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MARCH, 1887.

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY
VOL. XLI.
NO. 3.

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.

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American Missionary Association.

Treasurer.

Auditors.

Executive Committee.

District Secretaries.

Bureau of Woman’s Work.

COMMUNICATIONS

Relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to the Corresponding Secretaries; those relating to the collecting fields, to Rev. James Powell, D.D., or to the District Secretaries; letters for “The American Missionary,” to the Editor, at the New York Office.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

In drafts, checks, registered letters or post office orders may be sent to H. W. Hubbard, Treasurer, 56 Reade Street, New York, or, when more convenient, to either of the Branch Offices, 21 Congregational House, Boston, Mass., or 151 Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member.

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.

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The American Missionary.

American Missionary Association.

The receipts published this month bring us to the end of one-third of our fiscal year. They are $17,712 less than one-third of $350,000, the total amount recommended by the National Council and the Annual Meeting. Our payments have been in excess of receipts $9,130. Add this excess to the $5,000 debt with which we began the year, and you have the condition of our treasury. We have borrowed the money to meet the deficit. Our missionaries are all paid, our work is being pushed and sustained at every point. It is evident that there must be a large increase in contributions from churches and individuals. The contributions are voluntary. As a generous contributor to our treasury says in a letter just received, “Resolutions of annual meetings are not collectable taxes.” Our work is entirely dependent upon the free-will offerings of our supporters. We appeal to them with this understanding. We invite their thoughtful attention to all the facts in the case. The next few months are the best in the year to collect money. People are all at home and about their business. Pastors are all in their pulpits. All the machinery of church and Sunday-school activities are in operation. We earnestly beseech pastors and church officers, and all friends, not to let this harvest-time pass without making special effort to put the finances of the A. M. A. on an assured foundation, before the summer months with their vacations and interruptions of church work come.

A GOOD IDEA.

This little missive shows the way in which one pastor works the cause of benevolence in his parish:

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We have a supply of leaflets, collecting cards and envelopes which we will furnish gratis on order to any who request them for use in taking up contributions.

The Annual Report for 1885-’86 is now ready, and on application will be mailed to any one who wishes it.

A precious revival of religion has been enjoyed in the Atlanta University, of which a full report will be given next month.

EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENTS

SELECTED FROM NUMEROUS LETTERS RECENTLY RECEIVED.

“Our contributions, though not large, are larger than they would be were it not for the copies of the magazine read by the people.”

“We are doing better for you than ever before, though not half what we ought to. Hope you will get your $350,000 and $150,000 more added to it.”

“The magazine is of interest, and is enjoyed always. It is doing a noble and appreciated work.”

“We are glad to be able to send this year the largest collection the church has ever taken for the work of the Association. We shall hope even to improve on this next time.”

“I will see that the matter of looking up subscribers for your magazine is placed in proper hands. I am much interested in your work.”

“The magazine does good. We love the Association, and do not fail to give our little.”

“I will do what I can to increase interest in our work, and, if possible, extend the circulation of your magazine.”

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“The information furnished by the magazine is used freely in our monthly meetings by those who receive it. We regard the A. M. A. as one of the most useful and sacred of the benevolent organizations to which we contribute.”

“I do wish that more of our people would take your magazine. I shall recommend it to their notice.”

“The last number of The American Missionary is worth its weight in gold. I wish it could be found in every one of our families.”

“We are thoroughly interested in your work, and will give you a better collection this year than we did last. I can say so much with confidence.”

“That your magazine is a power in your behalf is evident from a glance at our record, as our little country church averages nearly $200 a year in support of your work. As long as I remain pastor of the church, it will not be my fault if this good record is not continued.”

“The copies of The Missionary which come here are all used, and profitably so. Our parish is thoroughly interested in your work, and we have one of our best reporters to represent your field at our monthly concerts.”

To those who will help in extending the circulation of The American Missionary, we will, on order, send sample copies. The subscription price is 50 cents. Send orders to H. W. Hubbard, Treasurer, 56 Reade street, New York city.

We do not desire to have the money that rightfully belongs to other missionary boards find its way into our treasury; yet we do rejoice that there are many noble men and women in the different denominations who were among the constituents of the Association in its early days, and who have remained its constituents down to the present time. One of them attended our last annual meeting, and enclosing $30 to make a Life Membership, which makes the thirty-first Life Member that he has constituted, writes in regard to that meeting as follows:

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“The meeting at New Haven was the best I ever attended; everything moved so easily, and there seemed to be such a good spirit. But of all the papers read, there was none that interested me so much as Rev. Dr. Strieby’s, from the fact that it carried me back to those dark days when I, as an Abolitionist and a Presbyterian, united with the Society. He brought all the historical facts of those days out so clearly that I had to say amen, and amen, and thank God that I had lived to see the great change in our beloved America. I have never left a stone unturned for the A. M. A., for I have always found it true to humanity and working for the interest of the Master. Therefore I have stood by it, and at the same time never have forsaken the Board of my own church. I am sure that meeting brought me a little nearer to Heaven, and I rejoice that I was spared to enjoy its blessings. Push on until all men of all nations of the world are brought to the knowledge of the truth as it is in our blessed Jesus.”

When we offer the prayer, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven,” it is simply a petition that the kingdom of heaven become the kingdom of earth. The kingdom of heaven, in so far as it is in the earth, is in the hearts of men. When it shall be in the hearts of all men and call forth their loyal service, the prayer will be answered. As Christians we are bound not only to pray but to help answer our prayers. Into what a field for self-culture membership in Christ’s church introduces the believer! Large thoughts tend to make large souls. It is not merely the local church or community in which one happens to be, for whose interests he prays and plans and works; it is the kingdom of God in the earth. The local church may be small and limited in the opportunities that it offers for soul-growth, but the kingdom of God has no limit. In its reach it is wide as humanity. “Christ sees in every man, even in the poorest and most miserable, a human being whose privilege it is to become a member of the kingdom of God.” The vision of the disciple should be like that of the Master. High and low, rich and poor, ignorant and learned, are words that mark degrees and conditions in human society, but in the Divine sight all are low and poor and ignorant and lost who have not by the regenerating power of the Holy Ghost, through faith in Jesus Christ, been born into the kingdom of God. The Gospel is to be preached to every creature. If we cannot go in person we can in purse and prayer. Representatively we can preach in the ends of the earth, heal the sick, feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Obligations to the particular home field that the individual church to which we belong cultivates, absolve us not from the obligations we owe to the world-field into which the kingdom of God is coming by the extension of the church universal. This large view of our personal relation to Christ’s kingdom as a whole, this faith that sees in every man a brother for whom Christ died, compel us to an interest in missions. The triumphs of the gospel in the South and at the West and in foreign lands, will be just as precious to us as the triumphs of the gospel in our own community. We shall desire to have a part in winning them, for wherever the scenes are laid the triumphs are Christ’s, and therefore ours.

President Cleveland not only believes that the Indian can be civilized, but that it is the duty of the Government to help. He says the Indians[69] “are a portion of our people, are under the authority of our Government, and have a peculiar claim upon, and are entitled to, the fostering care and protection of the Nation. The Government cannot relieve itself of this responsibility until they are so far trained and civilized as to be able wholly to manage and care for themselves. The paths in which they should walk must be clearly marked out for them, and they must be led or guided until they are familiar with the way, and competent to assume the duties and responsibilities of our citizenship.”

Let Congress make these sentiments the basis of Indian legislation, and let all the servants of the Government who have to do with the Indians work with these truths in view, and in a very few years the wisdom and economy of the policy will appear in such a light that all will be compelled to approve it. And yet all this will fail unless the Gospel be brought to the Indians at the same time. The particular value of this Government movement in behalf of the Indian is, that it will not only prepare the way for the coming of the Gospel, but will also protect the effects of the Gospel from the evil influences of wicked men. Had the hindrances which have shut out Christianity from the Indians been removed, as they could and ought to have been by the Government, the Gospel long ago would have solved the Indian problem, and the Gospel must solve it now.

WE ARE VERILY GUILTY CONCERNING OUR BROTHER.

BY MRS. A. McDOUGALL.

From the day when we come to Him for rest, taking His yoke upon us, we give assent to the oneness of God’s people in Christ, and to the oneness of the work given them to do. We sing of the sacred tie that binds our hearts into one, we preach about it, we pray over it, in a theoretic way we believe it; but it seems as if it requires something like the fountains of the great deep to be broken up to make us practically realize all that the singing, preaching, praying and believing involve. Our loyalty to the Union slumbered and slept, as securely as the ten virgins, till the trumpet blew all over the land. Who then felt his life too dear to offer it for the Union? What lady’s hand was too delicate to scrape lint, make bandages, or pack boxes of home comforts for the boys at the front? How many timid hearts made themselves brave to endure the sight of horrible suffering, that they might minister and so help; but now we have grown careless and secure, as if we had no part in the work which the war left for us to do. In travelling through the southern part of this great commonwealth, along the highways and byways, over long reaches of dark country, the between places, outside and beyond the centres where mission and educational work is being done, we see the vast crowds of people “who have not come to their own;” people who have a triple hunger consuming them, the hunger of poverty, the hunger for knowledge and the hunger after righteousness. We are compelled to see ignorance, helplessness and consequent shiftlessness, contending hopelessly with the might and meanness of greed. This great need in a professedly Christian land—people perishing[70] for lack of knowledge, where knowledge is a birthright—causes our hearts to burn within us, and we say, how long until the whole body of Christ feels this pain? Oh, if they only knew! And we take the task willingly of telling of it. Alas, they are so busy, the farm, the merchandise, the different enterprises of ecclesiastical masonry and millinery, and we find that the need is too far away for general sympathy.

I am reminded of an incident in the lumber country. One of the workmen, an exceedingly tall man, cut his foot with an axe, literally splitting his great toe. A sympathetic little one inquired anxiously, “Will it be long till you feel it? It is so far away from your head, you know,” she added apologetically. The pain in the Southern limb of the body politic has not reached all the members yet. If it had, the fair hands that erstwhile scraped lint would do as much as the women of Brittany did for the ransom of Bertrand Des Guesclin, spin one day’s spinning; the men, who gave themselves, would give a crumb of their cake to preserve the fought-for Union. On the Church of the living God this work must fall, by the people of God it must be done, if it is done at all. There are people who have given themselves, who are in the forefront of this battle. We do not all recognize that we, who hold the Head and are all members one of another, live under the rule of the Beloved, our New Testament David. “The part of those who go forth to battle and they who tarry by the stuff shall be alike”—alike in the cost, the danger and the glory of triumph. Then, when we restore that which we took not away, the blessing that multiplies falls upon us until we have not room enough to receive it.

We must have our eyes touched with His eye-salve to see clearly the Christ in these helpless ones whose hands are stretched out to touch our hearts. Human nature, even renewed human nature, has some queer inconsistencies. The way in which we fulfill Scripture by turning everyone to his own way is wonderful. One of our own ways is how much readier we are to give charity than to pay debt. One of the best men I ever knew paid the new hands in his establishment less than they could hire their board for, and subscribed liberally to a home where boys could get plain board at half price. Now, God’s way is: “The worker is worthy of his meat.” This dear, good man believed he was doing something religious when he gave the part he kept back from wages in charity. This is an instance of a widely-spreading delusion.

Give, and give liberally, for the conversion of the polished Japanese, the philosophical Brahmin, the filially-trained Chinese, the monotheistic Mohammedan, the heathen of distant Africa and the isles of the sea. You are right. The marching orders of the Grand Army are: “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” “All” and “every” cover every inch of ground. Go on and prosper and the Lord magnify thy work.

But, stay, there is here a debt to be paid, restitution to be made.[71] “Leave there thy gift before the altar, go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, then come and offer thy gift.”

Thy brother in black has a controversy with thee. And his Advocate is thy Judge. Listen to the plea: “All the fields cleared and tilled in this broad south land, we cleared and tilled them. The roads that are made we made them, the bridges built we built them. We have been like Joseph in Egypt, whatever has been done here we have been the doers of it. We are American citizens. We have bought our citizenship dear with the sweat of our bodies and the blood of our backs. We have waded the red sea to freedom. The hands that reaped your fields for nought are held out to you for knowledge. We ask for our share of your civilization and your Christianity.” Fellow Christians, the back pay must be made up.

DOES THE HIGHER EDUCATION BEFIT THE NEGRO?

BY PRESIDENT H. S. DE FOREST, D.D.

It was once believed that a little learning was a dangerous thing, but it is now held that much learning is perilous to the negro. His risk is in over-education. Manual training is good for him, of course. He has a natural talent for that which came down from inheritance and has been worked in with both care and pains. He also needs moral training, though this is not an ancient heir-loom in his family. But for his mental development, the fundamental branches, few and simple, are thought to be enough. The higher range of study, even if he be capable of reaching it, would only harm him and unfit him for his place. This opinion, held by not a few, has been stated by Bishop Pierce as follows: “The negroes are entitled to elementary education the same as the whites from the hands of the State. It is the duty of the church to improve the colored ministry, but by theological training rather than by literary education. In my judgment, higher education, so-called, would be a positive calamity to the negroes. It would increase the friction between the races, producing endless strifes, elevate negro aspirations far above the station he was created to fill, and resolve the whole into a political faction, full of strife, mischief and turbulence. Negroes ought to be taught that the respect of the white race can only be obtained by good character and conduct. My conviction is that negroes have no right in juries, legislatures, or in public office. Right involves character and qualification. The appointment of any colored man to office by the Government is an insult to the Southern people, and provokes conflict and dissatisfaction, when if left as they ought to be, in their natural sphere, there would be quiet and good order.”

The argument then is briefly this: The negro is a low order of man, fit only for a low place, and therefore best trained by a low order of studies. The error is two-fold, embracing both a falsehood and a fallacy:[72] a falsehood, for as far as inherent nature is concerned, the negro is no lower than the rest of the human race; and a fallacy, for if he were, or so far as he has become so from the force of circumstances, the more urgent the demand for superior training. The negro is a man, and, like any other man, is profited by choice mental culture. Furthermore, the disabilities of the past make his higher education specially necessary, and as fast as possible the most promising of the black race should attain the best and choicest culture. In bare outline some of the reasons for this opinion may be thus stated:

(1.) The negro has ability for the highest range of studies, and to debar him therefrom is to sin both against the man and his Maker. Many, especially those who cannot spell his name without putting in one “g” too many, doubt the intellectual power of the negro. It is true that heredity holds with him as with other men. A race scarce one and twenty years removed from enforced ignorance does not climb the hill of science as nimbly as those who inherit the brain, will and spiritual forces which generations and centuries have accumulated. But twenty-one years, and of wretched environment too, have sufficed to show that souls clad in the blackest African setting are capable of the highest thought and most difficult studies. The evidence on this point is abundant and conclusive. To deny the negro this ability is only to advertise one’s ignorance or prejudice. And since God has written his truth both in his word and works, and also given to the black man aptitude and thirst for the highest and most hidden, it does not become a race longer out of darkness and further removed from heathenism to say “thus far and no farther” in the culture of immortality. The negro should receive the higher education because God has made him capable of it, and he is profited thereby as much as any other man.

(2.) The higher range of studies is necessary to supplant self-conceit with self-reliance. Measuring themselves by themselves, an ignorant people are always inflated by the merest modicum of knowledge. Broad scholarship gives modesty, but the sciolist everywhere is a braggart. None are so satisfied with their acquisitions as the valedictorians of very poor schools. Where gold is scarce, a little metal, and chiefly alloy, will serve for many a big spangle, and the greater the darkness the brighter it shines. The serene satisfaction with which the African novice will misapply and mispronounce grandiloquent speech can only be cured by the presence of some scholarly men who have climbed far enough to see the heights and to know that the low-land is a bog.

But wise self-reliance is as rare among an ignorant people as conceit and folly are abundant. One part of the problem before us is to develop manly courage. Slavery cut the hamstrings of independence and sapped very manhood. As a rule the negro is not certain of his rights nor is he heroic in maintaining them. He has long been habituated to wrong, and[73] the passive virtues have become disproportionate. From the days of the Cyrenian he has ever borne the cross, and naturally his back is bent and his knees are weak. Probably there is no other man in this country who can be wronged with such impunity and success as the negro. He is outraged in business, in society and in politics. He knows his wrong, but he does not know of his power to repel it. He needs a manly self-reliance, and that he must have or he will always be victimized. As Franklin said, “If we make sheep of ourselves the wolves will have us.” It is true the virtue needed is largely moral. Scholarship alone cannot give it, but scholarship is a prime ingredient. The step of one walking in darkness is of necessity halting and hesitant. The higher education is essential to that higher courage without which right and privilege are insecure.

(3.) The negro needs well-trained leaders and they must come from his own people. Race prejudice is an uncomfortable fact, and there are two sides to the color line. The Moses of the future cannot, in general, be an Egyptian, whether teacher, preacher or politician. But the future Moses will need all the learning of Egypt. A task is before him. The Red Sea indeed has been passed and God is going before. But the wilderness is simply terrible, and many are falling by the way. Leaders must be trained, and to do this is now our chief work. Every regiment certainly needs a competent colonel, and among every one thousand men there surely ought to be one well bred and well read, broad and thoughtful and scholarly, trained to thought, enriched with varied knowledge, and able either to cope with men or to grapple with difficulties. By this meager percentage, seven thousand liberally trained men are needed for the nearly seven million Africans in our country. We conclude then, that while all should have the lower education, a great many should receive the higher. Every man may need silver, but the best commerce of the world requires that some should also have gold, and a good deal of it.

SOME CHANGE NEEDED.

We publish the following as evidence of the necessity for Congregational Churches among the colored people. There are some kinds of religion from which intelligent people wish to get away. Of these kinds it can be truthfully said that a “special religious interest” is not a blessing.—ED.

“The church here was organized in April, 1882. From the beginning we have held worship in one room of the Knox school building, which is owned by the A. M. A. This room is not large enough to accommodate the people when there is anything like a good interest, as we cannot seat, comfortably, more than one hundred persons. We are, therefore, put to great inconvenience at times. Again, there is not the air of sacredness in worshiping in a school-house as there is in an out-and-out church edifice. At least it is so among the people here.

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“Great as these reasons are for a church building, yet there is another still greater. It is this; we are holding our services not farther away than thirty steps from a colored Baptist church whose congregation is immense. Moreover, our meetings are held at the same hour as theirs. Their great demonstrations and shoutings are destructive to the solemnity and comfort of our quiet and orderly congregations. When there is special religious interest among that people—and it is almost a perpetual thing—the good effect of our services is almost as good as none.

“Now, to carry out our building plan we need fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars. We hope our Northern friends will give us at least one thousand dollars of this amount. Please respond as soon as possible, as we are very anxious to complete our church by next April when our fifth anniversary will be held. We wish to hold that service in the new edifice.

“The future good of the work here will depend very much upon our ability to build within the year 1887.”

And the following is an evidence of the necessity for Congregational ministers:

“Dear Sir: I hav been infome buy Some of you brothren. As I wished to Change my Relation Ship with the Church to Some other branch of Church. I. hav. come. to. the. conclusion to Join. with. you. Church. as. a. Colord. Missionarie. in you church with. my. peopl. I. Am. in. the. best of. Good. Standing. in. the. Church. And if. you. Dought. this frase. you. can. Rite to the Rit Rev Bishop in Regard. to. my. Standing in the. Church, but Dont. Say to him what. I. say. to. you a bout. Joinen you Church. if. you. please. not as. I. am tring. to Run. off but. I Like to. no what. I Am Going. to. Do. first I hav been a Elder in the Church for. 9 years and for five years I. hav. not. Got. 3000. Dollars, for. my Laber. not as. I. Dezier riches of this Earth. but. a Enought. to Live. with. in this. Life. I. Am thinking to tak. up. a home Stide, on Goverment. Land. in Kansas. or. in Alabama. or Some plase where Grate meny of our people is but if. I. am Blesst. to Join. with you Church. I. will Do. as you. Law Says. I. m. familey. wife. and one. neace. And. I Expect my. neace will. not. be. with. us. Long please be So Kine. as. to answer this Soon as. you. Get. it.”

NEW LIGHT IN THE SOUTH.

The two sections began life together and formed a government. The South had the advantage of soil, climate, and wealth. At the end of eighty-four years the two grappled and fought. The Yankee section came to the fight richer and stronger than our Southern section, and beat us into the earth while we did our best. To-day these Yankees are rich in everything, and we are poor in everything but manhood and womanhood, and have less than we began with one hundred years back. These same Yankees furnish[75] the bulk of the capital we use, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the books we read and study, and the high-grade teaching in the normal schools of the Southern States. Almost every convenience of life and invention of art and science we know, came from these same people, who have in ten years done more for Florida than the Florida natives have done in fifty. Almost any one of their large communities could buy the whole South for a park if they liked it for that purpose. In a fight they could crush us like eggshells. In politics they are masters, and we have to hold our breath in every big campaign to avoid offending them. Their percentage of ignorance is one-tenth of ours. When trouble comes on us we depend on them for most of the help, and get it. The world knows them as America, and us as outlying and unconsidered provinces.—Greenville, (S. C.) News.

George W. Monisty was a slave, and was sold from his parents in 1853, being taken to Mississippi. He subsequently served as a Union soldier all through the war, and finally settled at Lafayette, Ind. While at the Wabash depot recently, George fancied he recognized two colored women who were passing, en route to Iowa. The recognition was mutual, and with tears, cries of joy, and embraces, the mother, brother and sister came together after a separation of thirty-three years.

Rev. W. W. Weir, pastor of the 2d Congregational Church in Eureka, Kansas, died Nov. 21st, in his fifty-first year. He had been sick some time with consumption, and his death was not unexpected. He began his ministry in the African Methodist Church, and was ordained as a Congregational minister in Eureka in 1881. In an obituary in a local paper it is said of him: “Considering the limited privileges which he had in his youth, he was a man of superior qualifications, and each year has increased the esteem in which he was held by the community.”

THE SOUTH.

NOTES IN THE SADDLE.

BY FIELD-SUPERINTENDENT C. J RYDER.

The Lincoln Memorial Church at Washington, D. C., are rejoicing in their remodeled building. Various branches of missionary work are carried on with increased vigor. The industrial training is now under the direction of the pastoress, Mrs. Moore, and is reaching a large number of women and girls. The outlook of this work at Washington was never so bright as now.

Dudley, N. C., is a smart little village, having in its entire population[76] only four white families. The two saloons in the town, however, are kept by white men—a pretty sorrowful and disgraceful comment upon the white race. The County Superintendent of schools spoke in the highest praise of the A. M. A. school and church at Dudley. Congregationalism here, as elsewhere, is the synonym for intelligence and purity.

Wilmington is still saddened by the death of Rev. D. D. Dodge, for a long time the active pastor of the Congregational Church in that city. But the work goes on with continued prosperity.

A little nine-year-old daughter of the pastor of the A. M. A. church at Beaufort, N. C., has used her time so wisely between school hours that she sat down to the organ and played ordinary music readily. Can any other little A. M. A. girl no older show better use of her time? This little girl has had only a few weeks’ instruction in music.

No one who has not visited Charleston, S. C., can form any idea of the terrible results of that awful earthquake visitation. The citizens have accomplished wonders in repairing the ruins of their homes and churches and shops, but it will be months yet before the fearful desolation can be overcome. Poor Charleston, what with war and cyclones and earthquakes has she not suffered! Is it Divine punishment for her rash and fearful sins of the past? Who can say it is? Who dare say it is not? The Congregational Church was uninjured by the “quake.” Extensive repairs had just been made in the building, and the services of re-dedication came immediately after that night of earthquake horrors, and were very impressive. Many conversions have taken place since the re-opening of the church.

Avery Institute suffered seriously from the earthquake. Extensive and expensive repairs were made necessary before the school could be opened. These are now completed. I learned of some two hundred pupils who were waiting to enter Avery as soon as it should be opened.

At Savannah, Ga., I found a most delightful state of religious interest. More than a hundred have been hopefully converted during the few weeks just passed. Many interesting incidents have occurred. One young man, who has been rather a wild young fellow, became a Christian. He was at once anxious for his mother, who was not a Christian. One night she refused to come to evening service. The friend who went to invite her gave up in despair. But God did not give up. His spirit still strove with her, and she came into the church and took the very back seat. But she was the first to come forward when the invitation was given to those who desired prayers for themselves. She sat with bowed head a long time. Her[77] son was there praying for her. There was no excitement. At last this mother, rising to her feet, walked across the house, and taking the preacher by the hand, said: “I will venture.” There was joy in many hearts. The mother and son are now praying that the aged grandmother may find her way into the fold of the Good Shepherd, even in her trembling old age.

McIntosh is also rejoicing in a spiritual harvest. Twenty-eight, all on confession of their faith, joined the A. M. A. church on the last communion Sabbath. Dorchester Academy is full, and more than full. The enrollment for January was 250, and sixty pupils had been turned away because there was no “room to receive them.” Miss Plimpton, with three young lady assistants, does this tremendous work with marvellous success. The pastor had been ill for a few Sabbaths, and the Sabbath duties fell upon these overworked and heroic women. As I looked into the schoolrooms, crowded to their very doors, hot and oppressive, it seemed to me that if anywhere on this continent the Master’s work is being done, it is right here at McIntosh, Ga. They are indeed Sisters of Mercy. A little girl in one of our schools was asked what the feminine of Friar was. She replied, “Fricassee.” In that hot school-room it seemed almost possible that these Protestant teachers might be unwillingly converted into female Friars, according to the little girl’s definition.

The teachers are reaching out in every direction. In a little tumbled down, or tumbling down, log cabin, Miss Robertson holds mission service every Sabbath. From seventy to ninety, mostly men and boys, gather to sing, hear God’s word read, and gather useful lessons from the wise and loving counsel of this earnest Christian soul. One hundred dollars are needed at once to put this cabin into such shape as shall make it suitable for these services.

In pushing out through the swamps that lie all round Dorchester, the teachers not infrequently see great, venomous snakes (water moccasins) tumble off the path before them into the water. And yet these are timid ladies, and shrink just as you do, gentle reader, from such monsters. They are there for Christ’s sake, and in His name they go forward.

Will not some earnest Christian at the North increase his contribution, so that the school facilities at Dorchester Academy may meet the demand another year, and so that the hearts of these Christian heroines may be comforted and cheered?

DEDICATION OF BALLARD BUILDING.

The first Sunday in this New Year was a memorable day with us at Tougaloo, having been looked forward to with eager expectancy for months—especially by the carpenter’s apprentices and other wood-working[78] students, who, no doubt, next to Mr. Stephen Ballard himself, of New York, feel a sense of personal proprietorship and joyful interest in “Ballard school-house,” which was dedicated that day.

The new school-house is not only a monument to Mr. Ballard’s philanthropy, but also to the value and success of the mechanical training given here, as the work was almost entirely done by the students.

The day of dedication was the third of a succession of days unusually cold for us, and the air was full of snow-flakes, so that few of the expected guests from a distance made their appearance, and the extreme unpleasantness of the day kept most of even our near neighbors at home. However, besides the students and their immediate friends, we had as guests Miss Dickey, the honored head of Mt. Hermon Seminary at Clinton, with two of her assistants; Rev. J. B. Oliver, of the Congregational Church at Greenville, and Rev. C. L. Harris, of the Congregational Church at Jackson; also Mr. Moses Folsom, of Iowa, a representative of “The Burlington Hawkeye,” with a friend of his.

Probably none of the special days in the annals of the school have passed off with more unity and spontaneity of feeling, nor left a happier consciousness behind. The Sunday-school lesson had for its title “The Beginning,” and besides its regular and ordinary teachings, was specially and happily applied, and, at its close, ten persons were received into church membership. The regular dedicatory ceremonies and services took place in the afternoon and were good throughout. Rev. C. L. Harris, of Jackson, delivered the address. Always energetic and enthusiastic, and ready for whatever word or work his day and opportunity bring him, he gave us a really excellent address. He gave in the outset a sketch of the life of the Christian merchant who had considered himself the Lord’s steward of the funds required to build this school-house and the shops required for our trades. He then spoke at large upon the three-fold work to which this institution was dedicated,—the education of head, hand and heart, all tending to the firm and right establishment of the home and fitting for the widest usefulness.

The last thing in the service supplied an outlet for the manifestation of the loving and joyful interest with which the service had been participated in by the congregation, and was apparently at least as much enjoyed as any part of it, namely, the taking of a collection. The subscription, started with the thank-offering of Thanksgiving Day, for seating the new chapel, had reached $36.50. The collection at the dedication service brought it to $97.35, additional free-will offerings next morning making up the hundred. At this writing a beginning has been made on the remaining $66.25. About one-fourth of this has been given by our own students, and nearly one-half by the colored people connected with, or interested in, our school.

A sermon from Rev. J. B. Oliver in the evening closed the exercises of the day.

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OUR SCHOOL OF OBSERVATION.

BY MISS ANNA M. CAHILL, FISK UNIVERSITY.

Sixty bright faces welcomed me as I took my place with other visitors, this afternoon, in the school-room of our practice school. These faces are the property of as many happy children—children with no more weight of years upon them than properly belongs to pupils in a primary school. As I looked down the rows of little seats on this my first visit for the year, I saw at once that many new pupils had taken their places in this company since the first of September, but some of the little folks have grown so familiar that I realize they are soon to “graduate” into the English department of the University. At least half a dozen of those before me are the children of parents, one or both of whom were pupils at Fisk at some time during the first ten years of its work. They come from comfortable and well-regulated homes in the city, as do the majority of those primary pupils.

The special occasion that drew us together to-day was the public exercise of the practice teachers who taught in the school during the fall term. Every member of the senior normal class spends six weeks, at some time during the year, in practice work, under the direction and criticism of the principal of the school. To-day each of the four teachers taught three classes ten minutes apiece, and in the two hours thus occupied, not only the regulation studies, reading and number, were presented, but very interesting lessons were taught in elementary grammar, geography of Tennessee, form, color and physiology. When the bright sunlight gave its aid by flashing through a prism the rainbow colors on the wall, the little people were quick to tell how these colors might be combined and others formed; and when to the physiology class there were shown the heart, lungs and liver of a sheep, they gathered with so much interest around their young teacher that spectators and school were forgotten in their childish eagerness to ask and answer questions.

In one of the motion-songs that varied the exercises of the afternoon, these little people sang of the shoemaker, “All he wants is his elbow room,” and as I came away impressed with a sense of the power developing in that school-room and thought of the future of its pupils, I said gladly to myself, “All they want is their elbow room.”

These public exercises are held semi-annually, in order that all members of the normal class may have opportunity to show the result of their practice work.

CHARLESTON, S. C.

A young man who recently united with our church on profession of faith, in his first prayer at the Wednesday night prayer meeting, said:[80] “Help us young men to pray a little faster and a little better, for you know how slow and imperfect we are. We cannot help ourselves. You are our only help. Lead us in the way that we should go, and help us to withstand the temptations which come every day.” It is the same idea which St. Paul gives us when he says: “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after.” “A little faster and a little better.” What a lesson for Christians generally. If we all would be a little faster in doing good, in giving to aid in this work of raising up fallen humanity, there would be no need of constant appeal from the treasury department of the A. M. A. and the other great missionary organizations, and if Christians would pray a little better, that is, with more earnest desire for a literal answer to their prayers, His Kingdom would speedily come in the hearts of men. His will would be more generally done “on earth, as it is in Heaven.”

VOLCANO AND TIDAL WAVE.

A good sister recently came into the parsonage very much exercised in mind. After a while she said: “Well, it’s just as I expected. One of them things has broke out in Summerville.” We asked: “What is it? The smallpox?” “No.” “The cholera?” “No.” “A riot?” “No. Not any disease or anything like that. It is one of them things. I think they call it a volcano, or something like a tidal wave, you know.”

There is nothing new under the sun, says the wise man, but I hardly think he saw in his day and generation—a volcano—something like a tidal wave! And yet the idea is a good one, typical, I think, of the American Missionary Association, which, years ago, began in a humble way to pour forth—not fire and smoke and ashes—although the outcome of its work was fire and smoke and ashes to false opinion and wrong. Like a volcano, it sent forth material which moulded itself into the public sentiment of years ago, and since, like a tidal wave, this sentiment has continued to sweep over the continent until all the nationalities represented in this country are beginning to recognize the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Geo. C. Rowe.

CUMBERLAND MOUNTAINS.

BY REV. B. DODGE, PLEASANT HILL, TENN.

What have you done? This is a fair question for friends of this mission, North, West and East, to ask. I propose briefly to answer it. I left my pastorate in the “Pine Tree” State, and, with my wife and daughter, entered upon the work here October 1st, 1884. To leave a New England home for these mountain wilds is much like entering a new world. But, coming not to play, but work, duty said: “Look about you—East, West, North and South.” It was done, and the outlook showed a large amount of illiteracy in every neighborhood, many living so far away from school as to be totally beyond their reach, and many young people growing up with no knowledge of books.

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What could be done? More impressively the answer came than I can tell it: Build a house for school and worship which may bless present and future generations. But, from a human standpoint, to erect such a building as was needed seemed extremely difficult, if not impossible, with limited means on every side, no market, no railroad, and 2,000 feet above the sea level. But, being used to hard work from early life, and not easily scared, I grappled with the idea of building a house for the double purpose named. I laid the matter before the A. M. A., and was by them requested to undertake the building of such a house as, in my judgment, was needed.

I began the work March 1st, 1885. A good lady donated five acres of land (a lovely spot) for church and school purposes, and deeded the lot to the A. M. A., and also contributed $50 to the building. I then headed a subscription paper with $50, and the people here added enough by timber and labor to make in all $300.

I then employed a man to put in a good foundation of split stone, laid in masonry and elevated twenty inches above the ground, the size of the building to be 50×47 feet, including tower.

What next? It was to hew a white oak frame in the forest and haul it to the building spot, then have it framed. At length I invited men to raise it, and women to bring a dinner.

When gathered we sought, with uncovered heads under the blue sky, the blessings of heaven on the future of the house and freedom from accident during its erection.

At 11 A. M. the school, marshalled by its worthy teacher, Mrs. Lord, came and marched around the walls and waiting timber with songs of greeting, and when the song ended, the men responded with three lusty cheers for the school. At sunset the frame stood on its solid base.

There stood the bones, but where was the flesh? I took my men, and, with axes and saws, we went to the forest to fell the trees for logs; but when a few were sawed the mill failed. Must we give it up? Not yet. In the saddle I went down the mountain to Lost Creek, sixteen miles, and to Sparta, seventeen, for lumber. Through much hardship it was hauled, it taking two days for a good team to make one trip, and sometimes getting a thorough soaking in a storm by a night camp-fire. Some forty loads were dragged up the steep mountain and on to Pleasant Hill. This coming up the Cumberland Mountains with a load means much more than a stranger can comprehend. When it takes three hours to go two miles we may suppose there is some pulling. You can find some hills in Western Massachusetts and in Maine, but they are mole mounds as compared with the brow of these mountains. But the men who had the hauling in charge were patient and faithful to the last.

The work went slowly on for lack of funds. Twice it stopped, and no sound of saw or hammer was heard. Some prophesied it would take seven[82] years to complete the building. Troubled dreams and wakefulness came, and sleep said, “If you don’t go on with the work I will not come to you.” I then said to the carpenter: “Come Monday morning, and I will be responsible for your pay.” He came, and Monday’s mail brought me $6 from the Sunday-school in Edgecomb, Me. I paid the carpenter Saturday night, and said, “Come again.” He came, and Monday’s mail at 11 A. M. brought $7 from the Sunday-school in East Orrington, Me. Rebuked for my lack of faith, I said, “Come again,” and the third Monday at 11 A. M. brought $25 from that noble man, Hon. J. J. H. Gregory, of Marblehead, Mass., who always sells honest seed, and has also recently sent us a fine bell and paid the freight on it.

Slowly the building grew, till, by much tug and toil, where markets and railroads were far away, and even money absent, to-day the house stands finished.

The last thing, the furnishing, is being done. So we are planning to christen it with services there next Sabbath, and on Monday enter it with our growing and promising school, which, ere long, if friends stand firm to its interests, is to be one of the bright lights in the State of Tennessee.

So much for the new house on the Cumberland Mountains.

HOW HAS IT BEEN DONE?

“Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.”

It is the Lord’s work, through his dear children. He has awakened in the hearts of Christian men, women, young people, and even little children, an interest in this work, so that, by closest attention and careful application of funds, God has enabled me to engineer the work till I can see that He means the house shall stand complete, without so much as a nickel of debt upon it.

We have also organized a Congregational Church, and have in connection with our work another church at Pomona, and Sabbath-schools in all three.

I preach twice each Sabbath, riding twelve miles in the saddle. With increasing faith in God and this mountain work, which demands much grace and not a little grit, I ask the prayers of those who pray.

THE INDIANS.

A VISIT TO THE DAKOTAS.

BY SECRETARY J. E. ROY.

In 1871, on a tour of home missionary supervision in Dakota, I came over the Missouri in a canoe, the only mode then of transportation to this Santee Agency School. I found here Rev. A. L. Riggs, who had come the year before to take up the newly initiated work of Rev. J. P. Williamson,[83] who removed up the river thirty miles to open a mission upon the reservation of the Yankton Sioux. At that time Mr. Riggs had already displaced the cabin home and cabin school-house by a frame residence and a frame chapel school-house about 30×50. Now I find that the chapel has been spread out upon the sides and elongated in the rear, with sliding doors to shut off each of the several new parts into additional recitation and Sunday-school rooms, and the whole to be crowded for morning prayers and Sabbath service. There have also come on, the Dakota Home for Young Women, the Bird’s Nest for Little Children and the Cottage for Little Boys, each of the three under a matron, and the Dakota Hall for Young Men, with one of the teachers’ families there in charge. Then come the well-built shops for shoemaking, carpentry and blacksmithing; and lastly, the three-story dining-hall, with accommodation for a hundred and fifty at the tables, with rooms for teachers and workers, and a whole story yet to be finished off, when funds are in hand, to accommodate more girls. The whole is heated by furnaces and supplied with the most approved apparatus for cooking, baking and laundry work.

But, beyond this expanding of the shell, I find the inner institution matured into a good deal of character and strength. Though it has grown by itself, it has come to be very much like our best boarding-schools at the South. The course of the year makes up more than two hundred pupils, and there are now here one hundred and thirty. The mass of them have learned the English, and the classes are taught in it. Many of them have been advanced in English studies. The régime everywhere takes on the Christian type. A great majority of the scholars have been brought to a personal acquaintance with Christ. A good number of teachers and preachers have already been sent forth. Music—vocal and instrumental—brings in its refining influence. A splendid corps of teachers is employed. Every pupil, male and female, has some work to do. The shops for blacksmithing, carpentry and shoemaking have each a competent workman as instructor, and those departments are run under the closest inspection. I have seen one Indian doing a fine job of shoeing horses, that most important of all work in blacksmithing.

Mr. Riggs, the father of the Theological Institute of Chicago Seminary, has brought the same feature in here. And so for two weeks, about twenty-five men, young pastors and divinity students, coming in from their fields, are drilled in the practical Bible doctrines and methods of preaching and pastoral work. The lectures have run from two to four in a day. Clearly it has been a season of stimulus and of replenishment to the young brethren. Those who were pleased with the young people from this school, who sang at the Chicago Council, at the New Haven Anniversary and over the East, last fall, will be glad to learn that at least half a hundred of equal cultivation could be sent out as specimens. Three native teachers are here employed, and they can use either language. It[84] has been a great delight to me to hear Pastor Artemas Ehnamani preach in his own pulpit in the presence of his church, that numbers a couple of hundred, and without the chopping up of his address by the intervention of an interpreter.

THE CHINESE.

BY REV. F. B. PERKINS.

Mr. Pond has just left for San Francisco, after a week of exhausting toil for the Chinese missions here and in Santa Barbara. For his relief, I have undertaken to write this letter, that his vacation—for so he calls it—may not be altogether farcical. I do it the more readily for the opportunity it gives me of saying some things which your readers would not be likely to learn from him.

It has long been my conviction that, in proportion to the means employed, no form of Christian work on this coast yields so large a revenue as Chinese missions. I am sure this is so as regards that carried on under the direction of the A. M. A. And the explanation I find largely in the Christ-like devotion of your superintendent and his coadjutors.

It is but a single illustration of this spirit which Mr. Pond’s recent visit offers. Both at Santa Barbara and San Diego the missions have lost their rented premises, and are literally homeless. It seems imperative that, if the work is to go on, they should no longer be subject to the disabilities of rented buildings. But it is a fixed principle of this mission, on no account to incur a debt. So it is of Mr. Pond, as regards himself; but for Christ’s needy ones he has more than once accepted the burden. This he has now again done. In Santa Barbara he purchased a lot for $600, for which land he is personally liable, but which he holds in trust for the mission. On that lot, by the close of this week, a chapel will be erected by a Christian friend, at a cost of $340. For this property a moderate rental is to be paid by the mission, and when the sums thus paid shall amount to the price of the land it, together with the building, (toward which the little Chinese band have already paid $150), becomes the property of the mission. In San Diego the course pursued has been the same, only that here, owing to the rise in real estate, the amount assumed by Mr. Pond and one other friend of the work, is $2,500. By similar acts of Christian self-sacrifice in the past, the mission has already become possessed of property to the value of $10,000, all without the burden of debt, or an even temporary diversion of its funds.

But is the mission work worth all this toil and sacrifice? Mr. Pond, in a carefully guarded statement, says, that since the establishment of this mission the Chinese converts number over 600, at least fifty having been added during the past year; and this statement, you observe, makes no[85] mention of results wide reaching in their beneficence which do not involve this radical heart work. If this statement be accepted as correct, the question is answered. But is there really any such a character as a Christian Chinese? Many persons say, “No.” It is but a day or two since a Christian man denied it, in my hearing. My reply to him was to ask for his standard of judgment. If his demand was that Chinamen should cease to become Chinese, and, abandoning all their associations, habits and prejudices, become simply Americans, doubtless they are not Christians; but in that case, neither are converts from many another nationality to be reckoned as Christians. Or if absolute freedom from infirmities and faults be made the test, this would shut them out, but it would shut out many others also. Alas! it would be fatal to the hopes of the writer. But if the test be the same we apply to ourselves, love more or less enthusiastic, loyalty true, even if troubling, to our Divine Master, and our judgments be according to the law of charity, then we have no more reason to look askant upon a Chinese than upon a Bohemian, or a negro brother. The grace of God works out in these and in those alike, encountering similar obstacles and being triumphant in about an equal degree.

Ex uno disce omnes. He was a house servant, and naturally not of amiable disposition or agreeable ways. But some twelve months ago his employer began to notice a change in his bearing, a more cheerful observance of his duties and a generally pleasanter manner. Awhile ago he came to the lady, and said: “Mrs. B., I’m a Christian. I don’t know as you have thought it, but I am.” “Yes, Jim,” was the reply, “I have seen it for some months past.” Yet he is as much a Chinaman now as ever, and no more faultless perhaps than an American Christian. But he is “following on,” reaching out after likeness to the Master, and that is about as much as most of us can claim.

“But so much of the work seems fruitless owing to the migratory life these people live.” Well, twelve years ago I was among the prospectors of Southern Colorado. During one of our meetings, I noticed a Chinaman enter the room. Through all the service he maintained a respectful and interested attitude, and at the close, taking his hand, I asked him; “You sabe (understand)? You know our Jesus, our Saviour.” “Yes, I know.” “Where did you learn?” “San Fis.” “Who taught you?” “Miss Loomis (Rev. Dr. Loomis).” So I had come across one of these waifs in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, and two years after he had gone out from his Christian teacher. I don’t know how clear his views of sin and salvation were, nor how hearty his trust in the atoning Saviour. That could only be learned by longer intercourse, and I have never seen him since. But he knew enough to find his way into that little cabin in the wilds of Colorado, and to speak with apparent intelligence and sympathy of the things of the kingdom. Nor could I doubt that he stood as the[86] representative of very many who go out from these mission schools, and are lost to all but the all-seeing eye of Infinite Love.

The work in their behalf may seem to be, but it is not, fruitless. From this number let us not doubt it, many will stand forth at last, redeemed unto God, monuments alike to the unspeakable grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the patient fidelity of Christ’s disciples.

BUREAU OF WOMAN’S WORK.

MISS D. E. EMERSON, SECRETARY.

Please remember to renew the “shares” in the support of teachers. Those who desire it can have their shares transferred from year to year to new fields, thus obtaining more varied knowledge of the work from the missionary correspondence.

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS.

Missionary.—I am happy to write you that the $25 pledged for the support of a teacher is again ready for you. The letters received were enjoyed very much in the Society and I know greatly increased our interest and membership.

New York Missionary Union.—Our auxiliaries voted the $1,100 the coming year for the A. M. A. (support of three missionaries.) I have promised, as last year, bi-monthly letters from each of these teachers. Our auxiliaries much enjoy the letters and greatly miss them if anything delays.

Local Church Society, Conn.—The amount of our pledge is collected and will be forwarded. We have received the missionary letters monthly and we take them into our Mission Circle, and read them, and frequently they are read from the pulpit so that all may hear the good results of help given. We wish the good work God-speed.

It will be remembered that after the Annual Meeting in New Haven the Indian students from the Santee Normal Training School made a short campaign among the churches. The writer of the following letter was one of the students, and in it she tells a friend what she saw and thought as she went from place to place.

FOR THE CHILDREN.

(Letter from a colored boy to his teacher.)

(Letter from Mrs. A. A. Myers.)

We read in the old story that every mamma crow thinks her own little crows are the whitest of birds. And I think no one will be surprised that, having worked with the little folks in Kentucky for five years, I should have a little weakness toward them, and if I repeat some of their wise sayings and doings it is only what might be expected.

Little Elbert, between three and four years of age, with his golden text in[89] mind, took his kitty on his knee and very gravely said to it, “Kitty if you lack wisdom, ask of God and he will give it to you.” Looking at the new moon one evening he said, “There’s a piece broken out of it;” and one evening when the setting sun cast out those rays peculiar to it when the air is full of moisture, he exclaimed, “Mamma, the sun is sticking its feet at us.” Little Ernest, three years old, was awakened in the night by hearing our church bell ring a fire alarm. He began to cry, saying “Our Sabbath-school is burning up.” Little Johnny, five years old, was so interested in class over the story of the blind man going with clay on his eyes to the pool of Siloam to wash, and returning seeing, that when in the general review before the school, he sitting in the middle of a full house, the question was asked, “What did Christ tell the blind man to do after anointing his eyes,” Johnny could wait no longer but spoke out in a clear ringing voice, “I dess the blind man was glad of it, don’t you?” Callie’s answer, in the same review, to the question, “Where did Christ tell the blind man to go and wash,” was, “Go to the mud-puddle and wash.”

I will try soon to tell you something about our Band of Hope little folks.

RECEIPTS FOR JANUARY, 1887.

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Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation missing from the scan was added. Period and well-known alternate spellings retained (e.g. mamma for mama).

“Presideent” changed to “President” on page 64. (President, Hon. Wm. B. Washburn)

“collectable” left uncorrected on page 65 as part of the quotation “are not collectable taxes”

“aud” changed to “and” on page 75. (and is reaching a large number of women)

“philanthrophy” changed to “philanthropy” (a monument to Mr. Ballard’s philanthropy)

“règime” changed to “régime” on page 83 (The régime everywhere)

“Talledega” changed to “Talladega” on page 89 under the first entry for Farmington.

“Talladga” changed to “Talladega” on page 90 under the first entry for Holliston.

“25.00” added on page 95 to the entry for Boulder. Geo. L. Gibson. A smudge near the number indicates a probable scanning or page damage error, and 25.00 fills out the total for Colorado.

“Orlanda” changed to “Orlando” on page 95 in the section for Florida.

“boquets” changed to “bouquets” on page 96 (several bouquets, each long enough)