Part 3

A Church Organized—Other Churches Revived.

REV. E. P. LORD, TALLADEGA.

I have thought for some time I would try to do less, and tell you more about it. But the things to be done are nearer at hand and more exacting.

The Sabbath before school opened I went into the country, eight miles from here. One of the students had been working there during the vacation, teaching day-school, without receiving enough to pay his board, carrying on a very successful S. S., and holding meetings. I believe twelve had shown a change of heart and life. Nearly one hundred people met in and around a log schoolhouse hardly large enough to hold half the number. Those outside, however, were about as favorably situated as those within, for the crevices between the logs were about as large as the logs themselves. A Congregational church, of six men and women, was organized. Three others expected to unite with them, but were kept away that day. Four or five more will unite soon, and we have reason to expect a vigorous church there. It is one of the best and largest neighborhoods in the region, and the people have already set to work upon a church building. The next Sabbath I was there again, and baptized six persons.

Last Sabbath I went up to Anniston, twenty-five miles away, where another student is in charge of the Congregational church. There have been twenty-one conversions in this church during the summer. I immersed nine, baptized nine by sprinkling, and received nineteen into the church. The little church building was crowded to its utmost capacity in the evening, hardly room enough being left upon the platform for the speaker. The church and parsonage adjoining, finished and painted with taste, clean and tidy inside and out, as well as the energetic and faithful pastor and his wife, and their earnest, quiet, decorous people, remind one of a New England village church. The contrast with most of the neighboring churches is very marked.

I go again next Sabbath to Childersburg, twenty miles south, to baptize and receive into that church quite a number of converts.

The school is unusually full this term, and the spirit of the pupils is marked by all of us.

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A New Pastorate—“Pauses” in Prayer Meetings not yet Introduced.

REV. CHARLES NOBLE, MONTGOMERY.

I have seen all my people in their homes now, and some of them repeatedly, have had a crowded and very pleasant reception at the “Home,” and begin to feel as if I knew the ground. I see great reason for encouragement. We have 60 members on the ground whom I can find, and who seem to be quite as consistent as the average church members at the North. This, out of a list of 77, seems to me a pretty good showing. Half of the absentee list is accounted for by the former teachers who have not taken their letters, and students at Atlanta and Talladega. I have more reliable “prayer-meeting” members in proportion to our number than most pastors enjoy. _“Pauses” in the prayer meeting_ have not yet been introduced. The majority of Christians who come to prayer-meeting at all seem to take it for granted that they must take an active part in carrying it forward; and the majority, male and female, do so with great acceptance. They are free from the “Shame-facedness” of Northern Christians about religious activity; and have not yet fallen into any routine ways. Of course they are generally ignorant; but I find their spiritual exercises very quickening and helpful to me. In this respect the work is very delightful. We sustain two prayer meetings every week, at the church Wednesday evening, and from house to house Monday evening; and I have begun a young people’s meeting Sunday evening half an hour before regular service, which opens with good promise. The Lord has given us one soul as a pledge of His readiness to bless. A bright, promising young girl has been seeking Christ for a long time, but has been hindered by the general superstitious notion that she must have a _vision_ or tangible evidence of God having heard her prayers. She has finally been persuaded to trust God, and try to walk by faith, and has found peace in believing. So we can already set up our Ebenezer, and go forward.

Outside of the direct church work I am impressed with two things especially. First, that a good number of the people are making substantial progress in material things. They show a very healthy tendency to seek the outskirts of the city, and to obtain homes of their own. Montgomery is girdled all around with little cottages (not very fine, to be sure, but a vast improvement on the plantation cabins), which they have built on land bought with their savings since Emancipation. The Democratic Legislature a year ago took advantage of this fact, and, by drawing in the city limits, changed Montgomery from a Republican to a Democratic town, throwing out a thousand colored votes. This shows the extent of the movement.

The second thing which has struck me, is the improvement in the old churches; or rather the evident straining after something better. There cannot be _much_ change while the present generation of ignorant preachers survives; but the changes recently have all been for the better, and a new Baptist organization has just been started among the people themselves with no outside persuasion, with the avowed purpose of securing an educated minister and maintaining better discipline. It is an interesting fact that the leaders in this last movement are all men who have been in close relations with our church and its work. I think our Northern friends need have no fear of the effect upon our principles of _Southern kindness_ here in Montgomery. The white people let us severely alone, unless they can make a little money out of us. The Presbyterian Pastor, Dr. Petrie, has, called upon me; but, besides that, our only visits have been from business men who wanted patronage.

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TENNESSEE.

Le Moyne Normal School—The Year Begins Well.

MISS L. A. PARMELEE, MEMPHIS.

The first month of school has closed with a larger attendance than during the corresponding month one year ago, while the class of students is much superior in every respect. This is especially true of the young men from other places who attend Le Moyne for the first time. They enter the advanced classes and have capacity for more rapid progress than we have been accustomed to find.

We regret the absence of many girls, who prefer teaching to thoroughly fitting themselves for their work. With very limited qualifications, they secure positions in country schools, where they doubtless do fair work for present needs. Some time, they will see the mistake of not pursuing their studies further.

Our Thursday evening family readings have been resumed. This week the Alumni joined us. When two or three guests have come, it has been the habit to have an author designated, but this time the circle was so large it was thought best to invite each to contribute any selection he chose. The first offering was Joseph Cook’s remarks upon uneducated suffrage in the South. It provoked very earnest discussion. Every one was surprised at Mr. Cook’s familiarity with the true condition of affairs. A young man who has taught in the neighborhood, was inclined to dispute the educational statistics. “Go out into the country and you will find that most of the children can read a little,” was one remark. He admitted the ignorance of the adults. He is certainly mistaken in applying his statement to the country at large, however true it may be of the region within a radius of thirty miles from this city.

His hopefulness concerning the children is an offset to the report of another young man teaching forty-five miles away, where the children in Sabbath School could not tell who betrayed Christ, or answer similarly easy questions. I think it is the same place where the minister told his people, in a vivid description of the Flood, that “the rain drops fell as large as a flour barrel.”

Our student teachers have generally accomplished excellent work during vacation. Some of the least promising have shown capabilities which surprised us.

We commence the year with hope as to the intellectual progress to be attained, and trembling over the spiritual condition of the school. Several of the active Christians, heretofore leaders, do not return to us. Their influence is missed. The new element is earnest and determined so far as lessons and deportment are concerned, but indifferent towards higher interests. Yet, even as I write, there is a gentle movement, as if the south wind were blowing upon the garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.

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TENNESSEE STATE TEACHERS’ INSTITUTE.

PROF. A. K. SPENCE, FISK UNIVERSITY.

I think it may be a matter of interest to you and the readers of the MISSIONARY to know that, last winter, an organization was formed here called the State Teachers’ Institute. Its object is the promotion of education, and especially that of the colored people in Tennessee and adjoining territory. It embraces in its membership all those engaged in the work of colored education who may choose to join it. It unites all the forces so engaged in a general educational effort for lifting up the common schools, by improving those who teach them. It operates in accordance with the views of the State Superintendent of Education, by whom it is endorsed and to whom it reports.

The plan was first proposed by this institution, and the Methodist and Baptist institutions located here heartily responded. It thus forms a bond of union and a way of co-operation long felt to be desirable on the part of schools of learning occupying the same ground. It also unites these with the public schools, and combines all educational forces in the work among the freedmen.

During the summer, sixteen local institutes were held in Tennessee and North Alabama, with a total attendance of five hundred teachers. These institutes continued two or three days each and varied in attendance from fifteen to seventy-five each day. Two sessions were held in the day time, and one at night. The day sessions were for the professional instruction of teachers of schools. This was done by lectures, class drills and the like, adapting those exercises to circumstances and persons, aiming always at practical benefit to the teachers present. The sessions at night were made popular gatherings in the interest of education and sought to reach the masses. Men of influence, both white and colored, in the various localities, were invited to make addresses. Good music was provided when it was possible. One speaker called it _an educational revival_. This is what we sought to make it. This is what I think it was.

As you may suppose, there were many obstacles in the way of this good work—ignorance as to what an institute is, prejudice of white and colored, the sickly season of the year and the previous exhaustion of those who gave instruction. These were men who, in ordinary circumstances, should have been resting after the toils of the last school year in preparation for those of the year to come.

All sorts of misconception must be met. Frequently the lecturers arrived at the place, and found almost no one there. Yet by singing and speaking and work generally, success would come at last, but with an immense outlay of effort.

In other cases the house would be packed with people, but scarcely a teacher there. They came on horseback and muleback and in wagons and on foot, bringing their children and dinners with them, to stay all day. The infants were passed from one to another as nurses grew tired, or were quietly palleted on the floor or toddled about among the feet of the people.

What should be done with an institute like that? Turn the people away? By no means. The teachers present were taught how to teach by seeing these people taught the alphabet, and how to count and the like. One thing never failed—rote singing. Oh, what a wealth of music in voice and ear lies in this people! And it was a study for an artist to see those earnest dark faces, with their great, dreamy eyes, as they peered in at the portals of the temple of knowledge so long closed against them, and just got a glimpse of the glory beyond, and knew, if they themselves could not enter, their children might. Many a parent vowed then that his child should go to Fisk University or Central Tennessee College, or the Baptist Institute, as the crowded halls of these institutions, filled almost to bursting, now testify. I think that some of these strange, nondescript institutes were, perhaps, our best.

One case of zeal I may not omit. A man came seventeen miles across the country, staid the first day, and at the close of the night session, about eleven o’clock, started for home, woke up his friends and neighbors, and was back with them by nine the next morning. And, oh, the hand-shakings, and the God-bless-yous! Who would not be willing to re-enlist in so good a work?

But it was hard work. Night sessions could not begin till nine, or later, as the people could not be got together sooner, and so we were up till eleven or twelve. Add to this the thermometer in the nineties and up to a hundred, small rooms, impure air and many other things, and no wonder if nearly every one of the workers suffered.

As to actual expenses for travel, &c., we expect to get them from the Peabody Fund. They were only between two and three hundred dollars. We were, for the most part, kept free of expense, sometimes at hotels and sometimes in families, white or colored. This we left for the colored people of the place to decide. They generally thought it best for the cause that we stop with white people. We made some friends in that way whom it is pleasant to have.

We let politics alone, but kept ourselves to education; still, being Christian educators, we often preached Jesus. In one case a revival meeting was resumed each day at the close of the institute.

I have written thus minutely, thinking that our experience may lead A. M. A. workers to go and do likewise in other States. Great masses of our school teachers can never come to us. We must go to them.

But, dear Secretary, do not work us so hard in our schools that there will be nothing of us left for this or any other of the many things we see to do about us, that need so much to be done.

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TWO SIMPLE RULES.

We welcome with peculiar pleasure the volume just issued by our old friend and co-laborer, Rev. J. P. Thompson, D.D., the former pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle. It consists of six lectures delivered in the leading cities of the continent during the Centennial year. It is entitled “The United States as a Nation.” Among many valuable things which it contains, we select the following extract, giving from this life-long friend of the colored race his counsel as to their treatment by the government and their treatment of themselves:

“1. Let the general government refrain from all further legislation or interference on behalf of the negro as such. If riots arise that the State authorities cannot quell, the National Government, duly invoked, should interfere, to preserve the public peace; and also, if necessary, it should use the arm of power to sustain the courts in putting down injustice, outrage and wrong, by the arm of the law. But all this without making a point of caring for the negro in distinction from any other man; for the best way of caring for the negro is to cease to know him as a negro, and to treat him always and only as a man. Above all, should the government refrain from legislating upon social customs, instincts and prejudices. A legal injustice can be done away by law; a moral wrong, in the form of overt action, can be dealt with by law; but a taste, a sentiment, a feeling, an instinct, a prejudice—these pass the bounds of all legislation; and the attempt to rectify or regulate these by law serves only to irritate opposition. At these points human nature has much in common with the porcupine.

“2. The black race should be taught that they are to depend upon themselves. Having freedom, schools, the rights of citizens guaranteed by law, and the inducement to self-culture presented by opportunities of political action, they should be made to feel that their future is in their own hands; that, if they would rise to a position of respect and of responsibility as men, they must show themselves to be men. There is no other way for any race. If they cannot do this, they must go under. If they will not do this, they ought to go under. But no one who knows the negro race in America can doubt, that with time on their side, and patience and justice toward them on the part of others, they will rise to the full measure of their opportunities, and, with their capacity for work, their docility, their kindliness, their adaptivity, their mirthfulness, their religious faith, will form as good a part as any in the social system of the future. Time, patience, justice, will cause the friction of races to disappear in the working of the American system of harmonized humanity.”

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EXTRACTS FROM DR. PATTON’S INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

As “there is no royal road to learning” to suit dullards of kingly birth, so no peculiar and accommodating pathway to wealth and power, to civilization and culture, opens before those of African descent. Their own expectations, and the efforts of those who would assist them, must be based simply on their manhood. It is only as this shall be developed and brought to bear upon life’s duties and opportunities, that progress can be made in outward condition and in the estimation of mankind. There are no sudden results to be secured by artificial means. Neither special legislation, nor military protection, nor favor extended by those in power, nor the peculiar regard and effort of philanthropists, will, of themselves, avail to procure the abolition of caste-feeling, and the elevation of the colored people to an entire equality with the whites. The effects of ages of slavery are not to be removed in a day, by a mere legislative vote. An amendment to the Constitution alters no fact of ignorance, of poverty, of moral debasement. The prejudices of the whites, descending through generations, imbibed by individuals in infancy, and strengthened by universal sentiment, practice, and association of ideas, cannot be easily and soon overcome, and are not, so far as feeling is concerned, wholly within the power of volition, so as to be annihilated at will. They will vanish gradually in the presence of increasing evidence of a noble manhood. Developed intellectual power, the higher education, success in industrial pursuits, the acquirement of wealth and culture and character, will cause them to disappear as the sun does the heavy, chilly, obscuring mists which night generates in the valleys. When I deposit a gold coin on the table, it commands a certain degree of respect. No one is obliged to argue in its behalf. It speaks for itself. Having intrinsic value and the added stamp of the national mint, it represents so many grains of precious metal and their equivalent in whatever money will buy. Hence everybody welcomes it, and looks upon it with regard. Will the result not be analogous, when the colored man shall be seen to have an intrinsic value equal to that of the white man? When one shall no longer associate with him the ideas of bondage, pauperism, and barbarism, but those of freedom, prosperity, intelligence, and culture; when he shall not only carry in his person the stamp of American citizenship, but shall come out from a university training a scholar and a gentleman, like a glittering coin from the die?

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Every case which is at all parallel, confirms the validity of our reasoning. The classical scholar will, perhaps, remember that Cicero, in writing to one of his friends, advises him, when he has occasion to purchase a slave, not to buy one of those stupid Britons. Doubtless, after the Roman wars in Britain, thousands of captives had been sent to Italy and exposed for sale, according to ancient custom; and those who bought them had learned that they were intellectually inferior to slaves obtained from other sources. Why does a Briton no longer bear such a reputation? Because generations of favorable influences have brought him out of the barbaric condition in which he then was, and have educated him into the representative of civilization.

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There can be no reasonable doubt that educational forces, rightly brought to bear upon the colored people, will in time work a change in the matter of prejudice; which is only partially an incident of difference of feature and complexion, and is principally a manifestation of caste-pride.

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The only certain corrective for this evil is general and special education, which shall raise the average intelligence of the masses, so as to make them more capable and independent in their judgments of men and measures, and which shall also provide appropriate leaders, worthy of their confidence, from among themselves. These leaders must be such as naturally come to the front in organized and cultivated society—the men in all professions and pursuits who to native talent add superior education. There must be a speedy addition of cultivated mind to the colored population if it is to be saved from follies which will be fatal. That grade of mind must operate not only directly and purposely through public addresses and by the press, but in all those quiet, incidental, and unconscious ways of daily and hourly intercourse, which are equally, or even more, effective. Hence we must have colored lawyers, physicians, editors, authors, clergymen, artists, statesmen, and teachers, whose attainments shall be equal to those of white men in similar occupations, and whose expressed opinions shall have just weight with their race, on the various mooted questions which may arise in Church and State.

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THE INDIANS.

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FORT BERTHOLD, DAKOTA TERRITORY.

A Discouraging First View. School Teaching and Brick Making. Increasing Hope.

E. H. ALDEN, INDIAN AGENT.

My work here since January has been incessant, and unprecedented in trial and difficulty in all my experience. I can labor on the wild frontier of Minnesota, organize Sunday-schools and churches, and labor with my own hands in the erection of meeting houses, with the mercury more than 30° below zero. But harder still it is to have the burden of care for 1,200 savages, bowed down by superstition and sin, through whom the rough ploughshare of the most degraded and vile white civilization has been driven for the last fifty years. With the prejudice of Indians against all agents to overcome, the strife arising from the desire to _make money_, in conflict with the desire to promote the highest and best welfare of the Indian, in our very midst, the underground whiskey traffic, with the vilest of all whites to encounter—these were barriers requiring time and pluck to overcome. Added to this, the red-tape of the department, making one always feel the force of the Latin words—“_Incidet in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdim._”