THE
AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

American Missionary Association.

---

As we go to press, we are happy to announce the safe arrival of Prof. Thomas N. Chase, from our Mendi Mission.

---

That 20 per cent. increase in our appropriations, voted at Chicago, and voted also by the Executive Committee, has not as yet been furnished by our friends. We are compelled to urge it upon their attention that we are in danger of falling behind the appropriation, to our grief and the detriment of the work, unless they come gallantly to the rescue.

---

Who Will do It?—One of our missionaries in North Carolina suggests, and we cordially second the suggestion, that some of our friends send us the means for distributing 1,000 copies of the Missionary to as many prominent men, clergymen and others, through the South. We are confident that a like sum of money could not be expended in a way to tell more favorably upon our work after the means have been supplied to carry it on. Will not some generous friend of the South send us the money?

---

Tougaloo’s Plea.—Through its workers, this Institution puts in a most pathetic plea to the Executive Committee for an appropriation for a new building. How they inquire, can 120 persons be seated in a dining-room large enough for only 80? Or how can fifty girls be put into 16 small dormitories? The Executive Committee gives it up, and sends it along as too much of a 15-puzzle. The plea melts the hearts of us who have no money, so we make it to those who have, hoping some one will help to a solution of this problem.

Fully as difficult is that propounded by President Ware, of Atlanta: Sixty-two girls in rooms fitted for forty, and prospects that the number cannot be kept down to that. It could be easily increased to one hundred next year. The $10,000, given from the Graves estate for a building, must be supplemented by $5,000 to make it adequate to pressing need. Who gives the answer to this?

[162]

---

The Christian Recorder, Philadelphia, (organ of the A. M. E. Church,) in noticing the “Fool’s Errand,” refers to the fact that the Fool found himself limited to the society of the teachers of the colored schools and a few Northern families, and asks: “Why so? Were there no colored people there? The South ostracised him because of his opinions, while he ostracised the negroes because of their color.” Of the two, the Recorder believes the South the more rational and consistent.

---

Laws of Heredity.—One of the—not fathers, but great-grandfathers, in Israel, writes a pleasant note from Jewett City, Conn., to say how much pleasure he takes in reading the “Receipt pages” of the Missionary, finding them the most interesting of the whole. He notes as an especially pleasant feature, the increasing number of “friends,” who send, as in the last number, from $2.00 to $1,747.50. He mentions with great satisfaction that he has learned to look regularly in the May number for a contribution from the grandson of an old French Huguenot, who fifty years ago hobbled regularly to the parsonage on the morning after missionary meetings, and asked him (the writer) to get 25 cents out of his purse for the work, which always left the purse empty. The grandson now sends $20. Of him, he says, with Leigh Hunt, “May his tribe increase.” We shall be glad if investigation on the part of some missionary Darwin shall establish the fact that such tendencies are transmitted with accumulating force from father to son.

---

In Southwest Texas, at a Freedman’s country home, our Superintendent found a Bible which had this inscription, printed upon a fly-leaf at the front:

“One of 10,000 Bibles presented to the Freedmen of America by the Divinity Students’ Missionary Society, connected with the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Printed at the University Press, Oxford, for the National Bible Society of Scotland.” So does religious beneficence percolate the most distant regions. Our colored fellow-citizens have been made the recipients of an immense amount of material and spiritual sympathy on the part of British Christians. These Divinity Students will be glad to know that this Bible, sent by their Society some ten years ago, is used for morning and evening family worship in an interesting household, which possesses its own farm, and which furnished hospitality to our representative.

---

A dozen years ago, one of our lady teachers at a Southern capital had a shower of stones driven through the window of her school-room. At another time, some “fellows of the baser sort” brought in some drunken Mexicans to annoy the school. A guard of soldiers was placed at the school-house, and she was escorted to and from the school by the same. Now she has so many friends among the Southern white people that she says she doesn’t like to hear them spoken against. She has not time to reciprocate their social attentions. The school has proven a great success. She has her fifty teachers out at work and she is as enthusiastic as ever.

---

Rev. Geo. E. Hill, of Marion, Ala., mentions a few facts in a private note which doubtless he deemed too commonplace for formal communication to the Missionary, yet significant and hopeful. Not every pastor, even in favored New England, is so fortunate in his young people.

[163]

On a recent Sabbath, one of his boys, who is to graduate this summer from Talladega, preached for him, and proved himself a good speaker, possessed of a clear, logical mind, with the promise of being a useful man. On the next day, he and another member of his church, also a Talladega student, spoke at the meeting of the Young Men’s Christian Association extemporaneously, but with great beauty and force. His missionary meetings are conducted in a way that might be profitably followed by such of our churches as have like helpers. The subject of the last one was “Africa,” illustrated by a large map. Miss M., a graduate of Fisk University, read a paper on the Mendi Mission, “which would have done honor to any of our Northern churches.” She is possessed of a true missionary spirit and Bro. Hill hopes she will find her way into the mission field, notwithstanding a misfortune which has partially disabled her.

He has also a Young People’s Club for intellectual culture. At its last meeting, the programme included: A sketch of Gen. Grant; a paper on Mormonism; a sketch of Eli Whitney; a history of Umbrellas; a reading, recitations, etc.

He seems to have a church of “Holy Endeavor,” with the athletics and pastimes left out.

---

A Confederate and a Man.—He was a colonel. He is the editor of a leading journal of the South. Some years since, an educated mulatto woman from Ohio went South to secure a position as a teacher. She was thrust into the smoking-car to endure the commingled filth and ribaldry of the place.

After securing her position, it was necessary to return home before entering upon her duties. She sought the intervention of the colonel. He went to the local superintendent, who sent orders along the line over three roads which gave her admission to the ladies’ car, both on her way home and on her return. She proved a splendid teacher and noble woman, and the colonel is proud to have championed her cause, when to do so was unpopular.

The same colonel is now wielding a great influence in the South in favor of negro education, and recently, both in his paper and at a public meeting, has expressed thanks to the A. M. A. for work it has been doing in the South.

The influences multiply and reach out in every direction, which are destined soon to bring a total and wholesome change of sentiment, North and South.

---

We have received the proceedings of the Colored Men’s State Immigration Convention, held in Dallas, Texas, the latter part of February. An association was formed whose object is to locate colonies of colored people on Government lands in that State. Mr. S. H. Smothers, editor of the Baptist Journal, of Dallas, said in his address, as explanatory of the Exodus movement among his people, what seems to have escaped the attention of the Senate Exodus Committee, that the negro may act from the same motives that influence white men. His address is full of good common sense, as the following may show:

“Only a few weeks ago, in a conversation with a colored immigrant from Georgia, I asked him why he left that State and came to Texas. He replied that a great many of his white neighbors were moving to Texas, and he thought that whatever was good for them would be good for him.

“Much has been said in regard to the wrongs and oppressions of which our people complain. While, doubtless, there is some ground for their [164]complaint, their hardships, in my opinion, are more the result of their illiterate condition than all things else. If a class of white laborers were as illiterate as our people, they would be equally oppressed as are the Irish tenants to-day. Capitalists look out for their own interest, and will, if they can, oppress one man, be his color what it may, as soon as another. We should remember that knowledge is power and ignorance is weakness. The protection which we most need is the power which education and property give. For my own part, all I ask of any man is an equal chance, and then if he can outstrip me in the race of life, let him do it.”

---

Lovedale Missionary Institute, South Africa, is said to be the busiest industrial college in the world. During the session which closed with 1879, there were in all 393 pupils of both sexes, many of them boarders, who paid in fees £1,006, beside £510 still due. Livingstonia and Blantyre sent 6 pupils; 19 came from Natal; 11 from the country of the Barolongs. The carpenter had 30 apprentices and journeymen under him; the wagon-maker 8;the blacksmith 5; the printer 4; the bookbinder 2. On the farm were raised 1,054 bags of corn, beans, potatoes and wheat.

Twenty-one students, of whom eleven were Kaffir certificated-schoolmasters, were under theological instruction. Dr. Stewart thinks the home churches will hardly continue the present number of missionaries beyond the lifetime of those now in the field, and that the work will be done by a native ministry.

---

A “Livingstonia Central African Company,” for promoting legitimate traffic among the natives, has been organized by a society of gentlemen interested in the civilization of the “Dark Continent” and in the development of its resources. Direct communication is to be opened with Central Africa, and a road has already been constructed a distance of sixty miles around the cataracts of the Shiré, which, connecting with a line of steamers, will constitute a line of 800 miles from the coast. Two Christian gentlemen of Edinburgh, Messrs. John and Frederick Moir, are at the head of the company. It is to be no less a missionary than a commercial enterprise, and there is every reason for believing that in both respects it will prove a success. The natives are becoming fully awake to the advantages of the extensive and solid business facilities possessed by the company, whose future will be watched with great interest.

---

The West African Reporter, of Sierra Leone, in announcing changes in the officers and probably in the location of the Liberia College, (Dr. Blyden having been appointed President; and the trustees, leave being given by the legislature, having voted to co-operate with the American Board in a plan to remove the college further into the interior,) expresses itself strongly in regard to the injury done to natives who have been sent to Europe to receive their education. It sums the result thus:

“We find our children, as a result of their foreign culture—we do not say in spite of their foreign culture—but as a result of their foreign culture—aimless and purposeless for the race—crammed with European formulas of thought and expression, so as to astonish their bewildered relatives. Their friends wonder at the words of their mouth. But they wonder at other things besides their words. [165] They are the Polyphemus of civilization—huge, but sightless—cui lumen ademptum.”

To some extent the same holds true of negroes from the South, educated in the North for work in their old homes.

---

Onondaga and Oneida Indians.—There are in the State of New York eight Indian reservations, aggregating 86,336 acres of land, a little less than 18 acres to each of the 5,093 Indians who occupy them. These lands are held by tribal and not individual titles. A few of these Indians have become thrifty farmers, but the most of them are idle and poor; probably one-half are still pagans. A bill has been introduced into the Legislature to abolish, with consent of the Indians, the treaty of 1788, and distribute these lands in severalty to these people. This would end the fatal communal system, which has proved in this, as it must in all cases, so deadly to all prosperity. Each Indian would thus become, under the laws of the State, a land-owner, and amenable to the laws on the same footing as other citizens.

Under the present tribal system, the father has nothing but his tomahawk and scalping knife to leave to his children, and transmits only a disposition to use them. Give him the right to acquire a title to something else, and he will doubtless acquire and bequeath it.

---

That same “blind Samson” is in the land to-day. It is the Negro, uneducated, immoral, with a ballot in his hand. It is the white man, uneducated, immoral, with a ballot in his hand. For it makes no difference. The harm lies back of the color. The consequences of ignorant suffrage, by whomsoever exercised, can be only detrimental to the peace and welfare of the State. Free institutions can be built up only on the basis of intelligence and integrity. Without intelligence and integrity, the best cannot long survive. If there be large numbers on whom this right has been conferred, but who are densely ignorant, especially if these large numbers are grouped in a single section, like these millions of negroes and poor whites in the South, it is an official notice served on the nation that no time is to be lost in imparting the mental and moral training requisite for the right discharge of these sacred functions of voting. Men are not left to settle this question of helping with schools and churches, merely on the ground of humanity or Christian duty. Their interest is challenged, and their very selfishness is under contribution. We do not put matches in children’s hands, and then leave them to play about hay-mows. If we give them matches we train them in the use of them. With an instrument in his hands so potent as the ballot, and with the possibility of using the leverage of it in contingencies easy to be foreseen for the overturning of the nation, it takes but half an eye to see that the man who wields it ought to have an instructed mind and an instructed conscience, and the State is not secure until he does.

—[Dr. Noble in Advance.

SIX PREACHERS, ALL OF THEM CALLED.

[The following letter reveals the condition of one out of many neighborhoods scattered all over the South, densely populated with negroes, neglected by the whites, excepting as the agent or overseer of the plantation looks after the owner’s interests as connected with the labor of the people. No schools, no churches, excepting such as are ministered to by preachers as ignorant and, in many cases, as licentious as the people themselves. Just think of it! The visit of this Sunday-school agent the first visit of a white Christian to the hundred families; their religious and other culture such as those six preachers could give! And this not in Central Africa, but in the very heart of the southwest portion of our own land! These people citizens of our republic, and voters!—Ed. Miss.]

A missionary of the American Sunday-School Union in the Southwest writes:

“I recently organized a Sunday-school for the colored people at Homan Station, on the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern R. R., in Miller County, between Texarkana and the Red River, where is a large cotton plantation, and two others are near, having in all more than one hundred families. Among them is one Baptist church, and six preachers, every one ‘called!’ Only two of them can read, and the pastor or ‘head-preacher’ is blind; and so are all, in spiritual things, preachers and people. After delivering an address, I found that only seven in the audience could read. In all, fifty adults and children joined the Sunday-school and promised to learn to read. I furnished them with primers, Bibles, Testaments, etc., which seemed to please the plantation agent or overseer as well as the people.

“After the school was organized, the blind preacher gave a sermon from Rev. xxii. 1, 2, another preacher doing the reading. I shall not attempt to characterize the sermon, singing and responses. When will white Christians, who know the way of life, surrender their prejudices and teach these poor, benighted people the truths of the Gospel? My visit was the first made by a white Christian worker to this place, and will be remembered.”

NEW INDUSTRIES AND SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF A NEW LIFE IN THE SOUTH.

It is a good indication of the movement of the South to manufacture its own staples, that since 1866 it has set in motion 600,000 spindles, of which Georgia has 213,157, a third of them being in Columbus, and that the cotton mills at Augusta, Ga., alone turned out $4,000,000 worth of manufactured products last year, paid ten to twelve per cent. dividends, and carried a handsome surplus to the sinking-fund accounts.

The president of the large mills at Nashville, Tenn., assured us that his mills in 1878–9 had earned fifteen per cent. dividends. One of our wealthiest manufacturers of New England, who has recently been to Eastern Tennessee, where he has an interest in a new mill, says if twenty years younger, he would certainly go South and invest largely in manufacturing. Everything is favorable for such enterprise.

This is in striking contrast with the time when the papers, voicing the sentiment of Virginia, compelled the founders of Lowell, Mass., to abandon their purpose of building their mills in Richmond, because such industries were in deadly hostility to Southern institutions.

[167]

Another significant, but almost unnoted feature of the new South, (for the old is passing away more rapidly than is generally believed,) is the increasing favor with which the town system, but more especially the common-school system, is regarded by the people.

Under the old régime both were unknown. Virginia (and we believe she was in harmony in this with all the other slave States) pauperized the pupil who received aid, by making the overseer of the poor the disburser of such funds as were appropriated by the County Court for educational purposes.

The business, which in New England is transacted by the citizens of a town, assembled in town meeting, duly warned, and notified of the business that could be brought before it, was, in the South, transacted by the County Court for a whole county. Surprise is often expressed that the people of the South can be led, in almost solid masses, to the polls, to vote for men and measures which those who know the private sentiments of the people are sure they do not approve.

But conceive of New England as having never sent her children to a common school; as having never gathered in town meeting; as having never known even a Congregational Church meeting, and, at the same time, as having free thought on all questions of public policy overshadowed, fettered and ruthlessly throttled by an interest which enthroned itself as supreme in commercial, political and social life, before which good society did homage, and politicians sacrificed, and divines worshipped, without whose approval nothing was right, and without whose protection nothing was safe. Conceive what, under such circumstances, New England would have been, and then cease to wonder that the pro-slavery disunionist was not crushed, and that the Bourbon politician is not buried under the new sentiment which lives in the South to-day.

But it is manifest to anyone who knew the South under the old state of things, and who has had opportunity of seeing it to-day, that these two agencies which have made New England what she is, but were unknown to the South—which were thrust upon her as a part of the reconstructive machinery, against her sullen but helpless protest, and were hated accordingly—are coming more and more into favor with the people.

It is noteworthy and significant that the Legislature of Tennessee, last year, in all its frantic, unwise, and dishonest efforts to reduce expenses, did not reduce her school appropriations. He must be a blind observer and a dull reasoner who does not see that this is most significant as showing that old things are passing away, and all things are becoming new in a regenerated South.

THE NEGRO, ON THE STATUS AND EXODUS OF THE NEGRO.

It is significant that the leading article in the current number of the South Atlantic, the élite literary magazine of the South, is by a colored man. His topic is, “The Status of the Negro, and the Exodus.” It is able and fair in its treatment of the subject. The editor disclaims responsibility for its statements, and slightly apologizes for its publication; would have been glad, had it not seemed unfair to the writer, to modify a few paragraphs; but has given a negro full leave to tell his white readers just what he thinks of negro status and exodus. This fact is one which should not be forgotten.

On the other hand, it would be well for us to hear just what an intelligent negro has to say on this topic. The writer, Rev. D. J. Sanders, indicates the difficulties[168] in the way of his people’s progress; obstacles thrown in the way both by his friends and his enemies; asserts that because of what he is, the negro has made commendable progress in spite of these hindrances, aided by missionary preachers and teachers who paid but little attention to, and took no part in, the political events which were transpiring about them. Evidently, in his estimation, the improved condition of his people has not been due to political action, but to schools and moral influences.

He asserts that the Exodus has not been brought about by political causes, though a certain class of politicians have done something to spread the movement; nor is it due to the fact that educational or religious privileges have been withheld, for, strictly, it cannot be asserted that such has been the case. Persons who were pronounced in their opposition to negro schools are, when this movement begins, laboring side by side with those who have devoted themselves to negro education. Whatever of politics, or education, or religion may enter into the movement is merely incidental.

Political abuse there has been, but the Exodus movement began after this had for the most part ceased, and has raged most where this abuse has been least known, as near the home of the writer, in North Carolina.

There have been, and are now in some States, unjust laws regulating labor and wages. The script system, which permits the employer to pay the laborer in script redeemable at his store, has been known, and is ruinously unjust to the laborer, but in the two States where this movement has been greatest, regulative legislation has been in the one exactly the reverse of what it is in the other. In Mississippi the landlord must fulfil his engagements before he can force his tenant to quit. In North Carolina the tenant must fulfil his before he can leave.

Fundamentally, it is the impoverished condition of the people, conjoined with restlessness, and supplemented by idle curiosity, making change easy and desirable, which has exposed these poor people to the designs of unscrupulous sharpers and demagogues. They have inherited poverty, ignorance, improvidence, to say nothing of positive vices. They have been hindered by positive efforts to keep them down. They have been discouraged by the fact that success would give them no social or political advantage, and so they have either refused to labor, or have squandered in pic-nics and cake-walks, for tobacco and whiskey, it is estimated, about eighty millions of dollars annually.

There have been, so far, about 28,000 of these exodusters who have paid an average of about $16.65 to the railroad companies for transportation. Out of this the companies have paid to the unscrupulous agents who promote the movement, one dollar for full, and fifty cents for half fares.

The roads have received about $500,000 from these people, and hope for at least half as much more from a return movement. The emigrants have received in charity about seven cents each, as an offset to the $16.65 which they have paid for transportation alone. We know not what report the Senate Exodus Committee will make, but are confident that it will come no nearer the truth in regard to this movement than has the writer of this article. So long as the negro is thus ignorant he will be helpless against the oppressor, whether he be the old master or the pretended new friend. When we know the possibilities yet undeveloped in the negro, and give full scope to them, we shall know also what an element of wealth and strength here is in what is now known as an incubus on prosperity and a menace to our national life.

CONDITIONS OF INDIAN CIVILIZATION.

Before the Indian can become civilized, the conditions of civilization must exist. For him, at present, these are scarcely possible. No mere tribe can attain to a civilized state, yet the tribal relation is fostered and perpetuated by our policy. Such agencies of a civilized life as civil courts, town meetings, common schools, railroads, telegraphs, etc., these are simply impossible so long as tribes of men are forced or permitted to wander over vast territories to which they have no other title than that of tribal occupancy. The prime condition of a home is an exclusive title to the land upon which it stands and from which its support can be drawn. Without a home, a high civilization is impossible, but our policy has been to discourage, and too often render impossible, the creation of a home by the Indian.

He is the ward of the nation—a ward who has never been taken to the maternal bosom as a child, who is not permitted to reach his majority, or to care for himself, who is cheated by his guardian, and unfitted by the whole course of his education for the duties and responsibilities of manhood. There has been no false principle of politics but has been applied to his regulation. There has been no species of wrong, or injustice, or folly, which has not been practiced upon him, and regarded by him as the exponent of our Christian civilization.

It is time this foolish and wicked treatment should cease; time that we showed something like an honest desire to do justly by him, even though incapable of wise statesmanship. The principles which have lifted up savage tribes and made of them civilized nations are historic, and might be known to, and their application attempted by, the Government. Our Congressmen should be compelled to hear other demands than those made by reckless adventurers who find the Indian occupying lands he would possess.

Judging from all past experience we have every reason to believe that, under secure conditions of life and property, these tribes would settle down and become worthy and excellent citizens. The protection of the Indian must be individual and not tribal; it must be found in courts which administer impartial justice, not in longer-ranged rifles and fleeter ponies. In short he must have the opportunities and defences of manhood, and thus be prepared for the responsibilities and duties of citizenship.

AFRICAN NOTES.

—The Mission church at Old Calabar, Western Africa, where the Rev. E. P. Smith was buried, is spontaneously aiming at self-support.

—A few French Protestant missionaries from South Africa, have penetrated the great Barotse Valley, North of the Zambesi, with a view to establishing a mission in this unevangelized region. M. Coillard, the leader, is now in Europe, endeavoring to awaken an interest in the new enterprise.

—At the new San Salvador Congo Mission, excellent work has been done during its first six months of labor. A school has been opened and the scholars have made good progress. One hundred and fifty on the average have attended preaching services; about a thousand words of a hitherto unwritten language have been collated, and the missionaries thank God and take courage.

[170]

—Mr. Adam McCall, a converted engineer, with seven years’ experience in African life, has gone out from the East London Mission Institute, in charge of an expedition, planned to reach Stanley Pool this summer. Here he proposes to establish a good, strong industrial station, to which the natives from the surrounding country may be attracted, and where they may gather round a centre of civilizing and Christianizing influence.

—The mission of the United Presbyterians in Egypt has been signally blessed. They have thirty-five stations, nearly one thousand communicants, and over twelve hundred pupils in their schools, and have received, in all, assistance equal in value to $120,000. $40,000 of this was from the late Viceroy, and $80,000 from His Excellency Maharajah Dhuleep Singh.

—According to Mr. Stanley’s report, the population in the upper Congo region is very dense. The towns in some places are two miles long, with one or more broad streets between rows of neat well-built houses, superior to anything in East Africa. Mr. Stanley is constructing a good road, ten feet wide, on the lower Congo, past the rapids and cataracts. Relief stations are to be built at intervals for the benefit of merchants, missionaries and explorers, according to the original plan of the King of the Belgians.

—Coal is said to exist in abundance in the vicinity of St. Paul river, Liberia, West Africa, and a survey for a railroad has recently been, made on the St. Paul river.

—“The conditions of health in the Gaboon, West Africa,” says Rev. S. H. Murphy, a Presbyterian missionary, “are good living, godliness, cleanliness, tranquillity, patience, and quinine.”

—A Trans-Sahara Railway from Algeria to Soudan, across the Desert to Timbuctoo on the Niger, and another line from Senegal to the Niger, are proposed by the French. The necessary explorations for the first of these schemes are being made by Duponchel, a celebrated engineer, and for the second by Soleillet, another celebrated engineer and explorer.

—The Dutch Church in South Africa began on January 2d the publication of their first weekly religious paper, in the Dutch language, called “De Christen: Weekblad voor Kerk en Maat schappij;” (or the Christian; a Weekly for the Church and Society.) It is well gotten up, and is indeed quite an attractive sheet.

There are several large and enterprising secular sheets published at Cape Town.

ITEMS FROM THE FIELD.

Hampton, Va.—“I am glad to tell you that two of your Indian boys, Murie and Hustice, are to unite with our church on next Sunday.”

Raleigh, N. C.—The spiritual condition of the church is still very encouraging. Fifteen persons entered into covenant last Sunday, which made it a day of rejoicing. Six others have been voted into the church, and will enter into covenant at the next communion.

Wilmington, N. C.—A pleasing incident occurred at our communion season last Sabbath. Four generations in one family were represented, from the aged great-grandmother to the infant who was presented for baptism by its grandmother, a close-communion Baptist; her impenitent son, the father, and the young mother, who is a member of our church, standing by her side. The grandmother afterward communed with us.

[171]

Charleston, S. C.—Mr. Cutler writes: “Yesterday was a grand day for us. The church renewed its covenant. About 100 were present. Some 30 or 40 others sent word that they wished to do so. We are now in a condition to go forward. I trust the renewal was made sincerely.”

Augusta, Ga.—“At one place where I called, an old lady had the care of several grandchildren. One evening she said, ‘I don’t know what I shall do to-morrow, for I’ve only one nickel left.’ Then, one of the grandchildren replied, ‘Grandma, don’t you know you always say, “the Lord will provide”? Don’t you worry; it will be here in the morning.’ And sure enough she went over to the depot the next morning, and two ladies asked her to wait on them, and gave her fifty cents, and another said, ‘Here, auntie, take this basket and empty it for me,’ and there was provision enough to last all day and part of the next. ‘Children, you just trust the Lord,’ is a remark she often makes.”

Woodville, Ga.—“Our revival is still going on. God is with us. Brother Markham preached here last Sunday, and four persons were admitted to membership.”

Milledgeville, Ga.—A society for little children has recently been formed in this town, known as the “Rising Youths’ Society.” It promises well. The Sunday-school is still flourishing.

McIntosh, Ga.—The church work is growing. Five have been added to the church since last July, and a number are to unite at the May communion.

Miller’s Station, Ga.—From Miss Douglass: “You see by the date that I am once more out of Savannah. It was hard to get away, for there were many who were inquiring, and needed to be sought out and led to the Saviour. I came out to fill an appointment for a Bible reading here last night. There were only thirteen present, as it was rainy. One of these was an old gray-headed man, who suffers much from rheumatism. He walked nearly two miles to get here, yet expressed himself as ‘very much satisfied’ with the pay he received for his walk.”

McIntosh, Ga.—Rev. A. J. Headen writes: “I have a great deal of walking to do because I have no horse, and I am not able to go as much as I might if I had one. Please see if you can help me to secure one through some friend. I give you my word it would add a hundred per cent. here to our work if a horse could be put in the field. Some days I walk from eight to nine miles to see the people and to attend to church work.”

Macon, Ga.—Rev. S. E. Lathrop writes: “When Brother Rogers was here he told us we ought to ‘pray for a missionary horse.’ Whether that is the best way to get one or not, I am not sure, but I do wish we had one. When I see a serviceable horse, I sometimes feel like breaking the tenth commandment, and saying, as the disciples said to a certain colt’s owner, ‘The Master hath need of him.’ We feel the need of some kind of locomotive power, as the hot weather of spring has begun. Our long walks under the burning sun, take the starch out of our linen, to say nothing of the lassitude and fatigue of body. There are no street cars now running in Macon; they are bankrupt, defunct and buried (i. e. the tracks) under sand and gravel. Some of our members live two miles in one direction and some three miles in another. The whole congregation are scattered far and wide, hence they are somewhat irregular, and the labor of visitation is much increased. If we had a horse we could accomplish much more, besides saving something on draymen’s bills, etc., etc. All our workers need the recreation of riding for the sake [172]of health, and we can’t afford to hire hacks. Now I don’t know why I wrote this, except that I do feel like ‘praying for a missionary horse.’ Join your prayers with ours.”

Talladega, Ala.—The theological students at Talladega College have just been favored with a course of lectures on Eschatology by Rev. H. S. De Forest, President of the College. The students manifested a lively interest in these lectures, and in the study of the intricate and somewhat obscure field of thought traversed by them. The lecturer having positive views, combined with much classic and theologic learning on the themes discussed, and possessing a warm, Christian heart, did not fail to make a deep impression on all who heard him.

Eight young men will be graduated from the Theological Department of the College this year, all of whom will enter the Congregational ministry in the South. They are now warmly welcomed to the pulpits of all denominations, and are recognized as an important factor in the elevation of the colored people in this region.

Kymulga, Ala.—A very interesting temperance meeting is reported. Sixty persons were present. The exercises consisted of singing, addresses and selections by the members of the Society. Rev. H. S. De Forest, of Talladega, visited the Sunday-school and preached for the people.

Childersburg, Ala.—Rev. Alfred Jones writes: “My work is in a lively condition. I have a full house. My people seem to study the Bible with greater interest than they ever have before. Some come to my church who did not like it at first.”

---

Anniston, Ala.—Rev. P. J. McEntosh has been the victim of a very pleasant “April Fool.” On returning from Conference he was invited into the chapel, and found, to his great surprise, that an excellent stand for the choir had been erected, with banisters and place for books. The work had been done with the proceeds of a surprise party given while he was away.

THE FREEDMEN.

REV. JOS. E. ROY, D. D.,

FIELD SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA, GA.

---

A TOUR OF THE CONFERENCES.

It took six weeks. Other pens were engaged to write up the details. Some notes by the way, may be in place. The Kentucky Association did not elect delegates to the National Council. There will be yet another chance at the July meeting. Rev. John G. Fee is opposed to any representation in that body beyond that of an honorary character. Membership in it, he thinks, would be an endorsement of the sect principle, and inconsistent with the position of the Kentucky Association, which is simply a body of Christian ministers and churches. He claims that testimony must be borne, if only in a small way. At the National Council in Oberlin, I was delighted with the catholic and non-sectarian spirit with which the delegates of this body were welcomed to membership. I should say now: Keep on sending delegates to encourage and emphasize that testimony. That is the only ecclesiastical body in the United States that would offer such organic fellowship.

[173]

You have been told of the new era in our work, marked by the opening of half a dozen of the homes of the first families in Selma, Alabama, for the entertainment of the white members of the Conference. It was not merely the offer of their houses as eating and sleeping places, but it was a delicate and attentive Christian hospitality, which invited the guests around from home to home in order to the extension of acquaintance. When grateful words were said to Major Joseph Hardie for having led the way, he answered that that gave him too much credit; that the places had all been opened cheerfully, and that, after the sessions were over, other families had said: “Why didn’t you give us a chance? We would like to have had some of those folks.” Another host, referring to the mutual satisfaction, said: “It is just because we are getting better acquainted.” In the same line was the opening of the Presbyterian pulpit, morning and night. The exercises of the Conference, with a printed programme and prepared articles, were of a high order and well sustained throughout. It was much like one of the Western General Associations.

In the Louisiana Conference, at Terrebonne, of the twenty-six members, the only two white men were Pres. Alexander and the Superintendent. It was not a literary tournament, but a glowing religious convocation. Before the adjournment, eight or ten souls were inquiring the way of life, and some fervid spirits remained to extend the flame. Our dear brother, Rev. Daniel Clay, the entertaining pastor, with his own home and his church upon the same plantation where for thirty-seven years he had served as a bondman, is a very patriarch among the young ministers, loved and revered by us all. The last meeting of this Conference, at New Iberia, was followed by a revival that added one hundred to the company of the disciples. Next year we are to go back to Terrebonne.

The regular time for the meeting of the Association of South-Western Texas is in July, which in the South is the slack time of the year, with the corn and the cotton “laid by,” and which is the usual period, among both colored and white, for revival meetings, as is the winter at the North. This year the brethren undertook to bring it forward to April, so that the Superintendent might be with them, but, as everybody was plowing corn and chopping out the cotton, the effort brought to Helena only the two pastors, B. C. Church and M. Thompson. Yet we had a glorious four days’ meeting, with preachings, conferences, a communion, a season of baptizing, and a class meeting, which, according to the custom of the church, precedes the communion as a preparation. People came six, nine, or twelve miles. The native pastor, Mr. Thompson, preached an able and moving sermon upon trust in God. The regular meeting will be at the same place in July. This Church has a dignified and efficient deaconess, who looks after the many little things in the parish, which a woman can do better than anybody else. It did seem appropriate that a woman’s taste should be employed to arrange her Lord’s Table. I took pleasure in pointing out to her, once a slave, the likeness of her work to that of “Phebe, the servant of the Church at Cenchrea.” I had the pleasure of a ride in the nice missionary buggy which Bro. Towne had given to our presiding elder, Church. It is a good deal better, now that he is sixty-seven, though straight and spry, when he camps out, to have this vehicle to lie under, than to have only the starry firmament over him. It helps to keep company on the prairie for the preacher and the picketed pony.

For ingenuity of swindling, can any pale face beat the darkey when he tries? [174] Down this way, one was going about selling tickets to Kansas for five dollars down, and four upon arrival. In one place he took in some forty of his confiding brethren. Some came to the railroad agent, my informant, to learn of the cheat. Others, at another place, had got on board to find that their tickets were a sham. Another black sharper, for one dollar and a half, was making out the papers for land which Queen Victoria was to give them, since Uncle Sam had failed on the “forty acres and a mule.”

On the way, making one hundred miles north by hack to Austin, I had my desire satisfied in overtaking one of the great droves of cattle moving northward. It numbered three thousand. We struck them as they were passing across a valley, so that every creature was in view. A grand sight it was, preceded by the four-mule commissary prairie schooner, attended by the twenty cow-boys in saddle, with cracking whip and awful spurs, and with the relay of sixty horses in drove, each driver having a change of four. The dreadful drouth of the last year, which carried corn up to 25 cents a bushel, was apparent in the poverty-stricken quality of the beasts and in the scraping up of old scalawags and yearlings and two-year-olds to make out the drove. Out of three counties here last year, 25,000 horses were taken. These go in droves of from twelve to fifteen hundred. Multitudes of them, as they run from colts upward, are sold for five dollars each. Mine host, a colored man, while I was with him, sold eight head of broken horses for $155, to be paid next fall, without interest. In some droves, fifty sucking colts are sometimes shot in a day, as impediments of the march.

The Parker farm has in it 24,000 acres. Six thousand of these are to be cultivated to raise grain for fattening the 4,000 cattle which are to be shipped by rail. Collins Campbell, Esq., twenty years from Vermont, has his 15,000 acres, with 7,000 fenced. I found him a stated reader of the American Missionary, and retaining those well-balanced sentiments which his own Green Mountains had bred. He sells land to the Freedmen. One of his neighbors, whose hospitality I enjoyed, is Gabriel Washington. I wonder if that archangel has not sufficient regard for “the Father of his Country,” and for this, its dusky citizen, to be pleased with this collocation of names? Our Gabriel is so much of the earth earthy, that he owns 1,260 acres of its soil, and has a model farm, with its orchard, cotton gin, and its big Yankee woodpile, the finest one I have seen in the South. His buxom wife had been down the day before, twelve miles, to our big meeting.

Austin is picturesquely located on the north bank of the Colorado, and is a city of 12,000 inhabitants, half of whom are said to be colored; and the finest, most sightly spot about the Capital has just now been crowned with the much admired “Tillotson Institute.” It is to be opened October 1st. Mrs. E. G. Garland, whose marriage with one of Gov. Davis’ judges did not interfere with her school work, has for several years been in charge of the Evans school-house, built by the Freedmen’s Bureau, and called by her maiden name. The last year, fifty of her scholars were out teaching. Her school numbered the last term 120. Surely, it was time for the living institution to take to itself ampler accommodations, and to advance to a higher grade. With all my heart I commend this struggling enterprise. Texas has been neglected. It must now be brought into the line of our educational work. Rev. Dr. Wright, pastor of the Northern Presbyterian Church, which was planted by Dr. Daniel Baker, is one of the trustees of the Tillotson Institute, and is working for it heartily. A sermon at Paris and a lecture at Memphis will complete the work of the tour.

NORTH CAROLINA CONFERENCE.

This is the Benjamin of the Congregational Israel. Its first meeting was held one year ago at Raleigh. Its second occurred June 7th–9th at Dudley. The opening sermon was preached by Rev. Geo. S. Smith, a graduate of the Atlanta University, pastor at Raleigh, upon Paul’s determination to know nothing but Christ, and Him crucified. It was an able, stimulating, faithful discourse, urging that ministers in fidelity to this doctrine must not be afraid to preach against current sins. The morning prayer-meeting that followed, throbbed and warmed with the idea of Christ as a present, personal Saviour, and all the meetings had a spiritual glow.

Rev. D. D. Dodge was made Moderator, and Rev. D. Peebles, Scribe. The five churches had come to be six, the new one being at Hilltown, in the west part of the State, and having as pastor Rev. Islay Walden, a graduate of the New Brunswick Seminary, ordained by the Dutch Classis of that locality, who had been a slave in the region where now he is preaching the Gospel. A gracious revival, and a meeting-house under way, are the fruits of the first six months of the life of this church. These six churches and the five schools of the A. M. A. in the State, were all represented.

McLeansville was fixed upon as the place of the next meeting, where Bro. Connet has his church and high-school. The Conference was favored with the presence of Miss Farrington, lady missionary aided by the ladies of Maine, and located at Wilmington, and also with a visit from Misses Waugh and Barker, located at Newbern as missionaries of the Chicago Baptist Ladies’ Society. These ladies are doing a blessed work in the region round about. In April last, going together, they had traveled 300 miles, and had held 80 meetings.

Two colored young ladies of rare cultivation, one an Episcopalian from Philadelphia, the other a Presbyterian from Long Island, sent down by the Society of Friends to teach in this neighborhood, reported the happy working of their Bands of Hope, the idea of which they had taken from Mr. Peebles’ Band in Dudley.

Do the friends of the American Board and Home Missionary Society know that we down here are broadening their field for harvest? Some of these little churches reported contributions to aid the white people out West in supporting the Gospel and to send missionaries abroad. The one at Wilmington claimed itself to be the Banner Church of all the constituents of the American Board, having given more than any other, according to number and means, as judged by the report of Dr. Alden.

And so the good friend, “Howard,” who is about to help this church to a house of worship, will see that he is sowing seed in good ground.

Rev. H. E. Brown, Secretary of the Freedmen’s Dept. of the International Y. M. C. A., in his work at the South, has this season held six of his union Bible meetings at Washington, Richmond, Raleigh, Dudley, Wilmington, and Savannah, three of which, as will be observed, were in this State. The series has been one of great interest and profit. There are three points of special notice. The first is the quickening of the spirit of Christian union among these people, whose sectarianism is quite intense. The second is the great honor which is put upon the word of God by the constant service of Bible readings, with the plans of the same multiplied for the people by his portable copyist. The third point in this work is, that revivals of genuine Bible religion are usually the result. This was true at the meeting at Raleigh, where there were about 300 conversions among the colored people. There is manifest an abiding increase of regard for the word of God. The quality of the converts[176] is also hopeful. As another perceptible result, union meetings, led by an Evangelist, have since been held by the white Churches of that city, and there were about 200 hopeful conversions in these. We congratulate the Y. M. C. A. upon this successful inauguration of their work among the Freedmen. And we make grateful recognition of the influence of Maj. Joseph Hardie, of Selma, Ala., a member of the Y. M. C. A. Committee, in selecting and introducing Mr. Brown to this work in his own city.

I am happy to make mention also of the work of Rev. E. E. Rogers as an Evangelist in our Church at Macon, Ga. He has proven himself a judicious and successful laborer, wise, earnest and loving. Pastor Lathrop is very emphatic in commending him. Resulting from the stimulus of this meeting, special services were projected in all the other colored churches of the city. And as a matter of fact, revival meetings in the white churches followed. Mr. Rogers had also been a worker of the A. M. A. in former years. We hope that his services in the future may be secured in this line of special movement in our churches at the South. They have come to a degree of intelligence and of steadiness that will encourage such endeavor.

SOUTH-WESTERN CONGREGATIONAL ASSOCIATION.

Annual Meeting at Terrebonne, La., Apr. 7–10.

REV. W. S. ALEXANDER.

The fact that our meeting was to be at Terrebonne, where we have a live, growing church, and a vigorous, devoted minister, gave promise not only of a hospitable welcome, but of a profitable season of communion.

Brother Clay and his church had made every preparation. One hundred and fifty dollars had been raised and expended in putting the church and parsonage in perfect order. A long room in the house adjoining the church had been provided with a table sufficient to accommodate the delegates, and the table was furnished with new tumblers, knives and forks and spoons, and the kitchen with a new stove, all involving a good bill of costs, but met with the greatest cheerfulness, and without the thought of hardship; and then the members of the church and congregation brought in chickens, hams and bread, and everything to satisfy the appetite of hungry men, and I find that Louisiana Congregationalists eat with the same relish as their brethren in the New England Associations. So much for the material part of the feast, for which Brother Clay and his flock deserve all praise and thanks.

With the exception of two of the small mission churches, every church was represented. Terrebonne is central, and the Morgan R. R. extension (finished to New Iberia), makes communication easy and rapid. There is something delightful about a new church organization. There is an inspiration in building upon newly-laid foundations, and every member feels that he is essential to the success of the movement. In an organization representing many years and great numerical strength, a man of quiet, retiring spirit is lost to view; but in the first years, every heart and hand are needed.

The reports from the churches indicate a pure and steady growth. The process of cutting off dead branches has gone on, so that although nearly two hundred have been received during the year, the numerical gain over all losses has been very small. We are glad to believe that the sixteen hundred members in the churches of the Association represent more solid moral worth than in any previous year. In the business sessions, when questions requiring wisdom and prudence were presented, and in the discussions of vital religious topics, I was gratified to observe real progress in the ability, self-control and kindly Christian spirit of the brethren.[177] These annual meetings serve as a profitable school, and are attended by willing and eager learners. It was a great joy and blessing to have Dr. Roy with us this year. The brethren have already learned to love him, and to confide in his counsels. The Association placed him under heavy tribute at this meeting. At their request he give an address on “Our Country,” and with his large illustrative map indicated the vast extent and marvelous resources of what is now their country, and of which they are citizens. But a few years ago the plantation was all the country they knew anything about, and from the law of the plantation there was no appeal. But now they belong to Uncle Sam’s family of 50,000,000, and can look to him for protection.

Dr. Roy gave an address on our Congregational polity, which greatly delighted the people. Hitherto, many of them have loved Congregationalism without being able to give a reason for it. The address was timely and profitable, because the brethren, while not waging a denominational warfare with other churches, desire to be intelligent in regard to their own faith, and to be able “to give a reason for the hope that is within them.”

The annual sermon, by Rev. W. P. Ward, of Gretna, was earnest and practical, and prepared the large audience for the sermon of the Moderator which followed it. But few congregations in the North would bear two sermons on the same evening, but they not only did that at Terrebonne, but by song and prayer and exhortation continued the service another hour. The brethren seconded the appeals of the preachers from the pulpit, and went down among the people, entreating them to come to Christ by repentance and faith. Eight came forward and kneeled down for prayer, and many hands went up in the audience. God put honor upon His truth that night, and the hearts of the people were touched.

The sermon of Dr. Roy on the last morning was tender and searching, and the tears of the people showed that he had not spoken in vain.

The Church in New Iberia called Rev. W. R. Polk, and he has already entered upon his work. He has a good field. May God give him grace to cultivate it.

Five “missionaries at large” were chosen. Some of them already have churches, and take on all the supplementary work for which they can find time. These men are unsalaried, and depend, in their missionary tours, upon the thoughtful kindness and hospitality of those to whom they go. Hospitality is a virtue among this people. They exercise it “without grudging.” They have a real love for sharing their “loaf” with him, be he stranger or friend, who calls at their door. It is only necessary that he have the “password” of the Christian Church.

Rev. W. S. Alexander and Rev. Isaac H. Hall were elected delegates to the National Congregational Council.

The next meeting of the Association will be held in Terrebonne the 1st Wednesday in April, 1881. Brother Clay said: “I haven’t been half paid for my trouble. You must come back next year.”

Greeting to all the sister Associations in the North! Perhaps we should say filial rather than fraternal, but the infant of five years ago is a good, strong child to-day, and we claim a seat at the family table.

GEORGIA.

Our Revival.

REV. S. E. LATHROP, MACON.

Our church observed the week of prayer, and there seemed to follow an unusual tenderness in the regular prayer-meetings. The people became more united and earnest, and it was evident that the way for better things was being prepared. In February, some of the brethren suggested sending for the aid[178] of Rev. E. E. Rogers, of Orange, Conn., who was pastor here from 1869 to 1873. I wrote and found that the way was open for his coming, and we began at once to hold extra prayer-meetings. Brother Rogers came during the last week of February, and remained five weeks, preaching and laboring with uncommon earnestness and consecration. The Lord has evidently fitted him for this special work. The church took hold with remarkable unanimity. I never have known any church in the North to be so thoroughly united in revival effort. The contagion spread to other churches, many of them soon beginning to hold special services. This somewhat lessened our audiences, but a general revival spirit spread through the city, and still continues. During one or two weeks we held union afternoon prayer-meetings with a colored Baptist church, a very uncommon thing in this country.

The meetings were quiet, tender, impressive throughout. The people are beginning to get out of their old ideas of a noisy conversion. Some of the “old-time” quaint, plaintive songs are, however, wonderfully apt and appropriate in such seasons, ranking among the most effective “spiritual songs.” We held neighborhood meetings in various localities, which seem more necessary here as the people are so widely scattered. One disadvantage we found was the necessity for late hours at night. Some of our people are “in service,” and cannot get away early, and the rest do not finish their work until night, and afterward must go home and get supper, and walk from one to three miles to church. Our little band, however, were remarkably faithful in attendance, though we could not often begin the preaching until half-past eight or nine o’clock.

One peculiarity which I discovered during the meetings was, that so many of the colored people labor so long under conviction before conversion. I had formerly supposed them to be a very religious people, easily persuaded to become Christians; but my experience is (confirmed by that of other workers), that very many labor under intense conviction for many days, and even for weeks, coming to the “anxious seat” every night for long periods, and seeming, for some reason, unable to yield themselves up. No doubt this is in part owing to the traditions handed down from the older ones, and in part to ignorance of the true way. Yet, even after much personal labor and explanation is given, they often remain unenlightened. It is a phenomenon to me, especially as it is seen in the case of some of the most intelligent.

There have been from twelve to fifteen hopeful conversions. Ten have united with our church, four of whom are heads of families, and the rest promising young men and women. Some have united with other churches. It is the custom here with some to seize hold of converts at once and endeavor to persuade them into other churches. Sometimes the different denominations (of the old-time churches) wrangle over converts.

One Saturday night we held a neighborhood meeting in the house of a well-to-do colored family. The strains of song floated out from door and windows, and the sound fell upon the ears of a “poor white” woman of the lowest class, who was living illegally with a deaf colored man. Her heart was stirred. She asked permission to attend the next prayer-meeting, held at the same house on the following Saturday. There she rose, and, with tearful voice, confessed Christ, in the midst of her dusky audience. It seems to be a genuine conversion. She brought in one night three other degraded white women, one of whom was also living illicitly with a colored man, another, who had not attended church for fourteen years, and the third, who had never before in her life entered the doors of a church! And now comes[179] the question, like that of the famous novel, “What will He do with it?” This poor, erring woman is in frail health and hardly able to earn her living. She lives with a colored man whom, she says, she is willing to marry. She wants to marry him and join our church. But here the civil law steps in and says, “Thou shalt not.” It is a crime in the eyes of this commonwealth for white and colored persons to inter-marry, and whoever celebrates such a marriage lays himself liable to a thousand dollars fine. Of course, we cannot admit her to the church while living in her present relations. She cannot marry, according to the law; she has no friends, and is not able to support herself if she should leave him. Even now she is so poor that she has to borrow shoes and other clothing in order to attend church. The white churches here have no room for such persons. She is in a more pitiable condition than even the lowest of the negroes. Such are some of the problems that beset us. Another of these white women is the prodigal daughter of a good family, and we are endeavoring to persuade her to return to her friends.

Our revival has strengthened the church, and has caused us all to “thank God and take courage.” Brother Rogers returned to his home with the benedictions of a multitude. We trust the work has not yet ceased.

ALABAMA.

Missionary needed.

REV. C. E. CURTIS, SELMA.

We are in the midst of a great union effort here that has been opening the eyes of all the churches to the great need of missionary work right at our doors. The whole city has been districted off and workers assigned from one of the different churches to each district. These are expected to visit every family, take down the name and residence of each person five years old and upward, with his religious condition and needs, present those who may not be in the habit of attending Sunday-school with a card of introduction to the superintendent of any school they may prefer, have religious conversation, Bible reading and prayer, wherever it can be done to advantage, and urge upon all, young and old, a regular attendance on Sunday-school and church services. Every week, we hold meetings to hear reports from the workers in the different localities, and these meetings are intensely interesting. It would rejoice your hearts, I know, to hear the uniform testimony of delight in the work from those who, in many cases, entered upon it with fear and trembling. At the same time, the amount of religious destitution, intemperance and superstition brought to light in this city of churches and schools (there are eight churches and four schools for the colored people here), is alarming. Out of twenty-one families, visited by one worker, only two had Bibles, all but two used tobacco, and the majority whiskey. Of twenty-two families visited by myself, only eight had any church members among them, and the great majority used both whiskey and tobacco. Very few attended Sunday-school. One hadn’t been inside of a church for five years but once, and then only to attend the funeral of a friend. One, who admitted that he habitually used both whiskey and tobacco, claimed to be a minister in good and regular standing among his brethren, and he is not the only such example in the city. Several of the workers, particularly a young student from the Baptist Theological School here, made stirring appeals to the churches that they more earnestly endeavor to bring in the poor and degraded, and make them feel at home in the house of God.

---

Last Sabbath a young man came to us to inquire, “What must I do to be saved?” On asking what he had been trying to do, we learned that he had endeavored to follow the plain, simple[180] directions of the Bible at first, but so many of his friends had told him that he must stop reading his Bible and go to praying for visions and dreams, that he had become very much confused about the way. Many of them say plainly that they “don’t believe in Bible religion.” They believe firmly in personal revelations from God, and that these are superior to those in the Bible. There is more excuse for them than for others, when we consider that so few can read and judge for themselves, and that for generations the Bible has been, and still is, represented to them by so many to be the bulwark of slavery. But when I think what abundance of material there is among these millions in the South for religious fanaticism to feed upon, it is a wonder to me that they have, on the whole, wandered so little from the truth, that some imposture has not spread among them before this—as Mormonism did at the North and West—and swept thousands of them away. I fear it will be the case yet, if the churches are not more faithful in preaching and teaching the pure Gospel.

Now, to make the matter practical, what can we do about it? Surely, much more ought to be done here by educated Bible Christians; but our teachers are already nearly breaking down with overwork in their regular school duties, there being one less teacher than usual on the force this year; the missionary and industrial work they have been doing, and in which they feel such an interest, they will probably not be able to keep up another year, and Mrs. C. will be compelled to give up much that she has been doing. In short, I am more than ever convinced that we need a lady missionary here, to devote her whole time to personal work among the classes not now reached by our schools and churches, and to take charge of the industrial work among the women and girls. We have in mind just the one we need if her support can be assured. Our church will, I am sure, assume a share of the expense, though it will be impossible for them to do much more than they are doing. Now, who among the friends of the work in the North will help us in this matter, which seems so important?

AFRICA.

A LETTER FROM PROF. T. N. CHASE.

Among the most interesting experiences in our visit to the Mendi Mission was a trip to Kaw-Mendi, the first station of the mission, where, over forty years ago, Mr. Raymond, with his company of Amistad captives, began their new home, near the spot where the latter had been torn from their native land, and carried across the sea to be sold into slavery.

A row of eight hours in a boat of four oars, propelled by Junjo, Mómodo Grenace, Carrij Mi-Mah and Boyema, and steered by Geo. Keing, took us across the Sherbro, up the Jong and the Small Boom to our destination. The chief objects of interest on the way were wild monkeys, alligators, and mangrove trees, bearing vegetable oysters that could be plucked as we sailed past. The rowers “cheered the weary traveler,” and increased the speed of the boat, by singing songs in their native tongue, in which, no doubt, as is usually the case, they indulged in personal comments concerning their passengers.

A little after “the sun die” we reach Kaw-Mendi, and are ushered into a native house of four rooms, whose walls, partitions and floors are made of mud, and whose steep hip roof is covered with “bamboo shingles,” the rafters and sheathing being cane. Mr. and[181] Mrs. Williams, born and educated in British Guiana, gave us a hearty welcome to their mission home, leaving their work of manufacturing arrow-root to prepare us a cup of tea. It was prayer-meeting night and we gladly accepted an invitation to attend service. The “barrie,” in which meetings are held, is a bamboo roof, supported by tall posts, and enclosed by a mud wall about four feet high. The floor and platforms are also of mud, nicely sanded.

I was unable to count the audience, for the lamps shed a dim light which was not reflected from the faces of the company. A row of boys led the singing, a young man “turned the word” of those who spoke in English, and several led in brief prayers which we could not understand, but which sounded sensible and devotional.

In the morning we took a more particular view of the premises. Mr. Williams’ house stands just in front of the site of the old residence of Mr. Raymond and Mr. Thompson, a slight hollow and small bank being the only things to mark the place where it stood. While twenty years had crumbled to mother earth, buildings and fences, and produced a jungle that made it almost impossible to identify the site, the cashew, orange and bread-fruit trees had been going on with their steady growth, and are now doing good service with their fruit and shade. The flats along the banks of the river, that had much to do with the unhealthfulness of the location, on account of which it was abandoned, are probably the same now that they were then.

At our request, the two surviving Amistad captives came to see us, Mr. Parn and Mr. Smith. The former had a pleasant smiling face, but was too deaf to converse. The latter wore a rugged-looking countenance, and after a little coaxing told us something of his early life, dwelling especially upon the reason why the Amistads rose up and killed the officers of the vessel on which they were being carried to America. He said the cook told them that they were to be killed and eaten, and showed them a huge kettle in which they were to be boiled. So they rescued themselves from the sad fate that seemed to await them by slaying their captors, acting on the same principle that Stanley did when the natives on the Congo tried to make “meat” of him and his companions.

Chief Geo. Thompson Tucker came to pay his respects. He was educated in the mission and was a pupil of Geo. Thompson. He is not a Christian, but favors Mr. Williams’ work, and renders him much assistance. He wore pants and shoes, and a frock made of country cloth in a country fashion. He converses in English fluently, and sometimes interprets for Mr. Williams.

We desired to visit the cemetery, which Mr. Thompson had removed to some distance, that the sight of so many graves of fallen missionaries might not depress the living. The dew being heavy and the “road” having grown up somewhat, Chief Tucker had two of his men go on in advance, and trim off the overhanging branches with their cutlasses, which they used with wonderful dexterity. The cemetery is partly surrounded by a ditch and bank, Mr. Thompson having concluded that this was more permanent than any fence that could be erected. After a little search by the Chief and old Mr. Smith, three graves were found, ranged side by side at the foot of a mango tree—those of Mr. and Mrs. Tefft and Jane Winters. The wood of which Mr. Thompson made head boards, and which he said did not “know how to rot,” has in some way obtained that undesirable knowledge, and even the planks laid on the graves by some later visitor have crumbled nearly into dust. The other graves that were identified were those of Mr. Garnick, Mr. Carter, Mrs. Arnold and Mr. Thompson’s son George, who died June 6, 1853, at the age of six[182] years. Seven mango trees between one and two feet in diameter mark these resting places. To me there was a strange fascination about this consecrated spot, and words cannot express the feelings I experienced as I walked there among the sainted dead in that distant, strange land.

We next visited the arrow-root farm and saw the boys dig the bulbs, which resemble the sweet potato in shape. Then we went to the little mill where the bulbs are grated and strained, ready for drying and packing. Mr. Williams finds the cultivation and manufacture of arrow-root reasonably profitable, and he deserves encouragement in teaching the natives this and other industries, for the great need of West Africa, apart from the Gospel, is a knowledge of remunerative agriculture.

The church bell had a strange sound, and we learned that it was an old gun-barrel that had been planted in the ground in a native’s door-yard to keep witches out of the house, but upon the conversion of the owner, had been given up to Mr. Williams, and had thus been converted from a profane to a sacred use.

Fifteen church members, twelve inquirers, one hundred attendants upon Sunday service, twenty-three family and nine day pupils, the house and barrie, a clearing of three or four acres, the cultivation of various crops, the manufacture of arrow-root and frequent visits to neighboring towns, give some idea of the industry, perseverance and Christian zeal of this devoted laborer during the past three years, and seem to make it possible to continue the work on this spot of so many hallowed associations and memories.

THE CHINESE.

---

“CALIFORNIA CHINESE MISSION.”

Auxiliary to the American Missionary Association.

President: Rev. J. K. McLean, D. D. Vice-Presidents: Rev. A. L. Stone, D. D., Thomas O. Wedderspoon, Esq., Rev. T. K. Noble, Hon. F. F. Low, Rev. Dwinell, D. D., Hon. Samuel Cross, Rev. S. H. Willey, D. D., Edward P. Flint, Esq., Rev. J. W. Hough, D. D., Jacob S. Taber, Esq.

Directors: Rev. George Mooar, D. D., Hon. E. D. Sawyer, Rev. E. P. Baker, James M. Haven, Esq., Rev. Joseph Rowell, Rev. John Kimball, E. P. Sanford, Esq.

Secretary: Rev. W. O. Pond. Treasurer: E. Palache, Esq.

CHILDREN’S PAGE.

---

[We give, just as they were written, two letters from Indian boys at Hampton for our young readers to puzzle over. We know they will sympathize with Jonathan’s longing for his ponies, and commend his purpose and effort to be content without them and study hard. Our older readers will doubtless be struck with the other letter as curiously resembling that of a German attempting English. His substitution of d for t, and of p for b is quite funnily Teutonic.—Ed. Missionary.]

---

My Dear Friend:—I thought I would write to you a few line, use to be in my home, last summer I went out on a hunting Buffalo away off in the west, we off in Texes country, and I saw many Texes and they was trying to fight the Pawnee, but every Pawnee was afraid, because they are good many Texes that makes the Pawnee afraid just like all white men the Pawnee do like them to fight and Texes kind afraid do and they stop and them went home every one. Would come back any more.

When I was a little boy I use to play all time would doing nothing just only play all the time, now I like to worked hard like very much indeed, because if I work hard and get some money note to go away, that is the reason we like them for I come in Hampton Normal I used to live in my tents and stay all time in my tents, when I was a little boy I used to take care of them ponies all time and every morning and take the ponies in a nice grass is and have good to eat them nice grass note to way to take care of them. Now I am doing to school I would take care of them horse and make fat horses any more because I will try and be contented. My father used to talk me about fight the Sioux a long time ago now stop fight and be our friend all of them kind to each other. I went to school about one year in my home that is the reason do know how to talk English because I went to school one year. That is all I can say now

From your friend

Jonathan Hustice.

---

Dear Friend:— I hope I write you to day, to let you Know what I was doing when I was a young. Well I was working in my father his farm. We pland some wheat and potatoes, we pland every thing, what we want in a winder. And after-wile we had a school house in our settlemend, so we can go to school, and that time I was very glad to school every day and I minte my teacher what he tells me to to and that[185] time I was school two years and the next year I heart to talk aboude the blacksmith shop, to put some podday a boy to learn his trade put he coult find him any boy to learn fasd, and then the other day I get a letter from our agt. and he dolt me if I like to be a black smith, and I recived his letter to tell him that I am very willing to be a black smith so I pegan to work every day, an when I work one year I heard some boys to send to school some whre and after wile he ask me if I like to school I told her I shoult like to have it So I come here do learn a Good away and so that I can teach my tribe a good away and I dry hard to learn fast to learn write well and so that I help my tribe. I am sorry that I going to say thire was a grait many Indians in our State. Thay are very goot she can not understand to work himself. Some of them she understand to write some thing his own Good. Dear sir I am glad that you help us I am very much obliget to you, and then I will dry hard to learn fast, it all I can to say.

Yours very Respectfully,

Alexander Peters.

from Wis. State.

Constitution of the American Missionary Association.

INCORPORATED JANUARY 30, 1849.

---

Art. I. This Society shall be called “The American Missionary Association.”

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

Art. III. Any person of evangelical sentiments,[A] who professes faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is not a slaveholder, or in the practice of other immoralities, and who contributes to the funds, may become a member of the Society; and by the payment of thirty dollars, a life member; provided that children and others who have not professed their faith may be constituted life members without the privilege of voting.

Art. IV. This Society shall meet annually, in the month of September, October or November, for the election of officers and the transaction of other business, at such time and place as shall be designated by the Executive Committee.

Art. V. The annual meeting shall be constituted of the regular officers and members of the Society at the time of such meeting, and of delegates from churches, local missionary societies, and other co-operating bodies, each body being entitled to one representative.

Art. VI. The officers of the Society shall be a President, Vice-Presidents, a Recording Secretary, Corresponding Secretaries, Treasurer, two Auditors, and an Executive Committee of not less than twelve, of which the Corresponding Secretaries shall be advisory, and the Treasurer ex-officio, members.

Art. VII. To the Executive Committee shall belong the collecting and disbursing of funds; the appointing, counseling, sustaining and dismissing (for just and sufficient reasons) missionaries and agents; the selection of missionary fields; and, in general, the transaction of all such business as usually appertains to the executive committees of missionary and other benevolent societies; the Committee to exercise no ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the missionaries; and its doings to be subject always to the revision of the annual meeting, which shall, by a reference mutually chosen, always entertain the complaints of any aggrieved agent or missionary; and the decision of such reference shall be final.

The Executive Committee shall have authority to fill all vacancies occurring among the officers between the regular annual meetings; to apply, if they see fit, to any State Legislature for acts of incorporation; to fix the compensation, where any is given, of all officers, agents, missionaries, or others in the employment of the Society; to make provision, if any, for disabled missionaries, and for the widows and children of such as are deceased; and to call, in all parts of the country, at their discretion, special and general conventions of the friends of missions, with a view to the diffusion of the missionary spirit, and the general and vigorous promotion of the missionary work.

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

Art. VIII. This society, in collecting funds, in appointing officers, agents and missionaries, and in selecting fields of labor, and conducting the missionary work, will endeavor particularly to discountenance slavery, by refusing to receive the known fruits of unrequited labor, or to welcome to its employment those who hold their fellow-beings as slaves.

Art. IX. Missionary bodies, churches or individuals agreeing to the principles of this Society, and wishing to appoint and sustain missionaries of their own, shall be entitled to do so through the agency of the Executive Committee, on terms mutually agreed upon.

Art. X. No amendment shall be made to this Constitution without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present at a regular annual meeting; nor unless the proposed amendment has been submitted to a previous meeting, or to the Executive Committee in season to be published by them (as it shall be their duty to do, if so submitted) in the regular official notifications of the meeting.

FOOTNOTE:

---

[190]

The American Missionary Association.

---

AIM AND WORK.

To preach the Gospel to the poor. It originated in a sympathy with the almost friendless slaves. Since Emancipation it has devoted its main efforts to preparing the Freedmen for their duties as citizens and Christians in America and as missionaries in Africa. As closely related to this, it seeks to benefit the caste-persecuted Chinese in America, and to co-operate with the Government in its humane and Christian policy towards the Indians. It has also a mission in Africa.

STATISTICS.

Churches: In the South—In Va., 1; N. C., 5; S. C., 2; Ga., 13; Ky., 7; Tenn., 4; Ala., 14, La., 12; Miss., 1; Kansas, 2; Texas, 6. Africa, 2. Among the Indians, 1. Total 70.

Institutions Founded, Fostered or Sustained in the South.—Chartered: Hampton, Va.; Berea, Ky.; Talladega, Ala.; Atlanta, Ga.; Nashville, Tenn.; Tougaloo, Miss.; New Orleans, La.; and Austin, Texas, 8. Graded or Normal Schools: at Wilmington, Raleigh, N. C.; Charleston, Greenwood, S. C.; Savannah, Macon, Atlanta, Ga.; Montgomery, Mobile, Athens, Selma, Ala.; Memphis, Tenn., 12. Other Schools, 24. Total 44.

Teachers, Missionaries and Assistants.—Among the Freedmen, 253; among the Chinese, 21; among the Indians, 9: in Africa, 13. Total, 296. Students—In Theology, 86; Law, 28; in College Course, 63; in other studies, 7,030. Total, 7,207. Scholars taught by former pupils of our schools, estimated at 150,000. Indians under the care of the Association, 13,000.

WANTS.

1. A steady INCREASE of regular income to keep pace with the growing work. This increase can only be reached by regular and larger contributions from the churches—the feeble as well as the strong.

2. Additional Buildings for our higher educational institutions, to accommodate the increasing numbers of students; Meeting Houses for the new churches we are organizing; More Ministers, cultured and pious, for these churches.

3. Help for Young Men, to be educated as ministers here and missionaries to Africa—a pressing want.

Before sending boxes, always correspond with the nearest A. M. A. office, as below:

New York	H. W. Hubbard, Esq., 56 Reade Street.
Boston	Rev. C. L. Woodworth, Room 21 Congregational House.
Chicago	Rev. Jas. Powell, 112 West Washington Street.

MAGAZINE.

This Magazine will be sent, gratuitously, if desired, to the Missionaries of the Association; to Life Members; to all clergymen who take up collections for the Association; to Superintendents of Sabbath Schools; to College Libraries; to Theological Seminaries; to Societies of Inquiry on Missions; and to every donor who does not prefer to take it as a subscriber, and contributes in a year not less than five dollars.

Those who wish to remember the American Missionary Association in their last Will and Testament, are earnestly requested to use the following

FORM OF A BEQUEST.

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

The will should be attested by three witnesses [in some States three are required—in other States only two], who should write against their names, their places of residence [if in cities, their street and number]. The following form of attestation will answer for every State in the Union: “Signed, sealed, published and declared by the said [A. B.] as his Last Will and Testament, in presence of us, who, at the request of the said A. B., and in his presence, and in the presence of each other, have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses.” In some States it is required that the Will should be made at least two months before the death of the testator.