Part 3

The Association was called to order at 2.45 P. M., President E. S. Tobey in the chair.

The committee on the debt of the Association, to which Secretary Strieby was added, presented the following statement and suggestions:

The American Missionary Association at its meeting in Taunton, Mass., adopted the following statement and suggestions respecting its debt:

The debt of this Association has been, and still is, a great hindrance to its progress, preventing that advance which is so much needed along the whole line of endeavors. The Association welcomes, with hearty thanks to God, the report of its treasurer, announcing the still further reduction of the debt, bringing the amount down, if all pledges are paid, to $25,000. An effort having been made at this meeting to secure pledges of $25 each, encouraging responses were made, amounting to over $3,000.

In view of these facts it was resolved that an effort be made for the total extinction of the debt, and the following suggestions are offered as to the methods in which our friends may aid us:

1. Individuals and households, who are interested in our work, may send pledges of one or more shares (of $25 each), as their ability and benevolence may suggest, the more wealthy being asked to remember that if the debt is paid, some of the contributions must be large and liberal.

2. Pastors may invite their congregations to make such pledges.

3. Pastors may (as some have volunteered at this meeting to do) bring the subject before the local conferences, and awaken an interest in securing such pledges.

4. The Day of Thanksgiving is near at hand, and a glad offering for this purpose may be an acceptable gift to the God of all mercies, as well as helpful to the Association.

5. The holiday season, not far distant, may be made the occasion of like offerings. The Association intrusts to its Executive officers the duty of selecting and carrying out the best methods for laying these suggestions before the friends of the despised races of America.

The report was accepted and adopted.

Rev. Edward Strong, D. D., read the report of the Committee on Church Extension, as follows:

The Committee to whom was referred the portion of the Annual Report which relates to Church Extension at the South, submit the following:

We notice that the church work, like the educational, is growing on our hands. Five new churches--especially if each prove a metropolitan or mother church--is a gain for which to give thanks and from which to take courage. Sixty-five churches in all, though most of them are connected with our educational institutions, or near them, is certainly not a bad showing for thirteen years of labor.

We notice also, with pleasure, a cheering growth the last year by conversions from the world. In fifteen only of the churches, this growth gives a total of 358 additions, an average of twenty-four. Have our Northern churches done so well? It is equally gratifying to learn what kind of Christians our churches South are making, or seeking to make; to know our students are pledged to work; what these converts think of the standard of morality enjoined by the Gospel; the honesty, purity and truth--in short, the practical righteousness which God ordains. We rejoice to know that this Association has planted, and is training, these Southern churches to be the salt of that part of the earth--cities on a hill, lights in dark places--so recognized, having the reputation of being Bible Christians--industrious, virtuous, zealous of good works--thus already having obtained a good report.

It is cheering to learn that some of the best of the pastors of these sixty-five churches have been raised not only from bondage, but from all the degradation of slavery--boys picked up in the street, and polished like diamonds, for the Master’s use.

We have certainly made a beginning in the matter of church extension, as in that of education. Not the least gratifying feature is seen in the character, the growing influence, and reputation, even among the whites, which these churches enjoy, though some of them are numerically small. By your instrumentality and the grace of God, they have learned what a Christian character is, and that Christ’s friends are not those who can sing loud and pray loud, whether they are honest or thievish, tell the truth or lies, are virtuous or licentious; not those who, with these immoralities, crowd sanctuaries and make them echo; but, rather, those who keep the commandments of God.

This Association crowded the years before the war fighting against the extension of slavery; then crowded the years during the war, and those immediately following it, with efforts to teach the colored people to read the Bible; and later, devoted itself to the work of planting higher institutions--as at Hampton and Nashville and New Orleans--in order to make of the blacks men of a higher, nobler type, teaching and preaching men, worthy to lead their host. Shall it now set them to no grand work of evangelization among their fellows?

The question is, whether you, who have always been identified with Congregationalism, and still love it, after long trial and large observation, will give it a fair trial South? We rejoice in your plan to move slowly in this, and wisely. We warmly approve your selection of Dr. J. E. Roy to reconnoitre the whole field, and report.

Palfrey says, “Faith in God, faith in man, and in work,” was the brief formula taught by the founders of New England. May we not, the children of the Pilgrims, have faith enough in God and in these men to give them the church polity of these founders?

We are encouraged to recommend the planting of Congregational churches among the blacks, because we have great advantages in so doing. The eager aspiration of the blacks to be men, will help. Congregationalism has a clean record South. Has any other of our leading denominations? There is no prejudice to be overcome by it, as a polity. In the competitions of the denominations on the ground, will not there be an advantage for us? Then, again, the colored people look upon this Association as a tried friend, and trust it. Is not this an advantage? And, further, has not Providence opened the South to our polity, as well as piety, in a marked manner? The work already accomplished has shown the tree to be good, and given it favor widely, even among the old masters. Hence the aid given to our institutions by several of the States. Hence the high hope of many whites, that our work will do much to tone up the blacks in all that belongs to good citizenship, good morality, and proper church discipline. As Mohammedan Turkey, and Pagan Hawaii and India, have welcomed the Christian homes planted among them by the missionaries, and as the mission churches have been a leaven of light in their social and political life, so it has been, and will more and more be, as you establish your church centres over the South.

In conclusion, then, we approve what seems to be the thought of the Executive Committee--to “advance its activities in the direction of saving souls at the South, and organize churches of our polity, as really missionary centres of leavening influence. Let the trial of our polity at the South be a fair and full one, carrying out our ideas of Christian doctrine and morality. Thus, as we pray and believe, will that wilderness the sooner bud and blossom like the rose.” We recommend, therefore, the adoption of the following resolution:

_Resolved_, That this Association approves the plan of its Executive Committee--to make a careful examination of the field at the South, and infuse new activity into its church work, organizing churches, where the way is open, on the principles of the Congregational order.

REV. EDWARD STRONG, D. D. REV. WM. L. GAYLORD. REV. A. H. PLUMB. REV. D. O. MEARS. REV. O. T. LANPHEAR, D. D.

The resolution was adopted.

Rev. Edward S. Atwood, of Salem, presented the report of the committee upon the “Chinese in America,” as follows:

The Committee, to whom was referred that portion of the Annual Report which relates to mission work among the Chinese in America, would respectfully submit the following:

We recognize with satisfaction the positive and demonstrable success of the Association in this department of labor--a success emphatically evidenced by the 1,500 gathered into the day-schools; the increased usefulness of the Bethany Home; the seventy-five conversions during the year, and the ardent desire of these newly-born souls for the Gospel light to shine on their native and beloved land. Were we to stop here and content ourselves with the mere statistics of progress, we should have no hesitation in saying to the officers and the missionaries of the Association, “Servants of God, well done!”

But simple justice compels a larger view of the matter. There is something to be taken into account besides these nominal assets. The chief worth of the work done lies in the fact that, in the doing of it, the Association has been loyal to its old and fixed theory, that a man is a man everywhere and always, with a soul to be saved, and a Saviour sufficient for its needs. Questions of nationality are irrelevant. The simple fact of humanity is all that needs to be known in order to institute a legitimate claim for the giving of the Gospel, by those who have it in trust. In this department of work, loyalty has not been an easy matter. The rough, unreasoning passions of the mob have glanced fiercely against it. Iniquity, baptised with the name of legislation, has endeavored to thwart it. The conciliatory conservatism of timid, good men, has been eager to dispense its soporific platitudes, and generous in prescribing its universal panacea for all difficulties--“Let us have peace!” The unwarrantable enmity to the Mongolian on the Pacific Coast has been supplemented and reinforced by the unaccountable apathy on the Atlantic shore of the continent. Yet, undaunted by these accumulated obstacles, the Association has said, like the great Missionary Apostle; “None of these things move me.” “The waves of the Yellow Sea,” it has said, “break on a land peopled by men for whom Christ died. If we can reach them without crossing thousands of intervening leagues of ocean, so much the better.” In spite of hostility, often white-hot; in spite of statute books, whose leaves were blistered with iniquitous provisions; in spite of the furious rage of lawless crowds, the Association has passed through the thick and peril of opposition of every sort, and taken by the hand the despised Mongolian, against whom so many scowling faces were set, and so many angry hands raised, and called him “Brother,” claiming kinship, and tendering the richest offices of help. For this, especially, the constituency of this Association should say to its management: “Vastly well done.” The old banner under which the Society was organized is still “full high advanced.” It is no small honor in these degenerate times to find men who are faithful to their trust at any cost.

But more than this, it is believed that in this department the Association is doing germinal work. The few early ears that have ripened for our encouragement are types and prophecies of a greater coming harvest. In any other view of the matter the religion of the Gospel is spiritual class legislation. It is suited to the needs of the few and not the many. The Cross loses its power under the shadow of the Great Wall; and men scorn, as well they may, such a deduction as that; they are shut up to the only other possible conclusion, that the school, the mission work, the unfolded Word, will effect in the Pacific Coast, and among the Chinese immigrants, just what it effects here and among us. And, therefore, we say to the Association that its high mission in this hour is to push its work. Let it turn a deaf ear to all pleadings to stay its hand, however plausible those pleadings may be, and from whatever quarter they may come. Let it distrust the shallow expedients of so-called statesmen, who are even shallower than their expedients. Let it give no heed to the unreasoning taunts and empty rage of Communism, but push its work; secure in the fact that back of its efforts is the intelligent Christian public sentiment of the land; and still more encouraged by the greater fact, that the God who has made of one blood all nations, and provided one Gospel for all men, is saying with an emphasis that cannot be mistaken, “Go forward!”

REV. E. S. ATWOOD. REV. G. R. W. SCOTT.

The report was discussed by Rev. E. S. Atwood, Rev. Jesse H. Jones, of North Abington, Rev. Geo. E. Freeman, of Abington, Rev. A. P. Marvin, of Lancaster, Rev. S. H. Emery, of Taunton, and Col. Amos Tappan, of Ipswich. The report was accepted, and the resolution adopted.

Rev. Geo. A. Oviatt gave the report in behalf of the committee on the “Work of the Association in Africa” as follows:

Your Committee on so much of the report of the Executive Committee as relates to the Mendi Mission in Africa, beg leave to submit the following:

At the time of the last Annual Meeting of this body, the first company of colored missionaries was on its way to the Mendi Mission. The plan of sending out to Africa men and women of African descent redeemed from American slavery, converted and educated at the South, was long and thoroughly considered before it was adopted for action. Great care was exercised in selecting this first band of colored missionaries, and it is evident that the right workers were sent forth to test the experiment--persons of deep, earnest piety, of more than ordinary common sense, and of sound education, as their communications to the Executive Committee show. In February two other missionaries, and their wives, were sent out to help the too small number of those who set sail for Africa in September.

This year’s trial has proved two things: (1) That persons of African descent can endure the sickly climate of the country of which their ancestors were natives, better than white missionaries: and (2) That converted and educated Freedmen and women are equal to the work of wise, thorough missionary labor in the land of their fathers. Everything at the stations to which these brethren and sisters were sent, seems to have been improved under their management. Converts have been multiplied and pupils gathered into the schools in augmented numbers.

The call is for an enlarged number of missionaries to occupy this promising field, and for more ample provisions to enable them to take a larger number of native children into their homes, “to be under their care, as well as removed from the debasing influences of their heathen surroundings.”

The Executive Committee express the hope that, with the strengthening of these mission stations, “they may be made the point of departure for a mission into the interior of Africa.”

It is a grand, inspiriting idea, that the men and women the best adapted to civilize and Christianize the millions of Africa, are to be found among those who, at the South, were so lately in bondage, and fitted for their work as foreign missionaries in Normal schools, Colleges, and Theological Seminaries, planted and sustained by Northern philanthropists and Christians, not on Northern but Southern soil.

The Executive Committee can only delay to enlarge these missionary operations in Africa on account of the too limited amount of means in the Treasury of the Association.

Your Committee present the following _Resolutions_:

1. That we recognize with heartfelt gratitude to God, His evident approval of the plan of attempting to evangelize Africa by the sons and daughters of Africans born in this country, brought out of slavery under the Proclamation of Emancipation of President Lincoln, and here converted and educated for this glorious work in their fatherland.

2. That we cannot do otherwise than lay on the churches the responsibility of increasing their contributions in aid of this Association, so as to enable it, at once, to enlarge its operations connected with the Mendi Mission, in the hope of sending from this, as a centre, bands of laborers into the interior of the continent.

REV. GEO. A. OVIATT. REV. FRANKLIN AYER. REV. JOHN C. LABAREE. REV. G. D. PIKE.

The resolutions were adopted.

The report was discussed by Rev. G. D. Pike, and was then accepted, and the resolution adopted.

Rev. George M. Boynton presented, as the report of the Nominating Committee, the following nominations:

PRESIDENT.

HON. E. S. TOBEY, Boston.

VICE-PRESIDENTS.

Hon. F. D. PARISH, Ohio. Hon. E. D. HOLTON, Wis. Hon. WM. CLAFLIN, Mass. Rev. STEPHEN THURSTON, D.D., Me. Rev. SAMUEL HARRIS, D. D., Ct. WILLIAM C. CHAPIN, Esq., R. I. Rev. W. T. EUSTIS, D. D., 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. 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., Minn. Rev. H. W. BEECHER, N. Y. Gen. O. O. HOWARD, Oregon. Rev. G. F. MAGOUN, D. D., Iowa. Col. C. G. HAMMOND, Ill. EDWARD SPAULDING, M. D., N. H. DAVID RIPLEY, Esq., N. J. Rev. W. 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. GEO. THATCHER, LL. D., Iowa. Rev. A. L. STOKE, D. D., Cal. 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. PETER SMITH, Esq., Mass. Dea. JOHN WHITIN, 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. Rev. F. A. NOBLE, D. D., DANIEL HAND, Esq., Ct. A. L. WILLISTON, Esq., Mass Rev. A. F. BEARD, D. D., N. Y. FREDERICK BILLINGS, Esq., Vt. JOSEPH CARPENTER, Esq., R. I.

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

Rev. M. E. STRIEBY, D. D., N. Y.

DISTRICT SECRETARIES.

REV. CHARLES L. WOODWORTH, _Boston_. REV. G. D. PIKE, _New York_. REV. JAMES POWELL, _Chicago_. EDGAR KETCHUM, ESQ., _Treasurer_, _N. Y._ H. W. HUBBARD, ESQ., _Assistant Treasurer_, _N. Y._ REV. M. E. STRIEBY, _Recording Secretary_, _N. Y._

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. SAMUEL HOLMES. S. S. JOCELYN. ANDREW LESTER. CHAS. L. MEAD. JOHN H. WASHBURN. G. B. WILLCOX.

By vote of the Association, the officers named by the committee were elected. President Tobey made remarks appropriate to his election as President.

By vote of the Association, the report of the committee on the Indians was taken from the table, and discussed by President Tobey.

By invitation, Rev. Dr. Rust, Corresponding Secretary of the Freedmen’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, addressed the Association.

District-Secretary Powell extended an invitation from the Congregational Churches of Chicago to the Association, to hold the next Annual Meeting in Chicago. The Association voted to recommend to the Executive Committee that, if deemed expedient by them, the invitation be accepted.

The Secretary then read the minutes, which were adopted.

After the Benediction by Rev. Stephen M. Newman, the Association adjourned to meet at 7.30 P. M.

Thursday Evening.

An audience filling the church assembled at 7.30 o’clock. The services opened with a voluntary by the choir. Prayer was offered by Rev. Jonathan Edwards, of Grantville, Mass. The hymn “Great God of nations” was then sung by the choir and congregation. Secretary Strieby, then read a paper on “The Work of Half a Generation among the Freedmen.” The hymn, “The morning light is breaking” was sung. An address by Rev. Dr. Hartranft, of Hartford, followed. The hymn “My country, ’tis of thee” was sung. An address was then made by Rev. Albert H. Plumb, of Boston. The following vote of thanks to the churches of Taunton, for their reception of the Association, as proposed by Secretary Woodworth, was unanimously passed:

The American Missionary Association renders hearty thanks to the Congregational churches of this city, for the invitation to hold its Thirty-second Anniversary in Taunton. Especially to the Broadway church, for the use of its house of worship for the different sessions of the meeting, and of its chapel and parlors for the Committees and friends in attendance; to the Winslow church, for the use of its chapel and parlors for the entertainment of their numerous guests from abroad; to the families of the Congregational churches, for abounding and pleasant hospitality; to the Committee of Arrangements, for wise and generous plans to meet all demands of the meeting and the wants of the guests; to the chorister and choir of this church, for most delightful aid in the service of song, and to all who have contributed to render the meeting a pleasure and a profit to those who have been in attendance.

Also, it renders sincere thanks to the writers of the different papers, and to the Committees and speakers who have given time and thought, and so greatly aided in the power and success of the meeting.

A response was made by Rev. Dr. Blake, of the Committee of Arrangements. The closing prayer was offered by Rev. A. H. Plumb, of Boston. The Doxology was sung, and, with the Benediction by Rev. Dr. Hartranft, the Association adjourned.

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ADDRESS OF REV. SYLVANUS HEYWOOD.

MR. PRESIDENT AND CHRISTIAN FRIENDS:

I do not feel that I can stand here to give any instruction, nor scarcely any stimulus, in the work you are engaged in. Your presence is enough for that. But there are four or five points which seem to need special emphasis at this time--points upon which there appears to be some doubt in the minds of the people of the North.