Part 1

VOL. XXXIV. NO. 4.

THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

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“To the Poor the Gospel is Preached.”

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APRIL, 1880.

_CONTENTS_:

EDITORIAL.

PARAGRAPHS 97 DEATH OF SECRETARIES BUSH AND DASHIELL—DEATH OF MISS DELL SAFFORD 98 MISSIONARY PERIODICALS 98 THROUGH THE LIGHT CONTINENT 99 TWENTY PER CENT 99 THE NEW PLEA 100 CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE SOUTH 101 IGNORANCE OF THE NEGRO QUESTION 102 AN ILLUSTRATED PRESS 103 ITEMS FROM THE FIELD 104 GENERAL NOTES 105

THE FREEDMEN.

VIRGINIA, CARRSVILLE—Large Ingathering 106 NORTH CAROLINA, MCLEANSVILLE—Facts about the Taught and the Teachers 107 GEORGIA—NO. 1 MILLER STATION—A Struggling Church, etc. 109 GEORGIA, MACON—A Lady’s S. S. and Missionary Work 110 GEORGIA, MCINTOSH, LIBERTY CO.—Communion Season 110 GEORGIA—Church and School must Work Together 111 ALABAMA—Notes from Marion—Mrs. Geo. E. Hill 113 MISSISSIPPI, TOUGALOO—A Brother’s Devotion 114 MISSISSIPPI—Report of the State Superintendent of Public Education 115 LOUISIANA—Revival in Central Church—Theological Department—Church Dedication 116 TENNESSEE—Revival in Fisk University 117

THE INDIANS.

CHURCH—CHRISTMAS—BIBLES 117

THE CHINESE.

OUR NEW FIELDS—DEATH OF ED. P. SANFORD, ESQ. 118

CHILDREN’S PAGE.

A VOYAGE TO AFRICA—PROF. CHASE TO HIS FOUR-YEAR-OLD BOY 120

RECEIPTS 121

CONSTITUTION 125

AID, STATISTICS, WANTS 126

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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.

Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as second-class matter.

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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. Hon. E. D. HOLTON, Wis. Hon. WILLIAM CLAFLIN, Mass. ANDREW LESTER, Esq., N. Y. Rev. STEPHEN THURSTON, D. D., Me. Rev. SAMUEL HARRIS, D. D., Ct. WM. 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. J. Rev. EDWARD BEECHER, 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, D.D., 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. WM. M. BARBOUR, D. D., Ct. Rev. W. L. GAGE, D.D., 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. 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. PETER SMITH, Esq., Mass. Dea. JOHN C. WHITIN, Mass. 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. E. A. GRAVES, Esq., N. J. Rev. F. A. NOBLE, D. D., Ill. 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. Rev. E. P. GOODWIN, D.D., Ill. Rev. C. L. GOODELL, D.D., Mo. J. W. SCOVILLE, Esq., Ill. E. W. BLATCHFORD, Esq., Ill. C. D. TALCOTT, Esq., Ct. Rev. JOHN K. MCLEAN, D.D., Cal. Rev. RICHARD CORDLEY, D.D., Kansas.

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

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

DISTRICT SECRETARIES.

REV. C. L. WOODWORTH, _Boston_. REV. G. D. PIKE, _New York_. REV. JAS. POWELL, _Chicago_.

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

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

ALONZO S. BALL, A. S. BARNES, GEO. M. BOYNTON, WM. B. BROWN, C. T. CHRISTENSEN, CLINTON B. FISK, ADDISON P. FOSTER, S. B. HALLIDAY, SAMUEL HOLMES, CHARLES A. HULL, EDGAR KETCHUM, CHAS. L. MEAD, WM. T. PRATT, J. A. SHOUDY, JOHN H. WASHBURN, G. B. WILLCOX.

COMMUNICATIONS

relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to the Corresponding Secretary; those relating to the collecting fields to the District Secretaries; letters for the Editor of the “American Missionary,” to Rev. Geo. M. Boynton, at the New York Office.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

may be sent to H. W. Hubbard, Treasurer, 56 Reade Street, New York, or when more convenient, to either of the Branch Offices, 21 Congregational House, Boston, Mass., or 112 West Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member.

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THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

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VOL. XXXIV. APRIL, 1880. No. 4.

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American Missionary Association.

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Among the list of our workers in the February number, two names were in some unaccountable way omitted. We hasten to supply them here—Mrs. H. B. Northrop is our missionary at New Orleans, La., and Rev. P. W. Young the pastor of our church at Byron, Ga.

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Our lady teachers are also missionaries. The lady missionaries sent out by the Woman’s Boards often find their first and most effective means of access to the people in the schools they start for girls. Our one hundred and fifteen lady teachers are doing the work of Christian training along with that of school teaching, and are missionaries nearly as much as the seven ladies who devote themselves exclusively to direct mission work. They have a right to consider themselves as missionaries.

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We notice in the list of officers of the First State Sunday-school Convention of Louisiana, the name of Rev. W. S. Alexander, President of Straight University and pastor of the Central Congregational Church of New Orleans, as one of the Vice-Presidents and also of the Executive Committee. He was chairman of the Committees of Credentials and on the Constitution. Dr. Roy was also present. Certainly there is no cause for a complaint of lack of recognition of those engaged in our work in the midst of such examples as these.

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The question how to interest the Sunday-schools in missionary work has met with a new answer in the cordial reception and use of our Jubilee Concert Exercise. Five large editions have been exhausted, and now a second Exercise has been prepared (No. 2), in which a number of questions are to be answered by as many persons as there are letters in the alphabet, covering the main facts of our various work. Five Jubilee Songs are inserted to be sung by a choir, and place is left for short addresses. We commend it to our friends, who will receive as many copies as they need for use, gratuitously, by applying to Dist. Sec. Pike.

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It is with profound sadness that we record the death of two of our most esteemed co-laborers in the administration of missionary work. The Rev. Charles P. Bush, D. D., for many years associated with all our churches, especially in the Middle States, as the District Secretary of the A. B. C. F. M., has not only enjoyed the confidence, but won the love, of pastors and people on every hand. We shall miss him greatly. The Rev. Robert L. Dashiell, D. D., the Secretary of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, has been a tower of strength not only to the broad missionary enterprises of that denomination, but, by his genial sympathy and wise counsels, has added to the efficiency and courage of his brethren in the work outside of his own organization.

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We much regret to learn of the death of Miss Dell Safford, formerly a teacher under this Association. For six years, she labored faithfully and conscientiously among the Freedmen in Talladega and Selma, Ala. She was patient and untiring in her efforts for the real good of those under her instruction, and her interest in them did not flag even after she left the field, but showed itself especially in the care she exercised over one of her pupils, whom she had brought with her that he might receive the benefits of a Northern education. After leaving the service of this Society, she removed to Wisconsin. But a cold taken in the spring, when she was already overworked and worn, could not be controlled, and consumption followed. She died at the last very suddenly of hemorrhage.

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One of the most hopeful signs of the times in the missionary field is seen in the increasing demand and the corresponding supply of missionary intelligence. The _Missionary Herald_ has enlarged its space between the borders, and fills it with valuable matter. Its strong point is, as it has been, its full and valuable letters from the front. The _Foreign Missionary_ of the Presbyterian Board has been of late renewing its youth, and coming up, until it has become the most suggestive and vivacious of all the periodicals of the kind which meet our eyes. But nowadays, when intelligent people read the doings of all the world every morning at their breakfast tables, and are no longer satisfied with the village or the county news, they must have something which shall give them broader views of the great field of missions, which is the world, than they can obtain from the organs of special societies.

To meet this want, the societies themselves are increasingly informing their constituency that there is other work being done than that they do themselves. “The work of other societies” is becoming a familiar heading. Even this, however, does not answer the full demands—and that the day has come for missionary periodicals, which are edited and circulated upon the same basis as those which deal with scientific or material progress, shows that the broader interests of the coming kingdom are taking more fully their appropriate place in the hearts and minds of Christian men and women. The _Missionary Review_, which has been published for more than two years from Princeton, New Jersey, and which as an unsparing critic of existing missionary societies, is adapted to promote great circumspection in those who administer them, is re-enforced in this general field by _The Gospel in all Lands_, edited by Rev. Albert B. Simpson, and published by Randolph, which will give itself to the broader aspects and principles of missionary work, and to a compilation of fresh intelligence from all quarters. We rejoice in all such methods for the diffusion of knowledge, and the stimulation of interest, in carrying out “the great commission.”

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“_Through the Light Continent_” is a comely octavo in elegant type, from the London press, giving the observations of William Saunders on a tour taken through our country in 1877–8. In a chapter upon “Education in Atlanta,” after speaking of the Public Schools, he says: “One of the most interesting institutions of Atlanta is the University for the education of colored persons, under the superintendence of Professor Ware. The Atlanta University has 175 students (the last catalogue made them 244), half of whom pay the fees and cost of board. Many young negroes have worked, and saved up $200 or $300 in order to come to the University. It will thus be seen that the energy which the negroes are manifesting to obtain education is not confined to the ordinary work of the Board of Schools, but extends to the higher branches of learning. About 75 of the students are girls, and their progress is regarded as universally satisfactory.

Professor and Mrs. Ware, who have devoted their lives to this work with true missionary zeal, are now much cheered to find their labors recognized and encouraged in quarters from which persistent opposition was formerly experienced. When they came to Atlanta, any manifestation of regard for the blacks was looked upon as an act of hostility to the whites; but a great change has taken place in public opinion, and it is now generally felt that national advancement requires the elevation of the negro race, and those who undertake their education are no longer regarded with disfavor.

There are many societies in the Northern States for promoting numerous enterprises amongst the negroes. Before reaching Atlanta, I noticed a large crowd of negroes at one of the wayside stations, and found the occasion to be the leaving of a missionary, who had been working amongst them for two or three years, and was then changing his station. The respect and regard paid to him and to his wife were pleasant to see; the missionary was a most intelligent travelling companion, evidently devoted to his work in the genuine spirit of Christianity.”

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TWENTY PER CENT.

The enthusiasm evinced at the last Annual Meeting, our freedom from the long-borne burden of our debt, the general interest which seemed to be renewed in the welfare of the Freedmen, and the commencing and anticipated prosperity in the financial world, all conspired to encourage us to plan and prepare for an enlarged work and more abundant results. In carrying out these purposes, the Executive Committee have appropriated about _twenty per cent._ more than in the previous year to the Southern field.

The total receipts thus far have been very gratifying,—and yet, when we come to analyze them, we find that they are, in a larger measure than formerly, sent to us to be appropriated to special departments of the work, or more often to special work not included in our estimates. This is both gratifying and embarrassing: gratifying, because it indicates an increasing familiarity with the details of our work, and special sympathy with this or that portion of the whole; but embarrassing, because it cannot fail to be a diversion of funds which have been anticipated by us to meet the appropriations already made to new fields, and often to create, instead of covering, expense.

We recognize these needs, of student aid, of woman’s work, and of special endowment, and we would not have these particular demands neglected. It is only that if all the money were to be thus specifically applied by the donors, there would be none left for the main work, on which the ability to carry on all the specialties depends. Don’t starve the body in order to enlarge the hand or the foot. The best growth of all is that which comes from the food, which enters by the mouth into the stomach, and, vitalized, is carried through the whole system. If you appropriate all the fuel on the steamer to the donkey engines, what will you do with the great machinery whose work it is to revolve the main propeller? If in your city water-works, you enlarge the side supply pipes and leave the old mains, you get not more, but less, water into the houses.

What do we ask, then?—1. That your _special appropriations be special gifts_, additions to, and not diversions of, the moneys you are wont to give to the general work of the Association. 2. That you do not fail in your church, or from your private purse, to give us something _this year_. 3. That as you have encouraged us to lay out a larger work, you send us for general uses at least _twenty per cent._ more than you did last year.

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THE NEW PLEA.

Henceforth the basis of our appeal to the churches ought to be gratitude, not necessity; thankfulness, not the cry of sharp distress; the impulse kindled at the sight of opening fields, widening opportunities, intelligent appreciation of service done and rewarding results.

The large additions to the churches in the foreign field, their increasing spirit of benevolence, the awakening interest in the cause of education, the world-wide readiness and call for helpers, the cheering indications of an abundant harvest of souls, soon to be gathered, the overwhelming demand in our own land for immediate work upon the frontier and at the South, among the depressed races and the incoming population, the return of prosperous times, and the ever-pressing command of Christ, are considerations so potent, so eloquent in their united plea, that the first thought of him who listens is, “How can any Christian heart resist the new plea!” What can hinder a most liberal investment in causes that promise such rich returns?

Instead of exhausting all the strength of the crew at the pumps in a desperate endeavor to save the ship from sinking, has the time not come, when, with canvas all spread, and the ship sea-worthy, rightly headed and well under way, the main question shall be, how to touch every harbor, explore every river, sail every inland sea, and leave the precious freighting of the Gospel at every port around the globe? Is it quite creditable to our piety, our devotion, our loyalty to Christ, that we can resist appeals based upon love, goodness, merciful interposition, glorious enlargement, and wait until we are crowded to a reluctant response by the plea of dire necessity, overshadowing peril?

There are most cheering indications that the new plea is becoming effectual. We are informed of a number of instances in which churches have lately nearly or quite doubled their contributions to the American Board, and that, too, apparently with great heartiness and joy. Gifts, also, from some private and unexpected sources have been a cheering indication of the advance movement. The same indications are, to a certain extent, true of the other Societies.

A mid-summer appeal for larger and extra contributions, in order to prevent a deficit, ought to be anticipated, and made impossible, by ample gifts now. The volume of offerings during the _first half of the year_, ought to be so large as to remove all anxiety concerning the state of the treasuries of these Societies when their accounts close. How pleasant, if, at the annual meetings, the friends could be surprised with reports of a surplus instead of deficits.

Ought there not to be a stern purpose to pay as we go, and to pay with sufficient liberality to enable us to go with vigor and dispatch to the utmost bound of a rapidly increasing demand? May the plea of great interposition, great opportunity and great ability find fitting response.—_The Advance._

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CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE SOUTH.

We reprint the following article from the _Christian Recorder_, the able organ of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It is a significant endorsement of the church work done by the Association, and from those who are most profoundly concerned in the Christian elevation of the colored people of the land. We have not even omitted the sharp criticism of the approving words of those who gathered at Chicago to review our work, hoping that we may thus escape the charge of “Phariseeism” in accepting the commendations and congratulations of our brethren of the A. M. E. Church:

“The thirty-third Annual Report of the American Missionary Association is before us. We wish that we could place the Report in the hands of every A. M. E. preacher in the land. Years ago we called attention to the fact that the A. M. A. was destined to become the strongest competitor the A. M. E. would find in the South. As we declared, it is even now seen. The twenty-three Congregational churches of 1869 have become sixty-seven in 1879. But it may be said, what is sixty-seven churches with a membership of 4,600, compared to our thousands? They would not be much, to be sure, were they of the same general material. But they are not. They are, as it were, a picked body. In a sense they may be said to occupy the same relation to our Church as the regular army sustains to the volunteer force of the country. And we all know what that means. A thousand regulars can do the work of ten thousand volunteers. Is it asked, How is this? The answer is at hand. Each Congregational church grew out of the school which the Congregational preacher in the person of a teacher taught. Knowing his material, and wielding it much as the potter wields the clay, he occupied for his church a position decidedly advantageous; and the result shows that he has not failed to profit by it.

“In nothing that we have said is it to be supposed that we are in wrath at their manifest success. Of course, we have no patience with the spirit of Phariseeism breathed forth in the report of the Committee on Church Work in the South. Nothing that the typical Pharisee of the New Testament said excels it; but for the work itself of these, our companions in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, we entertain the highest possible respect; begging, however, the privilege of suggesting that next year’s report be not so strenuously self-complacent.

“And now we repeat what we have so often said to our brother ministers, especially of the South, where they are brought in contact with this energetic body of men: Know, once for all, that the Church possessed of the best cultured heads and the best cultured hearts, is to win. That we are infinitely stronger in numbers to-day than are the Congregationalists, argues nothing for the future. It is with churches as with everything else, the fittest survives. If African Methodism prove to be that fittest, it will survive. If not, it must inevitably pass away, and only be remembered as a thing of the past. To be the fittest, it is required that she banish all ignorance, all immorality and superstition from her midst. This must be done, let the cost be what it may. Thin out the ministry of the church until there shall not be found an ignorant man nor a bad man in the ranks. Thin out the church itself. Expel the vicious. Drive out the notoriously bad. Have a clean church. Let such steps as these be taken, and African Methodism will have a future that will be to the glory of God and the best interests of mankind. But if she draw back, let her remember that God can take no pleasure in her.”

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IGNORANCE OF THE NEGRO QUESTION.

From a paper read by W. N. Armstrong, Esq., before the Yale Alumni Association of New York in January, as printed in _The Present Century_: