Part 3

On the tour a week was given to New Orleans for the inspection of the church and educational work in that vicinity, and for attendance upon the first meeting of the Sunday-school Association of Louisiana. This cause got a grand send-off. The Northern helpers were greatly useful. The Freedmen’s interest was well represented in the Association, as reported last month. The Straight University, with its edifice rebuilt upon a much better location, was found in a healthy working condition, with 200 pupils in the academic department; twenty-five in the law department, one-half of them white; and ten in the theological. The Central Church—Pres. Alexander, pastor—had been having a revival that had brought in a score of members. The three or four other churches were found in a hopeful condition under their native pastors. Great was the satisfaction in preaching for some of these congregations. Straight is now in great need of dormitory buildings for boarding students.

A couple of days was given to Terrebonne parish in preaching for Rev. Daniel Clay, and in visiting the other pastors and churches under his fatherly eye. Mr. Clay, a son of the great “Commoner,” is doing much in bringing the Gospel among the common people of his race.

The tour led us by another cluster of Louisiana churches, the one centering at New Iberia, on the Bayou Teche, in the region of the ancient settlement of “Evangeline’s” story. Two parish seats and three settlements belong to this cluster. All but one have plain houses of worship. All are under colored preachers. At New Iberia, besides fair public schools for the Freedmen, there is a fine select school in Grant Hall, built by the colored people. Three sermons sought to confirm these churches in the Gospel way.

Thence across the Gulf to Texas. The Barnes Institute, at Galveston, built by the Bureau, and run for a time by the American Missionary Association, is now used for a Freedmen’s public school, with four teachers and over three hundred scholars. At Houston the “Gregory Institute” duplicates the history of “The Barnes,” and is doing remarkably well. Such is also the story of the Institute at Waco. The American Missionary Association may count in with its best work the founding of these Institutes, which being well set up have flowed into the public school system. The impetus given and the standard put up yet abide in large measure.

The tour finds its western limit at San Antonio, that ancient seat of Spanish Romanism, with its antique mission fortifications yet standing in their frowning strength. That early pre-emption secures two-thirds of the present population, 21,000, to the Romanists, who have three massive stone cathedrals—one for the Spanish, one for the German and one for the English speaking people, and who have their extensive Nunnery and Jesuit College, which are patronized not a little by American families. This city is the metropolis for Southwestern Texas, which is as large as the whole of New England. It has also an immense wholesale trade with cities in Mexico. San Antonio becomes also a strategic point for Protestantism. The M. E. Church North is just now establishing itself here at large expense. The colored people are well supplied with churches and schools. The second best Protestant church edifice is that of the African M. E. Church, just completed, at a cost of $8,000, and nearly all paid for. Superintendent West was there the same Sabbath, reconnoitering. He was urged by the M. E. South people to remain and hold a protracted meeting; but a campaign just at hand in Massachusetts prevented. Western Texas was suffering dreadfully from an eight months’ drought. The plain of San Antonio was an exception, being irrigated by the waters of the mighty springs just above the city, which, forming the San Antonio River, furnish the hydrant supply for that great population, and send babbling streams through all the streets and over all the surrounding gardens and farms. So may that sainted city be a fountain of moral refreshing in all that region!

The Tillotson Normal Institute of Texas, under the excellent Mrs. Garland, has already sent out twenty teachers. Its beautiful site, overlooking the city, is this summer to be crowned with its comely edifice, which, beyond the outer shell, is to await the incoming of funds for its completion. This trip has resulted with me in a profound impression as to the need of this institution and as to the grand sweep of its future usefulness. Nothing better can be done for the Freedmen of Texas. This empire, stretching a thousand miles on the Rio Grande and eight hundred miles eastward to the Sabine, calls mightily for such an institute to train those who shall be the teachers of her sable children. These immense areas of cheap, rich, southern lands, that were never cursed by the filth of slavery, are calling in the Freedmen to take to themselves homes and farms and the respectability that comes from ownership of the soil. Such people, most of all, hunger for good schools. Texas is liberal toward her colored school children. To furnish them teachers, skilled in the art and trained so that they shall exert a wholesome social and spiritual influence, is the great desideratum.

The cluster of churches made up of Corpus Christi, Goliad, Helena, Schulenburg and Flatonia, are organized into the Congregational Association of Southwestern Texas. The only two without houses of worship are now moving to purchase “church houses.” Rev. B. C. Church is a very patriarch among them. Rev. S. M. Coles, pastor and teacher at “Corpus,” is a colored graduate of Yale. Brothers Thompson and Turner, native pastors, are sound, pure and able men. It was a treat to minister the Word to each of these hungering congregations.

At Flatonia, when the local authorities went back upon their promise of the public school-room for a service which had been advertised in the town newspaper, because the white citizens would not allow that place to be used by “niggers,” we resorted to the platform of the R. R. Station, in the center of the village, and had a rousing open-air meeting that attracted many of the white citizens, who were cordially welcomed to our place of worship, for our God is no respecter of persons. At Corpus Christi a two days’ meeting followed upon some special interest, under the preaching of Mr. Thompson, which had greatly confirmed the church, and had added a half dozen to the company of the believers.

One day by the mail-schooner from “Corpus” to Indianola, another day by steamer to Galveston, and a third day by Morgan’s line, carried the tour back to New Orleans. A day there for supplementary reconnoissance, a Sabbath with the thriving church of Rev. D. L. Hickok, and the Emerson Institute at Mobile, and then a long run up to Atlanta finished this tour of many hundred miles among our schools and churches of the Southwest.

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GEORGIA.

A Lady Missionary Needed.

REV. S. S. ASHLEY, ATLANTA, GA.

I desire to call your attention to the need of a missionary for this city. This has been a pressing necessity in all the past of the work here, but at present is more urgent than ever. This city is rapidly increasing in population. The increase of the colored population keeps pace with the white in numbers, and far outstrips the white in ignorance and poverty. The number of vagabond black children here would astonish you. On the Sabbath, the vacant lots and outskirts of the city are thronged with them. They are without parental restraint, and never attend meeting or Sabbath-school. They are ripening in vice and crime. There is a chain-gang in the city, composed, as I learn, of boys ranging from ten to fifteen years of age. There are many children among the county convicts. Thus they are drifting to the penitentiary and to ruin. Once in the penitentiary, they are lost, for the convict prison system of this State is bad.

This city is full of devil-traps. These strangers who are moving in will largely become victims. Now, we should have some agency by which as many as possible of these families can be reached. Their domestic condition is deplorable. In fact, this may be said of the colored families generally of the South. They need influences and instruction that can best, and, as I believe, only be carried to them by a woman missionary. The women, the mothers, the homemakers of this people, must be instructed and led to better things in their homes. They must be seen in their houses. With such homes as are common among them, it is well nigh impossible for them to be Christians. Large families living in one room—you know how it is—comfort, cleanliness, modesty and religious devotion are almost impossible. Illiterate, the Bible must be read to them; ignorant of their moral duties as parents, they must be taught. Strangers to domestic comforts and necessities, they must be made acquainted with them. Superstitious and fanatical, they must be introduced to places and modes of a scriptural, instructive and reasonable worship—a thousand matters of great importance must be brought to their attention and kept before their minds, until the proper impression is produced. This can only be done by a missionary moving about among them _at their homes_. This person should be a woman, because women are principally to be reached. Now, can you not commission Miss Stevenson for this work? In connection with her school, she now does a great deal in this direction, but not a tithe of what needs to be done. She is thoroughly acquainted with all these people, has had ten years’ experience among them, and is admirably adapted to the work. She has a heart for it. Please consider this.

Another matter: The young men connected with this church and congregation have organized a Library Association. A Library has been started—number of volumes at present very small. I have thought that perhaps you had in or about your office some spare books that you could send to us. We want to build up a Parish Library. I should like, especially, some works on Africa.

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ALABAMA.

Tenantry—A Promising Field—Politics.

REV. FLAVEL BASCOM, D.D., MONTGOMERY.

I gave you some first impressions on entering the service of the A. M. A. last autumn, and you now ask for my impressions after three months’ experience and observation.

So brief a residence in a single Southern city does not qualify one to speak with authority on the various questions pertaining to your work among the Freedmen; but it does enable him to test your methods and to examine the results achieved. He can thus judge of the adaptation of means employed to the ends desired, and can forecast the future with more confidence.

There are some things of which I am fully persuaded, by my short residence at the South; one of these is, that the colored people in this country are not dying out. I occasionally hear it said that they are. Possibly the wish is father to the thought. But they are not only here to stay, but they are here to multiply and increase as did the Jews in Egypt; and they are already so large a factor in our population that their character and condition are to affect the character and welfare of our country far more than is generally realized.

I have been happily disappointed in witnessing the industry and thrift of the Freedmen as mechanics and common laborers; the colored men seem to do very nearly all the work which is done, and with the aid of the women, who are equally industrious, they secure an honest and, what is to them, a comfortable living.

The most dependent and least progressive class of the Freedmen are those who work the plantations on shares. The planter dictates his own terms to the tenant—furnishes him team and tools at his own price—sells him provisions on credit at rates far above the cash market price, and then charges interest, fixing the per cent. to suit himself. When the crop is gathered, if the renter does not find himself in debt to his landlord, he is more fortunate than many. He rarely finds himself richer for his summer’s work. The simple rules of arithmetic, thoroughly understood by the tenant, will remedy all this; and when I hear the colored children at school reciting the multiplication table so enthusiastically, I am sure it is a prophecy of a “good time coming” to them.

My observation convinces me that the colored people are very desirous for the education of their children, and that their children acquire learning with as much facility as any other class. Let all the colored children and youth of the Southern States have access to schools conducted by competent teachers, and in a very few years they will solve the political and social problems that are just now so embarrassing. They will not only take care of themselves, but they will be very valuable auxiliaries in taking care of the nation.

I find in the colored churches of different denominations specimens of very estimable Christian character. I find, also, just those infirmities which I should expect if God made the Caucasian and the African of the same blood.

I have found the colored congregations very decorous and eagerly attentive to the preaching of the Gospel. I find them quite accessible for religious conversation, and apparently thankful for the interest manifested in their behalf. They furnish, therefore, a field for Christian effort that is full of promise. If there is another missionary field more inviting, or promising richer harvests to faithful culture, I know not where it is found.

I am profoundly impressed with the importance of the schools, and especially of the higher institutions established by the American Missionary Association, and by the Mission Boards of other Christian denominations. These institutions must train multitudes of competent teachers, who will educate the masses. In these institutions must also be educated a native ministry to meet the wants of their people at home, and to carry the Gospel to the dark continent from which their fathers came. It is difficult to conceive of a work more important, or promising more beneficent results, than that which is being done by the higher educational institutions for the Freedmen. The importance of enlarging their capacity for receiving pupils, and enabling them to aid indigent pupils in defraying the expenses of their education, cannot be over-estimated.

The relation of the Freedmen to politics raises questions that are very perplexing and threatening. The Southern States have, for the present, virtually disfranchised the colored men; and they seem united and firm in the purpose to exclude them from all influence in politics, unless they will vote for the party that so recently sought to perpetuate their bondage by a dissolution of the Union. What, then, should the colored men do, and what should their friends do for them? Many of them are intelligent and patriotic, and worthy to have a share in the government of the State and the nation. But many of them are as utterly unfit, at present, for such responsibility as are the most ignorant classes in our Northern cities; but they are improving. Every year adds to their intelligence, and if the helping hand of Christian philanthropy is not withheld, they will, by education, by temperance, by morality and more intelligent piety, by industry and the accumulation of property, win for themselves a position of respectability. They will not then need soldiers to protect them at the polls. They will take care of themselves. Their ballots will be received and counted. Not only so, among the whites there will be two parties, as of old, that will vie with each other in soliciting the colored vote, by out-bidding each other in the promise of favors in return. Is it not wisdom, then, for the colored man patiently to bide his time, meanwhile striving more earnestly for the qualifications than for the rights of a voter? And is it not wiser for the friends of the Freedmen to furnish him every facility for acquiring the qualifications of a voter, than to wrangle forever about his rights?

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Emerson Institute—Early Discouragements, Later Encouragements.

REV. D. L. HICKOK, MOBILE.

For various reasons, among them the sickness of yellow fever, our work here commenced under very unfavorable circumstances. Our school opened the 20th of November, almost two months after the regular time, with only 17 scholars the first week, and with but little prospect of any considerable increase. The teachers were all new except Miss Stephenson, and hence they did not know what to expect, and therefore not enough about the work to be discouraged. Ignorance, sometimes at least, is bliss. If it did not give us faith, it saved us from being faithless. There are some things that are food in a negative way by preventing the usual waste in the system. Knowledge is power. Ignorance is somewhere along there when it saves us from the need of power. We accepted what we found as being all that we had any right in our simplicity to expect, and carefully hid it as leaven in the meal. The leaven, however, seemed wonderfully “little,” and the meal a great deal more than three measures; but God has blessed our work beyond our expectation and faith. The measure, “according to our faith,” was pressed down and running over. Our numbers rapidly increased so that by Christmas we had about 75 scholars, and after the holidays our numbers came up to more than 150. We still have accessions every week, and the prospect is that before the close of the year we shall have more scholars than we have room for. Already the primary room is filled beyond its seating capacity.

The school has at present four departments: the primary, which numbers about 60; the intermediate, which numbers between 40 and 50; the normal, which numbers about the same, and the higher normal, which at present is only a small class studying Latin, geometry and natural philosophy. The “A” class of the normal, which is quite large, will soon be in this department.

We feel that we are having the confidence and co-operation of the colored people. The last few weeks has encouraged us very much. We recently had a literary, musical and social entertainment for the pupils and patrons of the school. It was held in the normal room of our building, which we also use as an assembly room, where we provided extra seats somewhat beyond rather than according to our faith; but not only was every seat filled, many went away because they could not even find standing room. At the close of the literary exercises the pupils brought forward their parents and friends and introduced them to the teachers, when sociability and “the shaking of the hands” became the order for the remainder of the evening.

The history of our school work for the past few months is repeated in our Sabbath-school and church work. We began with scarcely more than five loaves and two fishes. At the first religious meeting which I attended there were just seven present—five colored and two white people. What were they among so many? But God has graciously given us the increase here also. Our Sabbath-school now numbers 60, with 10 teachers, and is increasing every Sabbath. It is yet a small school, indeed, but it is in good working order. The machinery is complete in all its parts. Its lack is inward rather than outward. It needs only the animating power of the Holy Spirit to make it a living body. We have got the dust together and have formed it, and we are praying that God would breathe into its nostrils that it may become a living soul. To this end the teachers have just resolved to hold a half-hour prayer-meeting at the close of the school each Sabbath.

Our church is quite small. Congregationalism makes but little show in this typical Southern city. It will be a good many years before we have New England on the Gulf; yet I believe the leaven is here that is to leaven the lump. Our church contains a few earnest, faithful workers. There are those who have watched with Christ in the dark hour. Their days of vigilance will soon be over, when they may sleep in Jesus and take their rest. May God bless them!

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A Revival of Education—A Useful Church.

REV. GEORGE E. HILL, MARION.

I cannot say that we are enjoying a revival of religion, but we are in the midst of a revival of education, which is here at the South, emphatically, the handmaid of the Gospel. The Lincoln Normal Institute, for colored pupils of both sexes, was founded in 1869 by the A. M. A. Six years ago it passed into the hands of the State, which makes an annual appropriation of $4,000 for the teachers’ salaries.

This year the school has taken a fresh start, having enrolled 217 pupils, and a new building is about to be erected for their accommodation. In the Normal Department for the training of teachers, there are classes in Latin, Greek and French, as well as the higher English branches. The order and discipline are equal to the average of our high schools at the North. Its pupils sustain a literary society, for weekly essays and discussions, and also publish a monthly paper. One young man walks ten miles every day to attend the school.

The influence of such an institution is felt in the very atmosphere. The fever for learning is contagious. Men who work hard all day in the field or at their trade are so eager for knowledge that, to meet the demand, classes have just been organized for a night school.

Meanwhile our little church is keeping on the even tenor of its way. There have been several hopeful conversions, and four are about to unite by profession. No falling off in attendance on Sabbath or evening meetings. Four of our young people are this year at Talladega College, and two promising young men have the ministry in view. Nineteen were present at our teachers’ meeting last week.

At the “Home” we have three meetings Sunday evenings: one for women, one for boys, and a girls’ class prayer meeting, with a kindergarten for the little ones during the week.

One of the pleasant incidents in our winter’s work has been the distribution of five barrels of clothing from kind friends at the North. The people are poor, but not penurious. A girls’ sewing class has sent $21, the avails of their handiwork, for the Mendi Mission, and the church appropriates the “weekly offering” once a month towards the pastor’s salary.

It is truly delightful to see the readiness of this people for religious instruction, and to witness the fruits of our labor in their marked elevation. They are quick, industrious, pleasing, and unobtrusive in their manners, with a decided distaste for “loudness” of every sort; showing, too, as much decorum at church, and as proper a regard for the Sabbath, as I have ever seen in any community.

From all which, it may be inferred that here, at least, the uplifting process has already passed the stage of incipiency.

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LOUISIANA.

Concert—Last Year’s Graduates—Gifts Acknowledged.

PROF. J. K. COLE, STRAIGHT UNIVERSITY.

We have reached another mile-stone in our school work. Many of our older pupils, especially the senior class, would have been glad to keep in harness, but circumstances were favorable for a two days’ break in school routine, and we have it.