Part 2

An article of two and a half columns in an Augusta, Ga. paper, begins thus: “The Superior Court room in the City Hall was crowded last evening with the colored voters of the county who had assembled to listen to addresses from Hon. Jos. B. Cumming, the Democratic nominee for Senator, from the Eighteenth Senatorial District, and Hon. H. Clay Foster, Independent candidate for the same position. Both these gentlemen were present by invitation of the colored people themselves.” Then follow abstracts of the speeches of the two candidates, wherein each attempts to show the colored voters that he has a stronger claim upon them than his competitor. This political gathering was peculiar in several respects. The audience was composed of Republicans, while the speakers were both avowed Democrats. The assemblage comprised a distinct class in the Senatorial district. This class was composed of those who during most of their lives had enjoyed fewest opportunities to obtain knowledge and learn how to vote intelligently. And what is most vital, they, as the speakers seemed to tacitly acknowledge, held the balance of power. In other words, they, whatever their standing might be in society, and whatever qualifications they might possess or lack, were to decide which of the two candidates should represent the PEOPLE of the Eighteenth District in the State Senate.

Whether or not it was humiliating to the pride of “high-bred” citizens of the Empire State of the South to vie with each other thus publicly in soliciting the votes of their former servants, is of little consequence. Neither is it a matter of very great import that a political gathering of “niggers” (negroes would be more elegant, but less pointed,) was respectfully addressed by Southern white men, and respectfully referred to by a Georgia Democratic paper. That all the colored voters of that district will be urged and helped to pay their taxes, and thus for one year at least avoid disfranchisement, and will have an opportunity to vote unmolested, though a good reason for congratulation, is nothing worthy of very great consideration. But the prominent and startling feature of this incident is the fact that those who, through no fault of theirs, are least qualified for the responsible trust, hold the balance of power and cast the decisive vote. In this instance, no great issues are involved, and if, under the influence of wise and virtuous leaders of their own race, our colored friends always see as clearly what is really for their good, the danger will be lessened. As an indication of what is now uppermost in their minds upon such occasions, and for the encouragement of those who contribute to the funds of the A. M. A., I will quote the questions they put to the candidates:

“1. Are you in favor of the States levying a tax for educational purposes—the benefit to be equally enjoyed by all classes?

“2. Are you in favor of the State continuing the annual appropriation of $8,000 to the Atlanta University for the higher education of the colored youth?

“3. Are you in favor of the law known as the ‘Laborers and Mechanics’ Lien Law’?”

Such danger coupled with such encouragement ought to nerve the arms of A. M. A. laborers, and stimulate the alms-giving of its contributors.

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We are rejoiced to hear of the increasing prosperity of Howard University under the presidency of Dr. W. W. Patton. The attendance and attention of the students to their work, is, we are informed, most gratifying and encouraging. Dr. Patton, in addition to his presidential duties, fills an important chair in the Theological department, the maintenance of which department our Association shares with the Presbytery of Washington. On another page, we give some extracts from the thoughtful Inaugural address of the new President, which we are sure will interest our readers.

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The barque “Jasper,” which sailed from the port of New York, September 24th, carrying the missionaries Snelson, James and White, with their families, to reinforce the Mendi Mission in North-western Africa, was reported in the New York _Herald_ of Saturday, Dec. 1st, as arrived at Sierra Leone. The date of arrival was not given. A note just received from Mr. Snelson, dated Nov. 20, then at Freetown, assures of the health and safety of the party. The same Hand which we trust has delivered them from the perils of the sea is able also to deliver them from perils by land and from perils by their own countrymen. We hope before our next issue to receive the account of their voyage, and their first impressions of the field they go to cultivate.

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NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.

Rev. J. E. Smith has accepted the pastoral charge of the Midway Church, Liberty Co., Ga., succeeding Rev. Floyd Snelson, who has gone to the Mendi Mission in Africa.

Rev. Wilson Callen has gone to the churches at Belmont and Louisville, Ga.

Rev. J. G. Kedslie, from Jamaica, West Indies, to McLeansville, N. C. He reports an increasing religious interest there.

Rev. J. H. H. Sengstacke is with the church at Woodville, Ga.

Mr. J. R. McLean, a student at Talladega, is preaching at Ogeechee.

Rev. William Ash has gone from Providence, R. I., to the church at Mobile, Ala.

Two brethren from the North have recently gone to take charge of churches in the Southern field: and Rev. Fletcher Clark, son of Rev. Rufus W. Clark, D. D., of Albany, N. Y., to Selma, Ala., and Rev. Geo. E. Hill, recently of Southport, Conn., to Marion, Ala.

A church of twenty-one members was recognized by Council, Nov. 12, at Marietta, Ga. It has been gathered under the labors of Rev. T. N. Stewart, formerly of the African Methodist communion. Rev. S. S. Ashley preached, and Revs. H. S. Bennett and J. Q. A. Erwin bore other parts in the service. The place is a beautiful town of three or four thousand inhabitants, with a large colored population. Several young men have joined the new enterprise, and seem very much interested in it.

The Central South Conference of Congregational Churches met Nov. 9th in Atlanta, Ga. The meeting was very spirited, though the attendance was not large. The narrative of the state of religion was, on the whole, very encouraging. Prof. Bennett, of Fisk University, occupied one evening in giving an account of the National Council at Detroit, and the Annual Meeting of the A. M. A. at Syracuse. Mr. Clark, referred to above, was ordained in connection with the meeting of conference.

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SOUTHERN EXODUS NOTES.

The enrolment still goes on; 65,000 in South Carolina, 69,000 in Louisiana, and large numbers in North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas and Mississippi. In South Carolina, five commissioners have been appointed to visit Liberia and make arrangements for emigration; and a joint stock company has been formed to issue 30,000 shares at $10 each—2,000 shares already taken.

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The appeal is made especially in South Carolina and Louisiana, on the ground of the changed political situation, which is interpreted to signify a denial of the rights of the negro citizen, and a risk of future oppression and even of a future restoration of slavery. Africa is pictured as “a land flowing with milk and honey, with no white man to molest or make afraid.” Names are enrolled on impulse, and with little consideration, and speedily swell to large proportions. It is much easier to write a book of Exodus than to cross the sea and go through the wilderness.

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Meanwhile, the question of emigration is being, of necessity, investigated. Among intelligent colored men, some press their right to the country in which they have been born, and for which they have shed their blood; others suggest that the wealthy inhabitants of the rich Republic of Liberia send over vessels to transport them there, so proving their ability; others, less wise and prudent, have sold out everything and gone to Charleston, expecting to find speedy transportation, and have returned chagrined and disappointed.

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The United States Government has issued a report of the condition of Liberia, showing the dangers of the sea shore climate to the health of immigrants; that Liberia has never produced sufficient food for her own consumption, and that provisions are very high; that while the interior is fine and healthy, it is almost inaccessible, and thoroughly inhospitable from the jealousy of the petty kings.

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Rev. Dr. Dana, of Norwich, Conn., who has given no little time to the study of Africa, in a recent letter to the New York _Herald_, on the other hand, makes the following statements: That the country in the interior east of Liberia is healthy, productive and accessible. Boporo, 75 miles inland, is elevated, with an invigorating climate and a productive soil. “The exhibit of Liberian products at the Centennial was sufficient to set beyond all question the richness of the country, and the returns it makes to average industry.” A beginning of manufacturing has been made. The government sustains primary schools, and five higher schools are managed by missionary societies, and a college. The war with the natives of Cape Palmas has terminated and a treaty been made. The Methodist, Episcopal, Baptist and Presbyterian Churches are represented there, and have made efficient progress. Iron ore is found there, and coffee plantations are a source of wealth. The natives, both Pagan and Mohammedan, are represented by Dr. Blyden as anxious to have Christian settlers occupy the beautiful hills and fertile plains in their neighborhood. Dr. Dana concludes: “A general exodus to Liberia of the colored people of the South need not be apprehended, but it is anything but commercially wise or politically just to disparage the condition or speak derisively of the prospects of the African Republic.”

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The American Colonization Society has sent to Liberia, since the close of the war, 3,137 colored persons. It is now preparing to dispatch another expedition on the 2d of January next. The number of emigrants will depend, to a considerable extent, on the means yet to be contributed for the purpose. The society is constantly receiving urgent applications for passage and settlement. These, with other movements, especially in South Carolina and Florida, represent, it is estimated, a quarter of a million of men, women and children.

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INDIAN NOTES.

Notwithstanding the successful termination of the Nez Percès war, in which General Howard so happily vindicated both his valor and his courtesy, there is no settled and general peace among the Indian tribes. Some 1,700 Sioux broke away while being removed from the Red Cloud agency to their new agency on the Missouri River, and are now on the war path. They have since been committing depredations in the immediate vicinity of Deadwood, Dakota. They number about two hundred lodges, a number not sufficient in itself to render operations against them on a large scale necessary, but probably quite large enough to keep our small available force (exhausted as it is by the long campaign against the Nez Percès) fully occupied should the Indians open hostilities. Although a general Indian war is not considered to be imminent, such an event is not impossible as the outcome of the present troubles, and may be deemed almost probable.

The most serious feature of the situation lies in the probability that the many roving bands who live in the country north and west of the Black Hills, and who are thought to be in sympathy with Sitting Bull, and to have experienced more or less injustice at the hands of the whites, will join with the small band which is creating the present alarm at Deadwood, and thus bring about an outbreak which it would be quite beyond the power of our present reduced military establishment to suppress. The opinion is expressed by officers at the War Department, that the removal of troops from the Black Hills region to the Texas border, may result in the protection of people in the latter section, at the expense of the lives of those who are exposed to much greater danger.

Meanwhile, the Ponca Indians have sent a deputation to Washington, to remonstrate with the President against their removal to a new reservation. They are a peaceful and civilized people, who cannot bear to leave the houses, schools and churches they have built and maintained. The assurances which they received of restitution for their losses, and protection in their new homes, though liberally made and with honest intent, were a poor comfort to them in their enforced removal.

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The Sitting Bull Commission report that that doughty chief will not return to this country at present from his retreat across the Canada border. His camp, however, keeps up communication with hostile tribes, stimulating dissatisfaction, and inciting hostility; it furnishes an asylum, also, to fugitives from justice—one hundred of the defeated Nez Percès are now there. The commission suggests, as required by international comity and usage, that they be removed so far into the interior of the neutral State that they can no longer threaten in any manner the peace and safety of our citizens.

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The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs has reported a bill for enabling Indians to become citizens of the United States. The conditions of admission to citizenship are that the Indian shall belong to some organized tribe or nation having treaty relations with the United States, and that he shall appear in a United States Circuit or District Court and make proof to its satisfaction that he is sufficiently intelligent and prudent to control his own affairs and interests, that he has adopted the habits of civilized life, and has for the last five years been able to support himself and family, and that he shall take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States. The bill also provides that the Indian shall not, by becoming a citizen, forfeit his distributable share of all annuities, tribal funds, lands, or other property.

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In his Annual Report, the Secretary of the Interior says that, respecting the Indians, the great difficulty in dealing with them is that there is no longer any frontier line; they are divided among the whites who are constantly spreading over the Western country. The immense region allotted them, and the strict dividing line between them and the whites, in British America, is the reason the English Government is enabled to manage them so easily. We can make no such restriction, with our growing population. The report recommends as progress toward civilization that the Indians be gathered in smaller reservations and taught agriculture and cattle raising; that small tracts be deeded each one, so that they may have fixed homes; that hunting be discouraged; that proper tribunals of justice be established; that schools be introduced, and attendance by youth made compulsory; that farmers be employed to teach Indians agriculture, and that Indian labor be employed on all reservations.

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CHINESE NOTES.

Governor Irwin, of California, has urged the Legislature of that State to memorialize Congress that it is the duty of the United States Government to prevent unlimited Chinese immigration. The State Senate has forwarded such a document. The Memorial says, that the 180,000 Chinamen constitute one sixth of the population of California, pay less than one-four-hundredth of the State revenue, and send back to China $180,000,000 annually ($1,000 each); that they have no families here; that not one has been converted to a Christian faith or way of living; that the cheapness of their labor, owing to their cheap living, stops American and European immigration, and interferes with the development of the State; that if not interfered with, they will ultimately drive out white labor, and leave only masters and serfs on the Pacific Coast.

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The “Chinese Six Companies” make a representation on their own account, calling attention to the fact that, since the treaty, the United States Government has received from China nearly $800,000 indemnity for outrages on American citizens and their property, while in not one case in fifty of similar offenses against themselves have the perpetrators been brought to justice. In the July riots in San Francisco, when upward of thirty Chinese laundries and dwellings were raided, some burned, one Chinaman killed, and his body thrown into the flames, not one arrest was made by the authorities, State or municipal. They say that for twenty-five years the emigration has not averaged over 4,000 annually. They reiterate what they said to the chairman of the late Chinese Congressional Commission, the late Senator Morton, in a communication addressed to him—“That if the restricting the emigration of our people to this free country would have a tendency to allay the fears of the timid, and protect our people in their just rights, we would give our aid and countenance to any measure to that end.”

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If the assertion of the California Senate, in its memorial to Congress, that “there is no evidence that a single Chinaman has been converted to Christianity, or has been persuaded to adopt Christian manners and habits of life,” is a fair sample of the truthfulness of the statements of that document, it offers a very weak foundation on which to base a legislative enactment. This we know to be false. Those who have read our monthly letters from Mr. Pond will not need to be reminded that more than a hundred in our schools alone are now giving convincing evidence that they are Christian men, and that not simply in name, but in deed and in truth; and that a large number have united to establish and maintain a Christian home for the expressed purpose of adopting Christian manners and habits of life. We are regretfully compelled to doubt the familiarity of California Senators with the progress of Christian missions in their own State. Are their other “facts” no truer than this?

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BOOK NOTICE.

ETHIOPIA, _or Twenty Years of Missionary Life in Western Africa_. By Rev. D. K. Flickinger.

As indicated in the title, the author of this modest volume has had long experience as a missionary of the United Brethren to Africa. Their mission station is near our own, and its story sheds light on our work. With no pretension to literary or artistic merit, a very simple and vivid description is given of the people of the north-western coast, their homes, their houses, their food, their dress (or lack of it), their sleep, their work, their war, their play. The grossness of their polygamy, the superstition of their faith in gree-grees, and their Purrow society (an Oriental Ku Klux Klan) are exposed.

We extract the account of the legend current among the Mendi tribe, as to the order of the creation of the races, and their explanation of their differences. The story runs thus:

“God made white man early in the morning, and take plenty time to show him book palaver [how to read], and God palaver [a knowledge of the Gospel], and how to make plenty fine things. Then he tell him go. Next he make Mohammedan man, and show him little book palaver, and how to make some fine things, and then he tell him go. After this he make Mendi man, and showed him how to farm, make country cloth, mats, canoes, and such like things; and then he tell him go. In the last place, he make Sherbro man; and when he get him done, the sun go down, and he had no time to show him anything but make salt and catch fish, but promised to come back and show him more things. But he forgot to do it, and that the reason Sherbro man know so little.”

Over against this we quote an old negro’s prayer:

“O God, you must remember me. You must make my heart clean; make me no hate nobody; you made me; all my mind then to you. Please God, you must show me how for pray, because I don’t know how.”

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THE FREEDMEN.

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NORTH CAROLINA.

Revival Work in Church and School.

MISS E. W. DOUGLASS, MCLEANSVILLE.

I must tell you the good news. Our protracted meeting is over, and it has, indeed, been a glorious time. Never did I witness anything like it before. I was so busy talking with inquirers, that I could not keep any account of the number converted. I can now think of twenty. Last Sabbath Mr. Welker was with us, and we had our communion season. Twenty-seven were added to the church, and two others were restored who have been wandering. Fifteen were baptized—of these, eight were recent converts. The others were fruits of a previous revival. One woman who wished to join us last Sabbath could not, as she desired to be immersed. She is to be baptized next Sabbath.

After sermon at each meeting, the inquirers were invited to go into my rooms for instruction, while the meeting continued in the large room. My rooms were filled every night, and many were weeping who could not go in for want of room. As soon as one was converted and came out, another took the place. There were very few unmoved in the house.

Outsiders came in and made the meetings too noisy at times, but we had less confusion than usual when such crowds gather. Our own congregation were willing to abide by our rules, and they helped to restrain others.

Ten of those who united with the church were from my Sabbath-school class. Fourteen others were heads of families. Seven infants were baptized, all from those families. Mr. Ingle was with us all the week, and had no outside help except last Sabbath. He came over and preached again last night.

There are many little ones who are interested; and I feel that the Lord has given me much work in caring for these lambs.

The fame of this place has gone abroad, and I think a good teacher will draw a large school this winter. Who are coming? When will they come? The church is in a better state now than it has been for years. Those who needed discipline have most of them come back to duty.

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GEORGIA.

Revival in the University.

REV. C. W. FRANCIS, ATLANTA.

We have never had more occasion for thanksgiving in this school than in the season just past, on account of the work of the Lord among us. A deep solemnity has pervaded the school since the opening of the term, and every week some have been coming to Christ. On account of the closing of schools in South Carolina, quite a number of the young men from the University were led to unite with college classes here this year, and nearly all these have been converted. May we not believe that it was by special Divine leading that they were brought to this place at this time? There has been no interruption of regular work, and no special services have been held, but the Lord has blessed richly the ordinary means of grace, and in His own way has been gathering in the precious harvest. Five members of the junior class have been brought, as we hope, to Christ, and are seeking the best places and ways of serving Him. There are left only two or three, who are not followers of Christ, while most of those in the higher classes have already been brought in. We seek the continuance of this blessing all the year, and the ingathering of the whole school. There was never a more auspicious time to work in this field, so far as spiritual results are concerned, and “the regions beyond” were never more accessible or more needy than at present. May the sympathies, aid and prayers of good people be continued and increased!

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ALABAMA.