THE
AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

American Missionary Association.

OUR ANNUAL MEETING.

The Thirty-third Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association will be held in the First Congregational Church (Rev. Dr. Goodwin’s), Chicago, Illinois, commencing October 28th, at 3 p. m. The Annual Sermon will be preached by Rev. R. S. Storrs, D. D., of Brooklyn, N. Y., service commencing at half-past seven in the evening. A paper on the Chinese question will be presented by Rev. J. H. Twichell, of Hartford, Connecticut; one on the Necessity of the Protection of Law for the Indians, by Gen. J. B. Leake, United States District Attorney, Chicago, Illinois; one on the Providential Significance of the Negro in America, by Pres. E. H. Merrell, of Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin. Addresses may be expected from Rev. Drs. Goodell, Roy, Corwin, Dana, Ellsworth and other able speakers on timely and important topics. For reductions in Railroad fares and other important items, see fourth page of cover.

We are called to record the death of another venerable friend of the Association, Rev. Wm. Patton, D. D., who died suddenly at his home in New Haven, only a few days after his return from a trip to Europe, on Saturday, the 6th of September. He had been a Vice-President of the Association for fifteen years, and always a warm and generous friend of the colored people. He was the father of President Patton of Howard University.

Educated at Middlebury College and at Princeton Seminary, he was the first pastor of the Broome Street, now the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, in New York. Since 1862 he has resided in New Haven, Conn. He has labored much and written much, and died at the good old age of 81, beloved and honored. He remembered the Association in his will with a bequest of $500.

In our issue of last month, the article “North and South” stated that we have a common interest in the glory of our Revolution. This assertion finds confirmation in the fact that a Southern Centennial is now under process of arrangement.[Pg 322] It is to occur on the 7th of October, 1880, at King’s Mountain, North Carolina, to commemorate the battle that was fought at that place Oct. 7, 1780. In July a meeting was held at that same mountain to make preparation. The States of Georgia and of North and South Carolina were represented. Three thousand people were present. Patriotic speeches were made. In these, and in the several resolutions adopted, as reported in the Atlanta Constitution, not one word was used in reflection upon the American Union. All the other States were invited to participate. Besides the States represented, those of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee were to be memorialized, through their Legislatures, to make such appropriations as would be necessary to the proper consummation of the celebration. The ladies of those several States were invited to co-operate. The committee of arrangements were to secure a collection of the historic relics of the battle ground and to apply for troops to illustrate the plan of the battle.

Secretary Powell has recently made an earnest plea in the Advance for printing-presses, greatly needed at Fisk, Straight and Tougaloo Universities. He says: “About $1,000 are needed for each press, with its accompaniments of type, rules and leads. But there is a firm in this city that for presses going into this work will discount fifty per cent. Only five hundred dollars, therefore, are needed for each press and accompaniments. And in what direction could five hundred dollars be better used for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom and the safety of the land?”

Incidental testimony from pure sources of high authority to the value of a work is often more gratifying to those engaged in it than purposed compliments. A recognition of its value before an outside audience is also of special importance. We are glad, therefore, to call attention to the fact that Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, in his recent political address at Worcester, referring to the interest of the Northern people in everything that would promote the true interests of the South, speaks of Captain Eads’ jetties, “making one long harbor of the Southern Mississippi,” as a great boon to its material prosperity, and points to “the magnificent work of the American Missionary Association” as in a higher sphere a source of sincere rejoicing to all good men of the North.

We notice, also, in the report of the Peabody Educational Fund, the following reference to our work: “Much good has been accomplished for the colored schools by the universities and other endowed institutions with normal departments maintained by different Christian denominations. One association has already sent out from its numerous institutions 5,267 teachers, by whom about 100,000 pupils have been instructed. A large proportion of the graduates of all these institutions become teachers.”

The following tribute to the Hampton Normal Institute is also paid by the Superintendent of Public Schools in South Carolina: “The agent of the Peabody Fund has placed at my disposal ten fifty-dollar scholarships in the Normal and Agricultural Institute, at Hampton, Va. A visit to the Institute, and observation of the manner in which it is conducted, convince me that it is doing exactly what it professes to do.”

Whether our work needs testimonials to its value or not, we are always glad to find such as these, which were not intended either for the ears of our teachers or officers, or even constituency. If we needed to be assured at all, such witnesses would give us deeper confidence than ever in its real need and real efficiency.

Dr. O. H. White, Secretary of the Freedmen’s Missions Aid Society, writes from London:

The recent death of Dr. Mullens and four others connected with the effort of the London Missionary Society to reach Central Africa, has turned the thought of this people to our plans and work for Africa as never before. They begin to believe that, as Dr. Moffat said, “Africans must go to teach and save Africans; it is the Divine plan.” And the more I speak upon this idea, and the more I see of the people, the more I am persuaded that this view will prevail in the future, and we shall have all we can do to furnish the colored missionaries for all the missionary societies of Europe working in Africa.

If our colored missionaries show to the world that they can live in Africa and can manage the affairs of a mission as well as white men, then the demand for them by the missionary societies of this country will be large enough for all we can supply from America in many years. And the ministers here tell me that if my mission to the country should result in nothing else, it will more than pay for all the time, work and expense which I am giving to this effort.

Were it not for the earnest commendation of many of the most prominent ministers and laymen in England and Scotland of my sermons and addresses on the subject of the evangelization of Africa by the Freedmen, I should give up at once in these hard times of dreadful depression in business; but the Lord has evidently given me the ear and the heart of the people with reference to the future redemption of that vast continent of Africa by the emancipated slaves.

NO DEBT—NO DEFICIT.

From time to time during the year our readers have been told the condition of our treasury. Occasionally it has been only a place to put money in, a great vacuity. It has been with us a year of anxiety and frequent change, of falling and of rising tides. And now we have just closed the books which contain the record of another financial period. And by the arrival of the date which this number of the Missionary bears, and which we have to anticipate for printing and mailing to our remotest subscribers, we shall have made its full statement to the annual meeting.

It is with profound gratitude to Almighty God, and with renewed confidence in Him and in His people, that we write its record.

First. We have fully met all the expenses of the year from the year’s income. We have kept in active operation all our institutions and churches. No one has been suspended or stopped for lack of funds. We do not by any means intend to say that all have been fully equipped and carried on to the best advantage, for we have not dared by any means to do with them all that could have been done. They have all been run in the most economical manner consistent with the accomplishment of their main intent. The salaries have been small, the services have been great, the self-denials have been many, of our pastors and teachers; still, in the year, which only at its close has begun to show signs of returning commercial prosperity, we are glad to record an undiminished work all paid for.

Secondly. We have fully paid the debt. The $37,389.79 of indebtedness reported at the last annual meeting has absolutely disappeared. Every cent of it has been paid, to the last of the seventy-nine. The great work undertaken three years ago is finished, and we are free. We have been for a long time like Lot’s wife, looking back and fearing lest perchance the past might overwhelm us; but[Pg 324] God has only rained down riches out of Heaven and buried our burden beneath His gracious gifts; and we are free now to look and to press forward.

But such a statement brings a weight of grave responsibility. We say of the treasury of the Association gladly and gratefully, No debt—no deficit. But we must remember, in all humility, we do ever owe the debt to love our fellow-men and show it by our works of Christian charity, and our deficit is what we have been lacking in filling up the full measure of our opportunity for serving Christ in the person of His poor.

MISSIONARY MASS CONVENTIONS.

At the late State Conference of Ohio, a Committee on Missions was appointed, of which Prof. Judson Smith, D. D., is chairman, and Rev. C. C. Creegan, of Wakeman, secretary. It is proposed to hold a series of mass conventions, at central points, and every member of every Congregational church in the State will be invited to attend at least one of these meetings. Rev. James Powell will represent the A. M. A.

The following schedule has been prepared:

OUR NEW MEN.

We are delighted with our new men. Scarcely ever in the history of the Association have we had so large a number of recruits for important places in our service, of such proved quality, and more and more we find ourselves able to retain the services of our best men, who have served the cause of education and religion with us in years past. It is to us a gratifying indication of the growing sense among our Christian ministers and teachers of the importance and dignity of the work, and of their appreciation of it, as founded and established beyond all question, and for all time (as we measure things), that such men are willing to commit themselves to it, and to remain in it year after year.

We accept the congratulations of The Congregationalist as expressed in the following paragraph:

The Association is to be congratulated upon new accessories to its working force. Rev. Henry S. DeForest of Iowa has accepted the Presidency of Talladega College, and is already upon the ground. Rev. S. D. Gaylord, a highly commended schoolman of the West, has taken the principalship of the Avery Institute at Charleston, S. C. The late principal, Prof. A. W. Farnham, is proposed as an occupant of a chair in one of the colleges of the A. M. A.; Rev. C. W. Hawley, pastor of the Second Church at Amherst, Mass., is to enter upon the pastorate of the First Congregational Church of Atlanta, which was resigned by Rev. S. S. Ashley, that he might take a season of respite after his fourteen years of invaluable Southern service. Rev. O. W. Fay accepts the call to the pastoral charge in[Pg 325] Montgomery, Ala.; Rev. O. D. Crawford of West Bloomfield, N. Y., goes down to serve as pastor of the church and superintendent of the Emerson Institute at Mobile; Prof. J. K. Cole is transferred from New Orleans to the principalship of the Beach Institute at Savannah, Ga.; while Prof. McPherron is promoted to be Principal of the Normal Department of Straight University.

THE MENDI MISSION.

We call attention to the summary on another page of the Second Annual Meeting of our Missionaries on the West Coast of Africa. There seems to have been in it a careful review of the work of the year and a study of the means at hand for carrying it in the future, and a reasonable view of its needs and possibilities.

It will be seen that the report of church and evangelizing work indicates not only earnest effort but substantial results. The missionaries are planning—and the plan has resulted from their own experience and observation—a more free use of native helpers as it shall become possible. All Missions have come or are coming to this. It needs but a simple knowledge of the love of God and the redemption of the world by the Lord Jesus Christ, to fit a man to go home and tell his neighbors the good news which has come to him. That is the work of evangelization. And if these native Christians, carrying to their own people only that portion of the Gospel which they have known and certified by their experience, can come into frequent contact with the missionaries educated and established in the faith, they will be kept from wandering off into error, and grow in grace and knowledge by using the grace and knowledge they have already received and acquired.

The missionaries have, to some extent, upon the basis of the year’s experience, re-arranged themselves so that they think (and we agree with them) that they can work to better advantage than the past year.

One of the schools, that at Good Hope, seems to have been very successful and to have reached a large number of native children. The other, at Avery, has been more confined to the training of children, who are taken into the home to be under continuous influence, in the hope that by industrial and religious, as well as mental training, they may in time be fitted to be important helpers in the work.

Mr. Anthony, who joined the Mission in March last, to take especial charge of the mill and other industrial work at Avery, has already proved to be a valuable addition to the band. And the Committee have just commissioned and sent out another recruit to strengthen the hands, we trust, of those already in the field. His name is Nathaniel Nurse. He was born in the island of Barbadoes, West Indies; immigrated to Liberia, Africa, where he spent five years; came to the United States; spent nearly two years in the cities of New York and Boston; was converted to Christ in the latter city nine years ago. He returned to Barbadoes, visiting also various other West Indian islands. In 1875 he went to England, visiting Liverpool, and spending a year in London. While in the latter city he was engaged in missionary work.

He was sent, about two years ago, by the Freedmen’s Missions Aid Society, of London, assisted by Belmont Church, Aberdeen, Scotland, and several individual Christians, to Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., where he has been studying with a view to devoting himself to missionary work in Africa.

These young men are in a very trying position, and need the prayers of all good people that they may have wisdom and grace and patience from the Giver of all good and perfect gifts.

THE ARTHINGTON MISSION.

Let it not be thought by any of the friends of the Association, because we have not had more to say in the Missionary, that we have given up the hope of yet being able to accept the noble offer of Mr. Robert Arthington, and of establishing and sustaining the Mission proposed by him. We have already fully and formally recognized the importance of the work, the accessibility of the field and its peculiar claims upon our body. Equatorial Africa is our sphere. It is in that that we have labored for over thirty years, and to that that we desire to confine ourselves. This Eastern Mission will be a proper balance and complement to the Mendi Mission on the Western coast. But we have tried to make haste slowly.

The condition precedent made by Mr. Arthington, that the debt of the Association should be extinguished, is now fully and fairly met. That is an obstacle out of the way. The only other condition is one on our part of prudent anticipation. It will take a large amount—though it has been more often over than underestimated—to provide the men and the outfit and to put them on the ground. It will require at least an amount annually equal to that we are expending on the Western Mission to sustain this in the East. And the Executive Committee have thought it wise to assure themselves of $50,000, which they would have in hand to devote to this work as it might be required, before they should take the first step towards beginning it.

There are several things within our horizon to-day which conspire to give us hope of a speedy realization of this plan. Mr. Arthington’s offer still holds good. There is $15,000 for the work to begin with. Dr. O. H. White, the indefatigable Secretary of the Freedmen’s Missions Aid Society in Great Britain, is enthusiastic on the subject of this Mission, and reports to us that the interest of the English and Scotch people in it is deep and deepening. Already he has secured considerable sums to be devoted to this work. Recently he has written us asking for a definite agreement on the part of the Association as to what it will do in the way of providing from this country a portion of the fund deemed necessary to the inception of the Mission, if he shall raise from the mother country a second $15,000. The Committee has answered him that they will agree to provide the $20,000 to make the needed $50,000 for the start, and will then, “with the blessing of God and the assistance of the friends of the African race in Great Britain and America, perpetually maintain the Mission.”

The Committee felt free to make this pledge, in the present financial condition of the Association, and especially as final receipts from the Avery estate have recently come to hand, amounting to a considerable part of this sum, and which are devoted by the donor to the evangelization of the African race in Africa.

It is a great step for us to take; but we have felt that it would be a great mistake, a great failure in duty, for us not to take it. God bless Robert Arthington, of Leeds! God bless Dr. White in his efforts to raise this second fund! God bless every man and woman on either side the sea who shall join hands and put together their resources to carry the light of the gospel of love and liberty into the thick darkness of Eastern Equatorial Africa! Who will help us on this side the water?

SELF-PROTECTION.

[We extract from the valuable address given at the Boston anniversary, by the Rev. Albert H. Heath, of New Bedford, Mass., his second division (all we can find room for), in which he treats forcibly of one most important aspect of our home work.[Pg 327] In other portions of the address he spoke at length of our special obligations to these people and of the work in the light of a genuine Christian philanthropy. We commend these strong words to careful reading and thought.]

Self-protection is to be taken into consideration in this work. What effect, we may well inquire, is it going to have upon the beloved institutions of our land if these races are not Christianly educated? It is possible that many will feel that the Indian, whatever our treatment of him, can never offer any serious menace to our civil life; we may safely let him go, as his fathers have gone before him, marching before our fixed bayonets toward the setting sun. And if this military policy is to prevail, we shall all be glad when he has made his last trail across the plain and echoed his last shrill war-whoop amid the mountains’ fastnesses. But, after all, friends, it may be there is a God in Heaven who will remember and avenge the red man’s wrong. “They that take the sword shall perish with the sword,” is not alone to be found in Scripture. It is written in our constitutions; it is a fundamental law of our being; and history bears abundant testimony that it is no dead letter. We ought to remember this law as we press the Indian from his God-given right. It may be that we, the children of the Pilgrims, may yet find ourselves driven from our Eastern homes and the institutions which the century has helped us to build, while the red hand of Nihilism holds sway over the graves of our fathers, and crowds us, as we are to-day crowding the Indian, into the track of the setting sun.

But whatever may be the result of our treatment of the Indian, there can be no doubt what will be the effect if the Negro and the Chinaman are left uneducated and unchristianized. Already do we feel the hand of the black man in our politics; our ears have distinctly heard the low rumbling, and we have felt the shudder beneath our feet which betokens an eruption. Before we know it Vesuvius may be belching forth its fiery flood, darkening the sky and spreading far and wide its river of death. Nor will the exodus greatly change the matter. The demagogue and the office-seeker are a genus that thrives in all climes. They may be more poisonous at the South, as most reptiles are that breed under a tropical sun; but the frosts of the North do not kill them any more than they kill the larvæ of the insects which every April sun hatches into life. It only needs the warmth of an election to quicken them and bring them in buzzing swarms around your ears. There will be corrupt politicians in Kansas who will rob them of their political rights as readily as those in the South. It matters little where they dwell; even in New York or Boston they would find themselves still in the reign of demoniacal possession. While they remain an ignorant class they will be a dangerous class. To be shot and intimidated may not be, after all, their worst political fate; to be corrupted with bribery would be equally bad. The electioneering purse, in the hand of the Northern office-seeker, might prove as potent in robbing them of their rights as the pistol which Southern chivalry may point at their devoted heads. Let us not, therefore, cheer ourselves, nor encourage these, our colored friends, that there is any holy land in these United States to which they may go in solemn exodus and be safe. Wherever they may be, ignorance is their greatest curse; nothing but education and Christianization will dispel this shadow that is darkening their lives, and lift this yoke of bondage that is now galling their necks, and in no other way can they be converted into useful citizens. They are an element of danger to the Republic, until, like our Northern children, they grow up under the shadow of the school-house. It is possible that all are not aware how great is the weight of this ignorance, which is like loose ballast in the ship of State, ready at any sudden lurch to change sides and carry us to the bottom. We and our legislators have been most[Pg 328] thoughtless in our treatment of this question. In a single day, by legislative enactment, we put the ballot into the hand of a million men, not one of whom knew a letter of the alphabet. A more suicidal blow has seldom been aimed at the heart of this Republic. We have given, almost indiscriminately, the right of suffrage to these Southern States, and yet in sixteen of them seventy-five out of every hundred of the population, according to the census of 1870, are growing up entirely without school advantages. At the present moment a majority of the voters in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and South Carolina are without the ability either to read or write. In either of these States, or in all of them, any election can be carried by sheer weight of ignorance. Seventeen hundred thousand men, according to a statistical report which has been put into my hands, at the last national election cast the ballot which they could neither read nor write. No wonder we were plunged into confusion. Had not a kindly Providence been on our side we should have been plunged into anarchy. And this scene waits to repeat itself in 1880. The next President of these States will be elected to his high position by sheer force of ignorance—ignorance manipulated and controlled by men whose hearts are as black with treason to-day as they were in ’61. No thoughtful man can look upon these facts and not tremble for the safety of his country.

So, also, is the ignorant and unchristianized Chinaman making himself felt in our politics. He casts no ballot, he holds no office. He does not come to the polls to drink and smoke and sell himself to the highest bidder on election day; and yet his political influence already is as wide as the continent; his unwelcome ghost stalks through the halls of Congress, and broods over every political or religious convention that is holden between the two oceans. Already have we seen one sovereign State changing the terms of its constitution and revolutionizing its laws out of pure regard for the Chinaman. And, still more significant, we have seen our great National Congress voting to change the very genius of the Government, and to shut the doors that have for a hundred years stood open, and which we mean shall not be closed for a hundred years to come; and we will write over these open doors in letters of fire, so that the most distant islands of the sea may read: “This is the world’s asylum, free to the oppressed of all nations.” Now, I doubt not there are evils connected with the coming of the heathen Chinaman. There is oppression and sorrow brought home to many hearts. I feel that there must be more or less of pollution in his touch. I pity the State into which this old world sewerage empties itself. But the remedy is not in building walls, though they be heaven-high, on our Chinaward side. This evil can be handled and neutralized only by the Christian virtue that is in us. Can we convert this heathen material—permeate it with Christian thought? Can we assimilate it and weave it into the civil fabric we are making? If so, it will do us no harm; otherwise it will rankle like poison in our blood, and possibly work our destruction in the end. This question should not be settled in the political arena. It is a moral, a religious question. The forces that are needed now are those that lie in the hand of the Christian church. We must permeate this festering mass with the leaven of Christ, and we must do it speedily. The evil is growing. Politicians are beginning to treat it, and therefore it is rapidly growing worse. It cannot be cured by legislative enactment. Legislation knows of no instrumentality, save that the civil statute ultimately seeks support in the bayonet. Before we know it, this question may be baptized in blood. Those western shores are far away. The Rocky Mountain wall lifts up a tremendous barrier to separate us and make us twain; only one little thread of iron binds us together and makes[Pg 329] us one. Let us not wait until the whole Pacific slope bristles with rebellion as the South did in ’61; but let us pour the strains of our Christian influence over the mountains. If we can Christianize this heathen mass, then the trouble is over, the danger passed. Self-protection, then, affords a most powerful motive in the prosecution of this work.

Albert H. Heath.

SUNDAY-SCHOOL LETTERS.

The interest of the Sunday-schools in our Southern work has been increasing during the past year. The concert exercise has taken well, and many schools have sent us their first contributions.

How many of the schools connected with our churches understand clearly our offer in regard to correspondence from the field, we do not know. It is this: any Sunday-school which contributes ten dollars or more annually to the work of the A. M. A., if they request it, is entitled to a quarterly letter from one of our missionaries.

The “Children’s Page” of this number of the Missionary contains such a letter. It is bright and interesting to both teachers and scholars. The following letter from a superintendent tells of the interest excited by such letters in his school.

Besides the good done by the money given, is it not well worth while to train up our children to give, and to educate them in the missionary spirit? This letter is in response to a Sunday-school letter from Miss Barr:

Miss L. E. B.

Dear Sister in Christ: Your kind letter of the 11th inst. came to hand by due course of mail, and your very valuable epistle to our Sabbath-school, of the 2d, came last Saturday. Accept my sincere thanks for the same, in behalf of the Sunday-school and myself. I think if you could have seen the eager faces and deep interest manifested by all while I read it to the school last Sabbath, you would be satisfied that at least one missionary of the A. M. A. would be mentioned by our praying ones in their petitions at the Throne of Grace for some time, and that all of us have so much of a missionary spirit kindled in our hearts, and so much interest awakened in you personally, that your next letter will be looked for so eagerly that it will seem a good while to wait. I think you must have a very earnest-working church in Atlanta, and that the Master will bless them and you is my prayer. I have no doubt but “Aunt Lucy” will have many prayers offered for a blessing upon her.

I am glad to know that your present field of labor in the vineyard is so pleasant; and that the Master will give you health and strength to labor for Him in it, and that you may be the means in His hands of gathering in many precious sheaves from it to the heavenly garners, is the sincere prayer of

Your humble fellow-servant,

R. H.,
Superintendent Congregational Sabbath-school.

ITEMS FROM THE FIELD.

Anniston, Ala.—Rev. P. J. McEntosh writes: “My field is increasing in interest greatly. I have just closed a series of meetings in our church. The Lord[Pg 330] hath once more visited this part of His vineyard. There have been twenty-two conversions in our meetings. Seventeen of these have cast their lot among us—seven strong, settled men, four settled wives, six promising young ladies. Others are still asking what they must do to be saved, and if I can induce them to take Jesus at His word and believe on Him, they too shall be saved. Pray for us, that I may lead them on in the paths of peace, and that they may learn from experience that ‘The path of the just is as a shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.’”

Talladega, Ala.—Our first word from the new President of the College, Rev. H. S. DeForest: I came sound and dusty this p. m., having seen many things of interest to me at Hampton and Atlanta. The first look here more than meets my expectations. The buildings, grounds and scenery are very pleasant, and the possibilities certainly are grand.

Atlanta, Ga.—The Fall term of the University opened October 1st. The first week gives promise of a very full school. There are already thirty girl boarders, and the indications are that their Hall will be as badly crowded as last year. The reports of the Summer work of the students, in all parts of the State, are very cheering. There is an increasing desire for education. The white people are taking a deeper and more kindly interest in the education of the colored children and in the University.

Dr. Orr, State School Commissioner of Georgia, has, with the approval of Dr. Sears, established fourteen Peabody scholarships, each paying $72, in the Normal department of Atlanta University. The award is to be determined by competitive examinations.

The Storrs School is running over full.

Cypress Slash, Ga.—Brother Snelson writes: Last Sunday, 14th, I spent with Brother Headen at Cypress Slash. Gave the communion there, and received three new members. They have made a pretty good pole-house, about 28×20 feet, in which they hold school and meeting.

Flatonia, Texas.—We are holding a protracted meeting, and last Sunday was our communion. There seems to be more interest in the church, and the prospect is fair for doing good. Last night seventeen persons rose for prayer. Brother Church has been here since last Thursday, and will remain a few days longer.

Austin, Texas.—Mr. A. J. Turner writes: I was in Austin last week and visited Mrs. Garland’s school. She had just returned from the North and started her school. She has a full Sabbath-school. I visited with her the site of the new building, the walls of which are rising. It will be a beautiful place. I rejoice that Northern people are doing so much for our people.

Goliad, Texas.—“There is an increasing desire among our people to carry the Gospel beyond the bounds of our churches, and so far as it has been done, our polity and purity have attracted favorable attention. There is a growing dissatisfaction with the worship and moralities of the older churches on the part of some of their members and others who would join but for these. The young people, in their plays, imitate the ‘shouting’ to perfection. It is fine sport to them to see the church members perform. They laugh at the claim of Divine help to do what they can so easily do without that help. The young men, on this account, are increasingly more difficult to reach with the Gospel. Education, property and[Pg 331] morality are cast aside as of little worth; stealing and shooting among themselves are not uncommon. Only a pure Gospel can save these young men from dissipation and crime; yet they see the grossest immoralities in church members, and the wildest fanaticism in their modes of worship. A wide door is open here for Christian workers, and as promising as any other to those of great patience and self-denial.”

GENERAL NOTES.

The Freedmen.

—The Peabody Educational Fund—Reports of the General Agent and the Treasurer.—The annual meeting of the trustees of the Peabody Educational Fund was held October 1st, at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The chairman addressed the meeting, and in the course of his remarks mentioned with regret the shrinkage in the income from the investments, and expressed the hope that from other sources the funds would be rendered adequate to the work laid out.

The thirteenth annual report was presented by Dr. Sears, the general agent. He said that the work had made satisfactory progress during the past year. The difficulties arising from the poverty of the South, he continued, are now increased by the pressure of the State debts. The necessity of aid from the Federal Government is now greater than ever before. The evils that are certain to grow out of popular ignorance, if the public schools are suffered to languish, or if they reach only a part of the population, will not be limited to the States where they first appear, but will cast their blight over the whole country.

It might be thought best to limit the assistance to the colored population, if any should be granted. By an act of the General Government the right of suffrage has been extended to them. A large proportion of them are confessedly unqualified for a judicious exercise of this power. If the colored people are the “wards of the nation,” in what way can the nation so well perform the duties of its trust as by qualifying them for citizenship?

Of the two grand objects of this fund, the first, the promotion of common school education, has been thoroughly established, and the chief attention should be henceforth given to the second, the professional training of teachers. In some of the States that stand most in need of efficient normal schools, it would be impossible to provide at once the requisite funds for their establishment.

Though there are very few normal schools of a high character besides our own in the States with which we are concerned, there are several of different grades of excellence, either maintained or aided by public authority. Some of the former, and all of the latter, are for colored teachers. Much good has been accomplished for the colored schools by the universities and other endowed institutions with normal departments, maintained by different Christian denominations. One association has already sent out from its numerous institutions 5,267 teachers, by whom about 100,000 pupils have been instructed. A large proportion of the graduates of all these institutions become teachers.

The report by States shows the following facts: In Virginia less than half the children of the State attended the public schools last year. In the colored schools there was a loss of 3,271, compared with the year before. Over $250,000 of the school money has been diverted to other purposes; but in the future three-fourths of the appropriation are secure.

[Pg 332]

In North Carolina the attendance is less than one-half. Difficulty has been found in this State to induce young men of character and talent to prepare for the business of teaching, as the pay is uncertain and but little more than the wages of a common laborer.

The school attendance in South Carolina has increased 13,843 during the year. For several years the system of public instruction was in a disordered condition; but, during the last year, a better state of things has been manifest. But the want of normal schools and of more funds is painfully felt. Such, at least, are the views of the State Superintendent. In regard to scholarships he says: “The agent of the Peabody Fund has placed at my disposal ten fifty-dollar scholarships in the Normal and Agricultural Institute at Hampton, Va. A visit to the Institute and observation of the manner in which it is conducted convince me that it is doing exactly what it professes to do.” He adds: “There are dangers before us which it will require the highest patriotism and the wisest statesmanship to avoid. Nearly 57 per cent. of the voting population of the State are unable to read the ballots which they cast.”

In Georgia, notwithstanding the increase of nearly 40,000 in the school population, the number of the illiterate is diminished 20,614. Great encouragement is felt regarding the educational prospects in the State.

In Florida education is advancing rapidly. Two-fifths of the children attend school, and there are applicants promised for all the Normal College scholarships that can be allowed to that State.

Opposition to the public free school system is disappearing in Mississippi, and a healthy condition is reported. A normal institute has been established. One-third of the school population attend in Louisiana. In the Colored Normal School we have had twenty scholarships of $50 each. This arrangement is the result of an extended correspondence with the State Superintendent.

In Tennessee, never since the first year of the present school system has so much money been raised for its support; never has the school tax been paid more cheerfully. Speaking of the use made of Mr. Peabody’s gift, the Superintendent says: “The encouragement given by the wise disposition of this fund has always proved an invaluable accessory in the arduous work of organizing and sustaining the cause of popular education in this State and in the South.”

The State Superintendent of West Virginia says of the aid received from the Peabody Fund for the Normal Institutes: “It is of the highest value to the cause of education, and contributes more, perhaps, in general advantage than an equal expenditure in any other direction could do.”

The appropriations from the fund for the last year were: Virginia, $9,850; North Carolina, $6,700; South Carolina, $4,250; Georgia, $6,500; Florida, $3,000; Alabama, $3,600; Mississippi, $4,000; Louisiana, $7,650; Texas, $7,700; Arkansas, $5,600; Tennessee, $12,000; West Virginia, $4,000; total, $74,850.

The Treasurer’s report showed a balance of about $83,000 available for expenditure during the coming year. In former years the income has amounted at times to as much as $110,000, but there has been some shrinkage since the 6 per cent. bonds, in which much of the fund was invested, have been called in, the new investments being in 4 per cent. bonds.

The officers of the Board, who have been continued from year to year, are Robert Winthrop, Chairman; G. Peabody Russell, Secretary; Samuel Wetmore, Treasurer; the Rev. Barnas Sears, General Agent.

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The Indians.

—In the coming fall, twenty more girls will be added to the number of Indian students at Hampton. Their due proportion is regarded as essential to the success and value of the effort. When the Indian prisoners from St. Augustine returned to the Territory, and their wives and families turned out to welcome them home with rejoicing, the long dreamed of meeting proved such a shock to the reconstructed braves that some of them broke from the company and ran away to the woods, refusing to have anything more to do with their affectionate but very dirty squaws. The situation was humorous but tragic, and withal very natural. How could they walk “the white man’s road” in such companionship? And how could they walk it alone? The co-education of the Indian boys and girls, with its lessons of mutual respect and helpfulness in the class-rooms and work-rooms, is the hope, and the only hope, of permanent Indian civilization.

—The Secretary of War has turned over to the Department of the Interior the U. S. Army barracks at Carlisle, Penn., to be used for the purpose of Indian education, under charge of Capt. R. H. Pratt, who has been sent West to collect 100 Indian youths for his school, as well as the girls for Hampton. Captain Pratt’s wise, Christian philanthropy toward the Indian prisoners at St. Augustine was the origin of the present movement for Indian education, and has demonstrated his eminent qualifications for the work.

Africa.

—Mr. Mackay gives most interesting accounts of his intercourse with Mtesa and his chiefs. Every Sunday, after Wilson left, he conducted service at the palace for the king and chiefs, speaking in Suahili without an interpreter, and Mtesa interpreting into the Uganda language for the benefit of those who did not understand Suahili. On Christmas day a special service was held, all the chiefs being in “extra dress,” when Mackay explained the great event of the day. He regards Mtesa as most intelligent, and quite inclined to listen to the word of God. Gratifying instances are mentioned of the influence already exerted upon him. Some Arab traders arrived to buy slaves, offering cloth in exchange, and saying they had come from the Sultan of Zanzibar. Mackay vigorously opposed them, informed the king of the Sultan’s decrees against the slave traffic, and of the cruelties perpetrated upon its victims. Then he gave a lecture on physiology, and asked why such an organism as a human body, which no man could make, should be sold for a rag of cloth which any man could make in a day. The result was not only the rejection of the Arabs’ demand, but a decree forbidding any person in Uganda to sell a slave on pain of death! By another decree Mtesa has forbidden all Sunday labor, and the question of the evils of polygamy has been seriously discussed by him and the chiefs. He was on capital terms with the chiefs, and was teaching numbers of people to read, having made large alphabet sheets for the purpose. He describes the Arab traders as most bitter against the Mission. They are distilling ardent spirits from the plantain, and drunkenness is spreading in consequence.

THE FREEDMEN.

REV. JOS. E. ROY, D. D.,
FIELD SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA, GA.

PART OF A TOUR THROUGH THE CAROLINAS.

A new administration was to be inaugurated in the Avery Institute. The way was found open, and the new Principal, Rev. S. D. Gaylord, one of the foremost educational managers of the interior, was greeted on the first day, the 29th of September, with an attendance of 258, which was an advance of 40 or 50 upon former opening days. The prospect was for a continued accession through the month. The News and Courier gave a handsome notice. I found that the Avery was an occasion of city pride, not only on the part of colored but of white citizens. The authorities of Claflin University, at Orangeburg, S. C., have visited and complimented the institute, seeking to pattern after some of the methods. Prof. A. W. Farnham, who has been at the head of the Avery for four years, bringing it up to its high standard, will do a like work on a more general scale in the Normal department of Atlanta University. The Plymouth church, during the Summer, under the care of the pastor’s assistant, Rev. Mr. Birney, a former fellow-servant with the members, had been prospering. Under the lead of Rev. Temple Cutler, the church will enter upon a career of enlargement. The new principal and the Field Superintendent preached in the Centennial M. E. and the Zion Southern Presbyterian churches, the largest for the colored people of the city, as well as in the Plymouth. These three churches form the bulk of the constituency of the Avery.

At Orangeburg a repeated visit and a preaching service prepared the way for the coming of the new pastor, Rev. T. T. Benson, a graduate of the Talladega theological department. A pleasant church and a rallying people were ready to greet him.

On the way I stopped off at Chester, S. C., to visit my seminary classmate, Rev. Samuel Loomis, who, in ten and a half years, has gotten under way his “Brainerd Institute,” and has helped to plant nine Presbyterian churches within that county. Blessed is the man who is permitted to lay foundations in that way. At Charlotte, N. C., I ran out to visit the Biddle University, which is the principal collegiate and theological institution of our Northern Presbyterian brethren in the South. Rev. D. S. Mattoon, the president, is supported by Rev. Messrs. R. M. Hall and S. J. Beatty. Rev. Thomas Lawrence, of Penn., is to take the place of Rev. Dr. John H. Shedd, who has returned to his mission work among the Nestorians. The current catalogue shows eight students in theology, twenty-one in the college classes, and a total of 155. This institution is for males alone. Its mate, for females, is Scotia Seminary, at Concord. The glory of the Biddle is, that in these ten years it has planted a whole Presbytery of thirty churches in the region round about, besides raising up teachers and preachers for the regions beyond.

In the back country of Randolph County, N. C., twenty-five miles away from the railroad, I looked up Rev. Islay Walden, a former slave in that region, a recent graduate of New Brunswick Seminary, N. J., who had been ordained by the classis of New Brunswick. The A. M. A. had sent him down to make a field in his native State. The Field Superintendent assisted him in organizing a Congregational Church of[Pg 335] thirty members. The ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper were administered. This is in the neighborhood of one of the churches of our antebellum missionary, Rev. Daniel Worth, whom all our colored friends and some of the whites remembered affectionately. His church, a former Wesleyan, has been taken up by the M. E. Church, so that they are well cared for.

We were waited upon by two committees, one from Hill Town, seven miles away, and one from Troy, the county seat of Montgomery, thirty miles off. The former had one man to offer three acres of land and timber in the tree for all the lumber needed for a church school-house, and that man was an ex-slave. The latter committee consisted of three men, who were the trustees of the “Peabody Academy,” whose erection they had secured at Troy. They wanted a teacher and a preacher. Living twelve or eighteen miles away from Troy, they intended to send in their children and have them cared for in a boarding club by an “Aunty.” In token of their good faith, all of them interesting men, they united with our new church, intending to transfer their membership to their own localities when we get ready to organize there. Who could forbid that their requests should be granted? So we organized a circuit for Brother Walden, one Sabbath at Troy, and the other at Salem Church and Hill Town, with one sermon at each place. The Quakers promise a school at Salem. A public school will serve Hill Town for the present, and a competent teacher must be secured for the Academy. It was a delight to witness the pride of the people in their educated fellow-servant. Even the old master gloated over the diploma of his “boy.”

Running into McLeansville early this Monday morning, thinking to make it a minister’s rest-day, with only this article and other letters and a sermon for the night on hand, I found the church at the opening of a protracted meeting with the visiting preacher announced for forenoon, afternoon and evening; house crowded all day, with two hundred people in it by count; all remaining with lunch in hand, between the first and second services, and many holding over between the second and third. And this is the habit of the people at such a time. All unnecessary work is put aside and the entire time given up to religious service. This habit they take from that of the white churches, with the exception that the colored people have added the third service. Pastor Connet had held a similar meeting in another part of his field this fall, and yesterday, as a result of it, twelve members were added to this church. One of those converts, an old man, testified, bearing himself with the air of a conqueror: “I have fought the devil, and I’ve got the victory. Jesus helped me. I have fought the devil, and I’ve got the victory.” The meetings are orderly and solemn—congregational, only warmed up by the African glow. The membership now numbers one hundred and fifty-six. Pastor Connet is also superintendent of the school, which is doing a good work in raising up teachers.

CONTRASTS.

The Past and the Present.

L. A. P.

“Reminiscences” in the October Missionary have recalled a host of buried memories concerning the days of pioneer work, with its swiftly-changing experiences of humor and pathos.

I might draw a picture of the good man who often asked the Lord to “bless these teachers that have left their homes in foreign lands and come a far distance to destruct us;” of the old aunties who came to inquire about friends and old masters in Virginia and the Carolinas, thinking we must know the history of each family, because “didn’t you come right by there on your way down from[Pg 336] the North?” of the romances and tragedies connected with the hundreds of letters we wrote inquiring for lost friends, sold away in the days of slavery; but one picture is more vivid than others, and as the days of quaint prayers are rapidly passing, I am tempted to commit it to print.

Almost a dozen years ago, I found myself one of two teachers in a night school varying from forty to sixty pupils. The roughly-ceiled room was long, low and dimly lighted. The scholars were hard-working men and women who walked one, two, three or four miles, after the day’s labor, for the sake of acquiring a bit of book learning. At ten o’clock lessons closed with a Bible reading, singing and prayer.

One evening, after books and slates had been laid aside, my attention was attracted by a voice, liquid and rollicking, as it carolled a popular “spiritual.” In the gray room—for the light wood fire was nearly out, and the two lamps in the rear gave little brightness—it was some time before I distinguished the singer.

He was a jaunty little man, very black, very lithe and very much dressed up. A blue round-a-bout coat was trimmed with two rows of yellow braid; a crimson dress braid made his neck-tie, the long ends of which floated over the shoulders. His hands were folded over a stout walking-stick; his head nodding and feet patting time to the music.

My thoughts instantly went back to childish days, to a certain tree where a golden oriole’s nest used to swing, to a field of red-winged, chattering bobolinks, not one of which ever seemed so deliciously happy in his song as my dusky scholar. I liked to look at him. It put me into communion with friends and influences hundreds of miles beyond the piny woods.

He often spoke and prayed in the regular prayer-meetings. We soon learned the words of his petition, for it was always in the same form, reverently intoned with an indescribable, inimitable cadence:

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hollowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as is in heaven. Father, Father—this evening—of all grace, look down upon us and hear us and bless us. O Saviour, come riding around this evening upon the milk-white horse and wake up sinners. Touch and tender about every heart. Teach ’em that they have a soul to be saved or to be lost to all eternity. Bless my old mother. Teach her that she has a soul to be saved or one to be lost to all eternity. Strike her with the hammer of conviction. Shoot her with the arrow of love. Bless families and families’ connections. Give us more grace, more faith, more love. Make us humble. Teach us to pray, and teach us to love it, too. Be our guide and leader and protector. Bless the sinners who are standing with one foot upon the grave and one upon the land of the living.

“Father! Father! when Gabriel shall stand with one foot in the sea and one upon the land to blow his horn, and he shall say, ‘How loud must I sound?’ and Thou say, ‘Sound calm and easy so as not to disturb My children,’ then shall we link and lock our eagle wings to march upward to the golden gate.

“And when You see us fail below, help us to say, ‘Here, Lord, I give myself away, ’tis all that I can do. Welcome dis solisted band and bear my soul away.’ And when You have done suiting and serving Thyself of us here, hand us to our graves in peace, where we shall praise the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a world that never ends, is my prayer for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”

At that time this man was one of the more intelligent of his people.

In contrast, let me introduce a younger man of the same size and color, also endowed with unusual gift of song. Neatly dressed, quietly mannered, he[Pg 337] seems no kin to the earlier types of his race.

From under the very shadow of Yazoo he writes these lines: “I have subscribed for the New York Tribune. My school numbers 112 pupils, with a daily attendance of 85 or 90. I have Cutter’s Physiology, from which I give oral lessons daily. I will state the studies of my most advanced pupils: Robinson’s Practical Arithmetic, Harvey’s Grammar, Swinton’s Geography and Educational Readers. School closes next Friday with a concert. I do wish you could be with us Thursday and Friday to attend the examinations.”

Lest any one may infer from the above that “the schoolmaster is abroad” in the land, let me quote one sentence of a prayer uttered a few months ago by the pastor of a large church in a leading Southern city: “O Lord, bless us individually and respectfully.”

GEORGIA.

An Economical Industrial Department.

MRS. T. N. CHASE, ATLANTA, GA.

The demand for industrial departments connected with our schools of learning has developed so rapidly of late, that it appears like one of the fever heats of our American civilization that may soon subside.

Friends of the A. M. A. institutions have been specially anxious that their students should learn trades and home industries while at school, fearing that they would have little opportunity to learn them except from their Northern instructors, and thinking that they could be acquired from them outside of school hours without much thought, time or trouble.

On the other hand, some have felt that our immediate, pressing need was young colored men and women with minds developed by long and thorough training in the text-books used in our schools and colleges. They are not ignorant of the students’ deficiencies in practical knowledge, but feel that close and continued application of the mind to books is the best and surest way to acquire all knowledge. They believe that if the brain power of a child is developed, the hoe, the cook-stove and the sewing-machine will be well managed when occasion requires.

Again, these students are to be the teachers of their race in the South. These friends believe that nothing will so quickly convince the intelligent men of the South that the negro has power which they are bound to respect, as to see him well versed, not only in the sciences he teaches, but his mind broadened by a familiarity with subjects beyond. To secure this training, through an ordinary course suitable for an average teacher even in Northern schools, with supposed superior material, has generally been found to require all the time and strength of pupils under 18 years of age. Principals of the different schools, however, differ much both in theory and practice, in regard to combining manual with literary work.

In Atlanta much has been done during the past ten years in a quiet way, by the business manager, matrons and preceptress, toward giving practical instruction in a variety of home industries, making specially prominent the importance of good work. Every student, during the entire course, works an hour a day, generally with careful supervision. While visiting the Massachusetts Agricultural College at Amherst, recently, I learned that less time for manual labor was required of its students.

During the past year, however, at Atlanta, it was thought best to give more time and thought especially to sewing, cooking and care of the sick. How to secure a practical knowledge of these without much expense of material or instruction, and without taking much of the student’s time from literary pursuits, was the problem. The sewing was arranged in this way: Sometime before[Pg 338] graduation the girls are required to make, under the eye of the preceptress, a small garment of calico or other inexpensive material. This garment is to contain all the varieties of plain sewing, machine-stitching, hand-hemming, ruffling, etc. More than this, it must have the bugbears of all beginners in sewing—a buttonhole, a patch and a darn. Each girl writes her name in indelible ink on the garment, and it is kept in the institution as a record of her standing in sewing.

In a catalogue I received lately from the hands of the matron of the Mt. Holyoke Seminary are these words: “It is not part of the design of this seminary to teach young ladies domestic work. This branch of education is exceedingly important, but a literary institution is not the place to gain it. Home is the proper place for the daughters of our country to be taught on this subject, and the mother the appropriate teacher.” I think I remember reading the same words from a catalogue twenty years ago, and presume they were first penned by the immortal Mary Lyon. So we hoped the emulation created by the prospect of leaving a beautiful specimen of needle-work upon graduation would inspire our girls to faithful painstaking in sewing at their homes even before entering school. The matron has the graduating class spend their required hour of work in learning to make good bread and to do other plain cooking. When any student is ill, opportunity is given for practical instruction from the preceptress in nursing the sick. In addition to this, the time of one recitation was taken during a part of the year for giving instruction in household science. A teacher prepared talks upon general rules for good housekeeping, general principles of good cooking, care of the sick, care of children, economy, etc. The class took notes, and were examined from their notes before the visiting board at the close of the school. We hoped thus to convince them that we were not educating our girls above the homeliest duties of the household, as some of them had accused us of doing.

I have given these details to show how much may be done in this direction without any additional expense.

Revival—Work and Results.

S. B. MORSE, SAVANNAH

The Congregational church of this city has been blessed with a visible outpouring of God’s Spirit. Many of our old members have been quickened in their religious feelings and have reconsecrated themselves to their Lord and Saviour. Many who have been lingering and shivering on the brink of doubt, and many, too, who were waiting a plainer manifestation of their acceptance with God by “dreams and travels,” suddenly, as the truth struck them, yielded their ways to His ways, and are now, we trust, walking in accordance not with their own, but with God’s plans.

We had an extra series of meetings for over two weeks, which were well attended by Christians of all denominations. These meetings closed last week. On Sunday morning, September 7th, one was baptized by immersion, and at night five others were by sprinkling. Still another was received who was a fallen member of some other church. Five children were at the same time baptized, after which all those who loved the Lord Jesus, and who wished, met around His sacramental board and feasted with Him. The church was so crowded that many were compelled to stand outside. It was a high day in Israel. Many hearts were gladdened.

Most of those we received were young people. Some of them teachers of our Sabbath-school, and nearly all of them at some time had been under the influence of some good Northern lady teacher. Perhaps those teachers were disheartened and feared that their good[Pg 339] seed had fallen upon stony ground, but in this they were deceived. We are too anxious often to see results. God’s logic extends through years, but His conclusions are nevertheless sure and true.

Rev. Floyd Snelson officiated at the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist. Bro. Clarke was directly instrumental in bringing about this revival.

ALABAMA.

Our New Church Building.

REV. WM. H. ASH, FLORENCE

Our new church is getting on nicely. The outside is nearly finished, with the exception of the belfry, which I hope will be done this week. The work has been carried on strictly with reference to economy as well as to the finish, and yet it is so well done that it is simply beautiful. Almost everybody has something to say about the church. One says, “You are going to have a nice church, and your church will be well attended when it is done.” Another says, “This is the greatest thing the colored people ever accomplished in Florence.” I am constantly greeted by my white fellow-citizens with, “You are going to have the only modern church in town;” and they visit the scene of the building to watch the progress of the work and speak friendly of it. A gentleman who lives in Fryar’s Point, Miss., and belongs to one of the first families here, has just asked me to let him look at the plan. He said, “This is going to be a credit to the town.” I have put on a large portion of the first coat of paint myself.

The people have made great sacrifices to build their house of worship. I don’t believe that the same number of members in any church North could have done better with all the discouraging circumstances. They have struggled hard to help themselves, giving when really they needed it at home.

We shall need a bell and pews, also a communion service, and money to buy paint for the finishing of the inside and out. Who wants to help those who help themselves?

Letter from a Student—Vacation Supply at Mobile.

J. W. ROBERTS, TALLADEGA.

Our protracted meetings lasted during three weeks. The Holy Ghost has given us five souls for our hire; besides He has warmed up our hearts with His sacred love as a church. I am thankful to Him that my health is kept all right.

Since and during our revival our audiences have been steadily increasing both at afternoon and evening services. There is also an unusual interest in our Thursday praise meetings. In short, the “fold” is in a good condition if the shepherd will come soon.

AFRICA.

THE MENDI MISSION.

Annual Meeting of the Missionaries—The Board of Counsel and Advice.

The annual meeting of the Board of Counsel and Advice of the Mendi Mission was held in the Good Hope Chapel, at Sherbro Island, July 14, 1879. Rev. A. P. Miller presided, and Dr. Benjamin James was elected Secretary.

The Moderator made the following introductory remarks:

Before we proceed to our business, you will please indulge me with a few preliminary remarks, inasmuch as we are about to enter upon that part of our missionary work which will tell most plainly to the civilized world as to the wisdom and good judgment of colored missionaries in devising plans for the furtherance of a work of so great importance, sacredly intrusted to our care.

In the performance of our several[Pg 340] duties in the second annual meeting of our Board, let us not forget that body of devoted men of the A. M. A., by whose unwearied zeal and toil means are procured for the furtherance and extension of this well-begun work.

Let us not forget the thousands of Christian men and women who give of their means for the support of Missions, especially in Africa.

Let us not forget the five millions of our own race in the South, from whom the shackles of slavery have been torn asunder, to whom Africa is now looking for the light of the Gospel and a Christian civilization, of whom we are the advance guards.

Let us not forget that the problem of Africa’s future is now under solution and that we are the solvers. Our failure to arrive at a conclusion in her favor, as Freedmen, would bring everlasting disgrace upon us as a race, while on the other hand we should most shamefully wrong unenlightened manhood, whose blood would be required at our hands.

As a slave, the negro served well his oppressors. As a soldier, he served well the cause of freedom and his country. The tyrant’s chain of oppression, which held five millions in bondage, has been broken, and to-day the grand duty as well as privilege of carrying light and life to his benighted brethren in his fatherland lies before him and calls him onward. It remains yet for him to prove himself a man in this important relation that he holds to his fellow-countrymen and to the world.

In view of these great responsibilities incumbent upon us in this Council assembled, in the discussion and decision of matters of importance, may God, in mercy, so guide each one that he shall be unprejudiced and deeply sincere, as well as conscientious, throughout all these deliberations, with due regard to their bearing upon the interest of the benighted whom we come to serve and enlighten. In view of all these things, may each one give the weight of his influence to the furtherance of our work, exercising patience and charity one toward the other.

Committees were appointed on the various interests of the Mission, while the subject of the extension of the work was referred to a committee of the whole.

The Committee on Church Work reported forty-four members in the church at Good Hope Station, one having died during the year; seven infants baptized; attendance on services good, and showing earnest desire to hear the Word; advance in the Christian life of converts; prayer-meetings valuable. Some persons, under watch and care, will be received to membership as soon as legally united in matrimony.

At Avery there are forty-one members; under watch and care, three adults; eleven children baptized. Increasing willingness on the part of the people to attend church, and growing interest in the cause of Christ give encouragement.

At Debia, Mr. Goodman conducts religious services on the Lord’s day. A chapel is hoped for here, books at Good Hope, and repairs of building at Avery.

Our Sunday-school is in a flourishing condition, being well attended, most of the scholars attending church services. Bradford friends in England sent our Sunday-school a nice present in the shape of copies of the Gospels, pamphlets, papers, etc., which we used as prizes for good attendance, to encourage the little ones. We need singing books for this work.

The Committee on School Work reported that at Good Hope the school has made rapid progress. During the year 245 children have been enrolled. These are both from the Sierra Leone and from the native element. They learn English rapidly. “We have teachers,” says the report, “who are quite awake to their duty. Children are accessible in Sherbro, and are brought into day and Sunday[Pg 341] schools in large numbers. Through the kindness of friends of the poor little Africans, shirts have been put on their backs and books into their hands, for which they seem to be grateful. Of course these wear out, and others must be procured in some way or other in their stead, or these little ones in many cases will leave off attending school. They must be constantly looked after. We hope to see not far in the future a first-class school at this place. We have material in abundance upon which to work. Time, patience and labor will bring success.”

The school at Avery has not made such progress as was hoped for during the year. On the first of January its numbers were decreased by the taking away of most of the larger boys to cut the crops for their parents. The irregularity of attendance is a great obstacle in the way of our success. Some attend for one day, and may not be seen again for a month. Those who have attended regularly have made progress. The prospect for the future is better. There are some children now in the Mission whose attendance may be depended on. Most of the children living in the village around the Mission have been taken to the farms to drive birds, so that the number on the roll at present is only twenty, ten of whom come from the Mission house. There have been 56 on the roll during the year.

The school work at Debia is encouraging, Mr. Goodman and family being settled there. We base our hopes largely on the little ones who are being trained in our Mission schools.

The Committee on Agriculture reported that the cassida planted at Good Hope does not thrive, owing to the impoverished condition of the soil. At Avery the coffee plantation is in a comparatively thriving condition, and some of the trees bearing well. The need of more laborers and implements is urged, and it is recommended “that more of the ground be put under cultivation as a measure tending to supply the wants of the growing Mission, and that the children of the Mission be employed two hours each day upon the farms, under the supervision of a competent and skillful person.” It is further recommended “that the science of horticulture be introduced at each station, and that the choicest flora of native and foreign production capable of being grown on the premises be obtained, so far as practicable, for this purpose.”

The Committee on Industrial Work reported that the saw mill needs repairs of floor and roof, that one saw is in good running order. There are sixteen hands employed at the mill, and two more are needed. It is deemed desirable that some of the Mission children should be “instructed into the workings of mechanics so far as we have the means for instruction.”

Committees on Repairs and Sanitary Condition of the Mission, made careful examination, and reported their advice in these regards.

DISTRIBUTION OF MISSIONARIES.

Some changes were made in the location of the members of the Mission. The force is now divided as follows: At Good Hope: Rev. A. P. Miller and wife, Pastor and Superintendent of the Mission; Dr. Benjamin James, Physician and Teacher; and Mr. A. E. White, Principal of School. At Avery: Rev. A. E. Jackson, Pastor; Mr. E. L. Anthony, Industrial Department, and Mr. George N. Jewett, Teacher.

THE INDIANS.

A TOUR AMONG THE CLALLAM INDIANS.

REV. MYRON EELLS, S’KOKOMISH, W. T.

The last month has been spent in a tour among the Clallam Indians. Wishing to go further, and be absent from home longer than has been usual on such trips, my family, who had not been six miles away from home for more than two years, concluded to accompany me. Although steamers run the whole route of our travel, yet as they stop at but few of the places where the Indians live, and on the main part of the route go only once a week, it was impracticable for us to travel in that way, so we took a canoe from the Reservation with an Indian man and his wife, looked out for our own food, carried house and bed, stowed in the three babies, and away we went.

Our first call on Indians was at Port Gamble, fifty miles from home. Here are about one hundred, and they asked me to talk on temperance. During the last year and a half they have reformed in this respect. After pointing them to Christ as the source of their help, they had their talk. They said that one thing now troubles them. They live across Port Gamble Bay, an eighth of a mile from the saw-mill and town, in a village by themselves, on land owned by the mill company. They can manage the Indians as well as could be expected, but there is near them a white man with a black heart, who with his Indian wife often gets drunk, sometimes remaining so for a week at a time. They also tempt the weaker Indians; and now how to get rid of him is the question. As both he and they live on land belonging to the company, the only way I saw was for them to petition the superintendent to remove him. So after nine o’clock at night I wrote out a petition, which the chiefs and policemen and others signed, stating all the facts, and asking for this man’s removal. I was obliged to leave early the next morning, and so left them to present it. I have known of whites petitioning to have worthless Indians removed, but have never before known Indians to petition to have a white man removed because he was so low that they did not wish to have him near them. Two years ago they would not have done this, as many of them were glad to have an opportunity so convenient where they could obtain the liquid poison.

My next congregation was at Port Discovery, thirty-five miles farther on, and very much the same routine was observed at a number of places. My business with them was to preach; theirs with me was to talk about how and where to procure land in the best way. This was true at Port Angelos, Elkwa, and two settlements at Clallam Bay. For several years they have been urged to procure land so that they could feel warranted in erecting good houses, and thus leave the old ones, full of grease, dirt and smoke; but with the exception of those at Dunginess, very few have done so; now they begin to realize the benefits of it and have “land on the brain.” But they move cautiously, for it is easy for them to be deceived, and it is talk, talk, talk as to what is best. Two parties traveled to the Reservation about the time I was beginning my journey—a trip of two or three hundred miles—to consult about land.

At Dunginess a troublesome case begins. Four Indians, living fifty miles farther on, had been here three or four weeks previously, anxious to obtain the land on which their houses stood. They had been sent to the clerk of the Probate[Pg 343] Court, who knew nothing about it, but told them it was Government land, and offered to get it for them for the usual fees, nineteen dollars each. They paid him the seventy-six dollars, and he promised to send it to the land office at Olympia, and have their papers for them in two weeks. They waited the two weeks, but received no returns. In the meantime others told them that the man could lawfully do the business, but he was not to be trusted, for the land had been owned by private individuals for fifteen years. He, too, by the time I met him, had written to the land office and found the same to be true. My business is, if possible, to get the money back. It is useless to sue him, as he has no property which the law can touch. One of the four Indians returned with me to get his money, but was satisfied that it was useless for him to go farther, so he went home. He had already spent three weeks, and the three others two weeks each in trying to recover it. Yet this same man is Postmaster, Clerk of the Probate Court, U. S. Commissioner, Deputy Sheriff, and lately offered fifty dollars to the County Treasurer to be appointed his deputy. I was not disappointed at the result, but handed the business over to the agent to settle in Court.

Let us contrast the action of the Indians with this. I felt very sorry for them. For four years we have been advising them to obtain land, and now they were swindled in their first attempt. Fearful lest they should become discouraged, I offered them ten dollars to divide amongst them, saying, “If you never get your money I will lose this with you, but if you do you can then repay it.” One-tenth of my income has long been given to the Lord, and I felt that it would do as much good there as anywhere. When I first mentioned this they refused, saying that they did not wish me to lose my money, if they did theirs, but two weeks afterwards, when I left the last one he took it; yet shortly afterwards I found that he would not spend any of it, although he wanted some articles very much, saying that it was not their money after all.

This lower part of the Sound is very like the ocean, with nothing to break the winds, so I procured for that part of the journey a very large canoe, thirty-six feet long, two and a half deep and six wide. The children can play in it, and at night we anchored it out in some good harbor like a small schooner.

Hospitality was very generous. I thought that there were too many of us to go into anybody’s house; but at Dunginess, where we remained two or three days in connection with each of two Sabbaths, a woman said, in the absence of her husband, “You must all come in. If you pitch your tent I will set fire to it and burn it down.” We submitted. The agent at Neah Bay was just as hospitable, notwithstanding that his house already seemed to be full, and also the superintendent of the mill at Seabeck.

The weather was generally pleasant, but sometimes it rained hard. No one caught cold, however, on account of it. Camping on the sand is not so pleasant. Fresh water is so scarce as only to be used for drinking. We boil our potatoes in salt water, but get it near shore, and forget to let it settle. The potatoes crack, and the sand is all through them. Then baby crawls along and tips the rice over into the sand, and we all tramp the sand on to the beds, and into them, until our better half wishes herself at home, as it blows into the food-box and clothes-boxes and everywhere.

A WEDDING.

An Indian, who had been married Indian fashion for several years, but who had homesteaded a farm, thought it best to be married in a civilized way. He had never seen such a performance, so I explained all to him beforehand. But[Pg 344] when I was going through the ceremony and had just said, “You promise to take this woman to be your wife,” he interrupted me, saying, “Yes, of course I do. You do not suppose I am going to put away my wife now, after I have lived with her so long? See, here are my children, the oldest fifteen years old. It would be foolish for us now to separate.” I told him, “All right,” kept very sober, laughed in my sleeve, made a note of it, and proceeded to say, “You promise to love and honor her,” etc.

Twenty religious services were held during the journey, including one communion service, and one very pleasant prayer-meeting preparatory to it. Thus we spent the month of August, enjoyed it, and have enjoyed home all the more since reaching it.

CHILDREN’S PAGE.

CABIN PRAYER-MEETINGS—WHICH WAS THE HERO?

LILLIE E. BARR, ATLANTA, GA.

Dear Teachers and Children:

I wish I had space, so I could tell you all of the beautiful, interesting and helpful things that happen day by day in my work; but as I have not, I must content myself with giving you one or two incidents. First, let me tell you about an impromptu prayer-meeting held in one of the many cabins which dot the hills all over. A few nights ago I went to see a sweet old Christian, who for three years has not known an hour’s rest from pain, and yet is as merry as a cricket, receiving the little offerings of food and shelter which her poor neighbors bring her with cheerful gratitude as from her God. One day I asked her how she could be so patient and so gay. “Why, chile, it’s all on de journey, an’ I don’t know no reason why the way should be made easier fur me than it was fur the Master,” she answered. While I was trying to make her more comfortable, several women came in, none of whom could read, and after we had talked a little while about our sweet Lord Jesus, one said: “Please read the chapter where Jesus says: ‘I pray not for these alone, but for all of them who shall believe on me through their word.’” A little tin lamp was brought, and as I opened my Bible I glanced at the living picture before me. The lamp threw its feeble light over the patient sufferer, and lit up the dusky faces of the women bending eagerly forward as I read those blessed words. No sooner had I finished the chapter than one began that beautiful slave song, “Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus.” Instantly it was caught up. Our hearts had touched the heart of Christ in this grand prayer chapter. As soon as it was ended, another chapter was asked for, and then another, and another, intermingled with prayer and song. It was just such a prayer-meeting, I imagine, as the one held by the disciples when, being gathered together, Jesus stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” I knew, I felt that I had been with Jesus.

With the light and grace of this prayer-meeting still about us, we came down an alley and into a court known as Campbell’s Block. It is a square, built round with cabins of one or two rooms without windows. A large wash-shed and well occupy the centre of the court. Look now into the rooms; everywhere dirt and filth, crying children, quarreling children, women smoking, women dipping snuff, women idling, women washing, women fretted with care until they are[Pg 345] prematurely old, and not one woman in the block able to read, and so gain strength from the blessed word of God. And this block is one out of four in our field. One house only shows any sign that for the poor there is anything beautiful; but that, like a grand sermon, stands amid this misery and sin, from ground to roof a mass of flowers. I could not help thinking what a joy they must be to the ministering angels, as they pass through this place of suffering and sin. To me they were the promise of redemption for the block. Like a pure thought in a sinful heart we found old Mr. and Mrs. Pleasant in one of the rooms. He is blind and helpless with paralysis, consequently the providing of rent, food and clothes devolves upon his aged wife. After reading them the two last chapters in Revelation, the old man cried out: “It’s worth while being blind to know the first thing I shall see will be the New Jerusalem.” “Yes indeed, George, now we must work harder than ever to win home,” answered his wife, as she brushed the tears away. We have begun a prayer-meeting in this block, and I ask your prayers for its success. To these cases I might add ever so many more; but if I give you big folks any more room, I shall crowd my story to the children out, and that wouldn’t be one bit fair—would it, little ones?

I shall introduce my story by asking the boys to pay particular attention, as I want them to decide whether Jesse Dobbs or Jim Prescott—the two boys whom this story is about—is the true hero.

“Who minds de cold? Come on, Jesse; de boys is going to make up a company and have heaps of fun down by Big Bethel.” I must explain that Big Bethel is the name of a church.

Jesse glanced out at the sunshine and called, “Mammie, mayent I go with Jo down to Big Bethel?”

As the answer was yes, the two bounded away and soon joined several boys, the leader of whom, from his coarse, bloated face to his heavily booted feet, was the very picture of a young ruffian. As Jesse and Jo came up he was saying, “Dare aint a fatter roost to pick den old Judge Gibbs’ in de world; ’sides dat, you ken git 15 cents a piece fur every chick’n. Den you brings de money to me, and I gibs you so much out of it. ’Stand what I say?”

“Yar, yar,” came from the other boys.

“’Sides dat, dares heaps of fun clearing off a chick’n roost, and I, fur one, aint feared to go into nobody’s yard. Now is you gwine to be ready to-night to follow your captain? I’s your captain.”

“Captain of what?” asked Jesse.

“Captain of the roost-clearing brigade; dat’s what. Is you going to jine us, Dobbs? If you aint I’ll most kill you fur coming here to spy into our plans.”

Jesse paused an instant, then he said, “No.”

“Why not, I’d jist like fur to know?” demanded Jim, angrily.

“Because I aint going to jine no thieving company.”

The words were hardly spoken before Jim lifted his foot and kicked him in the side. Kick followed kick in such rapid succession, that Jesse was almost senseless before Jim could be pulled off; and when I formed his acquaintance he had been in bed nine months, a large tumor having formed in the side where he had been kicked. When I asked him about lying so long in bed, he answered:

“At first the time was awful long, but by-and-by I began to take notice how mother worried when I ’plained of de pain and de tiredness, so I took to trying not to ’plain fore her, and that kinder drawed off my ’tention from de pain.”

For nine months he had been trying to help his mother by being patient. Three weeks ago he died from the effects of that cruel kick—died forgiving all who had injured him, and bearing his[Pg 346] cross of suffering like a noble little Christian to the end.

Which was the hero—Jim, who boasted he wasn’t afraid to steal from any man, or Jesse, who wasn’t afraid to say no, although forewarned that he would be almost killed if he said it?

I say Jesse was.

What do you all say?

From this story I hope you will all try to be more gentle and loving, for we never know what months of pain and suffering, not only to others, but also to ourselves, one rude action may cause.