Part 1

VOL. XXXII. No. 6.

THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

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“To the Poor the Gospel is Preached.”

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JUNE, 1878.

_CONTENTS_:

EDITORIAL.

PARAGRAPHS 161 PRINCIPLES AND PLANS 162 DEPARTURE OF THE AZOR.—THE INDIAN BOYS AT HAMPTON 163 A SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONCERT 164 AN EDUCATED MINISTRY.—ATLANTA AND FISK UNIVERSITIES 165 NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES 168 ITEMS FROM THE SCHOOLS.—GENERAL NOTES 169

THE FREEDMEN.

STRAIGHT UNIVERSITY 172 VIRGINIA: Additions to the Church—An Indian’s Creed—A Good Beginning 174 SOUTH CAROLINA: History of “Avery” Graduates 174 GEORGIA: Pilgrim Church and Sunday-School—Band of Hope—Twitchell School.—School Children Farming— Their Parents Buying Farms.—A Growing School—A Literary Society 175 MISSISSIPPI: An Old School—Temperance Work—The Gourd Family 176 THEOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT OF HOWARD UNIVERSITY 177 THE INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONVENTION.—ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SOUTH-WESTERN CONFERENCE 178 THE SINGERS TO THE MISSIONARIES, GREETING 180

AFRICA.

ARRIVAL OF THE NEW MISSIONARIES.—FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AFRICA—A SUNDAY SERVICE—A SCHOOL CELEBRATION 181 ADVANTAGES OF COLORED MISSIONARIES 182

THE INDIANS.

SCHOOL WANTS AND FARM WORK 182 AN INDIAN WANTS A COW 183

THE CHINESE.

FUNG AFFOO’S BIBLE CLASS—VISALIA AND PETALUMA 183

THE CHILDREN’S PAGE 185

RECEIPTS 185

CONSTITUTION 189

WORK, STATISTICS, WANTS, &c. 190

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NEW YORK:

Published by the American Missionary Association,

ROOMS, 56 READE STREET.

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Price, 50 Cents a Year, in advance.

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A. Anderson, Printer, 23 to 27 Vandewater St.

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_American Missionary Association_,

56 READE STREET, N. Y.

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PRESIDENT.

HON. E. S. TOBEY, Boston.

VICE PRESIDENTS.

Hon. F. D. PARISH, Ohio. Rev. JONATHAN BLANCHARD, Ill. Hon. E. D. HOLTON, Wis. Hon. WILLIAM CLAFLIN, Mass. Rev. STEPHEN THURSTON, D. D., Me. Rev. SAMUEL HARRIS, D. D., Ct. Rev. SILAS MCKEEN, D. D., Vt. WM. C. CHAPIN, Esq., R. I. Rev. W. T. EUSTIS, Mass. Hon. A. C. BARSTOW, R. I. Rev. THATCHER THAYER, D. D., R. I. Rev. RAY PALMER, D. D., N. Y. Rev. J. M. STURTEVANT, D. D., Ill. Rev. W. W. PATTON, D. D., D. C. Hon. SEYMOUR STRAIGHT, La. Rev. D. M. GRAHAM, D. D., Mich. HORACE HALLOCK, Esq., Mich. Rev. CYRUS W. WALLACE, D. D., N. H. Rev. EDWARD HAWES, Ct. DOUGLAS PUTNAM, Esq., Ohio. Hon. THADDEUS FAIRBANKS, Vt. SAMUEL D. PORTER, Esq., N. Y. Rev. M. M. G. DANA, D. D., Ct. Rev. H. W. BEECHER, N. Y. Gen. O. O. HOWARD, Oregon. Rev. EDWARD L. CLARK, N. Y. Rev. G. F. MAGOUN, D. D., Iowa. Col. C. G. HAMMOND, Ill. EDWARD SPAULDING, M. D., N. H. DAVID RIPLEY, Esq., N. J. Rev. WM. M. BARBOUR, D. D., Ct. Rev. W. L. GAGE, Ct. A. S. HATCH, Esq., N. Y. Rev. J. H. FAIRCHILD, D. D., Ohio. Rev. H. A. STIMSON, Minn. Rev. J. W. STRONG, D. D., Minn. Rev. GEORGE THACHER, LL. D., Iowa. Rev. A. L. STONE, D. D., California. Rev. G. H. ATKINSON, D. D., Oregon. Rev. J. E. RANKIN, D. D., D. C. Rev. A. L. CHAPIN, D. D., Wis. S. D. SMITH, Esq., Mass. Rev. H. M. PARSONS, N. Y. PETER SMITH, Esq., Mass. Dea. JOHN WHITING, Mass. Rev. WM. PATTON, D. D., Ct. Hon. J. B. GRINNELL, Iowa. Rev. WM. T. CARR, Ct. Rev. HORACE WINSLOW, Ct. Sir PETER COATS, Scotland. Rev. HENRY ALLON, D. D., London, Eng. WM. E. WHITING, Esq., N. Y. J. M. PINKERTON, Esq., Mass.

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

REV. M. E. STRIEBY, _56 Reade Street, N. Y._

DISTRICT SECRETARIES.

REV. C. L. WOODWORTH, _Boston_. REV. G. D. PIKE, _New York_. REV. JAS. POWELL, _Chicago, Ill._

EDGAR KETCHUM, ESQ., _Treasurer, N. Y._ H. W. HUBBARD, ESQ., _Assistant Treasurer, N. Y._ REV. M. E. STRIEBY, _Recording Secretary_.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

ALONZO S. BALL, A. S. BARNES, EDWARD BEECHER, GEO. M. BOYNTON, WM. B. BROWN, CLINTON B. FISK, A. P. FOSTER, AUGUSTUS E. GRAVES, S. B. HALLIDAY, SAM’L HOLMES, S. S. JOCELYN, ANDREW LESTER, CHAS. L. MEAD, JOHN H. WASHBURN, G. B. WILLCOX.

COMMUNICATIONS

relating to the business of the Association may be addressed to either of the Secretaries as above.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

may be sent to H. W. Hubbard, 56 Reade Street, New York, or, when more convenient, to either of the branch offices, 21 Congregational House, Boston, Mass., 112 West Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. Drafts or checks sent to Mr. Hubbard should be made payable to his order as _Assistant Treasurer_.

A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member.

Correspondents are specially requested to place at the head of each letter the name of their Post Office, and the County and State in which it is located.

THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

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VOL. XXXII. JUNE, 1878. No. 6.

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_American Missionary Association._

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As will be seen elsewhere, our new missionaries arrived at Freetown, Sierra Leone, March 23d, just one month from the date of their leaving New York by steamer for England. They had only the ordinary discomforts of a sea voyage, and reached their destination in good condition. Their first impressions of the new field seem to be quite favorable, and their desire to be to enter on the new work at once. We look to the Lord of the harvest for His blessing on the lives and labors of all those who have gone from us to the Mendi Mission.

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We read with unfeigned regret of the disasters and delays which the English and Scotch missionaries have met with, in attempting to begin their new work in Central Africa. The expedition of the London Missionary Society was, from July to January last, trying to push its way with its supplies to its destination on Lake Tanganyika, but was obliged to encamp for the rainy season at Kirasa, only about one-third of the way. It is hoped that during the present year they may reach the lake, and establish themselves there. The mission of the Free and United Presbyterian Churches is in danger of being driven from its station at Livingstonia, on Lake Nyanza, by so insignificant an enemy as a fly. The bite of the tsetse, deadly to all domestic animals, has sadly impoverished them, impeded their industrial operations, and curtailed their usefulness in advancing the civilization of Africa. The station may have to be moved. A new site must be sought with great care, which will not be liable to this pest.

In South Africa another missionary institution has been endangered by the Caffre War, three English officials having been murdered not far away; while missionaries Smith and O’Neill, of the Church Missionary Society in Central Africa, have been killed by hostile natives, on their way back to Uganda, the capital of King M’tesa. We believe that our forces at Good Hope and Avery are not liable to any of these perils. The station is accessible and reached; no deadly venom is in the insect life around them, nor are there unfriendly nations near. Only the dangers common to such regions are there to threaten them. And yet we must not set our hopes too high, or base them too confidently on any of the uncertainties which the future still holds. In a land of delays we know not what may hinder; amid a thousand possibilities, we cannot tell what peril lurks. Our hope is in the Lord—that He will suffer no evil to befall them, but give them strength for patient continuance in well-doing.

Our friends at Talladega College miss their names from the Institutions we mentioned in the May MISSIONARY, as needing greatly, and at once, enlarged accommodations. We did not mention their wants, as indeed we did not other important needs; and perhaps the reason was, as they suggest, because, appreciating the strain laid upon our resources this year, they have considerately refrained from pressing the case which, last year, they laid before us. They say “It is difficult for us to see how any institutions in the South can be in more pressing need than we of a new dormitory.”

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Mr. Whidby’s fears that a colored delegate to the Atlanta Sunday-school Convention would be either “lionized or snubbed” to that extent that it would be better for him not to come, proved to be not well grounded. The warned man did not come; but, fortunately, another did, of similar complexion, and that from Texas. He was received and treated just as the others were, and he behaved as well. The fact is, they were much busier devising for Sunday-school work than applying a color metre to each other’s faces. We are very glad the Texas brother was there.

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PRINCIPLES AND PLANS.

—This Association does not affirm that races, any more than individuals, are equal in physical or mental fibre and development. Some races, as well as individuals, are manifestly below others in some respects. All that we claim is, that all men shall be regarded as equal _before God and the Law_; and that hence, in all churches of Christ, no distinction be made, on account of race or color; and also that, in the enactment and administration of the laws of the land, all races be equally protected in person and property, and that whatever immunities or privileges are granted to one, be extended to all.

—This Association does not found exclusively colored churches. They are only exclusive because they are not exclusive. They are open to all races, and hence but few white persons unite with them. But, while the work of the Association has been principally among the colored people in the South, as being at present most accessible, yet it has always favored the establishment of churches, mainly white, where the distribution of population calls for them, and which allow colored persons freely to unite with them. Thus, the early efforts of John G. Fee, its first missionary in the South, was in the formation of white churches in Kentucky. So, also, the counsel of its officers was sought and given in the organization of the Second (or white) Congregational Church in Chattanooga, Tenn. Its first minister was Rev. J. A. Thome, a life-long friend of the A. M. A., and at one time its agent in Great Britain. The Congregational Church in Jacksonville, Fla., was organized, and its house dedicated, under the auspices of Rev. C. L. Woodworth, its Boston Secretary, who spent a month in Jacksonville preaching and laboring for that purpose. Not long since, the Association appointed a missionary in Kentucky, who has surveyed the field in the vicinity of Berea College, and expects to organize five or six churches, to which he will preach in turn until each can sustain a minister. These will be mainly white churches, but open to colored people. In like manner, the Association has promised missionary aid to a church, of similar character, about to be organized in San Antonio, Texas.

—The educational institutions of the A. M. A. in the South are in order to its religious work in America and Africa. Its best and most promising churches are established near the schools and colleges, and receive intelligence and strength from them. These schools furnish hundreds of Christian teachers, who instruct thousands of pupils in day and Sunday-schools, and carry a salutary influence into the homes, churches and neighborhoods where they reside. The schools and theological departments also send out many ministers and missionaries, who carry the Gospel to their people in the South and in Africa.

—The work of the Association is a providential growth, each part having a relation to the whole, and its plans, while at present embracing mainly the “Despised Races,” as they have been called, are restricted in principle to no race or continent.

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DEPARTURE OF THE “AZOR.”

The departure of the _Azor_ with the first instalment of the African exodus, from Charleston, S. C., marks an epoch in the history of the colored race.

It may have been a question in some minds whether the freedman could be aroused by the missionary spirit. By some, even of the teachers in our schools, fears have been felt that, perhaps, the call for missionaries might come and the people not be ready to respond. The question is decided that, whenever this call shall be made, there will be no lack of men. We have more to fear now from unbridled enthusiasm than from want of zeal.

This African Exodus Association had its origin, undoubtedly, among disaffected politicians, but it soon became a sort of religious crusade. It gained but little progress among the people, until the idea was suggested that it be made a missionary enterprise. From the time the _Azor_ sailed into the harbor until her departure, on the 21st of April, with her living freight for Liberia, the wharves and streets of the city were thronged with people of all sexes and ages, eager to view the African “Mayflower.” Hundreds, who had engaged their passages months before, were left behind, for want of room. How long this enthusiasm will continue, and what may be the success of this first company, of course are questions to be answered by and by. We dare not venture any prophecy, either good or evil. It is an experiment, some features of which are not in the line of our ideas; but if, in the providence of God, it shall prove to be to Africa what the Pilgrim enterprise has been to America, we shall rejoice. We should prefer to have a different class of emigrants undertake this work, and lay the foundation of African civilization upon a broader foundation. Our object is to raise up men of intelligence, and sound and broad religious principle, for this work, and we naturally look with some anxiety to the effect of turning loose in Africa the freedman, as we find him in the South at present. We hope for the best, however, and shall pray for the success of the movement, that God may overrule all our fears, and make it for good. This one question we are glad to have settled, as we think it is by this movement, that there is no lack of enthusiasm in the negro heart for his fatherland; and that, when the call shall come for more laborers in that field, we shall have this enthusiasm on our side.

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THE INDIAN BOYS AT HAMPTON.

Visitors to St. Augustine, Fla., during the last three years have been directed to Capt. Pratt’s Indians as among the objects of interest in Fort Marion. There they were carried, as prisoners of war, in the spring of 1875, after the terrible massacres which had taken place in the Indian Territory by the Five Tribes. They went South, each with his legs fastened to a log with chains. They were filled with hatred over their real or fancied wrongs. One jumped from the cars, and was shot by the guard; one killed himself on the way. They wore only their Indian blankets, and had great brass hoops in their ears. They knew no word of English. It was their good fortune to fall into the hands of a Christian army officer, who, by his skill in management, and patience in seeking to do them good, at length won their confidence, and succeeded, with the help of a few benevolent ladies, in teaching them some of the simplest elements of civilization and learning. A few of them can read very well.

At the end of their second year, Mrs. Dr. Caruthers, of Tarrytown, N. Y., who had been teaching among them, determined to secure, if possible, the education of two young men of her class. She obtained permission from the Indian Commission, and raised money for the purpose. Other means and offers of help came in. At length it was found that twenty-two of them desired to go to school. They are now discharged from their imprisonment. The old chiefs go back to their people, greatly changed for the better. Fifteen of the young men were left at Hampton, April 13th, to be educated in the Normal Institute. They have begun their regular studies, and have been detailed to various departments of work, in shop and on farm. They seem perfectly happy and contented, and their new comrades treat them with kindness and consideration.

Here is another of those curious comminglings, and crossings of lines, of which life is so full, and yet which never cease to surprise us. The African and the Indian meet at Hampton, to be trained together, to be intelligent citizens and Christians, and the teachers of their people. Thus the two races are brought face to face—“the two races whose past involves America’s greatest responsibilities; whose future, some of her hardest problems.”

It costs $115 to keep one of these Indian boys at Hampton for a year—that, with what he is able to earn by his labor. This amount has been pledged by individuals alone, or together, for the education of most of the number. Mrs. Caruthers, having done so much, has asked the A. M. A., through its President and its Secretary, to assume the tuition of one of her wards, and the Executive Committee desire to do so; and Zone-ke-nh, twenty-one years of age, of the Kiowa tribe, will go to Hampton, in addition to those already there, as the pupil of the Association, if some of our friends, who may be especially interested in the elevation of the Indians, will make up this small amount, and help on this work, in which the elements are combined of romance, beneficence, and personality.

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A SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONCERT.

Nothing is more welcome in these days than new ideas for use in Sunday-schools. What to do with the Concert, has been a question which has perplexed teachers and superintendents year after year, as the months come, one after another, in rapid succession. The verses containing “faith” and “hope” and “heaven” must be nearly all learned now in some quarters, and the new suggestion is, try a Missionary Concert, or, if you please, an American Missionary Concert.

But, how shall it be done? The answer is at hand. The pattern, even, can be sent, like Demorest’s or Butterick’s, in paper and by mail. We have one in our hands, about six inches by eight, four pages. It consists of a series of questions and answers (prepared originally by Rev. A. E. Winship, of Somerville, Mass.) upon the nature and the work of the A. M. A., and we are almost surprised to find so much valuable and exact information compacted in this form, and in so taking and interesting a shape. Coupled with this is a small sheet collection of eight or ten Jubilee Songs, to be sung at intervals during the Catechetical Exercise. We hear that this exercise has been used with great interest and success in several Sunday-schools at and near Boston; and we commend, most cordially, the thought and plan to the consideration and use of Superintendents and Presidents of Missionary Societies. The twenty-sixth article in the programme is a collection, and a legend instructing generous youth how to address their gifts to us. A new edition is in preparation, or in press. The questions and songs may be obtained in quantity, on application to District Secretary Woodworth, at the Congregational House, Boston.

District Secretary Powell has issued recently, from Chicago, an appeal to the Sunday-schools in behalf of the “Colored Student’s Aid Fund.” He says: “It is estimated that we are reaching (by student and graduate teachers) not less than a hundred thousand children in the South. But there are two millions of them to be reached.” He urges every Sunday-school to help in this good work. To know, is the first step toward supplying the want.

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AN EDUCATED MINISTRY.

It is quite remarkable that the uneducated ministers among the colored people of the South should be in such earnest sympathy with the work of educating their people. Occasionally, we hear one intimate that he is a trumpet for the Lord to “toot” through, and express fear that the tone of the instrument might be injured by the application of science; but the expression of such sentiments is rare.

In the dark days, when States did not allow people of a certain color to read, or any one to teach them, preachers were _born_, not _made_. The wether of the flock put a bell around his own neck, and led off. As the Indian who could bring home from the war-path the most scalps, or from the hunt the greatest amount of venison or furs, was the man for chief; so the exhorter who could pick up the most texts of Scripture, and evolve from his own understanding the greatest amount of rhetoric, and with arrows of his own manufacture pierce the largest number of souls, was the minister by universal consent.

Schools do not make brains; they only develop and bring out what Nature implanted in a man. Leaders by the voice of God need not fear those made leaders by the voice of a theological seminary. They who, by their quickness of perception, tact and experience, control men, need not fear that those who depend chiefly upon ability gained from books will steal the hearts of their people.

Now, in saying all this, as the expression of my own thoughts, as well as the felt sentiments of the uneducated ministers among the colored people, I have no intention of placing a low estimate upon the schools. These uncultured giants might have attained to a larger growth, if they had been supplied with good mental nourishment, and no one feels this more than they. The BEST minister combines natural ability of a high order with liberal culture. The tendency of the times is toward an educated ministry; and although the present pastors of the flocks may be secure in their places without learning, the next generation will insist upon education in their ministers.

PROF. T. N. CHASE, IN THE _Christian Recorder_.

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ATLANTA AND FISK UNIVERSITIES.

A recent visit to these institutions has resulted in some observations, which may be worthy of record. The location of both is unsurpassed. In these cities Atlanta and Fisk Universities occupy, respectively, two of the most commanding and beautiful sites. They are seen from afar, a perpetual reminder of the importance of the work they represent. The buildings of both institutions are good; Jubilee Hall surpassingly so. Our party approached it late in the evening, when it was lighted from top to bottom, as the students were studying in their rooms. “Hallelujah!” cried one of our number, enthusiastically, “God be praised for this great lighthouse in the South.” And not one of us looked upon it without emotion.