passer for food, and
the dogs were the picture of famine. We have debauched their
women. Remember that an Indian has no standing in our courts,
and it is easy to see what contact with the whites means to him
and his family. He has no redress when his home is violated;
and the knowledge of his helplessness makes him the prey of
every libertine, until on the distant plains the proximity of
a Government post is a sign of his misery. (General Carrington
construed this remark to apply to army officers, and corrected
it publicly. That was not its intent. The officers of the army
are gentlemen. The fort brings into the neighborhood of the
Indians and offers more or less of shelter to many men of a very
different stamp.)
We have not stopped short of _murder_. The record is a long and
bloody one. The details of the Custer massacre are still fresh
in your minds. The nation stood still and lifted up its hands in
horror at the disaster which in a moment had annihilated every
man of a large detachment of U.S. troops, not sparing their noble
and brilliant leader. But where was the real “Custer massacre”?
Go back to 1868, to where, under the shadow of Fort Cobb, on
land assigned to them by the United States, stood a small Indian
village. Its chief was Black Kettle, a man whose name was a
by-word among his fellows for cowardice, because he could not be
induced to fight the whites—a man of whom Gen. Harney said, “I
have worn the uniform of the United States for fifty-five years;
I knew Black Kettle well; he was as good a friend of the white
man as I am.”
He had been to the commandant of the post seeking protection for
himself and his people, because troops were in the neighborhood.
Four days afterwards Gen. Custer surrounded that village, and
although the Indians fought with desperation, not a man, woman or
child escaped alive. Gen. Custer doubtless believed he had fallen
upon a hostile camp. Was the mistake any the less terrible? Was
the butchery any the less shocking? The blood of innocent Indians
on the Wischita cried unto God, and the answer came in the deluge
of blood on the Rosebud. * * * *
But you ask, has this been the history of our other Indian wars?
Our first war with the Sioux was in 1852 to 1854. For thirty
years it had been the boast of the Sioux that they had never
killed a white man. How did the war begin? A Mormon emigrant
train crossing the plains lost a cow, which a band of Sioux, who
were living in the neighborhood in perfect peace, found and took.
The Mormons discovering this, made complaint at Fort Laramie, and
a lieutenant with a squad of soldiers was sent to recover the
lost property. It could not be found. It was already assimilated
into Indian. But the Indians offered to pay for it. This the
lieutenant refused to accept, demanding the surrender of the man
who had taken the cow for punishment. The Indians said he could
not be found; whereupon—will it be believed?—the lieutenant
ordered his troops to fire, and the Indian chief fell dead. Those
troops never fired again; they were killed in their tracks; and
this was the beginning of the great Sioux war which cost the
Government forty millions of dollars and many lives. (Speech of
President Seeley, of Massachusetts, in Congress, April 13, 1875.)
You know the story of the Sioux war in Minnesota—the withheld
appropriations, the taunts and the starvation. We need not open
that terrible chapter again.
We were at it again in 1866. In violation of the most explicit
agreements we built Forts Phil Kearney, Reno and Smith, in their
country; they flew to arms; the cost to the Government was a
million dollars a month; and finally the forts were vacated.
We had a great war with the Cheyennes in 1864-5. It began in the
most atrocious massacre that disgraces the annals of our country.
It was at a time when settlers were pouring into Colorado. The
buffalo had become scarce; the annuities for some reason had
ceased; the Indians were sad and depressed. But they kept the
peace. Black Kettle, of whom I have already spoken, was their
chief. A white man made complaint to a United States officer that
an Indian had stolen some of his horses. The officer did not
know the man, nor whether or not he had owned any horses; but he
fitted out an expedition to seize horses. Soon they ran across
Indians and claimed their stock, though the Indians protested
that they had only ponies and no American horses. A fight ensued
and some Indians were killed. Black Kettle knew his danger. He
rushed at once to the Governor of Colorado, seeking protection.
It was refused. Col. Boone, an old resident of the Territory,
told Bishop Whipple that it was the saddest company he had even
seen when they stopped at his house on their way back. He offered
them food, but they said: “Our hearts are sick; we cannot eat.”
Soon after troops appeared upon the horizon. Black Kettle and his
two brothers went out with a white flag to meet them. They fired
on the flag and the two brothers fell dead. Black Kettle returned
to his camp. Three men in the United States uniform were in his
tepee. He said; “I believe you are spies; it shall never be said
that a man ate Black Kettle’s bread and came to harm in his tent.
Go to your people before the fight begins.” He gathered his men
and they fought for their lives. A few escaped; but men, women
and children were massacred in a butchery too horrible to relate,
Women were ripped open and babes were scalped; and the Sand
Creek massacre has gone upon record, by testimony that cannot be
impeached, as a “butchery that would have disgraced the tribes
of Central Africa.” (Bishop Whipple’s letter to _Evening Post_,
January, 1879; and the report of the Doolittle Commission.)
But we fought the Cheyennes again in 1867. What occasioned that
war? Gen. Hancock, “without any known provocation,” as says
the report to Congress of the Indian Bureau, in July, 1867,
surrounded a village of Cheyennes who had been at peace since the
signing of the treaty of 1865, and were quietly occupying the
grounds assigned to them by the treaty, burned down the homes of
three hundred lodges, destroyed all their provisions, clothing,
utensils and property of every description, to the value of
$100,000. This led to a war that extended over three years, and
cost us $40,000,000 and three hundred men. (President Seeley’s
speech.)
We have just fought the Bannocks and Shoshones. In November,
1878, Gen. Crook wrote to the Government: “With the Bannocks and
Shoshones our Indian policy has resolved itself into a question
of war-path or starvation; and being human, many of them will
choose the former, in which death shall at least be glorious.”
Is it necessary to say anything more of that war? Why pursue the
story? The late Congressman (now President) Seeley, of Amherst
College, says: “There has not been an Indian war for the past
fifty years in which the whites have not been the aggressors.”
What, then, is to be done? I press upon you the importance of
these resolutions. Standing in the courts, the recognition of the
Indian as a person with rights, inalienable as yours and mine, to
life, to justice, to property, this is the first, the absolute
essential. As long ago as 1807, Governor (afterwards President)
Harrison said: “The utmost efforts to induce the Indians to take
up arms would be unavailing if _one only of the many persons
who have committed murder upon their people could be brought to
punishment_.” Generals Harney and Pope have testified of late
that this is as true now as then.
In 1802 President Jefferson wrote to a friend that he had heard
that there was one man left of the Peorias, and said “If there
is only one, justice demands that his rights shall be respected.”
Reviewing subsequent history we may well repeat Jefferson’s
solemn words, “I tremble for my country when I know that God is
just!”
We can make no more treaties with the Indians. The act of 1871
put an end to that dreadful farce. There have been nearly 900
treaties since 1785. They have been the loaded dice with which we
have always won and the Indian always lost. We have hoodwinked
ourselves by them to a perpetual fraud and deception. They have
been to the Indian a veritable compact of death. Relying on
them he has sooner or later found himself held by the throat by
the wolf starvation, or impaled on the bayonet of the soldier;
crowded to the wall by the encroaching settler, or removed to
the wilderness by the Government as soon as he had begun to make
for himself a home. The Stockbridges have been thus removed four
times in a hundred years, and are now on a reservation where it
is impossible to get a living. The Poncas are the latest instance.
Treaties must give place to personal rights. We must provide
something better for him than a reservation; that is, life in
a community for which we have provided no law, no courts, no
police, no officer other than an anomalous “agent,” no ownership
of land—nothing, in short, that all civilized people regard
as the first element of civilized life, and without which the
congregate life of bodies of men is impossible. We say to him,
Cease to be a savage, hungry but free, and come and be a pauper,
dependent on the will of others, without law, and still hungry.
As one of the agents wrote in 1875: “It is a condition of things
that would turn a white community into chaos in twelve months.”
It behooves every honest man, every man who loves his country,
to see that the day of equal personal rights for the Indian, the
only man on the broad earth who has none, shall at once dawn.
But I remember that I am speaking to a company of Christians.
Religion before all else can prepare the Indian to make the
most of his citizenship. Look at this picture. Here is a wigwam
in the pine forest. Before it is a tall pole, from the top of
which hangs a dried bladder containing a few rattling shells
and stones. It is the wigwam of Shaydayence, or Little Pelican,
chief medicine man of the Gull Lakers. He is the incarnation of
the devil in that tribe. He holds the tribe in his hand, and
represents their idolatry and their bloodthirstiness. It is due
to him that the missionary has been driven away. More than that,
he is an inveterate drunkard. He has been rescued from freezing
to death, drunk in the woods, by a chance lumberman finding him
and thawing him out before an extemporized fire.
The scene changes. There is again a wigwam. Lift the blanket door
and enter. Three old women are warming themselves by the fire
in the centre. A young man lies upon the ground singing aloud
from an Ojibway hymn-book, which he reads by the fire-light. An
old man rises to greet you, asks you to sit down, and proceeds
to talk about Jesus Christ. It is the same Shaydayence. He is
known now as the leader of the singing band of the Chippewas, who
goes from house to house with a few young men to plead with his
countrymen to love Christ. A little later you find him living
in a log house with table and chairs and stove, a white man’s
home, cultivating also his garden. What wrought the change? He
had a friend, Nayboneshkong, who was sick and dying. He went
to see him. The sick man had long been a Christian, and now
rallied himself to speak for the last time. Hour after hour he
expostulated and pleaded. He rose from his bed with preternatural
strength. He walked the floor, still talking and praying. Morning
came, Nayboneshkong was dead, and Shaydayence went to his wigwam
to begin the new life of a Christian man. Observe that he was a
savage, a medicine man and a drunkard. What other influence could
have saved him? Would education, or citizenship, or civilization,
or legal standing, or property rights? Nothing; nothing but the
personal power of Jesus Christ; and that did.
The story goes that once there appeared at the cave of a hermit
a little child, naked and cold and hungry. The good man eagerly
took him in, and from his own scanty store clothed and fed and
warmed him. He set his heart upon him as upon his own son. The
next day the hermit was gone. It was Jesus who had come thus
needy to his door, and proving his love, had in return taken him
to himself, and like Enoch, the hermit was not. The child, naked
and hungry and cold at our door, is the Indian. I hear the voice
of the Lord himself saying, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one
of the least of these, ye have done it unto me.”
You have pointed out the large part which in the providence of
God may yet be appointed to the negro race to play in doing God’s
work in the world.
I know nothing of the future of the Indian in this direction.
He may have no “genius for religion,” no “peculiar talent of
faith,” no “wonderful power in song.” That he has talents which
are respectable, none who know him can doubt. But be that as it
may, before all other men he stands to-day the living witness of
the promise of the Scripture, that Christ “is able to save to the
uttermost them that come unto God by him.” He, brethren, is the
“uttermost” man—the sinner who, abused, outcast and despised,
is, at least in your eyes, the furthest of all men from hope and
from Christ. Have you religion enough to try to save him? If so,
begin by showing him justice.
* * * * *
THE CHINESE.
* * * * *
“CALIFORNIA CHINESE MISSION.”
Auxiliary to the American Missionary Association.
PRESIDENT: Rev. J. K. McLean, D. D. VICE-PRESIDENTS: Rev. A. L.
Stone, D. D., Thomas O. Wedderspoon, Esq., Rev. T. E. Noble, Hon.
F. F. Low, Rev. I. E. Dwinell, D. D., Hon. Samuel Cross, Rev. S.
H. Willey, D. D., Edward P. Flint, Esq., Rev. J. W. Hough, D. D.,
Jacob S. Taber, Esq.
DIRECTORS: Rev. George Mooar, D. D., Hon. E. D. Sawyer, Rev. E.
P. Baker, James M. Haven, Esq., Rev. Joseph Rowell, Rev. John
Kimball, E. P. Sanford, Esq.
SECRETARY: Rev. W. C. Pond. TREASURER: E. Palache, Esq.
* * * * *
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.
The report opens with stating the greatness of the problems
with which the Association has to grapple, protests against the
discriminating legislation of State and nation, and concludes as
follows:
We regard the work of this Association among the Chinamen in
America as fruitful in good results. Its Superintendent on
the field has said: “I doubt whether any evangelistic labor
in connection with our churches has yielded larger results,
in proportion to the funds employed and the breadth which we
have been permitted to give to the work.” That work has been
limited. Out of $179,000 expended by this Association last year,
only $6,596 was given to this work. This was increased a little
by other funds in California. But this sum, applied to twelve
schools, with twenty-one teachers and 1,489 pupils, is too small
for the greatness of the work, for the 100,000 Chinamen in this
country have the closest relations with the millions left at
home. They are constantly coming and going. The Rev. W. C. Pond
said in 1876 that during the fourteen preceding years nearly
130,000 had landed in San Francisco, or about 9,000 annually; but
they are returning nearly or quite as fast as they come. They
are “picked young men, industrious, enterprising, persistent.”
As they come to us, feel our molding touch to harden or to
soften, and then return home, we owe it to them, to ourselves,
and to Christ, to pass as much as possible of this moving stream
of immortal souls through our schools and under the influence
of One greater than Confucius. We want the returning stream to
bear on its bosom the glad tidings of the Lord Jesus Christ. We,
therefore, recommend the enlargement of this work to its utmost
demand. It touches vitally the evangelization of 400,000,000
of brothers and sisters. This work is broader than that among
the Indian and the Negro; it is broader than the evangelization
of Africa. We press its importance, therefore, both upon the
officers and the constituent members of this Association, for by
and by we may see in it the Divine purpose to redeem China by
means of the Chinamen returning home laden with the riches of
grace, more precious than gold.
Your committee desire to express their high appreciation of the
able and exhaustive paper on the Chinese question read before the
Association by the Rev. J. H. Twichell, and submitted to this
committee, and recommend its publication.
Your committee deem it of great importance suitably to recognize
the action of President Hayes in saving us by a veto from
national disgrace. When Congress had so far forgotten the whole
past policy of our Government, and the principles of Christianity
imbedded in the foundations of the Republic, as to pass a bill
indirectly abrogating a treaty unmentioned in the bill, the
Executive interposed and saved both our treaty and our honor.
We would suggest, therefore, the expression of our appreciation
of his action in the adoption of the following resolution, viz.:
_Resolved_, That the American Missionary Association, assembled
in its thirty-third anniversary, believing that the treaties
existing between the United States and China, so far as they
relate to the rights of emigration from one country to the other,
and the treatment such emigrants should receive from the people
and nation among whom and in which they live, are right, just,
wise and Christian, does heartily record its appreciation of
the high services which President Hayes, under God, has, by his
timely veto of the anti-Chinese bill, been enabled to render
the Republic, in preserving inviolate its treaty obligations
and also the cause of Christianity, in removing a threatened
formidable barrier to the evangelization of the Chinese, not only
in America, but also in their native land, and the Association
hereby tenders him its profound thanks for the same.
_Resolved_, That the secretaries of this Association be
authorized to convey to President Hayes this our action.
A. HASTINGS ROSS,
W. A. NICHOLS,
CHARLES C. CRAGIN,
MARK WILLIAMS,
C. CAVERNO,
E. M. WILLIAMS,
JEE GAM.
* * * * *
UNITED STATES AND CHINA—THE SITUATION.
REV. J. H. TWICHELL, HARTFORD, CONN.
OUR OPPORTUNITY.
* * * * Much as anterior conditions and causes have to do with
it, the great opportunity now maturing in China for the ingress
of revolutionary influences from without, has been pre-eminently
shaped by Protestant missions; and in the nature of the case,
it devolves on Protestant Christendom the highest obligations
to meet it that circumstances can create. To no other nation,
however, does such a share of this opportunity and corresponding
obligation fall as to the United States; for we sustain relations
to the Chinese Government and to the Chinese people that are, in
important respects, singular.
(1.) To begin with, there is the relation of _neighborhood_.
Sailing up the Pacific, near our coast, one summer evening, Yung
Wing, leaning against the steamer guards, and looking across the
level waters to the westward, said, “Yonder lies my country, next
land to this.” Between us and China, between our two realms,
the one so old, the other so young, for a thousand miles of
coast on either side, nothing intervenes but the sea, which no
state owns, and that is contiguity. Along so great a boundary
America and China may be said to touch, yet without possibility
of territorial dispute. And this nearness is one feature of our
special opportunity.
(2.) A second and more pregnant feature of it is to be noted
in the _good-will_ that in a peculiar degree characterizes the
relations of our two countries in the past and in the present.
This may seem a strange thing to say just now, but the truth of
it will appear on a brief survey of facts. Probably it is less
our merit than our fortune, but it is certainly the latter,
that through the whole stage of that unhappy, though largely
unavoidable collision of China with the foreign powers, by which
she was forced off from her intolerable policy of exclusion,
our Government was the least conspicuous of the principal
aggressors,—less so than France, less so than England, less
so than Russia. To the several treaties in which the collision
issued, that with the United States, and that alone, contained
the express provision that the parties to it, and their peoples
respectively, should “not insult or oppress each other for any
trifling cause, so as to produce an estrangement between them.”
There has been, and is, less bitter remembrance of us on the
score of that conflict than of the other belligerents engaged
in it. Again, while we have subsequently had men in the various
ranks of our diplomatic service in China who have hurt us there,
and have them still, we have probably given least offence on
_that_ score. No thanks to our civil service want of system; but
in the providence of God, we have had more than our proportion
there of men who have helped our good fame. Eighteen years ago
we sent thither an ambassador, one result of whose six years of
official life there was, that at the end of that time jealous
Pekin had come to recognize in him, what he truly was, a friend
to China. I mean, of course, Anson Burlingame, of Massachusetts.
For his friendship, China offered to his acceptance honors never
before or since conferred on a foreigner. She freely committed
to his hands a trust of supreme magnitude. She made him her
ambassador to all the western people. In that capacity he came
home to his own country, and framed with us the first of that new
series of treaties in which China gave and received the pledge
that made her a member on equal footing of the family of nations.
And that treaty, the work of our own citizen, large minded
enough to value the capabilities of that great people, large
hearted enough also to make his sympathy felt by its rulers,
still stands, and is _going_ to stand. But this most remarkable
and luminous paragraph of history—is there another such between
China and any other nation but ours?
(3.) Finally, as if to supply the last term required to complete
our relationship for all possible service to the Chinese race, as
if to openly designate and summon us to the office of aiding its
emergence into a new life, especially of ministering to it the
holy faith, (which is the best gift we have to impart, the one
secret and source of our happier lot,) for us and for us alone,
of all Protestant Christendom, by bringing to our soil, to the
presence of our institutions, to our church doors, a multitude
of Chinese people themselves, God provided the condition of
_personal contact_. That was the rounding and perfection of our
opportunity.
But, it will naturally be inquired, is not whatsoever exceptional
advantage gained for us in the past mostly annulled by the later
and recent record of social and political hostility here at home,
which stands against us in our account with China? I think not.
The shameful truth is, China is wonted to the ill-treatment of
her subjects on foreign Christian soil, and if we have furnished
no exception to the rule, our outrage has been milder than she is
accustomed to; so that, after all that has happened to wound her
feelings here, there still remains to us the benefit, though it
is nothing, I repeat, to be proud of, of comparison with worse
doers.
ADVANTAGES OF THE ANTI-CHINESE AGITATION.
I am glad to pass to a pleasanter topic, and to remark next, that
there are certain incidental consequences of the anti-Chinese
agitation, and, as well, certain circumstances felicitously
contemporaneous with it, that have operated to offset and
countervail the injury which that agitation may be supposed to
have inflicted on our relation with China—that have done more
than that.
First, it has developed and brought out into expression a _vastly
preponderant public opinion adverse to the whole movement_. The
argument for it has been heard and canvassed, and not without
sympathy; for it was presented by our own countrymen, and it
was not to be questioned that they were in a measure of honest
difficulty of some sort with the matter they brought to trial.
But I think it is entirely true to say that the event of the
discussion has been that the argument is answered. It did not
stand as to its facts. I believe that all the main counts of the
indictment against Chinese emigration and Chinese emigrants we
severally disproved to the public satisfaction.
But beside this aspect of the case, and to a great extent
independently of it, the judgment asked for, _viz., the adoption
of the policy of exclusion, was considered_. Whereupon it
appeared that it was the proposal of an act no less serious, no
less forbidden, than to disown and repudiate a principle, the
maintenance of which more than any other thing distinguishes
us as a nation, which our fathers built into the foundation of
our government, which we have always advocated to the world in
every publishment of our political creed—a principle which
we have ever claimed to be one of natural right, which we
have persistently endeavored, from the outset of our national
existence, to persuade other governments to recognize as such,
and which we had particularly emphasized in the very treaty of
which this act, if consented to, would be the violation. It
appeared, furthermore, that it was a proposal that we take toward
China the very attitude which we had helped force China out of,
as towards ourselves and other nations, _i. e._, that we borrow a
page of cast-off Chinese politics and insert it in our law—that
it was a proposal to return from the nineteenth to the eleventh
century, and convert to the use of a modern free republic
something in the likeness of a medieval edict against the Jews;
that, finally, it was a proposal to go back upon ourselves, to
revoke our own most recent step of advance in civilization, and
restore that doctrine of race discrimination, which we had lately
put away.
And when this was seen, the country said, No! Legislature,
chamber of commerce, institutions of learning, benevolent
organizations, united in the protest. The general voice was, that
whatever evil there was to be remedied must be dealt with in some
other way. A Congressional committee, indeed, brought in a report
not warranted by the evidence it had heard, favorable to the
policy of exclusion—the lamented Morton dissenting—and Congress
itself passed the anti-Chinese bill. But that was Congress,
which has reasons of its own for what it does sometimes, not
very mysterious in this instance. But the report for the people,
which the people with little distinction of party gratefully and
audibly accepted, was made by President Hayes in his strong veto.
Of course the Chinese Government, through its representatives at
Washington, is accurately informed of all this; and besides, the
Chinese Government reads the papers. Thus an attempt which, had
it succeeded, would have destroyed our friendship with China, has
not only failed, but has been the occasion of such an expression
of the national sentiment of good-will toward her as never had
been made before, and as could not have been made otherwise.
A minor but very much to be noted result of the affair has been
_the disclosure of the actual state of things in California_.
It has shown how and where the anti-Chinese movement started,
how low its origin was and how it grew, by what means, by what
management it drew into it such respectable elements as it did;
that it was fomented by the press operating in the field of
State politics—that it was mainly a worked-up irrational furor
kindling by contagion, and did not really signify what it seemed
to. It was shown that much of the best part of California was not
in it. Why, the evidence for the defence on which the country,
balancing it with the other evidence heard, found its verdict
aforesaid, was, all of it, the evidence of California men—men
from the first rank of citizenship. It transpired that there was
in California a not inconsiderable party on the poor Chinaman’s
side, not forbearing to denounce and oppose the violation of his
rights, and to testify in his favor, that much as had been said
and done there against him, a good deal in the name of Christian
benevolence and humanity and justice had been said and done for
him. And so in the upshot of the public trial of the case it has
come about that the offence of California is mitigated by it.
And to the affront perpetrated in the halls of Congress in
addition to the offset furnished by the public attitude, there
has been a special one, too remarkable not to be mentioned.
It was a most lamentable spectacle to see a man like James G.
Blaine, of New England, in the eminence of his position, his
great gifts and his reputation, stand up in the United States
Senate, and before the world turn the power of his rare eloquence
against the cause of the weak. It was too bad. It cannot be
excused. But not only did his utterances call out replies from
the most capable and influential sources, notably from Dr.
S. Wells Williams, long resident in China, but now of Yale
College, than whom there is no higher authority on China and
Chinese affairs living; from Henry Ward Beecher, in a splendid
address given in Philadelphia on the 3d of last March; and
from William Lloyd Garrison, in a noble letter of protest, his
dying deliverance, the last shot the old warrior for humanity
fired;—not only, I say, did Mr. Blaine provoke these replies by
which he was convicted of ignorance and fallacy and his argument
throughout annihilated; but it happened that almost at the same
time he was misrepresenting both China and us at the Capitol,
another citizen of this country, in the eminence of a still
more illustrious fame, was in the far East, in the audience of
China herself, speaking our true mind for us; for it was to
a delegation of the Chinese merchants of Penang that, in the
month of April of the present year, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, in
that felicity of well-chosen and straightforward simple speech
that is characteristic of him, said, “The hostility of which
you complain does not represent the real sentiment of America,
but is the work of demagogues. * * * I do not doubt, and no one
can doubt, that in the end, no matter what effect the agitation
for the time being may have, the American people will treat the
Chinese with kindness and justice, and not deny to the true and
deserving people of your country the asylum they offer to the
rest of the world.” And may God bless him for saying it.
Moreover, in the month of June following, this same man of great
deeds and weighty speech, in an interview with certain of the
highest officials of the empire at Peking, and at their request,
offered counsel, which a few weeks later, on a like request, he
repeated in an interview with the Emperor of Japan, to the effect
that the time had now arrived when the two nations of China and
Japan, in peace and close alliance with one another, should no
longer submit as they had done to the interference and dictation
of foreign powers in their affairs; should assume control of
their own commerce, and together stand for their independence and
their proper rights, as it became so great nations to do, and as
they were able to do against the world. God bless him for saying
that, too! It was the most seasonable word, next to the Gospel,
that has been spoken on that side of the world in this age. And
I, for one, am thankful and proud that it was an American who had
the breadth of vision and the magnanimity to speak it.
And now there remains to be spoken of an outcome of good from
the anti-Chinese agitation that is of more immediately practical
consequence than any other. It has been the occasion of calling
universal and earnest _attention_, such as had not been drawn to
it before, and such as it is scarcely conceivable could have been
drawn to it otherwise, _to the fact of the presence within our
borders of so many of the Chinese people_. The nation at large
is now aware of them and informed with respect to them. While
it is not yet settled what is to be done with them politically,
and while no doubt there will be further contention over them,
it does seem to be settled that they are not to go by a violent
dismissal. Here they are, then, more than a hundred thousand
souls of them, and here they are to stay. They are an object of
the very highest interest, and that for more reasons than one.
Not only are they such in themselves, but they constitute by
far the most vital point of our contact with that great nation
beyond the sea, and afford the most available means and medium
of reaching it that we possess. And we are interested in them on
our own account. By their presence we have already been put to
the test in one way, and we are still to be tested by them in
other ways. We are to be tested as to the capacity of our civil
institutions, and as to the power of our religion—no, not as to
the power of our religion, but as to our power in it.
It is one of the most humiliating confessions that can be made,
to say that these people cannot be granted room on our soil, with
liberty and justice under our laws, with safety to ourselves. It
is a still more humiliating confession to say that the attempt to
Christianize them is a hopeless one.
Is it so that in their case we have come to the end of our
resources for securing men the exercise and enjoyment of their
few inalienable rights under our Government? Then they are
vastly less than we had thought. Is it so that the encounter of
our Christianity with heathenism in the persons of a few score
thousand pagans, here on our ground, within hearing of our
Sabbath bells, is too much to be ventured, lest heathenism win
the day? Then there is not enough to our Christianity to make it
much matter.
It is all absurd to say such things. It is not indeed to be
questioned that the problem of dealing with this strange element
thrown in upon us is a perplexed and difficult one; but it is
not the first perplexed and difficult matter we have had to
accommodate, nor is it the last. Our labors as a nation are not
over. The time when there will be no perilous or incommoding
exigencies arising to disturb our ease as citizens is far
distant. Who thinks it not so is greatly mistaken. As other
vexing problems in the past have been solved, so with patience
this Chinese problem can be without sacrifice of principle.
OUR CHRISTIAN DUTY.
It is a work in which the state and the church must co-operate.
But we are here to-day to look especially to the part which the
latter has in it—as servants of Christ and as representatives
of the Christian community to attend to the cry of the poor that
comes to us from the Pacific coast, and to consider how we shall
respond to it.
The one thing which we are disallowed, be it first of all
observed, is to deem that our principal duty in the premises is
discharged by giving hard words to California. We are not to sit
in judgment on California. We are not in a position to do so, and
I trust we are not disposed to do so. There are reasons which the
rest of the country does not perceive, certainly does not feel
as California does, why the presence in her population of this
unassimilated foreign mass is very undesirable and very trying.
Not a doubt of it. I have heard Yung Wing himself say it. We may
with propriety, in view of some reasons, on the other hand, that
naturally enough we see more clearly than they do in California,
plead with our fellow-citizens there to try and discern the
larger aspects of the situation, and to bear whatsoever ills
it entails upon them till they can be remedied in the way that
is best for all of us and for all men. If I had the ear of the
Irish citizens of California I would plead with them, as lately
foreigners themselves, and as sons of a church that for more than
five hundred years has befriended China through her missions,
and is still doing it, to regard these new foreigners with more
kindness.
California is a grand State—splendid in her youthful prime—a
queenly figure sitting there on her golden shore—our own flesh
and blood. Our warmest sympathies, our best hopes are with her.
To look upon any fault of hers with less than a generous charity
is out of character, and besides, in the present instance, it is
nothing to the purpose. The only course for Christian America
to take at this juncture is to offer California our Christian
service. That we can do, and the way of it is plain. There are
faithful brethren and faithful churches in California ready
and waiting for help in the work already by them inaugurated,
and carried on sufficiently far to prove beyond cavil the
practicability of its success, bringing these Chinese thousands
under the sway of the gospel of Christ. Some help we have sent
them, but not enough. There ought to be abundance of it; not
only abundance, but a sufficiency—all that can be used to
advantage. This is a mission that ought to be lavishly supported,
that ought not to be stinted as respects either money or men.
And the time to push it is now. If the churches of the country
will encourage and assist the enterprise in a free-handed,
free-hearted, neighborly way—the churches of our order, through
the agency of this vigorous and patriotic Association—the
Chinese question would ere long be satisfactorily and permanently
disposed of. Nothing would be so effectual to modify and reshape
the public sentiment of California upon it as such a Christian
demonstration. Nothing would more effectually contribute to the
evangelization of China. Nor is there anything at present within
our power that would apparently do more to hasten the conversion
of the world.
RECEIPTS
FOR OCTOBER, 1879.
* * * * *
MAINE, $94.74.
Bangor. First Parish Ch. $28.00
Bethel. Second Cong. Ch. 10.00
Brownville. C. L. Nichols, 2 bbls. of C.
East Madison. Eliza Bicknell 5.00
Gardiner. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 16.84
North Yarmouth. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 5.00
Orland. M. C. Trott 5.00
Thomaston. Ladies of Cong. Ch., bbl. of C.
Wells. First Cong. Ch. 15.00
Winterport. W. R. M. 2.00
Winthrop. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 5.40
Woolwich. John Percy, $2; E. H. T., 50c 2.50
Yarmouth. First Cong. Ch., 3 bbls. of C.,
Central Ch., bbl. of C.
NEW HAMPSHIRE, $121.58.
Amherst. Women’s Memorial Union, $10; First
Cong. Ch., $7.50 17.50
Atkinson. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 10.00
Colebrook. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 4.00
Concord. No. Cong. Ch., bbl. of C.
Derry. Mrs. H. R. Underhill, box and bbl. of C.
Dover. Mrs. Dr. L. 1.00
Fitzwilliam. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 6.00
Hillsborough Bridge. Cong. Ch. 3.50
Lancaster. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 15.00
Milford. First Cong. Ch. 13.58
Nashua. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 16.50
New Ipswich. Proceeds of Children’s Fair 16.00
New Ipswich. Cong. Sab. Sch. ($10 of which
from Leavitt Lincoln) 13.50
Wolfborough. Rev. S. Clark 5.00
VERMONT, $303.38.
Barnet. Cong. Ch. and Soc., $18.29; M. Larens,
$3.88 22.17
Cambridge. Madison Safford 44.94
Charlotte. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 41.50
Derby. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 5.00
East Poultney. A. D. Wilcox 5.00
Ferrisburg. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 2.25
McIndoe’s Falls. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 17.00
Montgomery Centre. “Friends” 5.00
Newport. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 6.00
Saint Albans. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 17.19
Saint Johnsbury. North Ch. Sab. Sch. 50.00
South Ryegate. Mrs. Wm. Nelson 50.00
West Brattleborough. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 14.66
Weybridge. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 22.67
MASSACHUSETTS, $6,208.96.
Agawam. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 6.62
Amherst. North Cong. Ch. and Soc., $60, to
const. AUSTIN D. LOOMIS and WM. D. CROCKER,
L. M.’s;—Mrs. R. A. Lester, $50.00 110.00
Andover. Old South Cong. Ch. and Soc. 300.00
Ashby. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 6.50
Attleborough Falls. Central Cong. Ch. 6.86
Cambridgeport. Pilgrim Ch. and Soc. 14.23
Charlestown. Winthrop Cong. Ch. and Soc. 60.23
Charlton. Cong. Ch. and Soc. $10.86, and Sab.
Sch. $5.24 16.10
Chelsea. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. $45.40;
Central Cong. Ch. and Soc. $16.30 61.70
Chicopee. Second Cong. Ch. and Soc. 18.35
Bernardston. Cong. Ch. 6.00
Boston. Mrs. Henry Mayo, $10, _for Lady
Missionary, Memphis, Tenn._;—G. E. S. K., $1 11.00
Boxborough. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 5.00
Brookline. Harvard Cong. Ch. and Soc. 76.61
Bridgewater. Central Sq. Trin. Ch. and Soc. 41.25
East Hampton. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 75.92
Fitchburg. Rollstone Cong. Ch. and Soc.,
$154.03, to const. SAMUEL S. HOLTON, GEO. P.
CROSBY, THOMAS R. LAWRENCE, WM. A. LOOMIS
and MRS. REBECCA S. CARPENTER, L. M.’s;—E.
C. Ch. and Soc., $133.89 287.92
Florence. A. L. Williston 500.00
Framingham. South. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 50.00
Gardner. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 10.00
Georgetown. “A Friend” 50.00
Harvard. Evan. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 34.00
Haverhill. Central Cong. Ch. and Soc. 46.00
Holyoke. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 9.00
Hubbardston. Evan. Cong. Ch. and Soc.,
$31.25;—Cong. Sab. Sch., $22.37; Juv. Miss.
Circle, $17, _for Student Aid, Fisk U._ 70.62
Hyde Park. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 28.00
Ipswich. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 5.00
Lancaster. Evan. Cong. Ch. and Soc. (ad’l) 1.00
Lee. Cong. Sab. Sch. 75.00
Lowell. Elliot Cong. Ch. and Soc. 28.65
Lowell. Pawtucket Cong. Ch. and Soc. 14.50
Lynn. Central Cong. Ch. and Soc., $16.50; H.
J. Martin, $3, and bbl. of C. 19.50
Monson. Rev. C. B. Sumner 5.00
Newburyport. North Cong. Ch., $100, _for a
Lady Missionary, Macon, Ga._;—Belleville
Cong. Ch. and Soc., $67 167.00
Newton. Eliot Ch. 125.00
Northampton. First Cong. Ch. 73.07
North Leominster. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 4.00
Norwood. Cong. Ch. and Soc., $20.60; Mrs. H.
N. F., $1 21.60
Oxford. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 22.09
Pittsfield. Second Cong. Sab. Sch. 5.00
Princeton. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 3.25
Quincy. Evan. Cong. and Soc. 72.50
Rockport. Levi Sewall 5.00
Roxbury. Misses Soren 4.00
Rutland. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 6.00
Salem. M. T. Goodhue 2.00
Sandwich. H. H. Nye 2.00
Shirley Village. H. H. Nye 1.00
Somerset. Rev. J. C. Halliday 10.00
Somerville. “A Friend.” .50
Southampton. J. E. Phelps 2.00
South Hadley Falls. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 15.00
Springfield. “A Friend,” _for a Teacher_ 500.00
Springfield. Memorial Ch., $31.58; First Cong.
Ch. and Soc., $26.38; So. Cong. Ch. and
Soc., $20.78; Mrs. P. B., $1 79.74
Stoneham. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 12.34
Townsend. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 5.50
Westborough. Freedmen’s M. Ass’n, bbl. of C.
West Boylston. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 20.00
Westfield. Second Cong. Ch. and Soc. 30.00
Westhampton. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 14.00
Weymouth. Second Cong. Ch. and Soc. $48.75;
Ladies’ Miss. Soc. of Second Ch., $13.25, to
const. MRS. LIZZIE ANN TORREY and MISS
EMELINE F. PAINE, L. M.’s 62.00
Winchendon. First Cong. Sab. Sch., to const.
MARTHA E. SMITH, L. M. 30.00
Worcester. Estate of Rev. M. G. Grosvenor, by
David Manning, Ex. 2,500.00
Worcester. Central Cong. Ch. and Soc.,
$159.44; Salem St. Ch. and Soc.,
$68.01;—Salem St. Sab. Sch., $50, _for
Student Aid, Atlanta U._;—Old South Ch. and
Soc., $36.45; Hiram Smith and family, $30;
“E. C. C.,” $20 363.90
RHODE ISLAND, $355.
Providence. Central Cong. Ch., _for Church
building, Florence, Ala._ 100.00
Providence. Beneficent Cong. Ch. 250.00
Westerly. Mrs. Emeline Smith 5.00
CONNECTICUT, $1,018.62.
Ashford. L. H. Carpenter 2.00
Avon. Cong. Ch. (of which $100 from Harry
Chidsey and $1.50 from Mrs. M. Avent) 129.00
Cheshire. “A Friend” 15.00
Berlin. Second Cong. Ch. 20.11
East Woodstock. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 19.00
Farmington. Cong. Ch., quarterly coll. 74.60
Franklin. Cong. Ch. (ad’l) 8.00
Georgetown. Cong. Ch. 5.00
Guilford. First Cong. Ch. 20.00
Hockanum. Mrs. E. M. Roberts, $5; South Cong.
Ch., $4 9.00
Higganum. Mrs. Susan Gladwin, $2; Mrs. R.
Reed, $1.24; Mrs. G. S. G., $1 4.24
Litchfield. “L. M.” 3.00
Middletown. First Ch., $79.30; Rev. Geo. L.
Edwards, $2 81.30
Mill Brook. Mrs. E. R. A 1.00
Milford. Mrs. David Merwin 3.00
New Haven. “A. T.” $20; E. Pendleton, $10; N.
J., 50 cts 30.50
North Guilford. Mrs. E. F. Dudley 5.00
Norfolk. Cong. Ch. 75.00
Norwalk. Mrs. Dea. Chas. Lockwood 2.00
Norwich. Mrs. Dr. Chas. Lee 25.00
Old Saybrook. Cong. Ch. 8.30
Plainville. “A Friend” to const. MRS. MARY
WRIGHT and MRS. HENRIETTA BEACH, L. M’s 100.00
Preston City. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 26.75
Putnam. “A Friend” 5.00
Southport. “A Friend,” _for a Student, Fisk U._ 25.00
Thomaston. Cong. Ch. 25.11
Warren. LEGACY of Dea. Wm. Hopkins, by Geo. C.
Hopkins, Ex. 100.00
Watertown. John De Forest, $75, _for Student
Aid, Fisk U._;—Truman Percy, $30, to const.
MARY E. SHORT, L.M 105.00
West Winsted. Second Cong. Ch. and Soc. 16.71
Windsor. J. W. Baker 25.00
Windsor Locks. Young Ladies’ Social Soc., _for
a Lady Missionary_ 50.00
NEW YORK, $444.99.
Amsterdam. S. Louise Bell 5.00
Brooklyn. Central Cong. Sab. Sch., $30, _for a
Lady Missionary_ and to const. E. R.
KENNEDY, L. M., and $25 _for Rev. Geo. Henry_ 55.00
Brooklyn. Rev. A. Merwin, $10; Puritan Ch. $8;
Mrs. J. V. Houten, $2 20.00
Camillus. Isaiah Wilcox, to const. MISS FLORA
BUTTERFIELD, L. M. 30.00
Cortland. C. E. Booth, 25c. and pkg. of
newspapers 0.25
East Bloomfield. Mrs. A. G. P. 1.00
East Wilson. Rev. H. Halsey, $50; Chas. M.
Clark, $3 53.00
Essex Co. “A Friend,” _for Student Aid, Fisk
U._ 50.00
Groton. Dr. C. Chapman 6.00
Hempstead. Mrs. C. M. H. 0.50
Jamestown. ——, 20.00
Keeseville. Mrs. M. A. H. 1.00
Lisbon. First Cong. Ch. 8.00
Middleton. Samuel Ayres ($2 of which _for
Foreign M._) 5.00
New York. S. J. B. 0.25
Oxford. Associated Presb. Ch. 6.57
Perry Centre. Cong. Soc. 20.24
Portland. J. S. Coon, $5; Rev. J. R. B., $1;
Others, $1.25 7.25
Pulaski. Miss M. E. P. 1.00
Rochester. Plymouth Cong. Ch. 75.82
Rome. John B. Jervis 25.00
Syracuse. “Member of Plymouth Ch.,” 25.00
West Farms. Mrs. Rev. A. Wood, $10; Ref. Ch.
S. S., pkg. of Books 10.00
Westmoreland. First Cong. Sab. Sch. 4.11
—— “A Friend,” _for Teachers and Students_ 15.00
NEW JERSEY, $57.27.
East Orange. Grove St. Cong. Ch. 21.27
Englewood. Chas. Taylor 11.00
Montclair. First Cong. Ch. 25.00
PENNSYLVANIA, $68.
Clark. Mrs. Elizabeth Dickson and Miss Eliza
Dickson, $25; Mrs. H. B. Harrington $5 30.00
Lynn. S. W. Smith 2.00
Norristown. M. W. Cooke 10.00
Philadelphia. M. E. M. 1.00
Sharpsburgh. Joseph Turner 5.00
West Alexander. Robert Davidson 20.00
OHIO, $1,236.56.
Berlin Heights. N. S. Wright 3.00
Cincinnati. Sab. Sch. of Storrs Cong. Ch. to
const. JOHN ELLIOTT RICE, L. M. 30.00
Cleveland. Plymouth Cong. Ch. 57.33
Collamer. Union Sab. Sch. 5.00
Geneva. W. M. A. 1.00
Hudson. S. Straight, _for rebuilding Straight
U._ 1000.00
Hudson. Cong. Ch. 13.00
Hiram. M. S. 1.00
Lindenville. John Thompson 10.00
Medina. Woman’s Miss. Soc., by Mary J. Munger,
Treas. 7.00
Painsville. First Cong. Ch. 37.03
Saybrook. Sabbath Sch. District No. 3, for
_Student Aid, Tougaloo U._ 5.00
Senecaville. Rev. E. T. 1.00
Steubenville. Women’s Miss. Soc. of First
Cong. Ch., by Martha J. Leslie, Treas. 10.00
Tallmadge. Cong. Sab. Sch. $20.00; “A Friend,”
$6 26.00
Twinsburgh. L. W. and R. F. Green 5.00
Yellow Springs. Mrs. Mary A. Cone 10.00
West Andover. Cong. Ch. 15.20
INDIANA, $7.34.
Dublin. H. M. 0.50
Evansville. Rev. J. Q. A. 0.50
Solsberry. Cong. Ch. 6.34
ILLINOIS, $472.54.
Buda. Cong. Ch. 17.25
Chicago. Lincoln Park Cong. Ch., $31.79; Mrs.
E. Rathburn, $10.50; First Cong. Ch. (ad’l)
$5; Three Ladies at Annual Meeting, $3;
Woman’s Miss. Soc. of N. E. Ch. $2.25 52.54
Collinsville. Mrs. J. S. Peers and J. F.
Wadsworth and Wife 20.00
Elgin. Mrs. Gail Borden, $10; “Little
Freddie,” 2c. 10.02
Englewood. Cong. Ch. 6.12
Fitchville. First Cong. Ch., $14; Second Cong.
Ch., $5 19.00
Freedom. Mrs. John Hubbard 10.00
Genesco. Lucy B. Perry 5.00
Granville. Cong. Ch. 45.00
Jefferson. Cong. Ch. 20.00
Kewanee. Bureau Association, by Mrs. C. C.
Cully, _for Missionary, Liberty Co., Ga._ 100.00
Kewanee. Cong. Ch. 24.07
Lake Forest. Rev. W. A. Nichols 17.85
Lockport. Cong. Ch., $4.04; I. P., $1 5.04
Park Ridge. Geo. B. Carpenter, $5; L. P. S.,
$1: Others, $2 8.00
Pittsfield. Cong. Ch. 10.25
Prospect Park. Mrs. Emma L. Boyd 5.00
Rockford. First Cong. Ch. 32.06
Sheffield. Cong. Ch. (of which $14 _for Lady
Missionary, Liberty Co., Ga._) 35.00
Summer Hill. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 4.40
Sterling. C. H. Rich 9.69
Wethersfield. Mr. and Mrs. A. B. Kellogg 5.00
Willamette. Cong. Ch. 4.00
Woodstock. Cong. Ch. 2.25
—— Freeman Miles 5.00
MICHIGAN, $283.66.
Armada. Cong. Ch., _for Missionary, Memphis,
Tenn._ 9.35
Bellevue. Mrs. N. E. B., $1; M. A. H., 50c. 1.50
Benzonia. Amasa Waters and Wife, $11; Rev. A.
L. Gridley and Wife, $6; S. A. Wells and
Wife, $2; D. B. Spencer and Wife, $2;
Others, $5 26.00
Cooper. Cong. Ch. 5.22
Edwardsburgh. S. C. Olmsted 25.00
Galesburg. Mrs. S. M. S. 0.51
Grand Blanc. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 16.00
Homestead. First Cong. Ch. 3.59
Imlay City. Woman’s Miss. Soc. 5.00
Imlay City. Cong. Sab. Sch. 2.26
Northfield. Cong. Ch. 5.03
Olivet. Cong. Ch., $24.20; S. F. Drury, $10
_for Scholarship, Straight U._ 34.20
Richland. Mrs. R. Boyles 2.00
St. Clair. Young People’s Miss. Soc., _for
Lady Missionary, Memphis, Tenn._ 18.00
Union City. “A Friend” 100.00
Stony Run. “Friends” 3.00
Portland. T. L. Maille 15.00
Vienna. Union Cong. Ch. 12.00
IOWA, $861.24.
Algona. J. B. Leake 3.81
Ames. Ladies’ Cong. Ch., _for Lady Missionary,
New Orleans, La._ 3.00
Belle Plain. Ladies of Cong. Ch., _for Lady
Missionary, New Orleans, La._ 4.65
College Springs. ESTATE of Rev. J. Lowery, by
Mrs. N. Lowery 25.00
Decorah. Rev. J. F. T. 0.90
Denmark. Cong. Ch. Sab. School 17.00
Des Moines. Ladies of Cong. Ch., $10; “Prairie
Chickens,” $7, _for Lady Missionary, New
Orleans, La._ 17.00
Durant. Cong. Ch. 5.00
Franklin Co. “Widow’s offering” 2.00
Green Mountain. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 10.00
Green Mountain. Ladies of Cong. Ch. _for Lady
Missionary, New Orleans, La._ 1.35
Grinnell. ESTATE of Chas. F. Dike, by Mrs. C.
F. Dike, Executrix 500.00
Grinnell. Cong. Ch. and Soc. $74.66;—“A
Friend” $20, _for Student preparing for
African M._;—Ladies of Cong. Ch. $10, _for
Lady Missionary, New Orleans, La._ 104.66
Hampton. Cong. Ch. $9.38; Ladies’ Aid Soc. $5 14.38
Iowa City. Cong. Ch. 21.00
Jamestown. Women of Cong. Ch. and Soc. _for
Lady Missionary, New Orleans, La._ 3.00
Mason City. Cong. Ch. 11.00
Maquoketa. Ladies of Cong. Ch. _for Lady
Missionary, New Orleans, La._ 10.00
McGregor. Woman’s Miss. Soc. 17.19
Montour. Ladies of Cong. Ch. _for Lady
Missionary, New Orleans, La._ 5.00
Muscatine. Cong. Sab. Sch. _for Lady
Missionary, New Orleans, La._ 30.00
New Hampton. Woman’s Miss. Soc. 1.10
Ogden. Ladies of Cong. Ch. _for Lady
Missionary, New Orleans, La._ 5.00
Onawa. Cong. Ch. 5.00
Osage. Woman’s Miss. Soc. bal. to const. MRS.
ELLA STACY, L. M. 4.20
Rockford. Women of Cong. Ch. and Soc. _for
Lady Missionary, New Orleans, La._ 3.00
Toledo. Ladies of Cong. Ch., _for Lady
Missionary, New Orleans, La._ 1.00
Traer. Women of Cong. and Soc., _for Lady
Missionary, New Orleans, La._ 10.00
Waterloo. Ladies of Cong. Ch., _for Lady
Missionary, New Orleans, La._ 10.00
Wilton. L. M. Soc. $10, _for Lady Missionary,
New Orleans, La._;—Cong. Ch., $4 14.00
Stuart. Ladies of Cong. Ch., _for Lady
Missionary, New Orleans, La._ 2.00
WISCONSIN, $354.97.
Appleton. Ann S. Kimball, $50, _for a Student,
Fisk U._;—“L. T.” ($5 of which for Chinese
M.) $10 60.00
Beaver Dam. Mrs. Allyn Avery 5.00
Beloit. Second Cong. Ch. $25; Mrs. M. A. K., $1 26.00
Bloomington. Cong. Ch. 5.47
Columbus. Alfred Topliff, to const. MRS. C. H.
CHADBOURNE, L. M. 30.00
Emerald Grove. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 13.82
Fond du Lac. Cong. Ch. 40.00
Geneva Lake. G. Montague 5.00
Janesville. First Cong. Ch. 42.93
Johnstown. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 4.75
Madison. Cong. Ch., bal. to const. HON. S. D.
HASTINGS, REV. CHAS. H. RICHARDS, PROF. ED.
T. OWEN, HON. D. TAYLOR, F. J. LAMB and A.
S. FRANK, L. M’s 110.00
Princeton. Cong. Ch. 1.00
Raymond. T. Sands, $5; Master Charles S.
Davis, $1 6.00
Wautona. Cong. Ch. 5.00
MINNESOTA, $166.62.
Austin. Mrs. L. C. Bacon 10.00
Cannon Falls. First Cong. Ch. 6.00
Cottage Grove. Mrs. M. W. 1.00
Chain Lake Centre. Cong. Ch. 1.18
Lake City. Cong. Ch. 7.02
Minneapolis. Plymouth Ch. 11.70
Northfield. First Cong. Ch. 78.33
Northfield. First Cong. Sab. Sch., $25, _for
Teacher, Athens, Ala._;—Bethel Sab. Sch.
$2.09; A. N. N., $1 28.09
Princeton. Cong. Ch. 2.25
Sherburn. Cong. Ch. 1.30
Waseca. First Cong. Ch. 15.75
Waterford. Union Ch. 4.00
KANSAS, $12.25.
Bellevue. Harriet M. Dunlap 2.00
Council Grove. First Cong. Ch. 5.00
Osborne. Cong. Ch. 5.25
NEBRASKA, $19.56.
Ashland. Cong. Ch. 4.00
Camp Creek. Cong. Ch. 3.56
Mainland. Cong. Ch. 1.00
Silver. Melinda Bowen 5.00
Waho. Cong. Ch. 1.00
Wayland. Miss S. P. Locke 5.00
DAKOTA, $5.50.
Yankton. Mrs. T. N. B. 0.50
Centreville. Rev. L. Bridgman 5.00
COLORADO, $10.
Colorado Springs. Mrs. S. B. Pickett 10.00
CALIFORNIA, $3.
National City. T. Parsons, $2; J. T., $1 3.00
OREGON, $5.
Canyon City. —— 5.00
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, $100.
Washington. Ludlow Patton, _for Theo. Dept.
Howard U._ 100.00
MARYLAND, $153.51.
Baltimore. First Cong. Ch. $143.51; W. K.
Carson, $10. 153.51
TENNESSEE, $236.
Chattanooga. Rent 236.00
MISSOURI, $5.89.
Webster’s Grove. Cong. Ch. 2.65
Cahoka. Cong. Ch. 3.24
TEXAS, $3.50.
Marshall. By Henry C. Gray 3.50
—— , $1
—— ——. Mrs. A. M. C. 1.00
ENGLAND, $76.96.
London. Freedmen’s Missions Aid Soc. _for
Student Aid, Fisk U._, £16 76.96
——————————
Total $12,687.64
FOR TILLOTSON COLLEGIATE AND NORMAL INSTITUTE, AUSTIN, TEXAS.
Greenland, N. H. Cong. Ch. and Soc. $17.00
New Britain, Conn. Mrs. Norman Hart, $25; Mrs.
Ellen H. Wells, $25 50.00
Malone, N. Y. Mrs. S. C. Wead 100.00
Baltimore, Md. T. D. Anderson 10.00
Galesburg, Ill. “Two Friends” 15.00
————————
Total $192.00
FOR MISSIONS IN AFRICA.
London, Eng. Freedmen’s Missions Aid Soc. £304 $1,462.24
London, Eng. Dr. O. H. White, £10 48.10
——————————
Total $1,510.34
FOR SCHOOL BUILDING, ATHENS, ALA.
Lake Forest, Ill. E. S. W. 1.00
Northfield, Mich. First Cong. Sab. Sch. 25.00
Rosendale, Wis. MRS. H. N. CLARKE, to const.
herself L. M. 30.00
———————
Total $56.00
H. W. HUBBARD,
_Treasurer_.
* * * * *
Constitution of the American Missionary Association.
INCORPORATED JANUARY 30, 1849.
* * * * *
ART. I. This Society shall be called “THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY
ASSOCIATION.”
ART. II. The object of this Association shall be to conduct
Christian missionary and educational operations, and to diffuse a
knowledge of the Holy Scriptures in our own and other countries
which are destitute of them, or which present open and urgent
fields of effort.
ART. III. Any person of evangelical sentiments,[A] who professes
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is not a slaveholder, or in
the practice of other immoralities, and who contributes to the
funds, may become a member of the Society; and by the payment
of thirty dollars, a life member; provided that children and
others who have not professed their faith may be constituted life
members without the privilege of voting.
ART. IV. This Society shall meet annually, in the month of
September, October or November, for the election of officers and
the transaction of other business, at such time and place as
shall be designated by the Executive Committee.
ART. V. The annual meeting shall be constituted of the regular
officers and members of the Society at the time of such meeting,
and of delegates from churches, local missionary societies,
and other co-operating bodies, each body being entitled to one
representative.
ART. VI. The officers of the Society shall be a President,
Vice-Presidents, a Recording Secretary, Corresponding Secretaries,
Treasurer, two Auditors, and an Executive Committee of not less
than twelve, of which the Corresponding Secretaries shall be
advisory, and the Treasurer ex-officio, members.
ART. VII. To the Executive Committee shall belong the collecting
and disbursing of funds; the appointing, counselling, sustaining
and dismissing (for just and sufficient reasons) missionaries and
agents; the selection of missionary fields; and, in general, the
transaction of all such business as usually appertains to the
executive committees of missionary and other benevolent societies;
the Committee to exercise no ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the
missionaries; and its doings to be subject always to the revision
of the annual meeting, which shall, by a reference mutually
chosen, always entertain the complaints of any aggrieved agent or
missionary; and the decision of such reference shall be final.
The Executive Committee shall have authority to fill all
vacancies occurring among the officers between the regular annual
meetings; to apply, if they see fit, to any State Legislature
for acts of incorporation; to fix the compensation, where any
is given, of all officers, agents, missionaries, or others in
the employment of the Society; to make provision, if any, for
disabled missionaries, and for the widows and children of such as
are deceased; and to call, in all parts of the country, at their
discretion, special and general conventions of the friends of
missions, with a view to the diffusion of the missionary spirit,
and the general and vigorous promotion of the missionary work.
Five members of the Committee shall constitute a quorum for
transacting business.
ART. VIII. This society, in collecting funds, in appointing
officers, agents and missionaries, and in selecting fields
of labor, and conducting the missionary work, will endeavor
particularly to discountenance slavery, by refusing to receive
the known fruits of unrequited labor, or to welcome to its
employment those who hold their fellow-beings as slaves.
ART. IX. Missionary bodies, churches or individuals agreeing
to the principles of this Society, and wishing to appoint and
sustain missionaries of their own, shall be entitled to do so
through the agency of the Executive Committee, on terms mutually
agreed upon.
ART. X. No amendment shall be made in this Constitution without
the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present at a regular
annual meeting; nor unless the proposed amendment has been
submitted to a previous meeting, or to the Executive Committee
in season to be published by them (as it shall be their duty to
do, if so submitted) in the regular official notifications of the
meeting.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] By evangelical sentiments, we understand, among others, a
belief in the guilty and lost condition of all men without a
Saviour; the Supreme Deity, Incarnation and Atoning Sacrifice
of Jesus Christ, the only Saviour of the world; the necessity
of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, repentance, faith and holy
obedience in order to salvation; the immortality of the soul; and
the retributions of the judgment in the eternal punishment of the
wicked, and salvation of the righteous.
* * * * *
The American Missionary Association.
* * * * *
AIM AND WORK.
To preach the Gospel to the poor. It originated in a sympathy
with the almost friendless slaves. Since Emancipation it has
devoted its main efforts to preparing the FREEDMEN for their
duties as citizens and Christians in America and as missionaries
in Africa. As closely related to this, it seeks to benefit the
caste-persecuted CHINESE in America, and to co-operate with
the Government in its humane and Christian policy towards the
INDIANS. It has also a mission in AFRICA.
STATISTICS.
CHURCHES: _In the South_—In Va., 1; N. C., 5; S. C., 2; Ga., 13;
Ky., 7; Tenn., 4; Ala., 14, La., 12; Miss., 1; Kansas, 2; Texas,
6. _Africa_, 2. _Among the Indians_, 1. Total 70.
INSTITUTIONS FOUNDED, FOSTERED OR SUSTAINED IN THE
SOUTH.—_Chartered_: Hampton, Va.; Berea, Ky.; Talladega,
Ala.; Atlanta, Ga.; Nashville, Tenn.; Tougaloo, Miss.; New
Orleans, La.; and Austin, Texas, 8. _Graded or Normal Schools_:
at Wilmington, Raleigh, N. C.; Charleston, Greenwood, S. C.;
Savannah, Macon, Atlanta, Ga.; Montgomery, Mobile, Athens, Selma,
Ala.; Memphis, Tenn., 12. _Other Schools_, 24. Total 44.
TEACHERS, MISSIONARIES AND ASSISTANTS.—Among the Freedmen,
253; among the Chinese, 21; among the Indians, 9; in Africa,
13. Total, 296. STUDENTS—In Theology, 86; Law, 28; in College
Course, 63; in other studies, 7,030. Total, 7,207. Scholars
taught by former pupils of our schools, estimated at 150,000.
INDIANS under the care of the Association, 13,000.
WANTS.
1. A steady INCREASE of regular income to keep pace with the
growing work. This increase can only be reached by _regular_ and
_larger_ contributions from the churches—the feeble as well as
the strong.
2. ADDITIONAL BUILDINGS for our higher educational institutions,
to accommodate the increasing numbers of students; MEETING HOUSES
for the new churches we are organizing; MORE MINISTERS, cultured
and pious, for these churches.
3. HELP FOR YOUNG MEN, to be educated as ministers here and
missionaries to Africa—a pressing want.
Before sending boxes, always correspond with the nearest A. M. A.
office, as below:
NEW YORK H. W. Hubbard, Esq., 56 Reade Street.
BOSTON Rev. C. L. Woodworth, Room 21 Congregational House.
CHICAGO Rev. Jas. Powell, 112 West Washington Street.
MAGAZINE.
This Magazine will be sent, gratuitously, if desired, to the
Missionaries of the Association; to Life Members; to all
clergymen who take up collections for the Association; to
Superintendents of Sabbath Schools; to College Libraries; to
Theological Seminaries; to Societies of Inquiry on Missions; and
to every donor who does not prefer to take it as a subscriber,
and contributes in a year not less than five dollars.
Those who wish to remember the AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION in
their last Will and Testament, are earnestly requested to use the
following
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 [in some States
three are required—in other States only two], who should write
against their names, their places of residence [if in cities,
their street and number]. The following form of attestation will
answer for every State in the Union: “Signed, sealed, published
and declared by the said [A. B.] as his last Will and Testament,
in presence of us, who, at the request of the said A. B., and in
his presence, and in the presence of each other, have hereunto
subscribed our names as witnesses.” In some States it is required
that the Will should be made at least two months before the death
of the testator.
* * * * *
THE INDEPENDENT
For 1880.
THE INDEPENDENT appeals to cultivated men and women. It discusses
current questions of religion, philosophy, and politics. It
is wide-awake. It is not afraid. It sets people to thinking.
It welcomes fresh truth. It has great variety. It is so big
that it can always have something for the severest thinker
and also an abundance of the best lighter literature. It
publishes more religious discussion than the religious reviews,
poetry and stories than the popular monthlies, and gives more
information than an annual cyclopædia. It has twice as large
a corps of the most famous writers than any other journal of
any sort in the country. It is indispensable to one who wants
to know what is going on in the religious world. It pleases
people. It makes people angry. It stirs them up, and always
interests and instructs those who do not like its position,
which is conservative in belief and liberal in fraternity and
comprehension. It grows on all who read it. TRY IT FOR NEXT YEAR.
REV. JOSEPH COOK’S LECTURES.
We have purchased the newspaper copyright of the Boston Monday
Lectures for 1879-1880, to be delivered, as heretofore, by the
Rev. Joseph Cook, beginning about Nov. 1st, and the same will
be given _verbatim_ to the readers of THE INDEPENDENT weekly,
together with the Preludes, after revision by the author.
These Lectures have been exceedingly popular in the past, and
will continue to be an attractive feature of the paper the coming
season.
SERMONS BY EMINENT CLERGYMEN
in all parts of the country will continue to be printed.
PREMIUMS.
☞We have decided to withdraw on the 31st day of December, 1879,
all of the premiums now offered by us to subscribers, a full list
of which appears below; so that those who would avail themselves
of our liberal offers must do so before December 31, 1879.
Worcester’s Unabridged Pictorial Quarto Dictionary.
Bound in Sheep. 1,854 pages. Over 1,000 Illustrations. Issue of
1879.
Our contract with the publishers of the Dictionary expires
Dec. 31st, 1879, and Messrs. J. B. Lippincott & Co. absolutely
refuse to continue the contract beyond that date on the same
favorable terms. We are, therefore, compelled to withdraw the
Dictionary premium at the expiration of the present year; but
we purposely give ample notice, so that our subscribers and the
public in general may avail themselves of the surprisingly low
terms to get the Dictionary, in connection with THE INDEPENDENT.
We will send this _Dictionary_ to any person who will send us
the names of _Three New Subscribers and Nine Dollars_; or who
will, on renewing his own subscription, in advance, send us
_Two New Names_ additional and $9.00; or who will renew his own
subscription for three years, in advance, and send us $9.00; or,
for a new subscriber for three years and $9.00.
The regular price of the _Dictionary_ alone at all the
book-stores is $10.00, while the lowest price of three
subscriptions is $9.00. Both the _Dictionary and the three
subscriptions_, under this extraordinary offer, can, therefore,
be had _together_ for only $9.00. The _Dictionary_ will be
delivered at our office, or in Philadelphia, free, or be sent by
express or otherwise from Philadelphia, as may be ordered, at the
expense of the subscriber. The subscriber under this offer will
not be entitled to any other Premiums.
THE REV. JOSEPH COOK’S BOOKS.
We offer Rev. Joseph Cook’s valuable new volumes, entitled
“BIOLOGY,” “TRANSCENDENTALISM,” “ORTHODOXY,” “CONSCIENCE,”
“HEREDITY,” and “MARRIAGE,” embodying, in a revised and corrected
form, the author’s previous remarkable Monday Lectures. They
are published in handsome book form, by James B. Osgood & Co.,
of Boston. We will mail a copy of either volume, post-paid, to
any subscriber to the INDEPENDENT who remits us =$3.00= for a
year in advance; or any subscriber may remit =$5.50= and we
will send him the INDEPENDENT for two years in advance, and two
volumes, post-paid; or, any three volumes, post-paid, to any one
subscriber who remits =$3.00= for three years in advance.
_Subscription Price $3.00 per annum in advance, including any one
of the following Premiums:_
Any one volume of the HOUSEHOLD EDITION or CHARLES DICKENS’
WORKS, bound in cloth, with 16 illustrations each, by Sol.
Eytinge.
MOODY AND SANKEY’S GOSPEL HYMNS AND SACRED SONGS, No. 2.
LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET; or, First Reading of the Emancipation
Proclamation. Fine Large Steel Engraving. By Ritchie. Size 26×36.
AUTHORS OF THE UNITED STATES. Fine large Steel Engraving. 44
Portraits. By Ritchie. Size 24×38-1/2.
CHARLES SUMNER. Fine Steel Engraving. By Ritchie. GRANT OR
WILSON. Fine Steel Engraving. By Ritchie.
EDWIN M. STANTON. Fine Steel Engraving. By Ritchie.
THE INNER LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Frank B. Carpenter. Bound
in cloth. 360 pages. It gives a better insight into his “inner
life” than can be found elsewhere, and is altogether one of the
most fascinating, instructive and useful books of the kind ever
published.
_We offer one premium only for one year’s subscription._
Subscription Price $3.00 per Annum, in Advance.
SPECIMEN COPIES} Address THE INDEPENDENT,
SENT FREE. }
P. O. BOX 2,787. ☞Cut out this Advertisement. =NEW YORK CITY=.
* * * * *
THE CONGREGATIONALIST,
A Family Religious Journal.
The _Congregationalist_, as a family religious paper, aims to
occupy the first rank. It has four editors in the office at
Boston, besides Rev. A. H. Clapp, D. D., at Bible House, New
York, as editor in that city, and who furnishes a weekly letter
from the Metropolis. It has also a large corps of contributors,
among whom are some of the best newspaper writers in the country,
such as Prof. Austin Phelps, D. D., Dr. Leonard Bacon, Rose Terry
Cooke, Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D., Lucy Larcom, President S.
C. Bartlett, Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster and many others.
It gives large space to its Literary Reviews, presents more full
and complete news from the Congregational ministers and churches
of the country than any other journal, has a carefully prepared
column of Missionary news, has a full Children’s department,
gives large attention to Sabbath Schools and the explanation of
the lesson, has a “Farm, Garden and Household department” under
charge of a special editor, prints a “Diary of Events for the
Week,” and furnishes a great variety of matter, being carefully
and closely edited in every column and line.
“=SOMETHING NEW.=” Every one sending three dollars for a new
subscriber will not only be entitled to the paper for a year, but
also to an illustrated volume of over 300 pages, just issued,
which is made up of the choicest articles and sketches in the
_Congregationalist_ for several years past.
_Send for Specimen numbers._
W. L. GREENE & CO.,
_=1 Somerset St., Boston.=_
* * * * *
New Singing Book for the Million!
CORONATION SONGS
_=For Praise and Prayer Meetings=_,
HOME AND SOCIAL SINGING. BY
Rev. Dr. CHARLES F. DEEMS
AND
THEODORE E. PERKINS.
Containing 151 Hymns with Tunes, which include more of the
STANDARD material that the world will not suffer to die, and more
NEW material that deserves trial, than any other book extant.
Postpaid, 30 cents. $25 per hundred.
LYMAN ABBOTT’S
Commentary on the New Testament
Illustrated and Popular, giving the latest views of the best
Biblical Scholars on all disputed points.
A concise, strong and faithful Exposition in (8) =eight volumes=,
octavo.
AGENTS WANTED IN EVERY LOCALITY.
A. S. BARNES & CO., Publishers,
New York and Chicago.
* * * * *
GET THE BEST.
The “OXFORD”
[Illustration]
TEACHERS’ BIBLES
IN SEVEN DIFFERENT SIZES,
At prices to suit everybody.
Apply to your Bookseller for Lists, or write to
THOS. NELSON & SONS,
=42 Bleecker Street, New York=.
* * * * *
Meneely & Kimberly,
BELL FOUNDERS, TROY, N. Y.
Manufacture a superior quality of BELLS.
Special attention given to =CHURCH BELLS=.
☞Catalogues sent free to parties needing bells.
* * * * *
Brown Bros. & Co.
BANKERS,
59 & 61 Wall Street, New York,
211 Chestnut St., Philadelphia,
66 State Street, Boston.
* * * * *
=Issue Commercial Credits, make Cable transfers of Money between
this Country and England, and buy and sell Bills of Exchange on
Great Britain and Ireland.=
They also issue, against cash deposited, or satisfactory
guarantee of repayment,
Circular Credits for Travellers,
In DOLLARS for use in the United States and adjacent countries,
and in POUNDS STERLING, for use in any part of the world.
* * * * *
73,620 MORE
Singer Sewing Machines Sold in ’78
THAN IN ANY PREVIOUS YEAR.
In =1870= we sold =127,833= Sewing Machines.
“ =1878= “ =356,432= “ “
Our sales have increased enormously every year through the whole
period of “hard times.”
=We now Sell Three-Quarters of all the Sewing Machines sold in
the World.=
For the accommodation of the Public we have 1,500 subordinate
offices in the United States and Canada, and 3,000 offices in the
Old World and South America.
PRICES GREATLY REDUCED.
Waste no money on “cheap” counterfeits. Send for our handsomely
Illustrated Price List.
THE SINGER MANUFACTURING COMPANY,
Principal Office, 34 Union Square, New York.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
CRAMPTON’S
PURE OLD
PALM SOAP,
FOR
The Laundry, the Kitchen, and
For General Household Purposes,
MANUFACTURED BY
CRAMPTON BROTHERS,
_Cor. Monroe & Jefferson Sts., N. Y._
Send for Circular and Price List.
Crampton’s old Palm Soap for the Laundry, the Kitchen, and for
general Household purposes. The price of the “Palm Soap” is $3.90
per box of 100 three-quarter pound bars—75 pounds in box. To
any one who will send us an order for 10 boxes with cash, $39,
we will send one box extra free as a premium. Or the orders may
be sent to us for one or more boxes at a time, with remittance,
and when we have thus received orders for ten boxes we will send
the eleventh box free as proposed above. If you do not wish to
send the money in advance, you may deposit it with any banker
or merchant in good credit in your town, with the understanding
that he is to remit to us on receipt of the soap, which is to be
shipped to his care.
Address,
CRAMPTON BROTHERS,
Cor. Monroe and Jefferson Sts., New York.
FOR SALE
BY ALL
MERCHANTS.
* * * * *
THE
N. Y. Witness Publications
FOR 1880.
THE DAILY WITNESS.
A religious, temperance, daily newspaper, and the only one in the
Union, was commenced on July 1, 1871, and continues to send forth
daily a rich variety of news, markets, editorials, contemporary
press, correspondence, reports of religious and temperance
meetings and efforts, including a daily report of the Fulton
Street Prayer Meeting, with much useful and instructive matter
for family reading, etc., etc. The price is two cents per copy or
$5 per annum, and to induce circulation throughout the country
we offer the following special terms: To clubs of five we shall
send the DAILY WITNESS, separately addressed, by mail, postpaid,
for $20 a year, or $5 per quarter. In the latter case 78 copies
delivered, will only cost $1. At that rate who would be without a
New York daily paper, equally valuable for the business man and
his family? We hope clubs will be formed in every city, town and
village that is reached by the morning mails from New York on the
same day.
THE WEEKLY WITNESS
Commenced with January, 1872, and is near the completion of its
eighth year. It at present issues 54,000 weekly, which go to
subscribers all over the Union. Its issues from the beginning
have been over twenty millions of copies, each containing a
great variety of very interesting matter, namely: News of the
day, Prices Current, Financial Report, Spirit of the New York
Daily Press, Home Department (consisting chiefly of Letters
from Ladies), with a column of letters from children; General
Correspondence from all parts of the country, much of it valuable
for intending colonists; Departments for Agriculture, Temperance,
Sabbath-School, Religious Reading, including Daily Report of
Fulton Street Prayer-meeting; Serial and other Stories. It gives
more reading matter than any other religious weekly, and has
probably fully 300,000 readers, as many copies serve more than
one family. It has drawn forth unsolicited commendation from
thousands of readers, many of whom pronounce it the best paper
for the family and the country they ever saw. The price is $1.50
a year; clubs of five will be supplied for $6 a year, the papers
being addressed separately and postpaid.
SABBATH READING.
This small, neat eight-page weekly paper is filled with the
choicest reading matter suitable for the Sabbath day, among which
is one first-class sermon in each number. The matter in this
paper is all different from what appears in the WEEKLY WITNESS.
It has no news or advertisements, editorials or communications,
but is just a choice selection of good, religious, temperance
matter, suited for all classes and all regions, and specially
suited for distribution as a most acceptable tract. Price one
cent per copy, or 50 cents per annum. Ten copies (520) to one
address for a year, postpaid, for $4; or 100 copies for $35. This
is found to be an excellent weekly for the more advanced classes
in Sabbath-schools.
All the above terms are cash in advance, and the papers stop when
subscription expires unless previously renewed. Sample copies of
any or all of them will be sent free if applied for by postal
card or otherwise.
The above publications will be sent on approbation for a month
to any address for: DAILY WITNESS, 25 cents; WEEKLY WITNESS, 10
cents; SABBATH READING, 5 cents, or sample copies free.
JOHN DOUGALL & CO.
No. 7 Frankfort Street, New York.
* * * * *
THE WORLD FOR 1880.
The year 1880 promises to be one of the most interesting
and important years of this crowded and eventful century.
It will witness a Presidential election which may result in
re-establishing the Government of this country on the principles
of its constitutional founders, or in permanently changing the
relations of the States to the Federal power. No intelligent man
can regard such an election with indifference. THE WORLD, as the
only daily English newspaper published in the city of New York
which upholds the doctrines of constitutional Democracy, will
steadily represent the Conservative contention in this great
canvass. It will do this in no spirit of servile partisanship,
but temperately and firmly. It will be as swift to rebuke what
it regards as infidelity to Democratic principles or to the
honorable laws of political conflict on the part of its friends
as on the part of its foes. It will uphold no candidate for
office whom it believes to be unworthy of the support of honest
men, and accept no platform which it believes to misrepresent
or to contradict the true conditions of our national prosperity
and greatness. As a newspaper THE WORLD, being the organ of no
man, no clique and no interest, will present the fullest and the
fairest picture it can make of each day’s passing history in the
city, the State, the country and the world. Its correspondents in
the chief centres of life and action on both sides of the ocean
have been selected for their character not less than for their
capacity. It will aim, hereafter as heretofore, at accuracy first
of all things in all that it publishes. No man, however humble,
shall ever be permitted truly to complain that he has been
unjustly dealt with in the columns of THE WORLD. No interest,
however powerful, shall ever be permitted truly to boast that it
can silence the true criticism of THE WORLD.
During the past year THE WORLD has seen its daily circulation
trebled and its weekly circulation pushed beyond that of any
other weekly newspaper in the country. This great increase has
been won, as THE WORLD believes, by truthfulness, enterprise,
ceaseless activity in collecting news, and unfaltering loyalty to
itself and to its readers in dealing with the questions of the
day. It is our hope, and it will be our endeavor, that these may
keep what these have won, and that THE WORLD’S record for 1880
may be written in the approbation and support of many thousands
more of new readers in all parts of this Indissoluble Union of
Indestructible States.
=Democrats= everywhere should inform themselves carefully alike
of the action of their party throughout the country and of the
movements of their Republican opponents. A failure to do this
in 1876 contributed greatly to the loss by the Democracy of the
fruits of the victory fairly won at the polls.
Our rates of subscription remain unchanged, and are as follows:
Daily and Sundays, one year, $10; six months, $5.50; three
months, $2.75.
Daily, without Sundays, one year, $8; six months, $4.25; three
months, $2.25; less than three months, $1 a month.
THE SUNDAY WORLD, one year, $2.
THE MONDAY WORLD, containing the Book Reviews and “College
Chronicle,” one year, $1.50.
THE SEMI-WEEKLY WORLD (Tuesdays and Fridays)—TWO DOLLARS a year.
TO CLUB AGENTS—An extra copy for club of ten; the Daily for club
of twenty-five.
THE WEEKLY WORLD (Wednesday)—ONE DOLLAR a year. TO CLUB
AGENTS—An extra copy for club of ten, the Semi-Weekly for club
of twenty, the Daily for club of fifty.
Specimen numbers sent free on application.
Terms—Cash, invariably in advance.
Send post-office money order, bank draft or registered letter.
Bills at risk of the sender.
=A SPECIAL OFFER.=
Subscribers who send $1 for a year’s subscription before
December 28 will receive the WEEKLY WORLD from the date of
their subscription =to March 5, 1881=. This will include the
Presidential campaign and the inauguration of the next President.
Old subscribers who send $1 before December 28, for a renewal of
their subscription for 1880, will receive the WEEKLY WORLD to
March 5, 1881, without missing a number.
=This Offer will be Withdrawn December 29.=
Take advantage of it at once. Subscribe at once. Renew at once.
=Note to Newspaper Publishers.=—Proprietors of Democratic
newspapers who desire the Daily WORLD for one year may obtain it
by publishing the foregoing prospectus six times and sending to
THE WORLD marked copies of their papers containing it. We offer
low “clubbing rates” to Democratic newspapers throughout the
country.
* * * * *
JOHN H. HORSFALL.
_FURNITURE_
AND
Upholstery Warerooms,
Nos. 6 & 7 EAST 23D STREET,
MADISON SQUARE.
Offers a fine selection of goods at very reasonable prices.
DESIGNS AND ESTIMATES FURNISHED ON APPLICATION.
* * * * *
Every Man His Own Printer.
Excelsior =$3= Printing Press.
[Illustration]
Prints cards, labels, envelopes, &c.; larger sizes for larger work.
For business or pleasure, young or old. Catalogue of Presses, Type,
Cards, &c., sent for two stamps.
KELSEY & CO., M’frs, Meriden, Conn.
* * * * *
CHURCH CUSHIONS
MADE OF THE
PATENT ELASTIC FELT.
For particulars, address H. D. OSTERMOOR,
P. O. Box 4004. 36 Broadway, New York.
* * * * *
[Illustration:
MARVIN’S
FIRE & BURGLAR
SAFES
COUNTER PLATFORM WAGON & TRACK
SCALES
_MARVIN SAFE & SCALE CO.
265 BROADWAY. N. Y.
627 CHESTNUT ST., PHILA._]
* * * * *
W. & B. DOUGLAS,
Middletown, Conn.,
MANUFACTURERS OF
PUMPS,
HYDRAULIC RAMS, GARDEN ENGINES, PUMP CHAIN AND FIXTURES, IRON
CURBS, YARD HYDRANTS, STREET WASHERS, ETC.
[Illustration]
Highest Medal awarded them by the Universal Exposition at Paris,
France, in 1867; Vienna, Austria, in 1873; and Philadelphia, 1876.
Founded in 1832.
Branch Warehouses:
85 & 87 John St.
NEW YORK,
AND
197 Lake Street,
CHICAGO.
_For Sale by all Regular Dealers._
* * * * *
THE THIRTY-FOURTH VOLUME
OF THE
American Missionary,
1880.
We have been gratified with the constant tokens of the increasing
appreciation of the MISSIONARY during the year now nearly past, and
purpose to spare no effort to make its pages of still greater value
to those interested in the work which it records.
Shall we not have a largely increased subscription list for 1880?
A little effort on the part of our friends, when making their own
remittances, to induce their neighbors to unite in forming Clubs,
will easily double our list, and thus widen the influence of our
Magazine, and aid in the enlargement of our work.
Under the editorial supervision of Rev. GEO. M. BOYNTON, aided
by the steady contributions of our intelligent missionaries
and teachers in all parts of the field, and with occasional
communications from careful observers and thinkers elsewhere,
the AMERICAN MISSIONARY furnishes a vivid and reliable picture
of the work going forward among the Indians, the Chinamen on the
Pacific Coast, and the Freedmen as citizens in the South and as
missionaries in Africa.
It will be the vehicle of important views on all matters affecting
the races among which it labors, and will give a monthly summary of
current events relating to their welfare and progress.
Patriots and Christians interested in the education and
Christianizing of these despised races are asked to read it, and
assist in its circulation. Begin with the next number and the new
year. The price is only Fifty Cents per annum.
The Magazine will be sent gratuitously, if preferred, to the
persons indicated on page 412.
Donations and subscriptions should be sent to
H. W. HUBBARD, Treasurer,
56 Reade Street, New York.
* * * * *
TO ADVERTISERS.
Special attention is invited to the advertising department of the
AMERICAN MISSIONARY. Among its regular readers are thousands of
Ministers of the Gospel, Presidents, Professors and Teachers in
Colleges, Theological Seminaries and Schools; it is, therefore,
a specially valuable medium for advertising Books, Periodicals,
Newspapers, Maps, Charts, Institutions of Learning, Church
Furniture, Bells, Household Goods, &c.
Advertisers are requested to note the moderate price charged for
space in its columns, considering the extent and character of its
circulation.
Advertisements must be received by the TENTH of the month, in order
to secure insertion in the following number. All communications in
relation to advertising should be addressed to
J. H. DENISON, Adv’g Agent,
56 Reade Street, New York.
☞ Our friends who are interested in the Advertising Department of
the “American Missionary” can aid us in this respect by mentioning,
when ordering goods, that they saw them advertised in our Magazine.
* * * * *
DAVID K. GILDERSLEEVE, Printer, 101 Chambers Street, New York.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
All instances of “D.D.” changed to “D. D.” to be consistent with
the majority of the text.
“reponse” changed to “response” on page 355. (the following
response was adopted)
“maintainance” changed to “maintenance” on page 360. (provision
for the maintenance of professorships)
“onmoving” changed to “on moving” on page 380. (signifies a great
providential on moving the conversion)
“usuages” changed “usages” (among the early usages of New England)
“sancity” changed to “sanctity” on page 383. (Respect the
sanctity of his family.)
Repeated “t” in broken word “import-tant” removed when the
word was rejoined on page 396. (In seven of our most important
treaties)
“whatsover” changed to “whatsoever” on page 407. (to bear
whatsoever ills)
“it” changed to “at” on page 412. (the Will should be made at
least two months before)
“Steal” changed to “Steel” on page 413. (Fine Large Steel
Engraving.)
Both “post-paid” and “postpaid” appear in the advertisements.
The differences were left, assuming the differences reflect the
wishes of the advertisement authors.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The American Missionary — Volume 33, No. 12, December 1879" ***
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