Part 1

VOL. XXXII. No. 9.

THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

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“To the Poor the Gospel is Preached.”

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SEPTEMBER, 1878.

_CONTENTS_:

EDITORIAL.

PARAGRAPHS 257 THE CLAIM OF SELF-INTEREST 258 PLEASE PERUSE, AND PONDER 259 THEN AND NOW 260 ANNUAL REPORTS NEEDED 261 A GOOD EXAMPLE—THE NEGRO IN THE UNITED STATES 262 ITEMS FROM CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS 265 GENERAL NOTES 266

THE FREEDMEN.

SYSTEMATIC BENEFICENCE IN ATLANTA UNIVERSITY: Rev. Horace Bumstead 267 CHARLESTON, S. C.—Avery Normal Institute.—Reunion Exercises.—Impressions made on a Visitor from a Neighboring State 270 GEORGIA—Ogeechee: Rev. John R. McLean 272 ALABAMA—A Surprise Party: Mr. E. C. Silsby.—Anniversary of Trinity School: Rev. Horace J. Taylor.—A Gospel Ship: Rev. P. J. McIntosh 272–274 MISSISSIPPI-Grenada 275 KENTUCKY—Berea College Commencement.—Frankfort: Miss Mattie E. Anderson 275, 276

AFRICA.

MENDI MISSION—In Good Health and Good Heart: Rev. Albert P. Miller 276

THE CHINESE.

CHINA FOR CHRIST: Rev. W. C. Pond 277

THE CHILDREN’S PAGE 281

RECEIPTS 283

WORK, STATISTICS, WANTS, &c. 286

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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, E. A. 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.

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THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

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VOL. XXXII. SEPTEMBER, 1878. No. 9.

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_American Missionary Association._

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The thirty-second Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association will be held in Taunton, Mass., by invitation of the Congregational Churches of that city, commencing on Tuesday, October 29th, at three P. M.

The sermon will be preached by the Rev. S. E. Herrick, D. D., of Mt. Vernon Church, Boston. Other speakers and the order of exercises will be announced hereafter.

A cordial welcome will be given to delegates, and a full representation of the churches is earnestly desired.

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On the 2d of July, Lord Polwarth gave a missionary conference in the grounds of Mertown House, on the Tweed, at which Dr. O. H. White, of America, Secretary of the Freedmen’s Aid Society, made an address. He dwelt upon the explorations of Africa and the emancipation of the slaves in America, and on the relation of these two remarkable events to the evangelization of the 180,000,000 of ignorant and idolatrous inhabitants of the hitherto almost unknown continent. “The address was marked by intense earnestness and pathos, and was listened to with rapt attention.”

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The monthly concert arranged for Rev. Mr. Winship’s Questions and the Jubilee Songs seems to be a great success. Almost daily orders are coming in for the Songs and Questions. Wherever they have been used they have given the highest satisfaction. We confidently commend them, therefore, to churches and Sabbath-schools that desire to spend a pleasant and profitable hour in considering the work and wants of the Association. We do not see how the same amount of information in regard to the Association could be so readily imparted in any other way.

Orders sent to Rev. C. L. Woodworth, Congregational House, Boston, or to any A. M. A. office, will be filled gratuitously.

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The friends of Fisk University will be interested to hear of the safe return to this country of President Cravath. With him have also come the Jubilee Singers, who have been giving popular concerts during the last year in Holland, Germany and Switzerland, and have now disbanded.

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THE CLAIM OF SELF-INTEREST.

The claim of the three despised races in the United States is enforced by a motive of self-interest, by the relation of their leavening to the future prosperity and even perpetuity of our nation. Especially is this true of the freedmen, as large enough in their numbers to have weight, and endowed with privileges which make their numbers powerful for good or evil.

So large a mass, if it be corrupt, is also corrupting. Here are three lepers; I can but hint at their diseases. They are full of wounds and bruises and putrifying sores. You shrink and shudder at the picture. But, my brother, they are at your very door. What shall we do with them? This sickness is not unto death. Worse than that; it is perpetuated and transmissible; but it may be cured. The power of Christ, who touched the leper with His life-giving hand, is still with us. But we must go in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. We cannot bar the negro out; he has the right to sit in our midst, even among the senators of the land; and if he be still ignorant, and immoral, and superstitious, he will spread corruption around him. The only way to prevent him from contaminating us is to let virtue go forth from us to convert and cleanse him. And the question is, is there enough in us to do it? The very _presence_ of vice and ignorance is contaminating; it conducts all evil influence and spreads it. The swamp malaria which fills the air, while it chokes the hovels of the poor, can by no means be kept out of the palaces of the rich. The foul odors of Hunter’s Point pay no respect to the brown-stone fronts of Murray Hill. If one member suffers, all the body is afflicted.

Do you say, “It is not our concern”? But it is every one’s concern. Is the ignorance and vice of your own town or city not your concern? You have to pay for it dearly. Your taxes for police, for courts and for prisons are only a small part of what it levies on you. It, too, pervades the air and mingles its deadly poison with it, and you breathe it in. You are proof against it; it only imperceptibly lessens the tone of your health and vigor. But your neighbor is not, and perhaps your son or daughter is not; and in the traps which line our streets your son or my son may stumble and fall; or behind the shaded windows where the snares are laid, your son or my son may go to ruin.

It is so in the nation. If the leaven be not more active and more potent than the mass, it will be itself unleavened and spoiled.

But there is a greater peril to us than the mere presence of ignorance and vice in its _power_. By the chances of war, and for the sake of its success, 1,000,000 slaves were made citizens. They were armed with the rifle and the ballot. With the rifle they turned the day of strife to the day of settlement; but with the ballot, if left slaves as to their intelligence and manliness, they may make of peace fatal disaster. Till they can exercise this solemn trust with wise discretion, and with conscientious fidelity, it is a perilous trust in their hands. One million more votes added to the vast number which are swayed by demagogues of either party, increase by a fearful percentage the dangers of the land.

In their Christian education is our only surety for the future. Education for their intelligence, and Christianity for their morals, and as a foundation on which both intelligence and virtue may rest secure.

The same danger would be swelled by the numbers of the Indians and the Chinese if they were citizens. As it is, the Indian can only become so by forswearing all the relations which are most sacred to him, and which mean to him family and religion. And the Chinaman, it has just been decided, cannot vote, at least in California, because he is neither white enough nor black enough.

But it is the part of every wise man to see the danger, and to do what he can to avert it. The Federal Government cannot do what is needful. The States will not do it. Christian charity, with far-sighted wisdom and self-denying philanthropy, can alone be relied on for the work required—the training of these races. It is an illustration of the truth, that all self-interests are met, not by a narrowly planned seeking of them, but by that broader conformity to the great law of love which, loving God first, has love for each one in his place, and seeks the highest good of all. In that is wrapped up, concealed sometimes, but surely there, our own gain and good.

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PLEASE PERUSE, AND PONDER.

Our friends will pardon us for reminding them that the fiscal year of the Association will close with the month of September. What is done to swell the receipts, either for diminution of debt or to meet current expenses, must be done quickly. Let no one imagine, however, that we are not duly grateful to God and to His people, for the gifts which have made possible the work on the field, and lightened so much the drag on our treasury. Still, we feel constrained to ask these givers for a larger giving, in order that we may free ourselves from an incumbrance which has sadly embarrassed us for years, and keep pace with the openings before us. Two things we ask:

1. The debt _must_ be cleared away. Every interest of the Association demands it. Our friends demand it—do they not? Else, would they have reduced our indebtedness, within eighteen months, from over $90,000 to some $40,000 at this present writing? Why may we not believe that God has His reserves, both of men and of money, at hand, to wipe out the remaining balance against us? We wait to see who will step into the place of honor, and make some great sacrifice in this behalf. This debt was incurred to aid the poorest of the poor, as we thought, at the call of Christ himself. May not they expect His blessing who shall now come to the rescue? “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”

2. We need increased supplies to meet our constant outgo. Our friends have done well by us during this year—such a year, too, as it has been! But they must be faithful to the end of it to ensure us a good record on the 30th of September. They need not be afraid of overdoing it; for if, by any good fortune of ours and good-will of theirs, we should, after paying all our current claims, have a small balance, it will go at once to lessen this still burdensome debt.

Remember, too, that the work is ever increasing on our hands, save as we have to keep it down. Millions of these freedmen must in the next ten years, if ever, be brought under the influence of sound learning and true religion. This generation must not pass away till it be possible for every colored child to read the word of God. The Chinaman and the Indian, too, make claims upon us which their cruel treatment by our fellow-citizens only serves to emphasize. Africa, also, as a culmination of our work, is calling for new laborers of her own sons to come and bring back to those sitting in darkness the light which is the life of men. But, in order to this, our teachers and missionaries must be numbered by hundreds and thousands, where now they are numbered by scores and hundreds. This is the true economy and the true wisdom. If we are to realize our ideal, there must be a new interest kindled in the work, and a great advance in the gifts of God’s people. With the closing of the year, therefore, we invite the intelligent and liberal men of the land to consider _once more_ the work of this Association, in its bearing upon this nation, and in its bearing upon the nations, to which these races belong. We do not see how we can vindicate ourselves as righteous men, as men who fear God and love our neighbors, if we neglect this work brought to our doors and laid upon us by sanctions as solemn and pressing as were ever imposed on men. We do, then, in behalf of these races, and in the name of our risen Lord, ask the good and the wise, everywhere, to give us their sympathies, their prayers, and their money, in measure large enough to put these fields under ample culture for a better and brighter future.

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THEN AND NOW.

REV. J. E. ROY, D. D., FIELD SUPERINTENDENT.

Then—in October, 1860—as the newly-appointed District Secretary for the A. M. A., I attended its fourteenth annual meeting, in pastor M. E. Strieby’s church at Syracuse. It was an occasion of congratulation that the receipts for that year had come up to $56,000—$5,000 more than for the preceding, and $2,000 more than for any previous year. There had been sixty missionary laborers in foreign lands, and 112 in our own country, the most of whom were in the West, and forty of them in Illinois. The churches aided numbered 140, to which had been added 989 members, of whom 659 came by profession of faith. Twenty-five revivals were reported. In the South, North Carolina had one missionary and Kentucky had four, all of whom were engaged in caring for little churches among the white people. In a year and a half the war came on, and our missionaries were driven out of the South. The American Home Missionary Society had cleared itself, the first of all the national societies, from complicity with slaveholding, and so the missionary churches of the A. M. A. at the North and the District Secretary were transferred to the old society.

Now—after sixteen and a half years—I find myself, by the clearest drift of Providence, back in the service of the Association. At its anniversary of 1859, in Chicago, there was a discussion as to what should come of the A. M. A. when all the societies and churches should have reached the anti-slavery standard. Some held that the Association was only a tug to help those noble crafts out to sea. President Blanchard said, “Yes, a tug; but when she has got them all over the bar we will change her into a frigate, to course up and down all the Southern waters.” Last fall, the Association came back to Syracuse to hold its thirtieth anniversary, and, sure enough, the tug had come in as a frigate, with report of engagements all over the South. And so it had been running for the last twelve years. The Treasurer’s report ran up to $264,709. Instead of the 112 white churches North, are shown 59 churches among the ex-slaves; also 7 chartered institutions, 14 high and normal schools, with 10,000 scholars, and with 100,000 pupils reached by their teachers. The Indian work abides; the Chinese has come on. The scheme for evangelizing Africa, by using the Christianized freedmen, is opening into proportions immensely beyond the conception of its early movers.

Then—its constituents were individuals, and churches of the more pronounced abolition sort. Now—since the National Council at Boston—the Association has been recognized as the agency of the Congregational churches for doing their work among “the three despised races.” The old adherents, developed into generous giving by the necessities of their enterprise, abide with the enthusiasm of veterans; while now the mass of our people acknowledge themselves under just as much obligation as they to use this organization in its peculiar sphere of Christianization at home and abroad. They find it by Providence marvelously developed and fitted to its work—tested, toughened and trusted. They hear it said from without, that our body of churches is doing more and better work among the freedmen than any other. They find that the old anti-slavery education in our families had prepared a multitude of our cultured and consecrated young people to enter this work as soon as the way was open, even at a salary little above the nominal rate. And so they find this charge laid upon them and readily accept the obligation, grateful for the opportunity.

In coming back to this service, I feel that I am only shifting from the right to the left wing of the home missionary army. No man can go beyond me in appreciation of the sublime movement represented by the American Home Missionary Society. But in this other department I find that most of the same arguments are to be used. Do we call for the Christianizing of the people of our country? Here are millions of them at the South in need of that process. Do we plead for the saving of our country from the spiritual despotism of Rome? The Jesuits, using hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly, are scheming to Romanize the congenial material found in the ex-slaves. Do we appeal in behalf of the political interests of our country? Here are 1,000,000 black voters who cannot read. Then by their side, only lower down in the social scale, are 1,100,000 white voters who also cannot read the ballots they are to cast; and the conviction is now gaining ground that the most effectual, if not the only way, to lift up that class is to put under them the leverage of the educated negro. Do we use that grandest argument—the salvation of our country for the sake of the salvation of the world? Here in our own land is looming up the most potent agency for the evangelization of Africa. That despoiled continent may yet say to her despoilers, “Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good.”

The A. H. M. S., true to its charter as a national institution, as soon as war had battered down the walls that were in its way, sought, with the Philip of its evangelism, to go towards the South. It explored the chief cities and centres of that region, and was entering devotedly upon that part of the field. It has kept pressing every hopeful opening. It will still be true to its national idea and do all it may be allowed to do there. None feel more keenly than do its chief officers the chagrin at the few opportunities afforded and the failure in so many of them. They have done only their duty in making the costly experiments. And now the apostolic spirit of our Congregational churches seems to say to the white people of the South, “Seeing ye count yourselves unworthy of these good things, lo, we turn to the freedmen.”

If, in some distant part of the globe, a people had just been discovered, numbering 5,000,000 souls, speaking our own language, hungering for our ideas, our civilization and our Christianity, it would thrill the Christian world to go in at once and possess that land for Christ. That thing we may do in our own country, under our own flag. And some of us who now, with our years, could not pass muster to go and cope with a foreign language, have yet not a few years left in which we may do an essentially foreign missionary work in our own language, in that tongue, which, more than any other spoken by man, is freighted with the associations and the spirit of the Gospel of the Crucified One.

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ANNUAL REPORTS NEEDED.

Any of our friends who have the following back numbers of the Annual Report of the A. M. A. that they can spare, will confer a favor by sending them to our office as soon as convenient: Numbers 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 14, 16, 17, 21, 22, 24. We do not ask our friends to break a set if they are anxious to keep it, but to send any extra numbers they may have. Without realizing it, we have exhausted our supply of these numbers, and now wish to make up a few extra sets to have bound for our own use. As years go by, we learn more and more the value to us of these old reports.

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A GOOD EXAMPLE.

Mrs. Sally Perry died in Boston, Mass., June 17th, aged ninety-one years. The slaves had a large place in her sympathies, when she could do little more than offer her prayers in their behalf. But when the war had set them free, and left her charity at liberty to enter on practical offices of good will, she eagerly embraced the opportunity, watching for openings. She read in the AMERICAN MISSIONARY, for 1866, a call for funds to establish orphan asylums for the thousands of homeless colored children in the South. She came to our office in Boston for information in regard to it. The result was a donation of $500, to found the Brewer Orphan Asylum in Wilmington, N. C., in memory of her deceased daughter. And, year by year, while the Asylum existed, she gave it the interest of $2,000, devised in her will for its benefit.