Part 2

In the jail record of one of our cities, there are these entries after a convict’s name: “Occupation, _Statesman_; Religion, _None_.” Is it not a reproach to our Christianity, waiting for its grandest testimony; to our Christian patriotism, on which is laid the thought of God for the land, that in these years we have been so content to leave the care of the despised races, these “wards of the Almighty,” the elect for His noblest purpose, to those whose fit record is: “Occupation, _Statesmen_; Religion, _None_”! Two hundred and fifty years have been given us with the Indian to carry out “the great hope and inward zeal” of our fathers, a score of years almost with the Freedman and Chinaman. How long can we expect the Divine patience to delay ere it shall take away our opportunity, and give it to a nation bringing forth the fruits of righteousness?

III.—The Example of Christ.

There were despised classes among the Jews eighteen hundred years ago—publicans and sinners, from whom their betters withheld even the touch of their garments. But our Master, Jesus Christ, consorted with these, until they called Him, “the friend of publicans and sinners.” The Samaritans were a race despised of the Jews, yet to one of them our Lord made the earliest and clearest declaration of His Messiahship. Nay, at the outset of His mission, passing by the needy cities of Judah, He, our Lord, went to preach His gospel among the despised and dispersed who dwelt on the border of Zebulon and Napthalin, where “darkness covered the land and gross darkness the people.”

The appeal that is made for the American Missionary Association, in the name of the witness to the gospel, and in the name of Christian patriotism, gains its height when it is made in the name of Christ.

Every argument by which this work appeals to us to-day, is a prophecy of its success in our hands. Work among the despised races, work that sets the seal of power on the Christianity of our time, work that is to realize God’s thought for the land, work so Christly cannot fail!

The American Missionary Association, to which this work is committed of God and the churches, needs but one thing of you. That is, money? No! It is but needed that there should be such incomes of the Holy Ghost into Christian hearts as shall lift up church membership from membership in a religious club to its true dignity of citizenship in the kingdom of God; such incomes of the Spirit as shall fill the heart of each citizen with the grand thought of the kingdom—brotherhood. Then, consecrated purses will be opened, and gold and silver, and greenbacks and bonds, will flow into the full treasury of the Lord.

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ITEMS FROM CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS.

MCLEANSVILLE, N. C.—Five persons joined the church the last Sunday in June. Eighty-three communicants were present, all but three members of this church.

DUDLEY, N. C.—Seventeen united with the church, Rev. D. Peebles, pastor, June 16. This church numbers over eighty members. Mr. George S. Smith, of Raleigh, and Miss Carrie Waugh, of Woodbridge, assisted in revival work.

ORANGEBURG, S. C.—A deep religious interest is reported in this church. The school was closed June 18th, with appropriate exercises, and in the presence of a crowded audience.

ATLANTA, GA.—On the third Sabbath in June six young people united with the college church upon profession, and as many more will probably unite during the vacation with churches at their homes. It has been a good year in the religious culture of the school, and a great gain is manifest in the earnestness and steadiness of Christian character attained. The Sabbath-school at this church found itself last Sabbath with _eleven_ less teachers than the week before; the reason being that nearly that number of young people had gone into the country to teach summer schools for three months. The fact suggests one of the sources of influence such a church has, as well as one of the difficulties of carrying it on.

—Mr. S. P. Smith, of Chicago Seminary, has taken up the work with the First Church, during Mr. Ashley’s vacation, under very favorable auspices. The people are united and hopeful.

GOLDING’S GROVE, GA.—School closed June 20th.

CUTHBERT, GA.—The school at this place, re-opened two years ago, reports a good year’s work. Over a hundred pupils have been in attendance, some of them adults and elders and deacons of churches. A reading-room has been kept up. A large attendance witnessed the examinations and closing exercises. Mr. R. R. Wright, from Atlanta, is the teacher.

WOODVILLE, GA.—“Little Aubor (one of our school girls) is very ill. During the late revival she had made up her mind to become a Christian, but her father was a stumbling-block in her way. He gave her a severe whipping, and kept her away from the protracted meetings. Shortly afterward she was taken ill, and said to him, ‘Oh, father, I wanted to give my heart to Christ, but you have kept me away.’ Yesterday, when I asked her if she was praying, she answered in a whisper, ‘I am praying, I am praying, I am praying.’”

ANNISTON, ALA.—Rev. Peter J. McIntosh was ordained pastor of this church June 18th. Sermon by Rev. D. L. Hickok, of Talladega. The proprietor of the hotel showed his good-will by giving free entertainment to all the white visitors. The indications for spiritual prosperity are encouraging.

CHILDERSBURG, ALA.—Rev. Alfred Jones was ordained June 20th. The church building has just been plastered. A series of special services are in contemplation. Congregations average from fifty-six to eighty.

TALLADEGA, ALA.—The following indicates the vacation work of some of the students for the next three months: J. D. Smith goes to preach at Savannah, Ga.; H. S. Williams to Montgomery; Andrew Headen to Selma, to begin work at once; J. B. Sims to Marietta, Ga., to begin the last Sunday in June. P. W. Young has charge of the church at Kingston; John Strong, of the Lawson Church, organized last summer; Barbour Grant of the Cove Church; Thornton Benson of the church at Alabama Furnace. They receive from $20 to $25 a month. Peter J. McIntosh was ordained pastor of the church at Anniston, and Alfred Jones at Childersburg, and are referred to in Rev. Mr. Hill’s letter.

MOBILE, ALA.—Emerson Institute finds its new building admirably adapted to its uses; has received evidences of increasing favor with the white citizens of Mobile; is under great obligations to Dr. Morrell for placing his professional skill as a physician at the disposal of the teachers, and refusing all compensation. Its teachers are doing good service in the various Sunday-schools of the city.

MEMPHIS, TENN.—A permanent library, to which the colored people may have free access, has been begun by the faculty of Le Moyne Normal School. Some hundreds of books have been secured, and during the coming summer vacation a commodious reading-room is to be fitted up. More volumes will be added from time to time, as means are secured, and it is confidently expected that the near future will see this excellent project firmly established, and doing the work for which it is designed. During the closing week at the school the junior-class gave an exhibition, the proceeds of which are to be used for the library. Donations of books are solicited.

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GENERAL NOTES.

The Freedmen.

—The _Congregationalist_ says, in its report of the examination of the students of Andover Theological Seminary: “One of the best recitations made in Greek was by a young man from Atlanta University, a suggestive item for the churches interested in that institution.”

—The Presbyterian General Assembly has transferred its eighty colored churches from the Board of Home Missions back to the Committee on Freedmen. The committee, having somewhat enlarged its educational work, appeals to the Presbyterian churches for more liberal and more general contributions.

—The Southern Presbyterian General Assembly reported as contributed for the evangelization of the colored people, during the last year, $416.75, to which the Reformed (Dutch) Church added $359.25.

—The _Christian at Work_ describes a colored church, south, of which it says: “It was an aristocratic institution, as it seemed, and a failure. The preacher read his sermon, the singing was operatic, and the whole thing a ludicrous burlesque. White people go to an unhealthy extreme, often, in suppressing emotion, but for the colored folks to imitate this folly is death outright.”

—The same correspondent says of a missionary to the freedmen, whom he chanced to meet: “I said to him, as we were taking our leave, ‘It takes a good deal of grit and grace to stand the pressure here, don’t it?’ ‘One can get _very near the Lord here_,’ he replied; ‘indeed, he has to get very near Him to do any good.’”

—A Louisiana correspondent sums up a letter to the _Congregationalist_ thus: “In spite of all drawbacks, the tendency of the colored churches in Louisiana is upward. The Sunday-schools are well attended, and properly taught. The church members are orderly and industrious citizens, respected in the communities in which they live, and ready and willing to contribute, to the full extent of their means, for any Christian purposes. Take them altogether, the progress of the colored churches has been sufficiently rapid to gratify any one who prays that the beams of the Sun of Righteousness may illumine the dark corners of the earth.”

—“There is no teacher so wholesome as personal necessity. In South Carolina a few men and many women cling absolutely to the past, learning nothing, forgetting nothing. But the bulk of thinking men see that the old Southern society is as absolutely annihilated as the feudal system, and that there is no other form of society now possible except such as prevails at the North and West. The dream of re-enslaving the negro, if it ever existed, is like the negro’s dream, if he ever had it, of five acres and a mule from the government. Both races have long since come down to the stern reality of self-support. No sane Southerner would now take back as slaves, were they offered, a race of men who have been for a dozen years freemen and voters.”—_Col. Higginson in the Atlantic._

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Africa.

—The barque _Azor_, which sailed April 21st for Africa, arrived at Sierra Leone, May 19th. There were several cases of measles before the sailing, and this malady spread rapidly. The ship fever, which came from overcrowding, was worse, however, and increased by scantiness of water and lack of proper medical attendance. Twenty-three of the emigrants died on the way. The barque was towed to Monrovia by an English steamer.

—A despatch to the _Herald_ represents the emigrants as being almost destitute of money, some of them holding notes of the Exodus Association, which is said to be unable to meet its obligations.

—Another ship load of freedmen are waiting at Charleston to take passage as soon as the _Azor_ returns. She is probably on her way before this date.

—It is a gratifying fact to the friends of the American Colonization Society that in sending over 160 expeditions to Liberia, no serious casualty has happened either to vessel or emigrants. Special care has been taken to make their passage safe and comfortable, and kind Providence has given prosperity. The last expedition of the society left New York, June 19, with sixty-nine emigrants on board the barque _Liberia_ from Virginia, North Carolina and Florida. When four days out, in a heavy fog, she collided with an Austrian vessel, and, losing her bowsprit, put back for repairs. She left again, Monday, July 1st.

—France has just appropriated 100,000 francs for a scientific expedition to Central Africa, under M. L’Abbé Debaize. He is a young man of thirty-three, of fine education and attainments, familiar with Arabic, Coptic and some East African languages; and having passed special courses in divinity, astronomy and natural history, much is anticipated from his investigations. He sailed from Marseilles about two months ago, and is now probably at Zanzibar, fitting out for the proposed journey across Equatorial Africa.

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The Indian.

We reprint the following from the N. Y. _Tribune_, as giving the best and most consecutive account of the reported outbreaks among the Indians of Oregon, Washington Territory and Idaho, which we have been able to find. It ascribes the origin of the difficulty to the lack and scantiness of appropriations for the Indian Service. We do not vouch for the exactness of the report. It accords with the dispatches received from day to day:

The last report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs shows that the savage tribes of Idaho and Eastern Oregon, which are taking part, more or less, in the present war, number about 7,400 souls. They are capable of sending into the field 2,500 warriors; and the telegraph dispatches, printed above, indicate that about that number of savages have already joined the two great war parties which are menacing the settlements of that region, and with which a heavy battle may be fought any day now by the troops under command of General Howard. The census of the tribes is as follows:

Fort Hall Agency Bannocks, Shoshones 1,507 Lemhi Agency Sheepeaters, Bannocks, Shoshones 940 Idaho Indians, not under an agent Pend d’Oreilles, Kootenais 600 Grande Ronde Agency 819 Malhewr Agency Piutes, Snakes 759 Umatilla Agency Walla-Wallas, Cayuses, Umatillas 849 Roving Indians on the Columbia, renegades, etc. 2,000

The Indians at these agencies have been kept in a state of constant agitation for more than a year by the singular delay of Congress in making appropriations for the Indian service, and by the scantiness of the appropriations when made. For the Malhewr Agency in Oregon, the Indians of which have gone to war, the appropriation was $50,000 in 1873, and $40,000 for the two successive years; but in 1876 it was reduced to $25,000, and in 1877 to $20,000. The agent begged that if Congress intended to persist in this course it would build a saw and grist-mill for the Indians, but it was not done. At the Fort Hall and Lemhi Agency in Idaho, where the present uprising began, the Indians were nearly starved by the government. About 500 had to leave Fort Hall to hunt up a subsistence for themselves; and last May the agent at Lemhi was studying how to remove the band to a new location, to protect it from the government. The outbreak on the part of the Nez Percès, a year ago, did not affect these Indians at the time. They all remained quiet and loyal, but they have had their own troubles since, and have grown impatient at the failure of the government to feed them.

The present outbreak began the latter part of May, when Buffalo Horn, a noted scout, took out 200 Bannocks, and camped in the lava beds between Big Camas Prairie and Snake River, in the southern part of Idaho. The news of this rising spread over Idaho and Eastern Oregon very quickly, and, in a fortnight’s time, all the Indians of that region were in a state of excitement, and began raiding the valleys and driving off and killing stock by the hundred head. The United States troops in that region consisted of a few companies of cavalry and infantry, scattered about the two territories at the military posts. This was an insufficient protection, and the citizens of Boise City, in Idaho, Walla-Walla, in Oregon, Camp Harney and elsewhere, formed themselves into volunteer companies for active operations. About June 1, Colonel Bernard, with seventy cavalry and twenty citizens, started on a forced march to Big Camas Prairie. The Indians did not await them there, but began moving westward along Idaho River in straggling bands, dining off the stock and killing occasional settlers on the march. Howard sent orders at once to Bernard to return, which he did, pursuing the Bannocks into the Owyhee country in the southeast corner of Oregon. One incident of this movement on the part of the Indians was a fight between seventeen citizens and about 100 Indians, about June 6, in which two volunteers and eight Indians were killed.

A concentration of Indians took place in Southeastern Oregon, and, on June 23, Bernard came upon a camp of them 1,500 strong. He had only 200 men, but he surprised the camp, routed it and chased the band for ten miles. A large number of Indians were killed. Bernard lost four killed and three wounded. The savages retreated to Stein’s Mountain. General Howard arrived on the field after the fight, with Miles and Downey, having marched forty-five miles a day to catch up with Bernard. From Stein’s Mountain the Indians moved northward toward Camp Harney and Canyon City. They attacked neither place, but concentrated on John Day River, where they are in camp, 1,500 strong, according to the dispatches printed above.

The other band of hostile Indians is on what is called Camas Prairie, north of the Salmon river, in Central Idaho, the scene of the outbreak by Joseph’s band of Nez Percès last year. The dispatches just received state that this party is composed chiefly of Snakes, and is about 1,000 strong.

The Klamaths at the agency in Southwestern Oregon began to commit depredations about June 25. The band then numbered about 800.

—Some of those most intelligent in Indian affairs believe that a general Indian war is an impossibility, unless the General Government shall adopt some strangely unwise and hostile policy. Even then the various tribes would not unite, but fight independently, so much stronger are their mutual antipathies and feuds than their hatred of the whites.

—The transfer of the Indians to the War Department has not been accomplished. The whole matter has been referred to a joint committee, consisting of three members of the Senate and five members of the House, to investigate and report next January upon the expediency of such a transfer.

—The _Advance_ says: “If the report shall be in its favor, the transfer will be because the religious press and the friends of the peace policy neglect their duty. It is stated that a majority of the House branch of the Commission is opposed to the change.”

—The _Christian Union_ offers this suggestion: “The various missionary bodies ought now to confer with each other, agree, if possible, on the policy to be pursued toward the Indians, and then send to Washington a delegation of the ablest men of the respective denominations to urge its adoption. The fact that Secretary Schurz is out of favor with Congress, is a poor reason for shifting the Indians from his department, and we have yet to see any better one assigned. The simple question is: How can the Indian tribes be most easily civilized and Christianized, and so brought into assimilation with Americans? And that is a question on which the churches of America ought to have something to say.”

—The _Independent_ gives its testimony thus: “It is entirely clear to our minds that the peace policy adopted in 1869, for which great credit is due to General Grant, and which, not without some imperfections, has been pursued ever since, is the best that ever was adopted in this country, and in its principles and purpose the only one that ever should be adopted. The statistics show that the condition of the Indians, in all the elements that go to make up the idea of civilization, has immensely improved within the last ten years, under the benign influence of this policy. Our idea on this subject is, that it is best to let well enough alone, especially since we cannot make it better. Let us do right by the Indian for the present, observing our treaties with him, dealing justly by him, and fighting him only when compelled to do so by a stern necessity, and then trust the providence of God for the future.”

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THE FREEDMEN.

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VIRGINIA.

Religious Interest at Hampton—Missionary Zeal.

REV. RICHARD TOLMAN, HAMPTON.

Six of our students united with the church by profession June 9th, the last Sabbath of the school-year, making twenty-seven who have joined us since November 1st, besides those who have connected themselves with other churches. After Commencement, May 23d, two more of the graduating-class came out on “the Lord’s side,” so that all but four of the boarding-pupils of that class are hopefully Christian; and one of these four seems now “not far from the kingdom of God.”

An interesting example of what Christian faith and perseverance may accomplish, is that of a colored brother connected with our printing-office. About a year since, he proposed starting a Sabbath-school in a destitute neighborhood, but was told that it would be of no use. He determined to try. Beginning with three pupils, the number has constantly increased, until now he has a school of more than eighty deeply-interested members. We need many such laborers in these harvest-fields.

NORTH CAROLINA.

The Church—Contrasts and Progress—Two Prayers.

REV. D. D. DODGE, WILMINGTON.

Our church-work is distinct from the school, the latter being not in any sense sectarian. We think we see marked improvement in the character of those who have been longest members of the church. They seem to hunger for truth for the purpose of living it, and their progress is, of course, steady and rapid. We are often thrilled by the rich experience as manifested by unconscious expressions in the prayer-meetings. We have received six new members during the year:

It may be well to hear what impression is made upon a new comer, so I quote from one of our teachers who has been with us only a year.

“To hear of the degradation of the colored people of the South is to know but little of it, for ‘the half can ne’er be told.’ It is humiliating to think that in our own beloved land there exists so much of barbarism and heathenish superstition. This is realized by looking at the homes and home-life of the poor people, but much more by noticing their form of religion.

“I had visited lowly cots and abodes of poverty, seeming devoid of even the bare necessaries of life. Sometimes, in one small house several families huddled together, the little ones swarming in the yard like bees from the hive on a sunny day. I had seen poor sewing women trying to earn a bare subsistence—trying to keep by that little weapon, the needle, the wolf from the door. And I had thought what must life be worth to such suffering ones? And yet the degradation of this poor people never came to me with such force as when, for the first time, I entered a colored church, and witnessed scenes such as I had heard of, but never could realize without _seeing_.