The American Missionary

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

PRESIDENT.

Hon. Wm. B. Washburn, LL.D., Mass.

VICE-PRESIDENTS.

Rev. C. L. Goodell, D.D.; Rev. F. A. Noble, D.D.; Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, D.D.; Rev. J. E. Rankin, D.D.; Rev. Alex. McKenzie, D.D.

Corresponding Secretary.—Rev. M. E. Strieby, D.D., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.

Treasurer.—H. W. Hubbard, Esq., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.

Auditors.—Wm. A. Nash, W. H. Rogers.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

John H. Washburn, Chairman; A. P. Foster, Secretary; Lyman Abbott, A. S. Barnes, J. R. Danforth, Clinton B. Fisk, S. B. Halliday, Edward Hawes, Samuel Holmes, Charles A. Hull, Samuel S. Marples, Charles L. Mead, S. H. Virgin, Wm. H. Ward, J. L. Withrow.

DISTRICT SECRETARIES.

Rev. C. L. Woodworth, D.D., Boston. Rev. G. D. Pike, D.D., New York.

Rev. James Powell, Chicago.

COMMUNICATIONS

relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to the Corresponding Secretary; those relating to the collecting fields, to the District Secretaries; letters for the Editor of the “American Missionary.” to Rev. G. D. Pike, D.D., at the New York Office; letters for the Bureau of Woman’s Work, to Miss D. E. Emerson, at the New York Office.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

may be sent to H. W. Hubbard, Treasurer, 56 Reade Street, New York, or, when more convenient, to either of the Branch Offices, 21 Congregational House, Boston, Mass., or 112 West Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member.

FORM OF A BEQUEST.

“I bequeath to my executor (or executors) the sum of ——— dollars, in trust, to pay the same in ——— days after my decease to the person who, when the same is payable, shall act as Treasurer of the ‘American Missionary Association,’ of New York City, to be applied, under the direction of the Executive Committee of the Association, to its charitable uses and purposes.” The Will should be attested by three witnesses.

THE

American Missionary.

American Missionary Association.

We send this number of the Missionary to some who do not receive it regularly, hoping they will find it of such interest, and the work it represents of so much concern, that they will be induced to become regular subscribers. The price is 50 cents.

Fifty Gold Dollars.—One of the newly-elected members of our Executive Committee has placed in our treasury fifty gold dollars, given to him to be used in charity, at his discretion, by a friend in New Haven, who adopted this method of commemorating his fiftieth birthday. The example is a good one, and we hope there are scores of others who will follow it without necessarily waiting until they are fifty before doing so.

ANNUAL MEETING.

The Annual Meeting of this Association, held in Brooklyn, will be remembered as one of special interest for several reasons: (1.) The work done during the year was unusually encouraging; and the reports of the committees on the several parts were discriminating and full. (2.) The financial exhibit, showing once more a surplus of receipts over expenditure, with, however, a falling off in the income from the living, was examined with candor and with warm recommendations for more liberal gifts. (3.) A topic of much interest to the Association and to an honored sister missionary society was considered at length in several papers, which we present to our readers in full, without, however, intending to hold the Association responsible for the individual views therein expressed.

The great number of the reports, papers and addresses compels us to select and abridge, reserving some for publication in future numbers of the Missionary or in the Annual Report. Papers relating to work for women will appear in the January number of the Missionary, and the Sermon, as usual, will be found in the Annual Report.

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ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING.

The Thirty-seventh Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association was held in the commodious Central Congregational Church, Brooklyn, N.Y., beginning Tuesday, Oct. 30, at 3 P.M. In the absence of the President, detained by illness, Rev. J. E. Rankin, D.D., one of the Vice-Presidents, presided. Rev. C. P. Osborne was appointed Scribe, and Revs. F. E. Snow and G. P. Lane Assistant Scribes. Committees were appointed as follows:

On Nominations. Rev. G. R. W. Scott, D.D., Rev. Wm. A. Robinson, Hon. David N. Camp, Rev. E. O. Bartlett and Rev. P. B. Davis.

Business. Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, D.D., Rev. W. W. Scudder, D.D., Rev. Frank Ayer, Rev. E. B. Palmer, H. H. Ricker, Esq.

Arrangements. A. S. Barnes, Esq., Chas. A. Hull, Esq., Rev. G. D. Pike, D.D., Wm. G. Hoople, Esq., Richard M. Montgomery, Esq., G. Johnson, Jr., Esq. and Rev. S. B. Halliday.

Indian Missions. Rev. Joseph Anderson, D.D., Rev. C. C. Painter, Gen. S. C. Armstrong, Rev. Cushing Eells, D.D., and Mr. Wm. H. McKinney.

Chinese Missions. Rev. Wm. Alvin Bartlett, D.D., Rev. Geo. M. Boynton, Rev. Evarts Scudder, Rev. S. L. Blake, D.D., and Rev. Geo. S. Smith.

Educational Work. President S. C. Bartlett, D.D., Rev. Washington Gladden, D.D., Rev. C. G. Fairchild, Rev. G. L. Ewell, Rev. E. W. Bacon.

Church Work. Prof. Llewellyn Pratt, Rev. T. P. Prudden, Rev. C. L. Woodworth, D.D., Rev. Isaac Hall, Rev. G. F. Gleason.

Finance. Dea. Eliezur Porter, Rev. William M. Taylor, D.D., Rev. D. O. Mears, D.D., Hon. H. D. Smith, Rev. Erastus Blakeslee.

H. W. Hubbard, Esq., Treasurer, read his annual report, which was referred to the Committee on Finance. Rev. J. E. Roy, D.D., presented the report of the Executive Committee, which was referred to the appropriate committees. Rev. G. M. Boynton read the report of the Committee on the Constitution, which was referred to a special committee. A half hour was spent in prayer and song.

Tuesday evening, at 7:30, Rev. Joseph Anderson, D.D., conducted devotional services, and Rev. J. L. Withrow, D.D., of Boston, preached the annual sermon, from Luke, 9:24. Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, D.D., made an address of welcome. The Lord’s Supper was administered by Rev. Samuel Scoville and Rev. W. S. Palmer, D.D.

Wednesday morning, Rev. R. B. Howard conducted a half-hour prayer-meeting. At 9 o’clock Dr. Rankin took the chair and read an address on “The Gospel of Christ our only Solvent for Race Difficulties.” A committee to confer with the Conference Committee of the Am. Home Miss. Society selected at Saratoga, was appointed as follows: President, S. C. Bartlett, D.D.; Rev. J. L. Withrow, D.D., Rev. Washington Gladden, D.D., Rev. D. O. Mears, D.D., and Rev. Wm. H. Ward, D.D.

Rev. D. K. Flickinger, D.D., Secretary of the Board of the United Brethren in Christ, gave an account of the Mendi Mission.

Rev. A. H. Bradford read a paper on “Woman in Modern Charity and Missions.” Rev. G. M. Boynton read a paper on “The Place of Missionary Literature in the Conversion of the World.”

Prof. Albert Salisbury, of Atlanta, Ga., read a paper entitled: “For What are We Sent?” Rev. A. A. Myers, of Williamsburg, Ky., read a paper on the “Mountain White Work.”

Five-minute speeches were made by Rev. Isaac H. Hall, of New Orleans, La.;[355] Rev. Geo. S. Smith, of Raleigh, N.C., and Rev. Alfred Connet, of McLeansville, N.C.

Wednesday afternoon, Rev. W. H. Ward, D.D., made a report on a visit to the Dakota mission. The report of the Committee on Indian Missions was read by Rev. Joseph Anderson, D.D., Chairman, and addresses upon Indian affairs were made by Dr. Anderson, Rev. Cushing Eells, D.D., Rev. Samuel G. Rankin and Rev. Anson Gleason, formerly missionary to the Choctaws. The report of the Committee on Chinese Missions was presented by Rev. Wm. Alvin Bartlett, D.D., Chairman, who also made an address.

On motion of Rev. S. Wolcott, D.D., Resolved, That we place on record our thorough disapproval, as an Association, of the exclusive and prohibitory legislation of our government relative to the Chinese. The report of the Committee on the Constitution was presented by Rev. W. S. Palmer, Chairman, and accepted. After discussion the Amended Constitution was adopted with no dissenting vote.

Evening Session.—Devotional Services were conducted by Rev. J. M. Whiton, Ph. D. Addresses were made by a Chinaman, Ju Sing, from Oakland, Cal.; by an Indian, Wm. Harrison McKinney, of the Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, a recent graduate of Roanoke University; by a negro, Rev. J. C. Price, of Salisbury, N. C., graduate of Lincoln University in 1879, and by Secretary James Powell. The exercises were interspersed with singing by a choir of nine young Chinamen, resident in Brooklyn and members of the Central Church Sunday-School.

Thursday Morning.—The half-hour prayer meeting was conducted by Rev. Geo. S. Smith. At 9 o’clock Dr. Rankin resumed the chair. Secretary M. E. Strieby read a paper on “Caste in America.” President S. C. Bartlett read the report of the Committee on Educational Work and made an address on that subject. A committee to consider Secretary Strieby’s paper on “Caste in America” was appointed, consisting of Deacon Samuel Holmes, General E. Whittlesey, Rev. S. Wolcott, D.D., Rev. G. M. Boynton, Rev. D. L. Furber, D.D. Rev. Washington Gladden, D.D., made an address on “Illiteracy in the South.” Rev. Edward W. Bacon, Rev. C. G. Fairchild, and Rev. John L. Ewell, made addresses upon the different phases of educational work at the South. Brief remarks were also made by Rev. A. P. Foster and Rev. R. B. Howard.

Thursday Afternoon.—After devotional services, Professor Llewellyn Pratt, D.D., read the report of the Committee on Church Work, and Rev. T. P. Prudden followed with an address. Rev. Erastus Blakeslee read the report of the Committee on Finance. Dr. Wm. M. Taylor made an address on “What the Bible Says About Giving.” Rev. D. O. Mears, D.D., made an address on “The Function and Privilege of the Churches.” Mrs. A. A. Myers, of Kentucky, read a statement regarding the mountain people of the South.

The following resolution was passed: “Whereas, the Finance Committee, after careful examination of the needs of the Association, have recommended that the contributions of churches, Sunday-schools and individuals for the coming year be increased 50 per cent, above the amount given by them during the past year, therefore, Resolved, That we approve this recommendation of the Finance Committee, and urge contributors everywhere to increase their contributions accordingly.”

The Committee appointed to consider Secretary Strieby’s paper on Caste in America made report through the Chairman, Dea. S. Holmes.

Officers for the coming year were elected as printed on second page of cover.

The following resolution offered by Rev. E. Blakeslee was adopted: Resolved, That if the Executive Committee now elected have any question as to their legal status under the Constitution, they be and hereby are authorized to take legal[356] advice thereon, and, if competent to do so, to arrange themselves in three classes according to the terms of the new Constitution.

Thursday Evening.—Rev. A. P. Foster conducted the devotional services.

Addresses were made by Rev. S. R. Dennen on “Spiritual Life the Supreme Power in Your Work,” and by Dr. Wm. M. Barbour, on “Spiritual Vitality the Crowning Necessity in Missionary Work.”

A resolution of thanks offered by Secretary Woodworth was adopted, and Dr. Behrends responded for the Brooklyn people in fitting terms, and the meeting was dissolved.

All the sessions were characterized by a hopeful spirit and by deep spirituality which found frequent expression in the voice of prayer.

SUMMARY OF THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE TREASURER OF THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION FOR THE YEAR ENDING SEPT. 30th, 1883.

ABSTRACT OF THE GENERAL SURVEY.

WORK IN AFRICA.

Mendi Mission. The income of the Avery Fund and the “John Brown” steamer have been transferred for five years to the United Brethren, who have a mission—Shengay—adjoining Mendi.

The Arthington mission and fund have been offered to the United Presbyterians, who have a successful mission in Egypt.

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INDIAN WORK.

Dakota missions transferred from the American Board to the A. M. A., except the six churches of Sisseton Agency, which had been transferred to the Home Mission Board of Pres. Gen. Assembly. Leaving out those, we have now, including the mission in Washington Territory, 5 stations, 9 schools, 5 churches, 12 missionaries, 25 teachers, 1 native pastor, 12 native teachers, 271 church members, 356 pupils, 584 Sunday-school scholars.

WORK AMONG THE CHINESE.

At our recommendation the American Board has opened a mission at Hong Kong, China, a rally-centre for converted Chinamen returning to their native land.

In California the last year—Rev. W. C. Pond, Superintendent—19 schools; 2,823 scholars; 40 teachers, of whom 14 are Chinese; 175 have ceased from idolatry; 121 give evidence of conversion; 400 during history of mission have turned to Christ.

WORK AMONG NEGROES.

Work in twelve States of the South, and in Kansas and District of Columbia; 8 chartered institutions; 12 high and normal schools; 42 common schools; 279 teachers; and 9,640 students. The Theological Department of Howard University has 34 students; Talladega, 14; Fisk, 9; and Straight, 13, with 20 students in law.

New Buildings: “Whitin Hall,” at New Orleans; “Cassedy Hall,” at Talladega; Stone Hall at Atlanta finished; Library Building at Macon, Ga.; schoolhouse at Hillsboro, N.C.; at Memphis, Le Moyne Institute enlarged.

Industrial Work: Farms at Talladega and Tougaloo and Atlanta; shops at Memphis, Tougaloo, Macon, Charleston; cooking, nursing, sewing, taught at Atlanta, Fisk, Tougaloo; house-work in all the eight boarding schools.

Church Work: Six new churches—At McLean’s, N.C.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Birmingham, Ala.; Jackson, Miss.; Fayetteville, Ark.; Belle Place, La.

The six new churches of last year are all doing well. Total number churches, 89; members, 5,974, an average of 67; additions, 667; on profession, 528; Sunday-school scholars, 9,406; raised for church purposes, $12,027.21; benevolent contributions, $1,049.35.

Six new church edifices built at Pekin, Oaks and McLean’s, in N.C.; at Knoxville, Tenn.; Louisville, Ky.; Mobile, Ala. and Belle Place, La.; Brick Church at Lawrence, Kan., rebuilt.

MOUNTAIN WHITE WORK.

Besides original churches and schools in Kentucky, a new church and academy at Williamsburg, Ky. Other missions coming on around this place. The academy has had 108 scholars, who have paid as tuition $303—not one failing to pay. Work encouraging. Color question tested and carried in accordance with the principles of A. M. A.

WOMAN’S BUREAU.

From September, 1861, on to the present time women have been prominent workers. By 1864, 169 women workers; in 1865, 261; in 1866, 264; in 1870, 450; in 1869, 2,000 different ladies had served; and to date not less than 3,000, an army of Gospelers! Among Indians, 17 lady missionaries. Among Chinese in California, 24 lady missionary teachers.

Miss D. E. Emerson has been appointed as secretary. She is experienced on the field, and acquainted with the details of office work, as clerk for the southern field.

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WANTS.

1. For current work, $1,000 for every day of the year.

2. Endowments in the several institutions.

3. A Boys’ Hall at Tillotson Institute, Austin, Texas.

4. $10,000 to add to Edward Smith’s $10,000 to build the first hall, at Little Rock, of Edward Smith’s College, for whose campus (14 acres) he paid $5,500, already greatly enhanced in price. New hall to be named for second donor.

SAYINGS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING.

—Prof. Albert Salisbury: I do not approve the factory idea of industrial instruction.

—Dr. Withrow: Selfishness is as sure to destroy what it seeks to save as a cancer is to kill.

Never in this world was a monument made to memorialize a mere money-getter.

—Dr. Behrends: The color-line is only a section, and a very small section at that, of the race-line.

It is not in India alone that the existence of caste constitutes one of the most serious obstacles to the progress of the Gospel.

—Dr. Rankin: For Southern educational work this Society has put in millions by the side of the United States Government’s millions. The Government has given $5,000,000, this Society has given $5,000,000.

Westminster Abbey opened of its own accord to take the dust of David Livingstone. Why? Because he stretched himself on Africa, as the prophet stretched himself on the dead body of the widow’s son.

—Rev. A. H. Bradford: Florence Nightingale robbed war of half its terrors.

These Women’s Boards of Missions do more than all other means combined to keep alive the missionary spirit.

The women of our day have reversed the Apostolic injunction and are reading it, “Help those men.” We need to restore the original reading, “Help those women.”

—Rev. Isaac Hall: Speaking of the colored people’s futile efforts to solve the race problem, he said: First we thought we would go to Africa, but we couldn’t get ships enough: then we thought we would go to Kansas, but we couldn’t get cars enough; then, since we couldn’t get away, we decided we would stay; and now what are you going to do about it?

—Dr. Wm. Alvin Bartlett stigmatized the California law which forbade a Chinaman to live in an apartment with less than 500 cubic feet of air, and punished him with imprisonment in a cell with less than 200 feet of air.

The Chinese are not illiterate, but it is objected that they are too numerous. Why, there are hardly Chinamen enough in our country to be schoolmasters of our countrymen who cannot read and write.

But the Chinese worship their ancestors. Well, I would rather revere my ancestors than leave my children such pernicious doctrine as the anti-Chinese people teach. It is better to worship your ancestors than to damn your posterity.

—Ju Sing recognized the fact that all Americans are not hostile to Chinamen. “We know that there are some God’s people, and some devil’s people.”

—Nine young Chinamen, residents of Brooklyn and members of the Central Sunday-School, sang Gospel Hymns. They also sang “Pass me not, O Gentle Saviour,” done into Chinese, Jim Sing taking the solo.

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—Secretary Powell: Now that slavery has gone, there must go with it blind-eyed prejudice and anti-Christian caste.

—Rev. J. C. Price, North Carolina: At the close of the war Canaan was not entered, as a recent decision of the Supreme Court tells us, but the Red Sea was crossed. Has the Negro grown? Then his chief object was to be in Gen. Sherman’s army; if not in it in the wake of it. Now he is looking about for property and education.

The colored people of Georgia alone have acquired a property of $6,000,000. In North Carolina from twelve to fifteen newspapers are edited, owned and controlled by colored people.

If God has made the Negro a man, he requires of him all the work of a man. Then let Christian people do all they can to qualify him for that work. He quotes the words of the Secretary: “The true solution of the Negro problem is not to change his color or his place of residence, but to change his character.”

—Sec. Strieby: This Society is not handicapped for this work except by its firm and well-known attitude against caste, and any other Society equally faithful on that subject would soon be equally handicapped.

—Pres. Bartlett claimed to represent an institution that from the very first has rejected the color line; a century ago it was educating the Indians, a half a century the Negro shared its privileges. Speaking of the Negro’s unquestioned piety he said: “He sees hell impending, heaven before him and the chariot swings low.”

—Dr. Gladden: No man has a right to engage in the work of governing who does not know what just government is. I protest against that kind of government.

From 1870 to 1880 the colored voters at the South increased 30 per cent.; their illiteracy increased only 20 per cent. The whites at the South are gaining in intelligence but little, the blacks splendidly. Most of the gain South is due to the education of the Negro.

How do you account for this gain? Did you ever hear of Fisk and Berea and Atlanta? The census tables have heard of them if you have not.

Any society that is as really and thoroughly Christian as this one will meet the same objection as this one.

—Dr. Taylor: “Bring an offering and come unto my courts.” In Scotland, where I was brought up, the first act of worship was to lay a piece of money on the table.

Sometimes a man assigns a debt so that what is due him is paid to another. So the Lord Jesus has assigned the debt, and we are to pay a large part of what we owe to him to the poor and needy; to the benighted and degraded; to the Indian, the Negro and the heathen that need the light.

—Dr. Dennen: Speaking of denominational antipathies, he was reminded of the brass oxen under the brazen laver standing with their rumps toward each other and their eyes directed away to their own selfish interests.

THE CROSS OF CHRIST THE ONLY SOLVENT FOR RACE DIFFICULTIES.

Rev. J. E. Rankin, D.D., who presided happily at our annual meeting, read an interesting opening address, from which we give the following extracts:

The Cross of Christ proves man’s universal brotherhood. If He is our brother-man, we are His brother-men.

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When last night we took that bread and drank that wine, what did we do? We symbolized Christ’s human brotherhood. This He did for humanity’s sake. What taint of Judaism had He? What recognition did He ever make that He belonged to any single nationality, to any single tribe, to any single class? Is He brother-man to the Jew only, because he was born of a Jewish mother? Is He any less brother-man to the Gentile? When we ate that bread, we ate that which sets forth, what? God manifest in the flesh. God manifest in the flesh of humanity. Not because we are Anglo-Saxon, and have the Anglo-Saxon Bible, the Anglo-Saxon literature, the Anglo-Saxon civilization, the Anglo-Saxon freedom and manhood, of which we are so proud, have you and I a claim to this Brother-man? It is because we are on the same human level with the other races, from which we so much differ, and above which God has given us such an exaltation. For such were we. It is because we are brother-men to Frederick Douglas, and Sitting Bull, and the last Chinaman who has been smuggled from the Celestial kingdom, because the continent is too narrow for him and us. It is because we are so low and not because we are so high, that we had a right to sit there; to eat that bread, and drink that cup. That broken bread is the emblem, not of Anglo-Saxon humanity, but of lost, degraded, fallen humanity.

The Cross of Christ interprets man’s universal brotherhood. It needs to be interpreted. It is the last thing man learns here; that in Christ Jesus the humblest man is his equal. Ask almost any man if he wants the elevation of his brother-man; if he wants his brother-man in India, in China, in Japan, in the South, or on the Pacific Coast, made his equal, and given a chance to outstrip him, in the struggle for betterment? And he will usually answer, “Why yes, of course. Do I not pray for it and contribute for it?” But, will you sacrifice your prejudices for his sake? He needs different religious influences, different educational influences, different social influences, he needs to feel that he is no longer ostracised, and that he may aspire for himself and his children, just as you may. Will you adopt him into your religious, educational, social circles? But, you reply: “That is a society question.” It is a society question. And you belong to the Kingdom of God; to the unseen society, which, by the power of His Cross, this God-Man, who took the form of a servant, is gathering out of the nations; you have fellowship with Him, in His humiliation for humanity’s sake. And yet, you propose to decide this question according to the laws and usages of a society to which you do not belong, out of which God has called you, and against whose inhumanity to man, against whose worldly pride the Cross is a standard lifted up by God himself. You are under the most sacred of bonds to record your testimony as belonging to quite another society.

In what sense, after all, are we brothers? Can society answer this question? Can anything but the Cross of Christ? The Saviour gives us a picture of what it is to be a true neighbor in the parable of the Good Samaritan. “Who,” asks He, “was neighbor to him that fell among thieves?” He that thought it was a society question, a question of caste; he who came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side? He that put money into the contribution box for him, or sent some one else to help him to the hospital? No; only the man that set him upon his own beast, carried him to an inn, and took care of him. A man cannot live a neighbor to man if he is not living a neighbor to God, as he is in Christ Jesus.

Before the war, there was organized a benevolent society, whose anniversary occurs the present week—a society to preach the Gospel among the heathen. Its founders said, “We cannot take money that has been coined from slave labor. It is the price of innocent blood. It cries up to God for vengeance.”

What is the history of that society? Why, the smoke of our civil contest had[362] hardly cleared away before it began to build up the waste places of the South, heaping coals of fire upon the people there. Under its auspices, the choicest daughters of New England (as though they had been angels of God) went down there, with the spelling-book and the Bible; took their share of the ostracism meted out to the recent bondmen, for Jesus’ sake; many of them laid down their lives there. There has scarcely been a foreign missionary field in the world which has had more perils, which has demanded greater sacrifices, which has developed spirits more heroic, more Christ-like. The same spirit which led our brave boys in blue to die to make men free, led their sisters to die to make them holy. And what do you see to-day? This society has done more to stay the tide of illiteracy, to lay the foundations of permanent civil and religious prosperity than all the other agencies put together. God’s secret is with them that fear Him. The men who, for Christ’s sake, said, “We cannot set apart to God that which has come from unpaid human labor; we cannot thus have fellowship with the works of darkness;” these men God has put into the fore-front of the great battle with ignorance and degradation—the great battle in which the South begins to ask the Nation which cannot protect the black man to come to her assistance, crying out, like Caesar to Cassius, “Help, Cassius, or we sink!” They got their baptism at the foot of the Cross. Look at the queenly institutions which they have planted. Look at the thousands of the sons and daughters of Ethiopia, whom they have developed into the mental, moral and spiritual stature of true manhood; whom they have polished after the similitude of a palace, fitted for professions, for business, for home life. Look at the churches they have planted. This is their conception of the brotherhood of man, as they have been taught it at the Cross, as the Cross has interpreted it to them.

THE PLACE OF MISSIONARY LITERATURE IN THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD.

REV. GEO. M. BOYNTON.

The literature of missions has a threefold function in its relation to the conversion of the world: to inform, to quicken and to direct. It would be hard to over-estimate the importance of the history and record of missionary efforts and successes in their relation to the intelligence of the Christian people of our land and our day. If we are exhorted to add to our faith, virtue (manly and holy enterprise) and to virtue, knowledge, the exhortation must apply (next to the knowledge of God[363] and of His word) to the knowledge of the history and progress of His kingdom in the world.

We do not call him even a fairly intelligent citizen of the United States who does not know something of the history of his own country—who does not know the general order of its great questions and great conflicts. What shall we say of one who claims to have his citizenship in heaven and yet is willingly ignorant of the great battle-grounds of Christ’s kingdom of even the near past, and so knows nothing of the questions which agitate the present day or the forces of the foes now in the field?

It is no small thing to follow the current history of the world, as it has been brought so near to us in our day, and yet with what eagerness the morning paper is looked for in every home of even ordinary intelligence; and after the half-hour’s search, how often to the question, “What is there of interest to-day?” the answer comes, “Oh, nothing.” The journals are full of manufactured news; political squabbles; stories of scandal and of crime; with now and then some event which marks a step in the world’s progress of more than ordinary consequence. It is often said that our missionary periodicals are not of thrilling interest, but I am willing to leave it to the testimony of any candid man whether they do not at least fairly approximate the secular press in interest and ability, only that men are more eager to know what is going on in the kingdoms of this world than in the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is the appetite which largely gives its savor to the food. When our hearts are all aglow with love to the Master of us all, and we want to know, above all things, that he is being satisfied with the travail of his soul, we do not count the tidings of the advancement of his kingdom dull. If his interests are ours, we shall watch them.

One of the great requisites to giving or praying is that men should know to what their alms are directed and for what their prayers go up to God. Let the missionary press, then, give us information, and give it freely. The men and the women who read want to have, not the impressions of other people reproduced, but the details which made those impressions. They want the facts, set forth with vivid exactness, with life-like coloring. It is only now and then one of our missionaries at the front who seems to comprehend that he must make us see what he sees, and must remember that his reflections upon the things that have become familiar to him will not make us familiar with the facts. If he can stir our imaginations and make us his attendants during his day’s work, we shall be led to sympathy and support.

When the Church Missionary Society of London was making its exploration into Africa the long pages of journal written on the spot from day to day were the most thrilling pages of current history that were being written; and many of you have not forgotten the diary of our own Dr. Ladd of his journey up the Nile. Nothing should be spared to open the eyes of the givers and the prayers to what you may call instantaneous views of the workers at their work. Give us the facts in the best possible shape if you want our sympathy, our prayers, our money. Until you have done that, you cannot, if you would, call down on us the condemnation spoken to him that “seeth his brother have need” and does not help him.

But Christian character needs inspiration as well as information. It needs not only to know, but to feel; not only to have its eyes made clear to see, but its heart stimulated to a worthy enthusiasm. We do not get our inspiration so much from great events as from great men. Souls are quickened by quickening souls. The contagion of enthusiasm spreads from life to life. That in the literature of missions, which will especially kindle missionary enthusiasm is to be found in the veins of the noble lives of the men and women who have counted their lives[364] not worth the keeping, for their love for Christ and for the Kingdom of whom this world was not worthy, and who, in the world, were least of all men of it.

What other fuel can you find to build a fire of grand enthusiasm for the Master like the one you have in the biography of missions? Nowhere away from the sacred record can you find nobler events of Christian living and devotion. Nowhere are there grander illustrations of the spirit of Christian heroism. Nowhere more stirring suggestions of the possible attainments of Christian grace.

Nor do I recall a missionary biography which is morbid and so misleading—which sets up an introspective and dyspeptic type of piety as a model and standard. The missionary has no time to be morbid. He has made a consecration of all his energies to his Master. His life is led actually and daily by the high purpose which he has set before him. His biography is not a picture of still life. He cannot stop to take becoming attitudes, even before his own eyes. He has no time to write a journal of his supposed spiritual states. If you take his photograph you must take him in motion, as nowadays they take a horse upon the race-track, and you get him with every muscle set and every nerve charged with life.

I know no better books for men or boys, for matrons or maidens, than such books as these, in which you have such lives embalmed.

Where can you find a manlier life than that of John Coleridge Patteson, Bishop of Melanesia, his diocese the island of the sea, inhabited by blacks. The story of his patience and his pluck and cheerful confidence is enough to dispel the worst type of malarial saintship—shaky and intermittent. To see him with his senior bishop approaching a new island, rowing in his small boat as near as was safe to the breakers, and then the two pioneers of the Gospel taking a header through the waves and swimming to the land to tell the Gospel of great joy to the dusky and unclad islanders! There’s tonic in the very reading. He could be a bishop without robes or titles. God had sent him to be an overseer of lone regions and lost souls. Or what could be more tragic than the final scene of his death by the treacherous arrows of the natives, and the ghastly tableau of the still young hero of God floating out in the boat alone toward his waiting friends.

There is a biography yet unwritten of one connected with the work of this Association which, if it could be spread upon the record, would equal this in the sincerity of his devotion, in purity of his motive, in his bearing patiently when nearly all men spoke ill of him, for Christ’s sake and the Gospel’s, and even friends for a time began to doubt him, in his readiness to take up the hardest thing there was to do until the end. You will know of whom I speak when I tell you that he was equally the friend of the Indian and of the negro; that he became the target of all the shafts of malice when he sought to protect the poor Indian from his worse than savage foes within the capital of the nation and on the western reservation; that he became the victim of the deadly malaria of the African coast, where he had gone to reorganize and direct the work of this Association in the Mendi Mission. I speak of one whom we all delight to honor and call reverend—the Reverend Edward P. Smith.

And there are others still upon the field, whose names may or may not be known to any wide fame with men, and women, too, who have hazarded their lives for the privilege of preaching and of teaching in the name of Christ. We cannot afford to lose the records of such positive and aggressive Christianity for their stimulus to the Christian character of those at home and those whose characters are forming yet.

Dr. Goodell names as one of the ten ways by which the world is to be saved, that we keep the home and Sunday-school libraries full of that most interesting and profitable of all our literature for the young, the books written by Christ’s soldiers[365] upon the field of battle. I would emphasize even more than that—the books written about these heroes of the faith and their lives of earnest and joyful sacrifice. Who will not acknowledge that we need the inspiration in our day?

If the Christian world needs for its own sake the information and the inspiration which can only come from the literature of missions, the missionary work itself needs equally this means to make its opportunities known to the Christian world.

That is only in part, if at all, a Christian church which is not a missionary church as well. The salt which has lost its savor is no longer salt. It will save deception if you take off the label. It is “good for nothing,” and is to be cast into the street only to get rid of it, and not because it is good for a road.

The true Church of Christ is concerned about the progress of his kingdom, is in earnest sympathy with those who are at the front, is eager in its outlook for new opportunities of service. To such a waiting ear—and, brethren, it is waiting—come through the missionary press the tidings of opportunity, the sound of doors, long closed, creaking on their hinges as they fling open for the feet of the delaying messengers of grace. This is the telephone which summons to instant response. It sounds in the counting-rooms of our men of business, and invites them to new investments in behalf of those for whom God goes security, for “he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.” It rings its summons in our Theological Seminaries and among our younger brethren in the ministry, and calls them to occupy until He comes. It goes into the offices of the organizations through which the churches reach the needy east and west, north and south, and says not pull down your barns, but build greater ones; for, as are the broad farms of the West to the old New England homesteads, so are the harvests to be reaped to those which have been already gathered in. It mixes in our homes, and calls on our sons and daughters to the waiting work.

And neither we at home, nor those in the broad field, can afford to be left unnoticed or uncalled. They need it that souls may be born into the kingdom; we need it that we may by pure toil and sacrifice grow unto the stature and the likeness of our risen Lord.

The Church of Christ will not know more of the advancement of His kingdom or of its hindrances than it is told. God will not save us the trouble of the inquiry or the report. The Church of Christ will have no more enthusiasm in the work than it gets by entering into sympathy with those who do it, and with Him who died that it might go on.

And yet, in the light of all this already trite and quite self-evident truth, you hear it said, even by those who are concerned in the progress of the work, “What are we going to do with this increasing mass of missionary literature? We are quite flooded with it, and especially with these periodicals, these Missionary Heralds, and Home Missionaries and American Missionaries. Can’t we make it less? Can’t we combine them and double the thing up? It bothers us.” Ah, brethren, the wonder is that we do not cry for more and better. The wonder is not that so many take the missionary magazines, but so few, and that so few of those who take them read them.

Brethren, the time will come—if the time comes when men seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, not last—that Christian men and women will not want to wait a month to glance over the few pages of a missionary magazine; but will want to know the latest news of the advancement of Christ’s Kingdom in the morning before they look to see the stock-list or the scandal-list of the day before. When the question of the morning will be what new progress, what new delays, what new need for the advancing hosts of Christian warriors; and at night the[366] thought will be, the sun has gone to shine on other fields and other laborers, and while we sleep this work goes on. And in those days it shall go on with speed and sureness.

Let our missionary literature then be not lessened in quantity or deteriorated in quality. Let not our agents think the time is lost in which they stop to tell us of the work. The growth of Christ’s people at home is as important as the conquests of His grace abroad, indeed, the last will be largely proportioned to the first. Let ingenuity and enterprise be put into these channels of communication. Let the facts be fresh and full—more fresh and full than ever. Let them be clothed in choice and skillful diction. Let us leave the arts which the satanic or the merely mundane press monopolize to their uses. Let us not grudge the cost. It is not cost of administration at all. It is not cost of collection, though it helps that department greatly. It is more than all the missionary work of each society for the constituency that supports it. Our churches and our Christians here at home need it for their own vitalizing and the direction of their awakened energies. If our fires be not kept up at home the warmth will not be diffused. These are days of organization. It used to be that if a man had lost his way in these then dark country roads some one must go out alone with his hand-lantern to guide him to safe shelter. Now your streets are full of lamps, and your illuminated signs band them at every corner. You may take all the care that is possible of the lamps and burners; it will do no good if you neglect to keep the fires up where the illuminating gas is made. If the fires go out there the lights go out in every street and home. Do not let us ask these organizations to lessen their efforts to inform, to quicken and to guide our missionary zeal at home, as though it were not an important part of their legitimate work.

REPORT ON CHINESE WORK.

The report of your committee on the Chinese Department of the American Missionary Association is as follows: The keynote of the year’s work is success. Four more schools, 256 more scholars enrolled, nine more teachers, with an increase of four Chinese instructors. The number of those professing to forsake idolatry in excess of last year, 19. There have 121 given good evidence of conversion—last year 106, making 400 who have embraced Christianity during the history of the Mission. Only seven thousand dollars of the nearly twelve thousand dollars expenses of the mission came out of the treasury of the Association. The number of local churches contributing has doubled. The receipts of the “California Chinese Mission” have gained 37 per cent. These gratifying facts inspire confidence that this work in purpose and method is blessed of God. They should beget a zeal commensurate with the hope they enkindle.

The new mission established by the American Board in Hong Kong—the natural fruit of this work—places peculiar emphasis upon its value, as its initial demand came from Chinamen Christianized by its influence. The Rev. Mr. Hager goes to this important control not only with the prayers of his American brethren behind him, but escorted over and welcomed by the devout supplications of specimen Chinese converts. It is an omen of profound significance that four or five Chinese workers for Christ, trained in these schools, contribute their invaluable services to the enterprise. It is equally suggestive that the Chinese Christians remaining behind cheerfully gave $500, adding to their faith, men, and to men, money, an evidence of the genuineness of their confidence. The past year’s experience alone[367] demonstrates that most of the ingenious, infamous charges made against this people are lies. So Providence has opened a golden opportunity. The narrow and bigoted ignorance, lack of patriotism, lack of statesmanship, lack of humanity, lack of equitable dealing exhibited by our Government in its recent legislation on the Chinese question have corraled 75,000 of them on these shores. It is the open day for Christian privilege. Cannot the majority of these be surrounded by our faith, wrought on by the power of Christianity, saturated by a genuine Christian life and made the standing army for whom we shall send officers and soldiers to conquest the empire? If the teeming millions are appalling can we not subdue this installment isolated by inscrutable wisdom for this Christian experiment?

With such a present and pressing basis of appeal this work should have abundant means to reach without delay the limit of its capacity.

If there be not vital Christian warmth sufficient in the United States to resuscitate this waif upon our coasts, how can we hope to rescue the myriad nation? It is floundering in the Arctic Ocean of heathenism.

Respectfully Submitted,

W. A. Bartlett, Chairman.

ADDRESS OF REV. WILLIAM ALVIN BARTLETT, D.D.

After remarking that the Chinese question was little in some aspects, as when fifty million people frantically rise to defend themselves against a paltry handful of 75,000 Chinamen, Dr. Bartlett continues: But there is a sense in which it is large. It is a large question to any man. We find, according to the best accounts, 430 odd millions of Chinamen. It is the largest question of statesmanship and of commerce to know how best to handle the largest body of men who live together, and have lived together the longest, on the planet, and that speak one language.

But if it is large commercially, what is it in a Christian point of view? We go here and there picking up the scraps and the scattered remnants of races, but look at this majestic aggregation of humanity; look at their tremendous history! It is the largest question to-day before the missionary Christianity of the world.

Well, I am to say a word or two about the Chinese in America. How did they come here? They came here on the invitation of the Americans. California boasted at first of the grand people they were to receive. But that soon changed, and they began a system of ingenious abuse, such as has never been equalled. Take the laws passed by San Francisco—the “basket” law; the “cubic foot of air” law, under which, if a Chinaman was found living in a room with less than 500 cubic feet of air, he was thrust into a prison where he would not have over 200 cubic feet of air; and the “tax” law, under which Chinamen were taxed for sending their children to school and not permitted to send them. Every man in the street took the license himself of breaking every law of God and of humanity by pounding and stoning them. Then, it was not enough for the municipality to seize this question, but the State took hold of it. The Legislature of California settled all ethnological questions at once. They passed a law and said, by majority, that the Chinaman was an Indian! That settled it. Then the nation took hold of it and passed a law—these great 50,000,000 of people against 75,000 of people.

So the nation passed a law to keep the Chinamen out, violating all the traditions of the country, and to import the Chinese wall! They ceased importing the Chinamen and imported their wall—a barbaric, ramshackled old thing of a great many centuries. It was a kind of waistband to the Chinese Empire when it was young; but they burst it long ago and ran over it.

This infamy was carried to this extent. A committee was appointed by the United States Senate, and a corresponding committee from the House, in 1876, to[368] investigate this subject thoroughly. They examined 130 witnesses. They took over 1,200 pages of evidence from experts in all departments in regard to Chinese history and ethnology and everything else. They met them face to face and talked it over. Senator Sargent, the chairman of the Committee, made this statement in his report. He says, in the first place, that the Chinaman is an “indigestible mass.” Well, that is not quite definite; a man hardly knows how to handle such a statement as that. It is a kind of mince-pie, I suppose, in the body politic. I think I shall leave that for the gastric juice to analyze. But his next assertion is more practical. He says that the brain capacity of the Chinaman is not sufficient to furnish motive power for self-government; for all that, he has governed himself since the time that Senator Sargent’s ancestors, assuming him to be an Anglo-Saxon, were cautiously cracking acorns in Northern Europe and wearing bearskins! Mr. Pixley, a gentleman we sent to California from my part of the State of New York, a lawyer, and violently opposed to the Chinaman, says in his opinion before this Committee that the Chinaman is the inferior of any being that God ever made; he says that a specimen cannot be produced that has ever been affected in any particular by Christian influences, and that in his (Pixley’s) opinion the Chinaman hasn’t any soul, or if he has a soul it is not worth saving. Gentlemen, these things have been put into laws and organized before people of influence, and their animus spent itself in that infamous legislation in Congress which abrogated a treaty without consultation and flew in the face of a hundred years of precedents.

What is the fact? Why, the fact is that Chinamen are human beings. They are honest human beings as the rule goes. The word of a Chinese merchant in California is taken everywhere. They are industrious and frugal. Senator Cassidy said—he was very much opposed to them—in this book of testimony to which I have referred: “They are the most ingenious, industrious and frugal people on the planet; and if they come into competition with us in low forms of industry to-day, they will come in higher forms to-morrow.”

There was an old philosopher who lived 500 years before Christ, Confucius by name, who wrote certain maxims; and it does seem as though he was inspired to look ahead precisely at this treaty that they passed at Washington, when he said, “It is an evidence of the superior man, of the great moral man, the true man, that he adheres strictly to the old agreements, however long they may have stood.” He was asked if he could put into one word what would express the whole duty of man, and he said, “Is not that word 'reciprocity'?” (That was a “reciprocity” treaty.) He says, “We should not ask another to do unto us what we would not be willing to do unto him.” And then he says, “The superior man has regard to virtue and to the sanctions of law; but the small man only thinks of himself and what favors he is to receive.” It looks like an inspired and animated riddling of this whole question as it stands to-day before the nation.

One of the largest land proprietors and wheat-growers in California said that the work could not be done without the Chinamen; they have reclaimed two millions of acres.

Now, mind you, with all the wrongs that the Chinese have received on our shores, every little disturbance on the Chinese coast which has ever occurred, or where a mission station has been sacked by a mob, we have collected and been paid every dollar of the damage; and the Chinese Government has paid nearly a million dollars to our Government for the wrongs perpetrated upon American people But this Government has not paid a dollar to the Chinese. There is a claim which the Chinese Embassy are now pressing on the Government, for $40,000 that was destroyed in one night in Colorado; but the reply upon such claims usually[369] is, “We have not been in the habit of paying such claims to Chinamen.” Isn’t that justice? Isn’t that purity of legislation?

The Chinese are an educated people. They have vast libraries, large and broad, rich in literature. They have the lives of great men. They know about our Washington: they teach about him in their schools. Do we know anything about their Washingtons—about their great men who have guided the grandest nation, in some respects, that history has given us any account of for nearly 3,000 years, possibly more? We know about Yung Wing, who graduated at Yale College, taking the prizes in English composition. We know the standing of their students in our colleges generally. We know the fact that of the 75,000 Chinese in this country every one can read and write. In this country, according to the census before the last, we had over 5,000,000 who could not read and write; so that there are hardly Chinamen enough in this country to be schoolmasters to those of our number who cannot read and write! Dr. Hedge in Boston stated some years ago that, in a conversation with Charles Sumner, Sir John Bowring, the representative of Her Majesty at the Court of Pekin, said that when he was there the Chinese Ministers were the superiors of any European cabinet. Mr. Sumner replied: “I am astonished! You do not pretend to compare them with Lord Palmerston, Lord Derby and Mr. Gladstone?” Said he: “I mean precisely what I say, without any invidious comparison; I will add that the Prime Minister of China, during my residence in Pekin, has not, in my opinion, his intellectual superior upon the planet.”

The Chinese are a cleanly people, a decent people. The Chinese laborer washes himself all over every day. As a rule they can come into our mission schools and sit beside our ladies with perfect propriety. When I was preaching in Indianapolis we had every Chinaman in the city in our schools. They are not a clannish people; they are glad for American society.

They have crimes and vices. They are human. They lie and steal, and gamble, and have their peculiar method of getting intoxicated with opium. But I don’t know as it ever has been proven that they can carry on lying to such a magnificent extent as we do in an ordinary political campaign, and they have never risen to the refined plundering of Wall street. They say they take opium, and you know how they took it—they took it at the cannon’s mouth at first. England must make 400 per cent. profit in the poppy fields of India. It was shocking to them to the utmost; and their torment has gone on ever since in homes that were never addicted to any crazier drug than tea and knew nothing of a hell so orthodox as the delirium tremens. The Emperor petitioned England, in a document which I think has not its equal in all the documents of Governments, not to set fire to the morals of his people by loading them with their accursed opium. But they did.

The Chinese worship their ancestors. Well, if I had to choose the least of two improprieties, I think I would prefer to pay a very hearty and cordial appreciation of my grandfather rather than to curse my children with such doctrines as have been proposed toward the Chinese. It is better, I think, to worship your ancestors than to damn your posterity.

But the Chinese have noble qualities. In the days of the yellow fever at Memphis I was near it. We almost felt the hot breath of that dreadful pestilence. We needed money and men; and there came a telegram from San Francisco that the Chinese merchants of that city had contributed $12,000 for the yellow fever sufferers. That looked like putting the prayer of Christ upon the cross into physical results: “Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

We know the Chinese philosophy, the height of their morality; we know the purity of Confucius’ recommendations and the wondrous statement of Lotse that[370] we should love our enemies; and we know that the highest crest waves of this Chinese morality throw spray around the feet of Jesus. I have stood this summer in the far West. I have stood where you can test civilization. There in Seattle stood a university on our right hand, and on it the Indian words Al-Ki—by and by—the motto of the Territory—“By and by we will show you.” Brethren, I am not given to nightmares nor to day dragons, but it did seem to me as we stood there and looked out upon that majestic sheet of water, Puget Sound, being nearer in the centre of the majority of the population in the planet than we are here, that the day would come, with that matchless harbor, that wonderful climate, with coal and iron in the vicinity, with all cereals and fruits possible, when the throne of power would be transferred from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, and when the argosies of the world would float without any bar, either in Puget Sound or in the cities around it, and ride there at peace in the security of a gospelized and millennialized age. It can only be done by our appreciation of the necessity of keeping our Christianity clean and solid and aggressive, and on the old basis of sin and salvation through a crucified Redeemer.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON INDIAN MISSIONS.

Your Committee, to whom has been referred that part of the annual statement of the Executive Committee which relates to the American Indians, desire to report as follows:

The chief event of the year, in the Indian department, is the adoption by this Association of the Indian Missions of the American Board. Your Committee look upon this as an event of conspicuous importance in the history of the Association. As long ago as 1872, at the annual meeting of that year, the Committees on the Indian and the foreign work suggested a double transfer—namely, the transfer of the foreign missions of the Association to the American Board, and the transfer of the Indian missions of the Board to this Association. The propriety of such an exchange has seemed obvious to many patrons of the two societies for some time. However satisfactory the explanation of the existing condition of things afforded by the historical development of the two organizations, it was plain that the time had come for such a unifying and concentrating of the work of this Association as would result from leaving the foreign field to others, and assuming the care of those missions in our own country which our foreign missionary society had so well established.

These missions are among the Dakotas, one of the most widely extended and important of the American Indian stocks. The largest of these missions—that at the Sisseton agency, formerly under the care of the lamented Stephen R. Riggs—has chosen for its new mother not our Association, but another missionary board, by which it will doubtless be thoroughly cared for and warmly cherished. The missions which actually come under our care constitute an important group of churches and schools, and should be received with a hearty welcome by an Association with such antecedents as this. The new trust committed to us calls for new purpose and energy in our specific work.

We find that these Dakota missions are not dead or dying, but thoroughly alive. And because they are thoroughly alive they need very real help. The men in charge of them are men awake to their opportunities, believers in a forward movement, and in whatever legitimate experiments may be involved therein.[371] We feel that in all such experiments they should have the ready co-operation of the Christian Church. We therefore heartily endorse the Executive Committee in their plans for enlargement in the Dakota field—for improvements in the mission property and in methods of work, where they are called for, and the establishment of new missions in places which promise success.

One project, your Committee believe, deserves to be regarded with special favor, the establishment of a school—agricultural, mechanical and normal—at Fort Sully. The Executive Committee have secured a delightful site for such a school, and they know the man to take charge of it. What is wanted is money to furnish the proper financial basis, and we can scarcely doubt that this will be forth-coming. The industrial school method of missionary work has already been thoroughly tested at the east—in Hampton and Carlisle—and the verdict is altogether favorable. There is good reason to believe that the adoption of the same method among the Indians themselves would result in real benefit. Let the work of instruction, in all its interesting details, be carried on where the red man can see it, and it will surely make its impression upon him. At all events, we have in favor of this view the opinions of men who may be looked upon as experts in this matter.

In adopting as its aim these Dakota missions, and thus enlarging its strictly missionary work among the American Indians, the American Missionary Association gives its approval anew to the attempt, now so long continued, to Christianize the red men. There are those who scoff at the idea of such a work; but history—not to say the Gospel—teaches us better. No race of men has yet been discovered so low that it cannot be reached and moved by the religion of the Crucified, and the American Indians are certainly no exception. The Indians as a whole are by no means the lowest or the least susceptible; and the results on record are far from insignificant. God has blessed the efforts of his church in their behalf throughout the past two hundred years, and we know he will continue to bless them. Respectfully submitted.

Joseph Anderson, Chairman.

ADDRESS OF REV. DR. ANDERSON.

When the question arose in my mind in what line to follow up this brief report, it seemed to me that the subject of Indian wrongs and Indian rights had been sufficiently discussed for the present in this Association and elsewhere, and that it might be of advantage for us to look for a little while in another direction.

There are few, I suppose, who are aware of the largeness of this work as carried on upon our continent, few who appreciate the amount of real labor and real suffering, I may say, endured in this direction. In order to a correct estimate, it seems to me that we ought not to lose sight of, but rather we ought to recognize, the work which has been done by our Roman Catholic friends. They began as long ago as 1611, and from that date onward until 1832, at least, they carried on an extended work among the American Indians upon eight or ten different and important fields. I find, by looking over their lists, that 170 men gave themselves to the work of saving the Indian from barbarism and elevating him to a higher and Christian level during this period.

Then, in order to a correct appreciation of this work, we must remember also what our beloved friends, the Moravians, have done—not only what they did in Greenland, not only what they did in the West Indies, but what they did within[372] the bounds of our own nation, especially in Pennsylvania and farther west. And so, too, we must recognize the work done by the Episcopalians and the Methodists and the Presbyterians, who, through a long series of years and in varied fields, have been laboring for the conversion of the American Indian.

But in none of these fields has a more satisfactory work been done than that which has been done in this America of ours by the Congregational churches and the men whom they have sent out. The missionary work among the American Indians began with the founding of the church in New England—began under the molding hand of John Elliot in Massachusetts. A hundred years later than the day when Elliot began that work another figure arose upon the stage of history: David Brainerd, the humble, quiet young man, who gave himself for Christ and for the beloved Indians, and labored and suffered even unto death. And then, when we come down to 1813 or thereabouts, we find the American Board, newly organized, turning its attention to the Indians in the South and Southwest. In the record of their early work we have such names as Cyrus Kingsbury and Byington and Father Gleason, and in the far West Williamson and Riggs, our lamented brethren to whom reference has already been made, and many others, some of whom are still with us, including our excellent brother and my fellow committeeman Rev. Cushing Eells.

Here we have a list of heroes doing their work quietly, silently, patiently, yet a work deserving to be called heroic, as much so as that which has been done on the islands of the sea and on the other side of the globe—a work in which noble men and women have taken part. What is the result? Here is the good seed sewing. What kind of a harvest has been gathered? There are those who think—perhaps it is the common impression—that the results of Indian missions have been meagre and of little value at the best; but let us consider. It seems to me that in any such calculation some account should be made of what may be called the reciprocal effect produced in the lives of the missionaries themselves and of the churches sending them forth. I observe that Dr. Shay, author of the History of Catholic Missions in America, referring to the extinction of the Spanish missions in the southern part of our country, says that even if they have become extinct and if there are no results that we can trace to-day, that does not count for their condemnation any more than the disappearance of the works of art produced so long ago by Apelles and Zeuxis is to the condemnation of those workers. He might have gone farther and called attention to the effect produced upon the artists themselves by their contributions to ancient art, the effect produced upon the artist anywhere by the work that he does in his own field, the effect produced upon the reformer by the work of reform which he accomplishes, the results produced in the lives of missionaries who constitute so large a company in our church from their labors, their sufferings and their sorrows.

I noticed in a past number of the American Missionary published during the present year that a cut had been reproduced representing a group of Indians watching a railroad train—an impressive picture; and it suggested to me that our aim should be to bring these Indians of the West where they shall not stand suspiciously watching a railroad train, the emblem of advancing civilization, but where they shall co-operate with us and appreciate the railroad train and make it theirs. We want them to adopt as rapidly as possible all the appliances of our civilization, and above all we want them to accept the Lord Jesus Christ.

[373]

ADDRESS OF REV. J. C. PRICE.

On the 1st of January, 1863, the negro was like a newly-built ship launched upon the waters without mast, sail or rudder. Pleased with liberty, he thought his happiness complete; but a few months’ experience taught him better. When the ballot was denied, when he could not—nay, more, when he cannot—claim as a right or privilege the comforts of travel; when deeply-rooted prejudice on account of his color and previous condition of servitude confronted him at every turn, he soon found that he had not reached the full stature of an American citizen, but was still in his infancy. And the question that presents itself to your minds, and to the friends of the negro and to ours, the orphaned recipients of your generosity, is, Has the negro grown any? has he made any noticeable advancement? Or is he where freedom found him and where slavery left him? January, 1863, found the negro penniless, ignorant, a homeless wanderer, his chief object to be in General Sherman’s army, or if not in it, in the wake of it; but he is now settled, fixed, and by industry and by perseverance he has purchased homes, and he and his children, through the generous aid of friends, have received some education. The land that he once sowed in slavish fear and reaped with trembling, he now sows in joy and gathers with the gladsome shout of a free and jubilant harvester. In fact, the material, as well as the intellectual and moral progress of the negro has surprised his best friends. He has gone forth without possessing the tattered garments that he wore, without a foot of soil on which to tread, and he has purchased those homes. And not only has he purchased them, but he has carried into them those things which make home what it is—the comforts of home. It is nothing strange to go into a Southern home and see a carpet on the floor. If it is not on all of it, it will be a big piece in the middle. And if you don’t find it all the way up-stairs, you will find a little as you step on the first step. That shows a disposition to do something that is elevating. And then the fact that they have purchased these homes is something. I have seen it repeated in the newspapers of the North—and I regret to say by men who do not know the negro—that he is a lazy, shiftless fellow. Well, they do not go down South, as we term it, and go into the negroes’ houses. They do not go into his colleges and universities and high schools, but they ride around by the station, they see a few at the depot—a lot of lazy negroes, as you find a lot of lazy white men under similar circumstances. They judge us unfairly. No man is judged by the worst, but by the best. Did you want Lord Chief Justice Coleridge to form an opinion of America by the men that he met by accident or saw in the slums of New York—“lazy” men, that he saw lounging around the corners of the streets? No; you wanted him to judge you by your best, and you put your best forward. Now, what we ask for the negro is that he be judged by his best and not by his worst. Of course, the best is always in the minority, but that is the way we are judged. If these same men were to go into the South and go into the negroes’ homes, they would find there very often excellent comfort. Some one has asked whether the negro has any of this race prejudice in him. No; he will give you the best bed and the fattest pig and the best chicken he has got in the yard. There is no prejudice there. And then, not only these things, but you find in many of their houses instruments of music—some with an organ, some with a piano; and you can find young girls there who can play on both, and if you want a little singing they can do that too. Negroes can sing as well as my friends the Chinamen. These things, too, are not only found in the cities but in the country places and villages.

The negro has done all this, notwithstanding that he has lost millions—yes, the[374] negro has been defrauded of millions, yet he has accumulated millions, and in many instances he has become the owner of the farms and plantations of his former master. It was no longer than two or three years ago that the papers told us that the farm of Mr. Jefferson Davis rightly belonged not to him, but to two negroes, they having paid $200,000 for it. And these are but examples. You go through the South and you find negroes owning farms of 100 or 200 acres each; and I know of one man who owns 900 acres, all of which he has bought since the war. We have gone forth to the earth, and with the horny hands of toil we have made the earth to answer to our appeals; and these have been the results. Why, in Georgia alone there are more than 85,000 colored voters who own 500,000 acres of land valued at about $1,244,000, besides city property valued at $2,100,000, horses and mules, etc., valued at, $2,000,000, making an aggregate for Georgia alone of more than $6,000,000, which the colored people in that State now own.

But why should I enumerate? In fact, the negro has made the waste places of the South to blossom as the rose. He has built its railroads, dug its canals, erected its mansions, makes its carriages and buggies, and in 1878 produced for the American people more than $250,000,000. In the face of these evidences, who would dare question his industry, stigmatize him as “lazy,” and ridicule his unskilled labor?

But these are but the beginnings—the gray streaks of dawn ushering in a brighter day for this toiling and long-oppressed son of Ham. We are often reminded of what the negro was in ancient days, especially in Northern Africa; but to-day we are forced to see what he is in America, notwithstanding its prejudices and its political oppression and persecution; we are forced to look at him rising in his incomparable glory, the anomaly of the race and the wonder of mankind.

But there is another feature. The negro’s highest powers and worthiest capabilities are not all shown in the development of sterile marshes or barren highlands. If slavery brought out his power of endurance, his patience and his unparalleled fidelity, freedom called forth his intellectual ability and causes the world to wonder at his rapid attainments. But this angel in him long ago would have sought his native heaven, but slavery clipped his wings, forbade his flight, and confined him to corn hills, cotton rows, rice marshes and pine forests. But his wings are growing again, and already he lifts himself somewhat from the earth. But you say, “Are there any signs of his educational progress?” I might answer by pointing to distinguished colored men who fill positions of responsibility and emolument in this country. But not only are there men who are educated among us, but there are also schools of high grade whose portals are anxiously crowded by young men and women thirsting for knowledge. I have taken one State as an example of our material progress; let another show our intellectual advancement. In 1861 there was not a school in North Carolina to which persons of color were admitted. But to-day, in addition to her common schools, she has Shaw University, Biddle University, St. Augustine Normal School, four State Normal Schools, Esther Seminary, Scotia Seminary, Bennett Seminary, and the Zion Wesleyan Institute—institutions of high grade; these have in them to-day an aggregate of 2,000 young men and women preparing for the great work of uplifting their brethren, and every summer they go forth throughout North Carolina and other Southern States doing what they can for the improvement of their fellows. Besides this, we have in North Carolina from twelve to fifteen newspapers, weeklies, semi-weeklies and monthlies, edited, owned and controlled by colored men. The negro has done[375] something, and we consider it something—something that we are proud of, especially when we think of the manner in which it has been done.

But, notwithstanding this favorable aspect of the condition of the people as seen in these two States, we are forced to ask the question—in fact it comes to us as we travel among the people—what is our material progress in Georgia, what is North Carolina’s educational outlook, when we consider the masses of the people through the South? They are but a drop in the bucket. If you could travel through that section and view the condition of the people away off in the remote towns and districts, you would say so, especially when you remember that the population has increased to almost double its original number. Since 1863 the 4,000,000 have grown to nearly 7,000,000. It is nothing strange to see the need of instruction among the people, even among the ministry. It is my theory that we must get the ministry straight first; and when we have an intelligent ministry before the people, then we will soon have an intelligent people. “Like priest” always “like people”.

It was truly said by President Tobey at the meeting of the A. M. A. in Chicago that the presence of the negro in the United States is of great significance, that the enthusiasms of political life in our nation have resulted from his presence, and that he has been the occasion of the most exhaustive discussion of the rights of man and the formation of a new political party and is now the most considerable element in our politics. That is true; but that is telling us our disease without a cure. What is the remedy? That is what you are here for to-night; that is what you have bean turning over in your minds ever since you assembled. What is the remedy for these existing political and social evils among us? We think it was precisely set forth by the Secretary of the Association at that same meeting when he said, “The true remedy for the existing evils is not to change the negro’s color or his party, but to change his character,” and that is what we ask.

Legislation cannot solve the negro problem in this country. The thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, the Civil Rights Bill and the Constitution itself cannot solve the negro problem. We must go behind the Constitution, behind the amendments; we must go to the public sentiment. What effect has a law if there is not a public sentiment to back it up? We have had the Civil Rights Bill for several years, but what did it amount to in some sections of the country? It amounted to nothing, because there was not a public sentiment to sustain it. And it seems to me that we want to educate the public sentiment and it is evident that the solution of this great vexing problem can only come through the gradual and thorough development of the negro’s mental and moral nature. I say thorough, because some men think that the negro need have only an elementary training, that he is not prepared for a higher training. Why is he not? If it has taken centuries of culture, with the best masters and the best teachers, to uplift the white race, why is it not necessary to uplift the black race? God has made of one blood all nations of men that dwell upon the face of the earth; and we believe that there are only individual and not race distinctions as to their mental and moral capabilities. Therefore, what one race requires another race requires; and we feel assured that, when this has been done, the millions of minds, both in this country and in Africa, that are now rough and unshapen as the rock from the quarry, will begin to show signs of symmetry under the constant hammer and steady chisel of competent workmen.

Then, and not till then, the negro’s sun of progress and prosperity, whose earliest rays already gladden his eastern horizon, will rise and climb the firmament of his glory until it reaches its zenith, and from that zenith it will shed forth a light that all the nations of the earth shall behold, whose heat shall melt away all prejudice,[376] in whose light all indignities and all inhumanities shall vanish; and all these nations, in one united, harmonious voice, shall cry aloud, “Ethiopia, Ethopia has indeed and in truth stretched forth her hands unto God.”

CASTE IN AMERICA.

BY SECRETARY STRIEBY.

India has four castes, America two. The Hindoo castes are the priest, soldier, merchant and laborer or Soodra. The last is the largest and lowest and bears the weight of all the upper classes, whom it is born to serve and by whom it is despised. The highest caste may come down to the employments of the soldier or merchant, but not to those of the Soodra, but, according to Hindoo orthodoxy, the Soodra can as little enter a higher caste as a stone can become a plant.

America’s two castes are simply the white and the colored races. The latter are the Soodras, and in the orthodox theology of slavery they were born to serve the whites. But while that high orthodoxy suffered a rude shock in the Proclamation of Emancipation, caste comes in to save it from utter overthrow, and has fixed a great gulf between the races, so that especially “they cannot pass to us that would come from thence.”

This proscription of the colored races includes the Indian and the Chinaman, but for the sake of simplicity of presentation I shall refer mainly to the most numerous race in this country—the Negro.

By caste prejudice they are denied fellowship which Christ enjoins—rights which the Constitution grants, access to trades, professions and schools where they could compete with the whites.

Caste is a worse sin in America than in India. In practicing it the Hindoo obeys his gods and his veda; the American dishonors his God and disobeys his Bible. The Hindoo is a heathen and is degraded by caste; the American sends missionaries to convert him and to denounce his caste, and yet sustains caste at home. The Hindoo is consistent in denying equal rights to all men; the American boasts that God made of one blood all nations, and that all men are free and equal, and yet tolerates caste.

In sustaining caste the American perpetuates the inconsistency and shame of slavery. No greater inconsistency was ever shown than in holding slaves in America after the Declaration of Independence; and no greater shame than in the zealous defense of slavery by the press, the pulpit and the theological seminaries—at the imperious bidding of the slaveholder. Caste is the tap root of slavery, and the defense of it is a repetition—nay, an aggravation—of the apologies formerly made for slavery. Men will live to be ashamed of this defense.

Caste is a curse to America.

It injures those who cherish it. Caste-prejudice is a sin. All prejudice is narrow, born of ignorance and hate. Caste-prejudice, therefore, by narrowing the mind and embittering the heart, harms the American citizen both as a man and a Christian. It hinders the progress of its victims. The slaves are emancipated—their continued degradation is the nation’s danger, their elevation the nation’s hope, and yet caste shuts up the avenues of trades, professions, schools and churches, through which alone they can escape from ignorance and degradation. If they rise it must be in spite of all the obstacles that caste can throw in their way.

It creates race antagonisms. The foreign immigration into this country creates no antagonisms. It flows into the great river of American life like brooklets,[377] bringing down often their turbid waters, but these are soon mingled and purified in the mightier stream. But caste renders the colored races an opposing tide now indeed overflowed and borne under, yet resisting their fate. That they are overborne is seen in the nullifying of their vote in the South and in denying them access to the rights, immunities and privileges of the dominant class. But they are neither silent nor submissive. We know how prompt and deadly is the resentment of the Indian; the negro and the Chinaman are more quiet, but they resist as best they can and await the time, in the conflict of tides, when their volume and momentum will give them the preponderance.

Nor is that awaiting vain, nor that time distant, in view of the astonishingly rapid increase of the colored population—an increase of over 500 per day—an increase of 35 per cent. in ten years, as against 28 per cent. in the white population of the South. It is easy to estimate in how few years the colored population will equal the whites, and it is easy to see that, as this growth goes on and long before the equal numbers are reached, the sense of growing strength and of continued wrong will stimulate the negative resistance of the present to the determined hostility of the future; and when that race conflict comes, what human ken can foretell the issue? But we may be sure that when it comes the North, the whole nation, can no more keep out of it than it could keep out of the dreadful conflict with slavery, out of which this impending struggle grows.

Special significance is given to all this by the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States pronouncing the Civil Rights Bill unconstitutional. This takes from the colored man the last shadow of legal protection to rights which he, and all men for themselves, consider essential to their manhood, and will stimulate him to more determined resistance unless the conscience and good sense of the white races shall speedily end this needless, yet dangerous conflict.

This leads me to ask: Is there a remedy for all this, and what is it? Not in dragging the white man down, but in lifting the colored man up. Both races must coöperate. The white man must let down the ladder; the black man must climb. The white man must open the door of the shop, and the black man must go in and do as good work as the white man can. The white man must open the school house and the black man must go in and become as good a scholar as the white man is. The black man can never attain positions and honors by demanding them simply because he is a black man; he must fairly win them by being worthy of them. The white man cannot maintain his superiority by denying the black man the chance of becoming his equal. He cannot hold it by force. Slavery for a time enabled him to do so, for then he had superior numbers and the aid of the Government, but he has no longer that aid and he cannot always have the weight of superior numbers. The white man must give the chance, and the black man must take it and win his position.

But the white man is not ready to give the chance—in other words, surrender the vantage ground his color gives him. Here is a call for an appeal to conscience. The subject must be discussed, North and South, among white and black alike. As the anti-slavery reform arose not out of the stagnant waters of indifference, but out of the dashing stream of healthful agitation, so must the caste reform be brought about. That discussion has begun in earnest, and will not cease till caste be sent to that bourne to which slavery, its ancestor, has gone and whence it shall never return. But discussion must take shape; the Church must cease to sustain caste. The time was when men were afraid to oppose slavery because it would hinder the spread of their churches in the South. They urged: “Why endanger the growth of our denomination by joining in this useless clamor against slavery?” But the time came when these same persons decided that it was more important to[378] destroy slavery than multiply churches that sustained slavery. Missionary societies abandoned their churches in the South, and the great national churches allowed themselves to be rent in twain rather than uphold slavery. Only such an attitude against caste will avail anything. When the North feels that ten churches or schools that stand unequivocally against caste are more important than a thousand churches or schools that sustain caste, then we shall see the beginning of the end.

But the colored people themselves must be educated out of caste. Strange as it may seem, some of them are its abettors, and, stranger still, they are so religiously. As men, they repudiate it; as Christians, they sustain it. They prefer separation mainly, perhaps, because they think the whites would not welcome them. Other reasons may be given. Some of the members love excitement in their worship, and this they can enjoy better if no whites are present; the leaders can be bishops and rulers among their own people, but, if joined to the whites, these honors are denied, or, at least, unequally divided. Why is it that religion is compelled to shield some of the greatest wrongs on earth? Albert Barnes said, long before slavery was abolished: “There is no power out of the Church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.” Must sinful and harmful caste, the baleful progeny of slavery, find its bulwark in the Church—nay, in some of the colored churches themselves?

But this wish or willingness of these churches for separation is gravely made use of by many most excellent people as a reason for ceasing to make war against caste. It is said triumphantly: “See how the colored people, welcomed to Dr. Goodell’s or Dr. Rankin’s churches, prefer churches of their own.” Does their abetting caste help to destroy it? Did the wish of the Israelites in the wilderness to return to Egypt help them on to Canaan? If the slaves in this country were ever content to remain slaves, as was sometimes alleged, that was all the greater evidence of the curse of slavery. If the Soodra consents to remain a Soodra, all the more does he need the breaking of his bondage that he may become a man. And so, if the colored people consent to caste separation, all the more do they need emancipation from the bondage of caste.

In this point of view the action of some of the large religious bodies North and South in consenting to a separation on the color line is riveting the chains of caste on the colored people, and sustaining caste-prejudice in the hearts of the white race; and it is seriously questioned by many considerate persons whether the presence of two Congregational Missionary Societies in the South, the one working mainly for the whites, and the other side by side, mainly for the blacks, will not, with all explanations, be construed into a sanction of caste. The question is fairly before the churches, and should be met in a frank and Christian way.

The presence with us to-day of a committee appointed by the American Home Missionary Society to confer on this very subject renders its consideration by this meeting a matter of comity and of Christian duty, and to aid in its intelligent and harmonious settlement I beg leave to contribute some facts and considerations.

The A. M. A. was organized when the great missionary societies, home and foreign, aided churches in the South that received slaveholders as members. It was formed not as an anti-slavery society, nor merely as a formal protest against slavery, but as affording a channel through which anti-slavery Christians might carry forward missions without complicity with slavery. Hence it established missions in foreign lands and among the Indians, and also home missions in the West.

But in the progress of the anti-slavery movement the large missionary societies withdrew their aid from slaveholding churches, and soon thereafter came the opening for the great work to be done for the freedmen. The Association was believed[379] to be providentially prepared to undertake this work, and hence it gave up its home missions in the West and among the Indians and entered with alacrity into this new field.

The territory it occupied was the whole South, its schools being located in every Southern State. But gradually it withdrew from Delaware, Maryland, and unwisely, as I then thought, and now think, from Florida. At the West it organized a few churches in Kansas, which, however, it at length turned over to the American Home Missionary Society, only resuming limited efforts there when the great exodus of colored people thither took place. In Missouri it never attempted much in church planting. It found that the Home Missionary Society that had done so grand a work from the Atlantic to the Pacific, rearing its monuments of light and piety along the whole line of its march, had entered Missouri so effectually that there was no more call for the Association in those parts, and hence that state was soon and cheerfully surrendered to the occupancy of that Society. In Texas the Association has established one of its chartered institutions at Austin, the Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute; it was the earliest Congregational Society to plant churches in the State; its churches there, though few, are more in number than that of any other Congregational Society, and two calls are pressing upon us now for the organization of new churches. Thus its field may be said to be the “Solid South” leaving out Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Florida and the new State of West Virginia. In this territory it has planted its large and permanent educational institutions; its 89 churches, united in eight conferences, covering nearly the whole South.

The Association has been as much opposed to caste as to slavery, as its early publications abundantly show, and has ever refused to accept the limitation of a color line. Its schools and churches have seemed to be almost wholly confined to the blacks, solely because it allowed them to enter at all. But it has not confined itself entirely to efforts for that race. It has founded schools and churches mainly white. The church in Jacksonville, Fla., was organized under its auspices. Its founders did not ask pecuniary aid, but they did ask one of our District Secretaries to assist in the organization, which he did, and spent nearly a month with them afterward, supplying the pulpit until a permanent pastor could be obtained. In Kentucky, John G. Fee, its first missionary in the South, commissioned in 1848, formed white churches on an anti-slavery basis. The same was done by Daniel Worth in North Carolina. That church planting in Kentucky was followed by Berea College, the most conspicuous example in the South of an anti-caste institution, its pupils being in nearly equal numbers of both races; and now more recently the example of Berea has been followed by a church and school in Williamsburg, Ky., and in Clover Bottom. Other openings of the same sort are presenting themselves in the same region.

The only movement made by Congregationalists to found white churches in the territory occupied by the Association was begun during or soon after the war. At that time the work of the Association was in its infancy, and the broad and permanent foundations which it has since laid were scarcely anticipated. On the other hand, this new movement for white churches was mainly confined to the largest cities and perhaps the thought of possible competition was not entertained. At all events the movement was not very successful and was very nearly abandoned.

Whatever general impressions may have existed at that early day as to the special work of the Association or whatever special designations may since have been used as to the classes for which it was mainly to labor, it never supposed that it was to be confined entirely to those classes; and certainly now, after nearly[380] twenty years of almost exclusive occupancy of the special territory to which it has confined itself, so far as Congregationalists are concerned, it may well be supposed to look with some surprise upon a movement recently inaugurated to enter that same territory with missionary efforts that practically places it on one side of a color line.

An agreement was made between the two societies when this question came before them, which provides temporarily and tentatively against the repetition of any such interferences as that which started this discussion. Both societies have agreed not to enter into any field occupied by the other without mutual consultation. But this agreement provides no permanent basis for a settlement of the question which field each society shall occupy. It only insures Christian co-operation and forbearance until a settlement be made. What that settlement shall be is for the constituency of our societies to determine, and to them we must leave it. The American Board and the Association have made a harmonious arrangement of their respective fields of labor, and it is to be hoped that an adjustment equally satisfactory may be reached with the American Home Missionary Society.

In view of all this several questions ought to be considered.

1. What is the field open before us among the white population of the South?

It is not the extent of the territory, nor the number of millions of white people that are in the South, nor even the number that need our school and Gospel advantages, but it is: How many of them can be reached by an anti-caste Gospel?

It is not enough to say that we are to preach the Gospel, and if people are converted the caste question will take care of itself. Well do I remember when that plea and policy were in vogue in regard to slavery. The Gospel was preached, churches were formed, and the denominations were happy in their enlargement. Slavery also did take care of itself, and good care, too, for it found snug homes in these very churches. And well do I remember when these same denominations cast slavery away from them and the coveted churches along with it!

The American churches cannot afford to repeat that experience in regard to caste. What was done then in comparative innocence, because done in ignorance, cannot now be done without great guilt in the light of that experience. We must remember that it is more important to destroy caste than to found churches that will sustain caste. No work can be done by our churches among the white people of the South that will stand the test, that does not proceed on the avowed and practical repudiation of caste; no school opened that does not welcome the colored child; no church formed that does not present the open door, the open hand and the open heart to “Our Brother in Black.” There are Congregationalists in the South that are ready to welcome again the polity of New England and at the same time welcome among them the colored races, and there are native Southerners ready for our schools and churches, and also ready to make no distinction on account of color, and to all such we ought to carry with joyful hearts and ready hands the institutions we so much cherish. But we ought not to enter upon the effort under a misapprehension. The number of openings for this kind of labor is not great.

2. The question of two Congregational Societies on the Southern field receives its greatest importance from its relation to caste-prejudice. There are other difficulties. One of the saddest features of the modern church extension at the West is the starting of two or more feeble churches of different denominations in small villages or among sparse populations, creating frictions and rivalries where harmony and Christian fellowship are so essential, and a waste of men and money where there is so much need of economy. This would be aggravated in the[381] poorer and sparser settlements of the South, and still more aggravated if the same denomination should, by two of its own societies there, thus come into rivalry with itself. In the one case two houses are arrayed against each other; in the other, a house is divided against itself. It is the same railroad company running parallel lines in competition with each other.

But all these considerations, grave as they are, are of small importance when compared with the danger that the division of the labors of two societies, running mainly along the color line, would be construed as lending the sanction of the denomination to caste separation. This is the gravamen of the difficulty. I am happy to say that the two societies are equally committed against caste, and will equally and honorably repudiate all intentional sanction of it. But the bare fact that one is avowedly working mainly for the whites and the other mainly for the blacks, will, in spite of all protests to the contrary, array them before the public as separated only by the color line. It is not proper for me to speak for another society, but for my own I must speak. The American Missionary Association was born an opponent of slavery. Amid poverty, sneers and reproach from the best of men, as well as the worst of men, it pressed forward in its opposition till the glorious end came. It must oppose caste as it did slavery. It began its work among the freedmen as the avowed enemy of caste, and amid much misapprehension and reproach at the South, it has pressed onward until it has gained the respect of both races. That position it cannot, and it ought not to be asked to, surrender or jeopardize by being placed on one side of a line of separation in missionary labors that has no reason for its existence except the colors of the people to be benefited.

3. If, in view of all the facts, it should be ultimately decided that the Congregational churches should be represented at the South by one missionary society, the decision should be reached in the broadest spirit of Christian wisdom and kindness.

The American Missionary Association is not eager to be pushed forward into the mission work among the whites, but it knows something of their needs, especially their need of deliverance from caste-prejudice that mars the symmetry of their piety and chills their hearts as slavery did, and that perpetuates a race antagonism that must be crushed before the South can be safe or prosperous. If the Association should be called to that work, it has some experiences and facilities that would be helpful. Its past record would be a guaranty that it would not foster caste. It would have no temptation to found schools and churches mainly white that should be rivals of its schools and churches mainly colored, and it could have no reason to hesitate in establishing both, if both were needed. It is not “handicapped” for this work except by its firm and well-known attitude against caste, and any other society equally faithful on that subject would soon be equally handicapped. Its large planting of schools and churches, with a value of property of nearly a million of dollars, gives it a position and an influence that it would take any other society a long time and a large outlay of funds to acquire—to say nothing of the facilities it thus possesses to extend its work among both races. It has a wide acquaintance with the Southern people, both white and colored, and has won for itself a large place in their confidence, by its quiet, unselfish and useful work for both. It has, moreover, already done something in bringing the two races together in school and church, and for this reason it is fitted to be a bond of union and Christian fellowship between them.

This Association, standing on the ruins of slavery, and amid the schools and churches it has erected thereon for the benefit of the colored race, and to some extent also for the white, would find it both cognate and congenial to enlarge its[382] work among the whites, both the ignorant and the educated, carrying to them a gospel that is not only uplifting and purifying, but that makes no caste distinction in the school room or in the house of God.

REPORT ON EDUCATIONAL WORK.

The Committee on the Educational Work of the A. M. A. would respectfully report that they find the history of the past year highly satisfactory and encouraging. It is a record of enlarged accommodations at several of the institutions. Stone Hall, at Atlanta, the fourth of the buildings erected by the munificence of Mrs. Valeria G. Stone, has been completed. New buildings, or very considerable additions to former buildings, have been constructed at Midway, Macon, Talladega, Williamsburg, Hillsboro, Memphis and New Orleans; yet from several quarters the call still comes for more room.

It is a record of increased practical efficiency. Industrial training, which forms so important an adjunct of the work, has been making progress by workshops established at Macon and Memphis, and arrangements for carpentry schools at Tougaloo and Atlanta; while farming education and training in housekeeping go on at various points as heretofore, supplemented at Memphis by instruction in nursing and hygiene; and Hampton continues to teach more vigorously than ever a variety of handicrafts, such as printing, bookbinding, iron and tin work, carpentry and wood turning, the manufacture of sash and doors, shoe and harness making, tailoring and farming. All this is, for the present, a very essential element of the educational work.

It is a record of some degree of expansion, although the main aspect is rather one of consolidation and elevation. The number of teachers has increased by twenty-eight and the number of common schools by four; the number of pupils being but slightly greater than last year. The grade of these institutions is steadily advancing. Among these pupils are found, we are happy to say, ninety theological students—twelve more than were reported last year. The three Teachers’ Institutes, held in as many States, may prove to be the entering wedge of another great instrument of power and quickening influence. The crowded halls and interested audiences of the anniversaries of so many of our Institutions are a striking manifestation of genuine progress. When we remember that the oldest of these institutions has seen but a quarter of a century, and practically but twenty years of life time, and that now we rejoice in eight chartered institutions, comparatively strong and effective, twelve high and normal schools and forty-two common schools, with 279 teachers doing their soul-expanding work, we may well say “What hath God wrought.” Far as it falls short of our desire and our duty, so far and more also does it exceed the boldest reasonable expectations of the dark and cloudy time of the beginning.

But far the most satisfactory statement of the annual report is its record of the religious spirit which guides, controls and pervades this whole educational movement. The information that at seven out of eight of the chartered institutions “special religious interest has been manifest, adding scores and scores of these scholars to the number of the disciples of Christ,” and that, “as yet, but very few have been graduated from our various courses of study who had not become Christians,” is a record of the crowning mercy of God. So may it ever be. The heart and conscience must be quickened with the intellect or there is no good hope for that race, or for any other race. It must be Christian education.[383] The school and the Church must move on together at the South as they started together from Plymouth Rock, and they must extend, as far as possible—certainly must offer—their joint benign influences, not to a portion of the population, but to all classes and races alike. For the part can receive its full benefit only in conjunction with the benefit of the whole. This is no new principle, but the method in which, as our annual reports show, this Association has been proceeding throughout its history. Having always refused to recognize the color-line, it can proceed on no other basis without defeating its own ends, and compromising its own principles. And the recent decision of the Supreme Court has rolled a new burden on the Church.

Hence it is that your committee look with much interest upon the experiment, tried and effectually settled at Berea, and now extending thence among the “mountain whites,” of including all classes and races in the purview of our educational and Christian work. We refer to the movement at Williamsburg, a county-seat on the Cumberland River, which is simply a repetition of the movement at Berea of twenty years ago—with this difference, that the abolition of the color-line, both in church and school, at Williamsburg, is fully accepted beforehand by an actual constituency in that place. Here the establishment of an academy to educate teachers for the common schools of the county—of whom, as of the population, but a small portion are colored persons—went hand in hand with the opening of the church to both races alike, and has led most naturally to the establishment of three adjacent preaching places, and the formation of another church at the nearest railway station. This method, when viewed simply on its own merits, seems to be at once the dictate of a wise Christian economy, and an almost necessary sequence, or rather part, of the work of Christian education. Within the particular regions where this Association is planting its schools, exerting its influence and gaining the confidence of the community, it would seem to have peculiar advantages and a special call to leaven the whole community with the institutions of the gospel; while the molding influence of its Christian schools will be left incomplete, except as permanently embodied, fortified and nourished by surrounding Christian churches, built upon the same fundamental principles. Similar in condition, character and wants to this Whitley County, in Kentucky, is a great area of five hundred miles by two hundred, beginning in Virginia and extending to Alabama, occupied chiefly by a white population numbering nearly two millions, of whom more than half the adults can neither read nor write. It is one of the most needy and neglected regions of our country, and presents a pressing call to Christian philanthropy to enter and occupy.

S. C. Bartlett, Chairman.

ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT S. C. BARTLETT.

There is perhaps some propriety in my saying an earnest word for the educational work of this Association, representing as I do a college that from its birth abolished the color line in education. More than a century ago Dartmouth College was training the red man and more than half a century ago the black man. Our first six graduates included three missionaries to the Indians, and the last class that entered contains a full-blooded Dakota and a Cherokee. Fifty-nine years ago, twenty-two years before the first anniversary of this Association, we were educating the negro. In 1824 a young man from Martinique, of irreproachable character and conduct, but with some African color and African blood in his veins, applied for admission. Objections were raised in some quarters from the fear that[384] his presence would prove unwelcome. The students heard of it, held meetings and sent a committee to urge his reception, and under the direction of a most conservative Board of Trustees, with Dr. Bennet Tyler at its head, he was admitted, and into one of the most distinguished classes in the history of the institution. There, in company with forty classmates, who from that small number have furnished six college professors, two theological professors, two college presidents, two Indian missionaries, a senator of the United States and a judge of a Supreme Court, Edward Mitchell went on in comfort, graduated with honor and did a good work in the Baptist ministry. Since then many colored men have entered without hindrance, inconvenience, disability or disrespect. They have been the equal companions and in some instances the room-mates of their fellow students. In June last two such young men graduated, one of them an appointment man and a commencement speaker.

We know the colored man as a student, a Christian and a gentleman. And without making contrasts or comparisons, I will say that were all our students as irreproachable as these last two colored men, there would be no more discipline in the institution. We might burn our college laws.

I have seen the colored student elsewhere in Northern schools. Some of you remember that choice young man, Barnabas Root, a Christian scholar in America, though the son of a heathen chief in Africa. I well remember his graduating oration at Knox College, second to no other on that occasion. I remember him as three years a student in Chicago Theological Seminary, in all respects the peer of his classmates. When that young man passed away just on the threshold of his missionary career, it was a grievous loss to his race and to the church.

It is not necessary to say that all are like these. But these show what can be and sometimes will be. Educationally, they are a most hopeful race, because, in the main eager for improvement. And with whatever deductions, it may be doubted whether the summons to awake and arise intellectually, socially and morally ever fell on the ears of six or seven millions of people with such a simultaneous thrill of response. When I look out on our educational work at the South, I am greatly impressed with what has been already done, even more than I am oppressed with what remains to be done.

What have you done? No doubt it was a notable plan of the French authorities in this country near two hundred years ago to encircle this young nation with a chain of military stations from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. But this Association has done better than that. You have gone not to the outskirts, but to the centre. You have planted your cordon of educational fortresses from the Potomac and the Ohio almost to the Rio Grande, through the heart of the South in all the great slave-holding States. They are there to stay and to re-construct. They are already working powerfully, not alone on the education of individual young men and young women, but on the education of the community and of public sentiment. What a change has the President of the Board of Trustees of Berea College lived to behold—the man who was robbed and driven out, but who now sees white men and black in nearly equal numbers graduating together, and audiences of three or four thousand gathered to hear them. And these sixteen other anniversaries lately chronicled in the American Missionary, with their interested audiences and crowded halls, sometimes in stately buildings, are the signal tokens of a great transformation.

No more significant testimony could be given to this change than a sort of wail in the Atlantic Monthly over the “New Departure in Negro Life,” a lament over the decadence of “the jocund customs of the past,” with its thoughtless[385] levity and hilarity, and over the “half-hearted manner in which the characteristic festivities that remain are gone through with.” What does it mean? It means, says the writer, that “an unmistakable change in the negro character is at hand, and in an advanced state of progress. He is putting away childish things and striving in his own crude way to grasp matters of higher import. The bulk of the race have learned to read after a fashion. His primer, his vade mecum, is the Bible. Never before, perhaps, in the history of the world, have two decades brought about such a manifest change in a race. Religion, religionism, forms the staple of his speech by day, and the stuff that his dreams are made of by night.”

Would that the picture was more completely true. But, thank God, it is at least founded on fact. The race is aroused, and in earnest. It is bent on accumulation, education, elevation. The world may pay as little heed to the movement as did the Roman world in the time of Tacitus to the Christian Church in the Eternal City; but the time is not distant when the world will see that this quiet work is one of the great movements of modern history.

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION AT THE SOUTH.

BY REV. WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D.

The problem that confronts us this morning is that which is presented by the illiteracy of this country, and especially of the Southern States. This is not the only problem before this Association; the problem of the irreligion and heathenism which infest many regions also claims our energies. There is moral evil as well as ignorance to be met and fought and overcome. The Association has an evangelical work as well as an educational work in its hands; and though, as we shall see, these two are properly one, yet it is now convenient to consider them separately. It is the educational work that is now before us.

We educate, because education is the servant of a pure religion. We educate, because we are the missionaries of a faith which always adds to itself virtue, and to its virtue knowledge. We educate, because a genuine Christianity always educates; because the work of the pulpit, the work of the Church everywhere must always be, in considerable part, the work of education; but, more especially, we of this Association educate, because the peoples with whom we work are in peculiar need of education; and because nothing but intelligence will ever break the fetters of degrading superstition by which they are held, and lead them forth into the liberty of the sons of God.

We educate, also, because we love our country, and because we believe that there is no other remedy for evils that now threaten her very existence, but the remedy of Christian education. Thus we are brought face to face with the problem of illiteracy. Illiteracy in a republic; what does it signify? It is the creeping paralysis that unnerves its arm; it is the malaria that poisons its blood; it is the cataract that dims and finally destroys its vision; it is the slow decay that consumes its life. Illiteracy, ignorance, in a republic is, and must always be, assailing and undermining its very foundations. It is the natural and deadly foe of free government. No republic can live, no republic ought to live, in which the voters are ignorant. Voting in a republic is governing; and no man has any right to govern me who does not know enough to govern himself. No man has any right to take part in the government of the nation, who has not some notion of what right government is. I protest against such government. I have never consented to the justice of it, and I never will. I do not believe that the State has any right to intrust this responsible business of governing[386]—and voting is governing—to the hands of men who cannot read the ballots that they cast and who have no conception of the duties of a citizen.

But the State has done it; and what has been done cannot be undone by any political methods. It is with the consequences that we have to do. And the consequences are tremendous, appalling to those who stop to consider them. The total number of men of voting age in the Southern States at the last census was 4,154,125. Of these 1,354,974 could neither read nor write. A little more than thirty-two per cent. of the voters of those States were at that time wholly illiterate. Think of that! Almost one-third of all the voters in sixteen States of the Union so ignorant that they cannot write their own names or read the simplest English sentence! And these are our rulers.

I know very well that you will find among these thirteen hundred thousand illiterate voters not a few men of great natural shrewdness and considerable general information, who may be fairly qualified to discharge the duties of citizenship. There are men to whom all print is shut, who can see quite as far into public questions as many of those to whom print is as wide open as it was to Silas Wegg. The alphabet test is by no means an infallible test. Some who could not pass this test are well qualified for citizenship. On the other hand, there are tens of thousands of those who are reported among the literates, who are put down as being able to read and write, and who are yet utterly ignorant. They can manage to scrawl their names, perchance, or to skip and tumble about a little among simple words in a primer: but the reading and writing of which they boast is of no sort of use to them as fitting them to vote intelligently. You would need to add a great many figures to that array in the census if you should state fully the facts in regard to the illiteracy of the Southern States.

I think we shall all agree with Dr. Haygood when he says, as he did at the meeting of the National Educational Association in Washington last winter, “This is bad enough.” And perhaps we should also be able to agree with him in the further statement that it “is far from being the worst of this sad case. The worst,” he says, “is this: the illiterate vote in these States is increasing. From 1870 to 1880 the increase of this army of ignorant voters in the South amounted to 187,671.” Of course this is worse, in one sense; for the more we learn of this illiteracy the worse we are off, no doubt. But there is a brighter side to this picture, thank God! It is dark enough, at best; and I want you to see it in all its blackness; but I do not want to paint it any blacker than it is. After you have seen the facts just as they are, you will still find on your hands a stupendous task; but you will have, I trust, some reasons for believing that it is not a hopeless task.

It is true, then, as Dr. Haygood says, that there was a positive increase of illiterate voters in the South between 1870 and 1880. He makes this increase in round numbers 197,000; the figures I have found increase it a little to 208,000. But that is not a relative increase. The increase in the illiterate vote does not keep pace with the increase of the population. The population increased 30 per cent. in the ten years; the illiterate vote increased less than 20 per cent. In 1870, more than 40 per cent. of the voters of the South were illiterate; in 1880, only 32 per cent. were illiterate.

This is what I call very substantial gain. Under the circumstances I am inclined to call it a splendid gain, one that is quite worth singing the doxology over, one that should cause us all to thank God and take courage.

But there are other features of the case to my own mind still more significant. Dr. Haygood says in the same address to which I have referred: “In this downward[387] progress the two races keep well together.” We have seen that it is not a downward, but an upward progress. And I think we shall see that instead of the two races keeping well together, one of them is falling a good ways behind. Which is it? “The increase of the illiterate white vote,” says Dr. Haygood, “was 93,279; of the illiterate negro vote, 94,392. The whites being in the majority, take the South as a whole, the increase of the illiterate vote is relatively greater among the Negroes.”

This is a great misconception. Dr. Haygood has no purpose whatever of misrepresenting the facts; we all know that. No man in the country is doing better work for the colored people than he is doing; no man deserves more honor; but he has misapprehended the facts in this statement; and I know that he will be glad to be corrected. It is true, then, that the actual increase of the illiterate white vote in the Southern States during the last decade was about the same as that of the illiterate Negro vote; 93,000 of the one, 94,000 of the other. But how was it in 1870? In that year there were in the Southern States 317,281 adult whites who were illiterate, and 820,022 adult Negroes. There were at that time considerably more than two and a half times as many Negro illiterates as white illiterates. Now, if the Negroes have added to their eight hundred thousand illiterates only about 94,000, while the whites have added to their three hundred thousand about 93,000, it seems to me that the relative increase is immensely greater among the whites than among the Negroes. In fact, the increase of the illiterate white vote, in the ten years, was more than twenty-eight per cent., while the increase of the illiterate Negro vote was only eleven and a half per cent.

Dr. Haygood gives the figures with respect to several of the States. “In Georgia,” he says, “the illiterate white voters in 1870 were 21,899; in 1880, 28,571; the illiterate Negro voters in Georgia, in 1870, were 100,551; in 1880, 116,516.” Let us see what these figures mean. In Georgia, in 1870, the whole number of males of voting age was 237,640; in 1880, it was 321,438. The increase of adult males was, therefore, about 31 per cent. But the increase in the whole number of illiterate voters was only about 18½ per cent. according to Dr. Haygood’s figures. The white illiterates, however, increased 30½ per cent. while the colored illiterates increased not quite 16 per cent.

Two other States in which we are deeply interested, are reported to us in Dr. Haygood’s figures, and, neglecting the numbers which he gives, I will give you the percentages, which he neglects. In Kentucky the number of male adults has increased 23 per cent. and the whole number of illiterate voters about 21½ per cent. But the per cent. of increase among the illiterate white voters is very nearly 23, almost keeping up with the increase of population, where the per cent. of increase among illiterate Negro voters is not quite fourteen.

In Tennessee the facts are still more striking. The increase in the whole number of males of voting age was, in the ten years, about 26 per cent., while the increase in the number of illiterate voters was only 13 per cent. The illiterate voters increased only half as fast as the voting population. Here, evidently, a very successful attack has been made upon the strongholds of illiteracy. But where have these victories been gained—among the whites or the Negroes? Almost wholly among the latter. The number of illiterate white voters increased during the ten years 24 percent., almost as fast as the population, while the illiterate Negro voters increased during the same period less than five per cent.

Taking these three States together, we find that the percentage of increase of males of voting age was 27; of illiterate voters, 18; of illiterate white voters, 25; of illiterate Negro voters, 12.

[388]

Now these figures completely overthrow the statement that the increase of illiteracy is relatively greater among the Negroes than among the whites. They show that the proportions are all the other way, tremendously the other way; the difference between the two races is startling. The whites are gaining a little in this battle with the powers of darkness; but it is very little; they are scarcely doing more than hold their own; but the Negroes are gaining splendidly; it is to them that the large increase in the percentage of intelligent voters is mainly due.

Now what does this mean? Of course it is due to several causes. The Negroes had had but about five years of opportunity when the census of 1870 was taken; in 1880 they had had fifteen years of opportunity. That a better chance has been offered them, and that they are taking the chance that has been offered them, these figures assure us. But they tell us something more, that, to us, is very significant. The gains of intelligence among the Negroes in all parts of the South have been much more rapid than those of the whites; but they have been more rapid in these three States than in most other parts of the South; and why? Why? Did you ever hear of Fisk, and Berea and Atlanta? The census tables have heard of them, if you have not.

It is to the hundreds of young people that go out every year from these colleges, and such as these, teaching in public and in private schools pupils of their own color, that this gain in the battle with illiteracy at the South is due. They are the children of the light, who are waging this victorious battle with the powers of darkness. There has been great improvement, of course, in the public schools of the South during this decade; but in this improvement the whites have shared as well as the blacks; the great reasons for the more rapid advancement of the blacks are, first, that they are more eager for instruction than the ignorant whites, and, secondly, that they are better supplied with teachers—missionaries of education, who not only do much to supply the demand for knowledge already existing, but who do still more to increase this demand.

We come back, now, from our brief excursion into this fruitful and fascinating realm of percentages, to confront again that large mass of illiteracy that lies athwart the path of this nation. Huge it is, but, thank God, it looks not so vast and unmanageable as once it seemed. It is growing; but the nation is growing faster; relatively it is decreasing. It is far too formidable yet to be let alone; so long as ignorance rules almost one-third of our rulers in all of these sixteen States, no man has any right to relax his vigilance or abate his energies. What these figures show is simply this, that work tells; that our money is not wasted; that our labor is not in vain in the Lord; that if we will only keep it up with our giving and our working, if we will only see to it that these same agencies that have done this grand work in the past ten years are fully equipped to carry it on with increasing vigor, we may hope to gain in the next ten years still more rapid and decisive victories. The word that comes to every friend of the American Missionary Association, to every benefactor in deed or in purpose of these noble schools, is the word that Grant sent to Sheridan after the battle of Five Forks: “Push things!” You’ve got ’em running, these legions of ignorance and darkness; up and after them; harry them on the flank, press them in the rear, till they plunge like the herd of devil-pestered hogs, into the Gulf of Mexico.

You have got the forces to do this work. All you want to do is to give them a better equipment. You want no new machinery; you only want more power; no new organizations, but reinforcements of those in the field.

The kinds of educational work that this Association is doing are exactly the kinds of work that must be done. The industrial training given in some of the[389] schools is admirable; the normal training of teachers is work whose results are immediate and beneficent; the higher education, too, is abundantly justified. If there are any who have doubts on this last score, I am not one of them. There is nothing that these six millions of colored people need to-day more than they need thoroughly educated men of their own race to be their leaders. More than any other class in this country, they are in danger of being misled by petty demagogues and small philosophers. We cannot too soon furnish them with social and political and religious guides who have been trained by severe discipline to think clearly, to consider questions broadly and historically, to reason judicially and dispassionately, to chasten the exuberance and verbosity of their own people with the dignity and judgment that are the fruits of sound learning. Such examples of high character and broad culture scattered about here and there among the Negro people will do more to form their ideals and direct their progress than can be done in any other way. I tell you that the money spent in making first-class men in these colleges is as well invested as any other money that you spend. The only thing to be desired about such schools as Fisk and Atlanta is that their standards be made higher and more inflexible, year by year, and that their work be more and more thorough, so that the diploma shall mean in every case just as much as the diploma of Amherst or Williams or Bowdoin.

It is a Christian education that pupils are receiving in these schools of ours. Most of the pupils who go out from them to become pastors, teachers, lawyers, physicians, merchants, citizens, fathers and mothers are Christian men and women; and they become messengers of a pure Gospel, living epistles of Christ, wherever they go. Especially as teachers do they make their influence felt. We cannot Christianize the public school systems of the Southern States; but if we can Christianize the teachers, that is a much more effective service. And that is precisely what we are doing in all these Southern schools.

This Association has been promoting Christian education at the South in quite another fashion. Gently, without censure or denunciation, by the silent influence of Christly lives, it has been teaching the Southern people that caste is un-Christian. It is a great lesson; it is a lesson hard to learn; and we must not wonder at it: the social maxims and usages of centuries are not changed in a day. But it will be learned by and by; patience and fidelity and sweet reasonableness in those who teach it will have their reward in God’s good time. It only needs that we should quietly bear our testimony and wait; the leaven may be hidden now, but it is working; and the time will surely come, and as speedily as it ought to come, when from churches and from schools the color line will disappear. I do not think that the people who have commissioned and who support this Association in its work—the great Congregational communion, on which it mainly depends—can propose to themselves any better sort of work than that which this Association is doing, or can afford to carry on that work in any other way or by any other hands. It is true, as the figures I have quoted have shown, that the colored people have received most of the benefit of this work, and that the whites have profited by it but little. This is true of the educational work, and of the church work as well. But it is not because the schools and churches of this Association are not open to whites and blacks on equal terms. It is simply because they are open to whites and blacks on equal terms. This is the only reason why the whites do not generally avail themselves of these excellent advantages. It is because the basis on which these schools and churches rest is frankly and thoroughly Christian—because caste is not tolerated in them—that the white people of the South have held aloof from them. For the present, until their convictions and feelings on[390] this subject shall have changed, the white people of the South will, generally, hold themselves aloof from any church or school that rests on this basis, no matter by whom it may be administered. Any society that is as frankly and thoroughly Christian as this society has always been, will have the same difficulty in reaching the whites that this society experiences.

It is possible that churches or schools might be established at the South, nominally open to both races, but really intended exclusively for the whites, into which some whites could be drawn. You might put it into the constitution that no distinctions of color were recognized in the church, and you might still keep saying: “Of course colored people are welcome here, if they want to come; but we think they will be happier and better off in churches of their own.” Probably the colored people would not accept this kind of welcome; and possibly some whites would be satisfied with this method of establishing the color line. It would be an effective method, no doubt. But is this the sort of thing that the people calling themselves Congregationalists want to do? For one I feel sure that it is not worth doing. I don’t believe that we can afford to propagate two kinds of Congregationalism down there, one of which is frankly and bravely Christian in its dealings with the caste of color, and the other of which is, to say the least, less frankly Christian, consenting, by its silence, to the maintenance of the color line. Such a policy seems to me something other than Christian, something less than Christian: and I, for my part, have no time and no money to spend in propagating a Congregationalism that is broader or narrower, or higher or lower, or tighter or looser than simple Christianity. When our zeal for the propagation of Congregationalism leads us to slur over the everlasting verities of Christ’s kingdom, it is leading in doubtful ways.

It has been said that this Association is handicapped by its record and its methods in the work of reaching the whites of the South. Perhaps it is. So was He handicapped in His work among the Pharisees, of whom it was said: “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” The burden it is bearing is the cross of Christ; nothing else. It has gone down into humiliation with its Master to succor and save these His brethren. Would it be better for the Association to fling aside this burden? Would it be wise for any other society going down into that field to work to refuse to take it up or to try to hide it from the sight of men?

The disability under which this Association labors is its glory. And I do not believe that it will prove to be a permanent impediment in its work. No; that cannot be. I believe in the victorious might of Christian principles. The heroic faith and patience of the men and women who have been toiling there so long among Christ’s little ones, identifying themselves with the lowly and giving their lives for them, neither striving nor crying against the scorn that has greeted them, reviled but reviling not again, must triumph in the end. It is the one power that is irresistible. The barriers of caste will go down before it, and the color line will no longer stain the threshold of the Christian Church.

So, then, I do not believe that we, as Congregationalists, need any other agency in the Southern field than the one that has wrought there so nobly in the years now past. I am sure that even the educational work of this Association would be obstructed by the entrance of any other missionary organization into this field. Because I love and honor the Home Missionary Society, I do not want to see it compromise itself or imperil the interests of Christ’s kingdom at the South by turning from its proper work, its urgent work, to try a doubtful experiment. And I trust this Association, in all love and kindness, but with all needful frankness,[391] will express its wishes in this matter. Two little boys were astride of a hobby-horse, and the one who was riding ahead was being crowded out of the saddle, and was clinging with some difficulty to the neck of the wooden steed. Finally he ventured: “Jimmy, don’t you think if one of us should get off I could ride a little better?” I hope that the American Missionary Society will say, by her representatives here, to her honored sister, the American Home Missionary Society: “Don’t you think that if one of us should keep out of this Southern field, I could do my work in it a little better?” I am sure that she has earned the right to express this wish, and I have not the slightest fear that the wish will not be heeded.

ADDRESS OF PROF. C. G. FAIRCHILD.

From the trend of the discussion this morning I find that a large responsibility has drifted into my hands. There is among the churches in the North a deep, unmistakable interest in those long-neglected ignorant whites of the South. It is a difficult problem to tell how to turn this into channels that shall benefit these people without on the one hand neglecting the work already undertaken by this Association or, on the other, giving some suspicion of countenancing a color line and perhaps bringing a clashing of interests between sister societies. In the report on education just received, special attention was turned to the mountain whites. Perhaps the solution of our difficulties may be found here. Certainly there will arise in your minds no suspicion of waning interest in the colored people or sympathy with caste on the part of those who have heretofore been closely connected with this mountain work at Berea College and the surrounding regions. It is their unanimous conviction that work undertaken for these mountain people with firm faith in Christian brotherhood and unswerving courage will assist in unfurling upon a higher masthead the broad motto borne on the seal of Berea College for twenty-five years past: “God hath made of one blood all nations of men.”

The term “mountain” stands for much more than appears at first. It stands for a larger, more inviting and fertile section than many are aware of. It comprises a stretch of country commencing in the Virginias and extending to Alabama, 500 miles one way by 200 the other. Much of the land, not simply in valleys, but also upon the benches of hillsides and even upon the broad mountain tops, is as fertile as the better known sections of the South. At the base of these hills lies an untold wealth of coal, iron and other minerals which is, as yet, almost untouched, while the summits of these hills are still crowned with the virgin forests. This country supports now a population of two millions, though its capabilities are wretchedly developed. The growth since the war in these regions has been at almost double the ratio of that of other parts of the South.

But the term “mountain” bespeaks a country with different social and political characteristics. Slavery had no use for a self-respectful, laboring white man. The badge of manual labor was a badge of servile degradation. Of two brothers one would chance to get a little start, own a few slaves and all society would spur him onward. The other, less fortunate at the start, would slip away to some mountain hamlet and lead an uneventful, unambitious life and bring up a large family in utter ignorance. He plodded on his way, working only as necessity compelled him, instinctively hating slavery, slave-owners and slaves. Thus slavery rejected not simply this broken mountainous country, but the large class of whites which inhabited this region. If the North cares to dignify physical labor in the South, if it feels the need of a class that has a natural love for free, republican institutions, if[392] it cares to have the common-school system take rooting in the soil, if it desires a class of whites that shall be the wise, consistent friends of the colored people, perhaps it may find that this large body of whites rejected by slavery will prove the effective agency under the divine planning for this purpose. The stone which the builders rejected may become the head of the corner.

But one or two railroads cross this section. There are few towns of any importance, and a man who should own $10,000 worth of property would be the great man for twenty miles around. They are an agricultural people, each family living on its own little farm of 50 to 100 acres, the homestead often having been handed down through two or three generations. The houses range from the painted and unpainted frame house of four to six rooms to the very common little log hut of one to two rooms where you will find huddled together at night a father and mother, and children of every age, and you yourself if you happen to be their guest. The most that is needed for family wants, from corn and bacon to tobacco, is raised by themselves. Often such a family will not see $50 in cash the year round. Even the old hand looms find a friendly shelter in those Rip Van Winkle hollows. A man who moved from these regions to Berea, that he might give his seven children an education, wore upon his back his carefully preserved wedding suit, the wool for which he himself had cut from the backs of his father’s sheep, and which his mother, after spinning, and weaving, and dyeing with butternut bark, had cut and made for him. A little shovel plough, a hand-made hoe, and an unkempt mule with a straw collar make up the agricultural outfit. The schoolhouse is a log hut sometimes without doors and windows, or even a floor. For religious services, dependence is placed upon the chance visits of an exhorter who sometimes cannot read, and is even proud of getting his inspiration at first hand. There is a section of Eastern Kentucky, 200 miles one way by 100 the other, that has not a settled minister of any denomination. Some hesitate about extending the work of this Association beyond the blacks, but they need have little scruple here, for this section of the map of our country is black through illiteracy. More than half of the adult white population native born, of the same stock and lineage that furnished from the more favored sections the Clays and Breckenridges, that gave to this country Abraham Lincoln—more than half of this white population cannot read or write. Thus, not on the farther side of broad oceans, or even the distant borders of our land, but right at hand in the very heart of the best settled and most cultured part of our country lies this territory, vast in extent, utterly neglected by all uplifting agencies in the past, peculiarly susceptible to the awakening influences of the changed social conditions at the South, where there is an ignorance so dense that when we remember that they are our brothers and sisters, not by Christian ties simply but by direct blood and lineage, we must hang our heads in shame. Surely if the Church at the North is sighing for new worlds to conquer, what more claim can there possibly be upon its attention and benevolence?

It is a matter of congratulation that this work can be entered upon by this Association at once and with vigor, without embarrassment or exciting in any quarter criticism or suspicion. It is idle for us to suppose that the social growth of generations enforced by ignorance, savage heredity and marked physical characteristics, has wasted away in less than a score of years. More vital than any political problem or the growth of any special church polity is the question whether the time can ever come in this country when the negro in debating his chances and opportunities in life shall not be made to feel that his color is a drawback to him. In working out the solution of this problem this Association has borne a part that is[393] fast challenging the respect of the South and the admiration of the North. This is a vantage ground that it is hazardous to yield. The work of this Association is understood everywhere to mean that nothing less than the utter demolishment of every barrier in the upward progress of the negro race will satisfy it. If, therefore, the churches lay upon it this further work, we feel sure that not only by heritage will it prove true to these fundamental principles, but that the workers at present in the South will exercise an Argus-eyed vigilance that nowhere shall there be a shadow of a suspicion that the spirit of caste has influenced its action. Without rashness on one hand or neglecting its opportunities on the other, the churches at the North can thus safely gratify their present earnest and commendable, though somewhat tardy, desire to benefit the needy whites of the South by asking this Association to turn its attention specially to these mountain whites.

The friends of this Association should also remember that the man whose name as a missionary has been the longest on your roll, the Rev. John G. Fee, was born at the base of these Kentucky hills. You should remember, too, that the men who made an anti-slavery church and school in a slavery State years before the war were these mountain whites. This Association nursed its firstborn on these mountain slopes. As patriots, some of whose sons sleep on that Southern soil, you should remember that this whole section was loyal in the battle for a united country unstained by slavery. West Virginia parted from the parent State under this patriotic impulse. Some mountain counties in Kentucky sent more men into the Union army than they had liable to military duty. Surely gratitude for such help in that struggle is not so dead at the North that it will not say to this Association: “If you have the opportunity by churches and schools to repay in part the debt we owe, we will see that you have the money and the men.”

REPORT ON CHURCH WORK.

Your Committee finds in the report of the Executive Committee for the past year, proof of healthy and steady growth in the work of planting churches. The report records the organization of six new churches, viz., McLeansville, N.C.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Birmingham, Ala.; Jackson, Miss.; Fayetteville, Ark.; and Belle Place, La., and one new State Association of six churches in Miss.; making the whole number of churches eighty-nine, and of State Associations eight. The additions to these churches during the past year have been six hundred and sixty-seven; the number of scholars gathered in the church and Mission Sunday-schools has been nine thousand four hundred and four; the contributions for church work $12,027.21 and for benevolent purposes $1,049.35.

We are glad to find it to be the distinct aim of the Society to press its work of evangelization to its consummation in Christian churches, and that while its educational and industrial work must from the nature of the case be general in its character, the obligation is recognized to gather up the result, so far and as fast as opportunity affords, in a more specific and permanent form. An intelligent Christianity, such as is fostered in the academies, seminaries and colleges maintained by the Society, demands a church-polity that gives scope to the developed manhood and retains it in a process of growth. Our work would be but half done did we leave those brought under its influence to fall back into old methods and be lost in the mass of ignorance and superstition.

The Association was debarred from this distinctive work at first, but when soon after the war, others, who had contributed to the funds of this Society, seeing the magnitude of the undertaking, wisely began efforts of their own, the Association[394] was left to the support of the Congregational churches, it directed its labors to this end. This distinctive church-planting work began in 1867. In that year the Society organized three churches. The statistics of its growth in this direction are summarized thus: In 1867 there were three churches; in 1870 there were twenty-three; in 1875, fifty-six; in 1880, seventy-three; in 1883, eighty-nine. The membership now numbers five thousand nine hundred and seventy-four, an average of sixty-seven to each church. Every church but two has a pastor, and eighty of the eighty-nine have their own houses of worship. These churches give promise of permanency. They have not sprung from a division or denominational spirit, and are not the representations of restlessness or the mere desire to try some new thing. Their roots are laid deep in the Christian education of the schools, and their organization expresses the need of the growing intelligence of those who compose them. Churches made of such material, formed upon the New Testament plan, have thus far been stable; those first formed are among the strongest.

Nor are these churches isolated and independent. They have recognized the principle of the fellowship of the churches and have grouped themselves into eight State Conferences, thus giving to our polity an example and an acknowledged position in that great section of our land. It is gratifying to find from the reports that the methods of this church-government are readily apprehended by the members of these churches, and that in the order and discipline of the individual churches and in the management of their councils and conferences, they are showing capacity for self-control.

This body of churches, so well organized and underlaid by Christian schools, presents a record of sixteen years’ effort that does no discredit to the Congregational name.

While anxious for a more rapid growth in the future, and wishing to extend the good influences which we believe will be felt by the establishment of such churches, we would commend the wisdom and prudence that have seized upon strong centers and have avoided the hasty multiplication of churches for the sake of members. While urging for the future the utmost watchfulness for opportunity and the pushing of this branch of the work of the Association, we express the hope that what is done be well done, that no discredit may come to the cause of Christ, as represented by the churches of our polity. It is not number but might that tells in the formation processes of a people. A single church of genuine substance, rightly constituted and ordered and working outward, is a germ around which a whole community will take form. More than numbers, the inherent vitality of this molds and fashions after the ideas and principles with which it is charged. It has vitalizing and organic power in it, and kindling the intelligence and awakening the responsibility of its own members, it leads and sways the people around it. It may work dimly for a time amid the surrounding chaos, but presently as the social fabric thus woven is brought to light, the figure appears and it commends itself as a true church of Christ.

But the work so well begun ought soon to be greatly enlarged. The rapid growth of the colored population gives emphasis to this—a growth that so far outstrips the means of education and spiritual improvement as to leave a constantly increasing number of illiterate voters and of degraded people. The benevolent societies of the North, of every name and order, ought to multiply their efforts for training the needed teachers—the business and professional men, the mechanics and the educated and consecrated ministers. Meantime, as the higher education of some advances, there will be more and more demand for churches of our order. We say this not from denominational feeling. We hold no invasive[395] attitude. We stir no controversy. We aim not at division, but believing that the apostolic method of gathering churches is the true one, that in its fluent and free adaptation, its simplicity of form and order, in its investing Christ as the immediate Head of each local church, in its putting the individual members upon responsibility, and thus setting them to the study of God’s Word for authority and the dependence upon the Divine Spirit for guidance—that in this free and fraternal way of ordering the churches there is a molding power for good beyond others, and remembering its working and product elsewhere, we desire such fruit of it all abroad.

That Providence which always surpasses our thought in preparing its agencies has given us for this work this Association with its schools and machinery, its knowledge of the needs of the section where its greatest efforts have been put forth. Started with no expectation of founding churches, it yet has nothing in its constitution limiting it to one kind of effort nor to any one class or race. Its schools are open to all. Its churches are simply Christian churches. It goes to teach and preach and to elevate the masses. That is what is needed—no distinction of caste or class, and in the organization of churches the recognition of a regenerate membership on the principle that mankind are of one blood and on the fellowship of all Christians.

While practically its work has been mainly among the freedmen, and while it may continue for some time to find itself limited to them, theoretically its work is for all, and it should hold fast to that principle. It should never form some churches for black men and other churches for white men; but always Christian churches for Christian men and women. We should deprecate any line drawn in the Christian church based on difference in wealth, in social position, in education, in color, in sex, in previous condition. The only line to be drawn there is between those who give good evidence of renewed hearts and those who do not. We recognize this as the principle governing this Association, and therefore commend it as the adequate agency for the evangelizing work of our churches in the South. May it be abundantly sustained by the prayers and sympathies and means of our churches at the North, and may it soon find an open door through the ignorance and the prejudice by which it is surrounded and be free to work among all classes at the South.

And looking at the work already commenced among the freedmen, what a goodly field is opened before us! What a beneficent influence we can exert, not only on the seven millions in our own land, who are part of our body politic, but upon a whole race counted by its many millions in different parts of the world! What stores of prophetic power are lodged in every true church we establish! We have but the merest hint and initial sign in the little bands now gathered of the possibilities lying before us!

We commend this work to the churches at the North, and plead that these older churches cherish a lively and effective interest in all this outgrowth of themselves. There is danger that there may be abatement of interest in this direction, and that the fostering hand and special sympathy these weak churches, now that they are churches, need in their struggles, be withheld. That distinctive feature of Congregationalism which marks it off from sheer independency needs to be emphasized. There are claims of community in faith and order that should be gladly owned, and perfect understanding and interchange should be cherished between all parts of this fellowship of saints, mutual confidence and the gracious tenderness of a love deeper than any kinship of race should cement us in one.

By our liberal things we shall stand. We have sent men and women and means with large generosity, that inquired not whether they served our own denomination[396] or another, if only Christ’s cause be promoted. The work already done is a fair movement to self-forgetful charity. We should now make our beneficence more and more the channel of grace and fellowship to brethren whom we have made brethren. If we do indeed hold this church polity on such terms of intelligence as to make it fit to hold it at all, if it be no fault of the awakened ones at the South that they hold it, then what has been so good and fruitful here we should make strong and fruitful there. And if this Association has come in its legitimate growth to the establishment of self-governed churches, accept them as our own. Our seal is on them from the first. The time is ripe for larger advance, and for more confidence in our own work.

It is with gratitude we acknowledge the liberal plan with which this Association is now supplementing its evangelizing and teaching work with the timely and necessary work of church erection. It is part of the same work. Nearly fourscore neat and serviceable church edifices have already arisen under its auspices. No better work and none looking more to permanent results has been done. Many a missionary and pastor has found his work at once enlarged and all his means of good multiplied, when the house of God has been given him by its aid. And every such edifice stands forth as an eloquent witness of your loving care for the people of the South, and serves as a bond of union between the distant parts of our land.

The same divine ordinance that opened this field to us, prescribes our work in it. Now that our mission reveals itself, shall we not accept it thankfully, impress ourselves purposely on this vast field, and let the poor of all classes feel the strength of Christian community and fellowship—for we are one?

Lewellyn Pratt, Chairman.

ADDRESS OF REV. T. P. PRUDDEN.

Assuming that the church work of the Association was not for sectarian propagandism, but for saving men from sin and its consequences, he proceeded:

Is it not evident, first of all, that the Church of Christ is the great and divinely ordained instrument for establishing the Kingdom of God? Schools are undoubtedly instruments. But their place is to supplement, not supplant, the Church. In that long line of Christian work which, beginning at Jerusalem, has well-nigh encircled the world, has not the Church of Christ been the chief machinery through which the good seed of the Gospel has been sown and the crop harvested, through which Christ’s servants have done his work, through which a goodly influence has been exerted, and through which Christian institutions have been founded and preserved? We are seeking the civilization of a down-trodden race, but what force was ever such a civilizer as the Christian Church?

Church work is necessary if we are to retain and conserve the results of school work. Let secular education train a man, and he becomes more polished and better equipped for life and work. He has greater power, but it may be a power for sin and selfishness, as truly as for God and righteousness. Let Christian education work upon him as it does in the schools of this Association, he is still more polished, he has a spiritual life. Not when in school, but when the school is left, is the Church most necessary. The influence of the college cannot be about a man in his home, the influence of the Church can. The help of a teacher is transient, the help of a pastor and the associations of a church are permanent. To expect these to retain the best fruits of that Christian education which this Association is so widely diffusing, unless churches take up, and carry[397] on what the schools have begun, is to expect more of the colored race, with its inheritance of degradation, and slavery and little training, than we expect of the white race with its inheritance of Christianity and freedom, and abundant training.

Closely allied to this is the need of church work to withstand the evils that are incident to awakened thought and increased knowledge. The air is laden with a sentiment of irreligion. Educating a freedman is breaking up the hard sod of ignorance in which such seeds of evil fall without taking root, providing instead a soil that is very receptive.

As our educational work is, and must be, destructive of the religion of the old slave days, it becomes more emphatically our duty to provide a positive and intelligent religion to take the place of that which we destroy. Not to do so is to bring a possible curse along with our good. Moreover, churches must furnish zealous men and woman, whom education may prepare to do the Lord’s work. It is not enough to rely upon the possibility of conversion while the students are in college. The Church has an earlier and a broader opportunity. It forms the homes and the influences that form the children. A vast proportion of the pastors and missionaries of the North have gone to college as Christians, instead of becoming Christians when there. They have come from Christian homes. They were sent by Christian parents whose love for God and man was planted and trained in Christ’s Church.

And, brethren, need I remind you that we are sowing for a slowly maturing harvest.

The special work for the colored race to do in this country and in Africa is appalling, by reason of its vastness. And when we ask how it shall be done, I affirm that the churches of Christ in the South are to be great instruments. Successful foreign missions require vigorous home missions. Do you smile at the idea of these feeble churches ever furnishing financial support? One of them is reported this year as giving $90 to this Association, $70 to the American Board, $77 to home missions, while it spent $687 for itself.

The time of defense and apology for church work is passed. It is no longer an experiment. The night of doubt and preparation has gone. The morning of small things when, waiting for more abundant light, we moved with commendable slowness, has opened and glided on into the broad full day. Now we can do what we never could before.

EXTRACTS FROM THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE.

Your Committee on Finance beg leave to report that they have carefully examined the books of account and the various annual statements of the Treasurer, and that as statements of the business done by the Association they find them all in the most satisfactory condition. The books are kept by a simple but comprehensive system of double entry, by which a double-system of checks against error is provided, and individual and representative accounts are each kept in proper form. The annual statements of receipts and expenditures, of investments, of permanent funds and of real estate held by the Association are all properly certified to as correct by the Auditors. The committee commend the financial administration of the Association for its economy and faithfulness.

The permanent funds held in trust by the Association, the income of which is used according to the direction of the donors, amounts to $203,863.60. These funds are invested mostly in U.S. government bonds and in first mortgages on productive[398] real estate, which are an ample security for the amounts which they represent. The entire safety of these investments speaks well for the financial officers of the Association, and the wisely conservative regulations of the by-laws of the Executive Committee regarding investments warrants the fullest confidence in the continued security of funds committed to their care.

The permanent investment of the Association in lands and buildings for church and educational purposes in the South, of which it holds undisputed titles in its own name, is inventoried at $483,370. Berea College, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, and Fisk and Atlanta Universities hold their own property by their own boards of trustees. The estimated present value of all these properties amounts to at least one million of dollars.

Here are a million dollars worth of tools and machinery, all in good running order, exactly adapted to the business in hand and located at the best possible points for doing it. Does not this fact appeal mightily to the churches to see to it that this great investment which they have made be used to the best possible advantage? He would be a poor business man, who would invest a million of dollars in a “plant” and then scrimp his business for lack of current funds. That would be a poor business, which with that amount of money well invested for its purposes could not secure the working capital necessary to use it to its full capacity.

It takes a long time and much hard work to gather from the benevolent a million dollars and to expend it judiciously in the erection of churches, school-houses and colleges. Every dollar of this money is freighted with prayer and winged with love. It will be found again presently as treasure laid up in heaven. It is like an inspiration to think how much of Christ’s spirit is represented in these buildings built for the love of Him. But they must be used. The very stones and brick will cry out against us, if we neglect to follow up what has been done with still greater work in the future.

The Executive Committee in their annual report call for one thousand dollars a day, as needed for current expenses the coming year. In order to raise this sum the ordinary contributions must be increased to $225,000, an advance of one-half over last year. In view of the great issues at stake, and the unexampled opportunities of the Association for doing its work, your Finance Committee recommend that this increase be made.

Let this be the key-note of our appeals this year: One thousand dollars a day; 50 per cent. advance on all contributions.

All of which is most respectfully submitted,

Erastus Blakeslee, for the Committee.

ADDRESS OF REV. D. O. MEARS, D.D.

Now the question comes right here: shall we give according to what we are, or what we have? One of the largest contributors in New England told me the story of his conversion the other day, and it was this, as we sat in the evening by his fireside. “My wife and I,” he said, “had acquired a competence; money seemed to be coming in. I had been brought up outside the Christian faith, and while such a one was preaching on one occasion I debated the question: Can I become a Christian? My wife found the light and for days I wrestled with the question. Light would not come. I knew what it was; it was my pocket book; shall that be[399] included? When I decided my pocketbook for Christ, then light broke in; and,” said he in that narration, as a fit appendix to the whole, “I have never put my means in any place where I have ever lost in all my experience.”

It is said that after the events at Pentecost, Andrew went down to China and preached and that Thomas also, whose finger ached to pierce the nail-torn hands of his Master and whose fist was almost doubled that it might be thrust into that pierced side, went down to China to preach the everlasting Gospel. Now 75,000 of that race, whose great engineering works were the world’s marvel 250 years before the call of Abraham, whose emperor wrote a classic a thousand years before David touched his sacred pen, are at our very doors; and if it was worth while for Andrew and Thomas to go from Jerusalem to China it is worth our work to preach to them and teach them and call them to us when they are so near, is it not? I remember it is written in the prophets, as I suppose Matthew read, “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands to God,” and Ethiopia received the preaching of Matthew, so say many. I remember that Mark founded the church in the upper part of that dark continent. I remember that when our blessed Master fainted under the cross it was an African who put his brawny shoulder under it and walked by the side of our Lord, his Lord, to the crucifixion. And almost as a revenge, though not revenge, Simon, the zealot, who looked to Africa, was crucified himself in lower Egypt. If these thought it worth while to evangelize Africa, what shall we say of the 7,000,000 of Africa’s sons at our very doors?

The question now comes: Can we give? Is there money enough to give? There is an article in the “Century” for November, I think it is, which states, after computation from two cities of considerable size, that four-fifths of the inhabitants were attendants upon church services. The figures struck me with absolute astonishment and consternation. And, you remember, a year ago it was said that fully one-fifth of all the property in the United States, according to calculation, is held in the hands of Christians. I saw this so late that I had not time to go over it extensively; so I took the single city of Worcester. I took the 322 highest tax-payers in that city, and I called on a man who I supposed knew best the church-going habits and pew-owning property of these leading business men, and I said: “Will you tell me where this one goes and that one goes?” We marked them off last Sunday night, and of the whole 322 we found only 65 whom we did not know to be church-goers; and it is safe to say from the percentage that 25 of the 65 were church-goers—men who belonged to families that we felt sure would attend the house of God. We knew that 255 attended church; and adding the 25 that were doubtful, we had 280 out of 320 of the leading men in the city of Worcester that attend the Protestant churches in that city. Take the banks. There are eleven banks in Worcester, and we went over the names of the directors and trustees. Out of the entire number (there were two unknown) we found only three individuals that were not represented in a church, and two of these were the same man—that is, one was a director in two banks.

Now, what is the use? Shall we say that the money belongs to the evil and the piety to the good? The piety and the money, the heart and the gold, are ever in the church. We are reading of a house to be put up in a celebrated watering-place that will cost $750,000. I saw that in the city of New York the land where that great opera-house is, brought the sum of $700,000. The owner of this property in either case would keep two great organizations like this going; and I said, “What! do we want some of that money that is to build that summer resort by the sea?” No, we don’t want it. “But we would like some of that money that is beneath that splendid building that is costing its millions?” No; we don’t want it.[400] If men will build houses for self, let the Christian do his work for the Master, and let us outdo the world.

But I must hasten. There is this demand of the nation upon us. It is said that Robert Peel was riding with his daughter on her birthday—he had given her a splendid riding habit, and the two were admired by all who saw them, and the father looked with pride upon his daughter—and in less than a week the daughter was beneath the sod. The seamstress had sewed the habit while sitting by the side of the bed of her husband groaning under the delirium of the typhus; and in the chill that came upon him she had cast the garment over him. The typhus of the garret became the typhus of that celebrated house. And we are concerned with the swamps, with the morasses, with these debased and poor colored people. We cannot afford to be other. I would, if there were time, enlarge upon this in connection with the report so admirably given; but I must pass on.

It is said that the Puritan captain Hodgdon was riding one day at the head of his company near the mountains when he heard the sound of a bugle. As he heard it he said to his soldiers: “Halt!” and every man leaned on his arms. “List! I love to hear the sound of the bugle: there is so much of God in it.” Yesterday came the report from the counties of Kentucky. It was a bugle-blast to this assembly. Was God in it? 500,000 people who could not read their names, though written in characters that might be read 100 rods off—500,000 illiterate, ten years of age and above, in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia! From the mountains there comes the sound of the bugle that has stirred us. Did it wake us up? Was God in it? I heard a voice in that sound. We are told in our press and from our platforms that the A. M. A. is not doing full work in the South, and other helpers must come. Wait. Don’t hurry. The bugle has sounded; it was God that was sounding it. I ask for no vote of this assembly. I call for no show of hands. Yet, if you wait before God, you must answer in the name of this world to his call: “I ordain you to go and devote $50,000 to the mountain work, in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.” It must be done. There is no drawing back.

It is said that when Robert Bruce was marching to meet Edward, and came within sight of the glittering sheen, he said to his soldiers, “Kneel down, every one”; and the army of Robert Bruce, with their eyes to the earth and their lips moving, offered their prayers to God, then rose up—a little army—and defeated the English. It was God’s voice that sounded like a bugle. It is for the soldiers to pray, and to fall where the bugle calls.

One other point only, briefly, in regard to this question of the demand that Christ makes on us. We must never establish a condition that he has not established; never set up a standard which he has not set up; but follow him and receive the blessing while we follow. It was the remark of Augustus that he found Rome of brick and left it of marble. Our fathers, a century ago, found this nation half slave and half free. It is now left a free nation. God grant it may become, by Christian effort, as good as it is free! In a dark day of our war when the armies were failing, and the hopes of the nation were placed in Lincoln and Lincoln lost hope, when our courage depended upon him and our flag seemed as if about to be rent by an unseen hand—when Lincoln said, “I see no hope”, for the rush of the armies seemed away from the South and up back to the North, Stanton uttered the words that gave courage to his heart: “Weary man, don’t you know that the churches of the North are everywhere praying for you?” And the weary look passed away from his face, and the smile came back to its wonted place. The children of Father Abraham need the prayers of the churches of Christ.

[401]

WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT GIVING.

BY REV. WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D.

In his sermon entitled “How to be a Christian in Trade,” a discourse which illustrates the wonderful combination of practical sagacity with spiritual insight, for which he was so remarkable, Dr. Bushnell says that “the great problem we have now on hand is the Christianizing of the money power of the world,” and again that “what we wait for, and are looking hopefully to see, is the consecration of the vast money power of the world to the work, and cause, and kingdom of Jesus Christ. For that day, when it comes, is the morning, so to speak, of the new creation. That tide-wave in the money power can as little be resisted when God brings it on as the tides of the sea; and like these also it will flow across the world in a day.” This witness is true, and it becomes us all, to pray and labor for the fulfilment of the prophecy that men shall come, “their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord our God.” But here the revival must begin in the Church itself. In former times we have had revivals with distinct characteristics. One was remarkable for the blessing which rested on preaching, another for the spirit of prayer which seemed to be poured out on the people generally; another for the interest that was evoked in the study of the Scriptures. What we have yet to see is a revival of which the chief distinguishing feature shall be liberal giving to the cause of the Lord Jesus, and when that comes it will be the prophecy of yet grander things for the promise “prove me now herewith if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it,” was made, not in connection with an exhortation to prayer, as so many who quote it seem to believe, but with immediate reference to the honoring of God with our substance, for thus it runs: “Bring ye all the tithes into the store-house, and prove me now herewith.” While, therefore, it is true that a spirit of liberality in the support of the cause of Christ must be a fruit of renewed life in the Church, it is also true that its manifestation by the Church will be the forerunner of such spiritual triumphs as it has never yet achieved. Thus it is of great moment that we should use means for the awakening of Christians to a sense of the importance of this matter, and few things, in my judgment, would more efficiently contribute to the attainment of that end than setting briefly and pointedly before them the teachings of the word of God upon the subject. I cannot hope to cover all that ground in the few minutes now at my disposal; the most I shall attempt will be to take a general survey of it.

Beginning, then, with the act of giving itself, I find that it is spoken of as a part of self consecration to God, for when at the close of his reign David brought out in the sight of all the people the treasures which he had amassed for the building of the Temple and sought to incite them to make an offering for the same purpose, he said, “Who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord?” It is regarded as an act of worship, for God commanded his people to “come into his courts and bring an offering with them.” It is described by Paul as a “grace.” When writing to the Corinthians he said, “Therefore as ye abound in everything, in faith and utterance and knowledge, and in all diligence and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also.” Only think of it—“as ye abound in utterance, so abound in this grace also.” What a blessed thing it would be in this America of ours, on which the gift of tongues seems to have been so lavishly bestowed, if Christians generally were as fluent in giving as they are in speech! It is referred to again and again as a “communion” in such passages as these: “Let him that is taught in the word communicate to”—that is, have[402] communion with Him, that teacheth in all good things, “to do good and to communicate forget not,” or, as it might be given more literally, “Of well doing and of communion be not forgetful, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” In the same sense Paul, who had just received a gift from the Philippians, thanks God for their “fellowship,” that is, “communion” in the gospel from the first day until now; and praises them for having done well in communicating, or rather, for the word is the same, in having communion with his affliction; while he records it to their credit that no church communicated with him; or, for the word is still the same, “had communion with him in the matter of giving and receiving but they only.” To the same effect he says to the Corinthians that the churches of Macedonia had begged him to take upon him the “fellowship,”—that is, “communion”—of ministering to the saints in carrying to Jerusalem their gifts to the poor of that city, and he urges his readers to accept a part in the same service that God might be glorified for “their liberal distribution”—that is, for the liberality of the communion, for so the word still is, “unto them and unto all men.” And to mention only one other passage, the same apostle in his Epistle to the Romans bids his readers “distribute to the necessities of the saints,”—that is, for the word is still the same, “hold communion with the necessities of the saints.” Thus the making of contributions for benevolence in every form of it in which the Church is engaged is as really a communion service as is the observance of the Lord’s Supper. The same word is used in reference to both, and both alike are manifestations of the oneness of all the people of Christ in their common Lord. If this were more generally understood and felt by us I am sure that we should all have greater enjoyment in that part of the service on which so many look with disfavor, the making of a contribution; for that, as Paul gives us to understand, is only the manifestation by us in another form of the fellowship which we show forth when the bread and wine of the supper are passed from hand to hand among us. In this view of the case it is to be feared that there are far more “close” communionists in the Church than those who are commonly so denominated, and it may be well for us to take the beam out of our own eyes before we seek to become oculists to others.

Further, this giving is distinctly spoken of in the New Testament as a privilege. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said “It is more blessed,” that is, it is a greater happiness “to give than to receive.” In many enterprises in which men engage the cost is more than the profit, “the play” as the French proverb has it, “is not worth the candle,” but here there is always blessing; blessing in the consciousness that we have the means of doing good; blessing in entering into fellowship with God, whose happiness is all that of giving out; and blessing in the fact that the joy of the recipient comes back to us and redoubles our delight.

But passing now from the act itself to the reward promised to it, we find that set before us in three different ways. It is first, temporal. “Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase. So shall thy barns be filled with plenty and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.” It is, second, spiritual, for Paul in connection with his exhortation to the Corinthians says: “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye always, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work being enriched in everything to all bountifullness.” Was there ever such a piling of universal terms one above the other as we have here? It seems as if the apostle could not say enough to strengthen his assertion, and it is all said in connection with cheerful giving. Nor is this all. He goes on to say that the gifts of the Corinthians by evoking prayers on their behalf from the hearts of the receivers, would return in blessings[403] into their own bosoms. You know how the process of irrigation goes on in nature. All the rivers run into the ocean, out of that the sun continually evaporates clouds, which the wind blows back over the land, where they fall out in rain on the mountains, and go to feed the rivers. Thus evermore the circle is kept up and the lands are fertilized. Now in the same way the gifts we make to God all run into the furtherance of his cause, and are by him lifted up into the celestial region of his grace and power, whence they descend again with new blessing into our hearts, making both ourselves individually and the Church at large joyous and productive. Then there is a third reward which is eternal; for Jesus in the close of the parable of the prudent steward says: “Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” Money will not purchase our entrance into heaven. Nothing can do that but the work of Christ; but the money which out of love to Christ we give to his people and his cause will secure that we shall be received in heaven by those whom we have been the means of benefiting. As we enter they will take us by the hand and lead us up to Him that sitteth on the throne, saying: This is he whose efforts and whose gifts were, under thee, the means of our being here; let it be done unto him as unto the man whom the King delighteth to honor. And he will reply: Well done! “Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye did it unto me.”

Then as to the manner of the giving. We are told that it should be cheerful, for God loveth a cheerful giver. It should be no stereotyped and immutable thing, the same through life, but “as God has prospered us.” It should be systematic, as the result of careful thought and weekly planning on the Lord’s day, under the influence of the memory of His resurrection. For it was after his great argument on the resurrection that Paul said “now concerning the collection,” and it was because of its connection with that resurrection that he specified “the first day of the week” as that on which every one should “lay by him in store as God hath prospered him.” Weekly storing in the Lord’s box at home on the Lord’s day, that is what Paul recommends, and then when the Lord makes his appeal to us we can cheerfully give Him of His own. In the neglect of this plan, and the making of gatherings for this and that cause as each comes along, we have the explanation of the disfavor with which, in the public service, too many hear the announcement that a contribution will be made.

But now, finally, as to the motive. Here it is: “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich.” The bringing of such a motive to bear on so simple a thing as the making of a contribution for the poor saints of Jerusalem seems like cracking a nut with a Nasmyth steam hammer. But Paul knew what he was doing when he dictated these words. He wanted to exalt and consecrate all Christian beneficence by having it done from the most powerful Christian motive. And after the presentation of such a motive there is no more to be said. For when men know the grace of Christ, they will never feel that they have given Him enough, and till they know it they will never give Him anything. They may contribute to keep up appearances so as to be like other people, or to gain a reputation, but they will never give to Him until they know His grace. This is the very pith and marrow of the matter. Before men give to Christ they must receive from him, and when they have received Christ Himself into their hearts they will be impelled to give. Impelled, not compelled; for the delight and the duty will coincide, or rather the duty will be merged in the delight. So we come round to the[404] point at which we set out. A revived church will become a giving church, and a giving church is the fore-herald of a converted world.

How much owest thou thy Lord? That is the question which the giver has to face. Sometimes in commercial circles a man will assign a debt that is owing him to some one else, out of friendship, that he may take it when he has collected it and use it for himself. Much in the same way, I think, the Lord Jesus has assigned a large portion of the debt which we owe to him to those who are around us—to the unconverted at our doors, to those races among whom you labor, to the pagans far away. This was what Paul felt when he said, “I am debtor, both to the wise and to the unwise, both to the Greek and to the Barbarian”; and it was the constant feeling of that sense of obligation that gave his life its nobleness and its usefulness. So let it be with us; and let us see in those for whom appeal is made to us through this Association, the representatives of Christ.

There is a beautiful story told in Stevenson’s “Praying and Working.” I am very fond of repeating it—I may have told it to some of you before, but no matter—about a little child in the orphanage of John Falk at Weimar. They were having supper in the dining-hall, and the teacher gave thanks in the ordinary way before the children began their meals, saying, “Come, Lord Jesus, and be our guest to-night, and bless the mercies which Thou has provided.” One little boy looked up and said, “Teacher, you always ask the Lord Jesus to come, but he never comes. Will he ever come?” “Oh, yes; if you will only hold on in faith, he will be sure to come.” “Very well,” said the little boy, “I will set a chair for him beside me here to-night to be ready when he comes.” And so the meal proceeded. By-and-by there came a rap at the door, and there was ushered in a poor half-frozen apprentice. He was taken to the fire and his hands warmed. Then he was asked to partake of the meal, and where should he go but to the chair which the little boy had provided? and as he sat down there the little boy looked up with a light in his eye, and said, “Teacher, I see it now! The Lord Jesus was not able to come himself, and he sent this poor man in his place. Isn’t that it?”

Aye, that is just it. And so, brethren, the Lord Jesus isn’t able, according to His plans for this world, to come personally yet among us, but He has sent those colored people, Chinese, Indians and heathen to make appeal in His behalf to us, and who among us will set a chair for Him? There are many friends with whom I hardly agree who are very anxiously waiting for the appearance of the personal Christ among us, and they are wondering what they shall do to welcome Him. Would that the eyes of these brethren and our own too were opened to the perception of the Christ that is already here, in the persons of those needing to be helped and educated and elevated, and that their ears could hear His words, “Inasmuch as ye do it unto one of the least of these His brethren ye do it unto Christ.”

That is the Christian philosophy of giving, and if a man does not feel the force of these considerations I should be disposed to say he has not yet begun to be a Christian.

ADDRESS OF REV. DR. DENNEN.

The topic of this closing service is not only of prime importance, but comes in its logical place. When your machinery is all educational, industrial and church-wise, the final and vital question is one of power to move it. The supreme motive power in your work is spiritual life.

Life is force, something capable of originating or resisting power or motion. Physical life is that mysterious something no analysis can detect, no alembic reveal,[405] no power resist; which swells the bud, opens the flower, sprouts the seed, ripens the harvest.

Spiritual life, through another plane, is also a force, capable of originating or resisting power or motion. Its realm is the human soul, and draws nutriment from the soil, which that cunning chemist we call life builds up into strength and beauty.

Spiritual vitality performs a similar structural function. Once made alive in Christ Jesus, the disciple seeks for spiritual aliment.

1. Now, spiritual life, like natural life, possesses structural power. It is a master builder. One main function of the vital principle in nature is to lay hold of inert matter and convert it into living organisms. The growing tree absorbs tons of carbon from the air. The local church, if a live one, takes up into her membership more or less of the outlying population, and from aliens converts them into fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of faith.

The ability, then, of this noble Association, second to none in the land, to advance the kingdom of Christ in the several fields where it operates, will assuredly be conditioned upon the spirit and vigor of the churches and individuals behind it, will be determined, not so much by the amount of money it receives or the number of workers it puts into the field, as by the prayers and spiritual enthusiasm of its constituency.

Carlyle once said: “The American Republic is going straight to the devil. No government can long exist that receives the refuse of all the rest of the world into its midst and makes citizens of them.” Our free institutions are to undergo a strain in the near future, I am sure, that has never yet been put upon them. Our American churches are also to be put to a similar strain. Nay, the pressure is already upon them. Are they equal to it? I believe so. We must, however, leaven the multitudes of the ignorant and unsaved with our Christianity, or they will leaven us with their illiteracy. Our ability to meet the emergency already upon us will depend, under God, upon our spiritual vitality.

2. Another function of life is its expulsive power. What it cannot use and assimilate it expels. It gathers the good and casts the bad away. Strong, vigorous life depends as much upon the one function as the other. The religious world is full of the germs and larvæ of skepticism, theistic and atheistic assaults and criticisms. A robust person can walk in the midst of pestilence unscathed, while disease springs upon one whose vitality is depressed. Precisely the same condition obtains in respect to the individual disciple, or the church, or our missionary boards.

The one effective answer to skepticism, then, of every grade and degree of virulence; the one sovereign remedy for worldliness, apathy and avarice of God’s people, is a new enduement of spiritual power. Our lips must be touched with celestial fire and our hearts bathed in Christ’s great love.

3. Another quality of life is its expansive power. The mightiest force in this world is life. It mocks at gravity; it defies cohesion; bursts every band. The same expansive property inheres in spiritual life.

You might as well shut up a growing chicken in its shell as to shut up a live Christianity in the shell of the fathers. No. Where there is life there must be expansion. She breaks through old traditions and prejudices, and steps out into new departures and broader methods, and pushes on into new regions of thought and conquest beyond. She lays her hand on the colored man of the South, saves, educates him, equips him for the life that now is, as well as for that which is to come. She stands on the shores of the great Pacific, where the shining waves lave her feet and chant their mighty anthems of freedom, and, with open, arms and[406] a catholic heart, free of all race prejudices, welcomes the Chinaman. She uncovers the cross in the wigwam of the red man and bids the dusky sons of the forest look and live.

4. Once more spiritual life is the only complete bond of union. Says President Hopkins, “It is on this that the whole method of God in the restoration of man is based, and it is for the recognition of this by men, and their adoption of God’s method of vitality and unity, the tardy, laboring and discordant times wait. No partial reform will do; no coming man. Everywhere men are divergent, repellant. The bond of common humanity is but a string of tow to bind the Samson of human selfishness and passions. There must be a divine life, a divine centre. This center is Christ. He is the life. The nexus which is to bind this selfish world in one, and unite all races and nationalities in one common fellowship and forward movement to disciple the world, is Christ in the souls of all men. Amid every diversity of polity and people, He is the one vivifying and unifying spirit.

5. The principal question, however, is one of means. How is this life to be secured? To get fresh water we go to the spring. To get information we go to the sources of knowledge. To get spiritual vitality we go to Christ. Life in nature is the product of living organisms in contact. The strength and continuance of that life depends upon the closeness of the contact. The steel must touch the magnet to receive and retain magnetism.

So spiritual life and zeal comes from contact with a living Christ. The strength and fervor of that life is forever conditioned upon the closeness of our contact with our living Head.

No one thing so lowers spiritual heat and light as distance from Christ. Neptune has not a thousandth part of our light and warmth. He is too far away from the central orb. We are just now too far away from Christ; hence our comparative barrenness. We must sit where the fire and inspiration of His eye kindle in ours; where his glowing enthusiasm passes over into us; where the greatness and grandeur of the work He has given us to do shall thrill us and grow upon us. Then we shall mount to its accomplishment on the wings of eagles, and run and not be weary, and walk and not faint.

Never had this Association more call for enthusiasm, never for greater hopefulness. What did we see here last night—the black man and red man, men from Asia and Africa and America, strangers and proselytes, speak in their own tongues the wonderful works of God.

I cheer you on to the labor of another year. As we go down from this mount let us go to our upper chambers and, whether for eight days or as many weeks, let us tarry and pray until we are endued from on high and receive the tongues of flame and the utterance of the Spirit. Then let us, in our various fields, gird up our loins and go forth to achieve for the Lord of Hosts, resolved that before another anniversary of this Association comes round we will, God helping us, see thousands housed and happy in Christ’s dear love all over our beloved land of very race and color.

ADDRESS OF PROF. W. M. BARBOUR, D.D.

The topic assigned me is in the line of the theme just discussed by Dr. Dennen. My friend and classmate Dr. Pike insisted upon my coming over here and taking part in this evening meeting; and he said, “Your theme will be: Spiritual Vitality the Crowning Necessity in Missionary Work.”[407]

I shall take it for granted that other means have been set before you and insisted upon—the one nearest always, money. That is a great necessity in missionary work. You have heard, I have no doubt, a good deal about that, and I merely wish to honor it as a means under God of the most pressing necessity. We can do nothing to send the blessings that God has put into our hearts abroad among our fellow men without means; and the first means is money. But all the money in the world will not serve our end. What is the next? We must have men. But all the men in the world won’t do missionary work, although we had them all enlisted in that work. Suppose we had all the money we could use and all the men that offered themselves and that we could procure; we would only have gone so far. What else is needed? We need fitness in the men as another great means. This is as necessary as money and men, this culture. But after we have the men, and after we have them qualified, there is still room for what in my theme to-night is called “the crowning necessity.” You may take Yale College as it stands, with all its culture, and you may turn out all our hundreds of young men down into the South this blessed night; what could they do in missionary work to-morrow morning? So you see that it is not the money, or the men, or the culture that alone is needed; something more is needed, and that is “spiritual vitality.”

And now, beloved, to take the first step and to say the first thing that must be said, in my judgment (since I am called here to give my opinion), the first position that we must assume and which this Association has assumed from its very start—although it is one of the old things that Christ says a well-instructed scribe must take out of his treasury—we must begin with God. We are to stand in his presence, we are to summon him as our witness, we are to avow ourselves openly and frankly, every day we live, as doing this for him.

I should like to know where our modern unbelief is that is such a distress to us in all our efforts and in our inward life, when you reverently, and in the deep meaning of thought say, “As the Lord liveth”? Look at it. There are two schemes of the universe: one, the Christian scheme, with a belief in the living God as the original of all things—a personal being who is personally interested in his creatures, and who is desiring, since he has made him in his own image, to have man hold communion with himself, and who desires to have all men reconciled to himself from their sin and their misery and their unhappy life. There is another scheme where there is no God, or, what is the same thing to us, we do not know whether there is or not. And what is the idea of the universe that follows from that? Why, that it must move along as the blind force behind it shall urge it. Where is it going to land? The day is coming, brethren, when we will cry, “Oh for the doctrine of a predestinating God”—God with his eye on an end, and with an end to which he is turning all things and which shall be satisfactory to all the creatures that he has made in his image.

Let us take a frank position here as a missionary society, and let it be known that we openly and avowedly, by word and deed, take the stand that we believe in God, and that we believe he is a living God, and in his name and for his sake and to effect his purpose we are going to the South, to the North, to the East, to the West, to gain trophies that shall be to the glory of his redeeming grace, since he has revealed to us, as we believe, the fact that he will complete these ends through our agency.

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RECEIPTS FOR OCTOBER, 1883.

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CONSTITUTION.

Art. I. This society shall be called the American Missionary Association.

Art. II. The object of this Association shall be to conduct Christian missionary and educational operations and diffuse a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures in our own country and other countries which are destitute of them, or which present open and urgent fields of effort.

Art. III. Members of evangelical churches may be constituted members of this Association for life by the payment of thirty dollars into its treasury, with the written declaration at the time or times of payment that the sum is to be applied to constitute a designated person a life member; and such membership shall begin sixty days after the payment shall have been completed. Other persons, by the payment of the same sum, may be made life members without the privilege of voting.

Every evangelical church which has within a year contributed to the funds of the Association and every State Conference or Association of such churches may appoint two delegates to the Annual Meeting of the Association; such delegates, duly attested by credentials, shall be members of the Association for the year for which they were thus appointed.

Art. IV. The Annual Meeting of the Association shall be held in the month of October or November, at such time and place as may be designated by the Association, or, in case of its failure to act, by the Executive Committee, by notice printed in the official publication of the Association for the preceding month.

Art. V. The officers of the Association shall be a President, five Vice-Presidents, a Corresponding Secretary or Secretaries, a Recording Secretary, a Treasurer, Auditors, and an Executive Committee of fifteen members, all of whom shall be elected by ballot.

At the first Annual Meeting after the adoption of this Constitution, five members of the Executive Committee shall be elected for the term of one year, five for two years and five for three years, and at each subsequent Annual Meeting, five members shall be elected for the full term of three years, and such others as shall be required to fill vacancies.

Art. VI. To the Executive Committee shall belong the collecting and disbursing of funds, the appointing, counseling, sustaining and dismissing of missionaries and agents, and the selection of missionary fields. They shall have authority to fill all vacancies in office occurring between the Annual Meetings; to apply to any Legislature for acts of incorporation, or conferring corporate powers; to make provision when necessary for disabled missionaries and for the widows and children of deceased missionaries, and in general to transact all such business as usually appertains to the Executive Committees of missionary and other benevolent societies. The acts of the Committee shall be subject to the revision of the Annual Meeting.

Five members of the Committee constitute a quorum for transacting business.

Art. VII. No person shall be made an officer of this Association who is not a member of some evangelical church.

Art. VIII. Missionary bodies and churches or individuals may appoint and sustain missionaries of their own, through the agency of the Executive Committee, on terms mutually agreed upon.

Art. IX. No amendment shall be made to this Constitution except by the vote of two-thirds of the members present at an Annual Meeting and voting, the amendment having been approved by the vote of a majority at the previous Annual Meeting.

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Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious printer’s punctuation errors and omissions silently corrected. Period spelling and inconsistent hyphenation retained. Ditto marks replaced with the text the represent to facilitate eBook text alignment.

Missing “t” added in “at” on the inside cover (at the New York Office)

Changed “BEQEATH” to “BEQUEATH” on the inside cover (I BEQUEATH to my executor).

Changed “consultatation” to “consultation” on page 380 (without mutual consultation)

Missing digits in the entries for South Amherst and Southampton on page 408 could not be determined.

Unbalanced quotation marks on page 406 left in place as it is not possible to determine where they should be closed (It is on this that the whole method)

Changed “Fragance” to “Fragrance” on page 413 (Beauty and Fragrance)

Changed “Amother” to “Another” on the back cover (Another Hymn and Tune Book)