Part 1

VOL. XXXIV. NO. 10.

THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

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“To the Poor the Gospel is Preached.”

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OCTOBER, 1880.

_CONTENTS_:

EDITORIAL.

OUR ANNUAL MEETING—PARAGRAPHS 289 PARAGRAPHS 290 JUBILEE SINGERS 291 ATLANTA’S COLORED PEOPLE—COMMON SENSE FOR COLORED MEN 292 OUR SCHOOLS AND THE COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM 293 A NEW SOUTH, NOT A NEW ENGLAND IN THE SOUTH 294 MTESA AND THE RELIGION OF HIS ANCESTORS 296 BEGGING LETTER 297 AFRICAN NOTES 299 ITEMS FROM THE FIELD 300

THE FREEDMEN.

COLORED CADETSHIP 302 NORTH CAROLINA, MCLEANSVILLE—Revival Interest 302 SOUTH CAROLINA, GREENWOOD 303 GEORGIA—Midway Anniversary 304 GEORGIA—Atlanta University and Temperance 305 ALABAMA—Shelby Ironworks 305 ALABAMA—FLORENCE—Outside Work 306 MISSISSIPPI—Tougaloo University 307

THE INDIANS.

S’KOKOMISH AGENCY: Rev. Myron Eells 308 SISSETON AGENCY: Chas. Crissey 309

THE CHINESE.

SERMON BY JEE GAM 310

CHILDREN’S PAGE.

CHINESE AND CHINESE CUSTOMS 312

RECEIPTS 313

CONSTITUTION 317

AIM, STATISTICS, WANTS 318

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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., Ill. 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. C. C. PAINTER, 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.

THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

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VOL. XXXIV. OCTOBER, 1880. NO. 10.

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American Missionary Association.

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OUR ANNUAL MEETING.

The Thirty-fourth Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association will be held in the Broadway Church (Rev. Dr. Chamberlain’s), Norwich, Ct., commencing Oct. 12, at 3 P. M., at which time the Report of the Executive Committee will be read by Rev. M. E. Strieby, D.D., Corresponding Secretary. The Annual Sermon will be preached by Rev. Wm. M. Taylor, D.D., of New York City, Tuesday evening. Reports, papers, and discussions upon the work of the Society, may be expected throughout Tuesday and Wednesday. The following persons have promised to be present and participate in the exercises, with others: Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D., Gen. Clinton B. Fisk, H. K. Carroll, of New York City; Rev. A. F. Beard, D.D., Syracuse, N. Y.; Rev. Alex. McKenzie, D.D., Cambridge, Mass.; Prof. Wm. J. Tucker, D.D., Andover, Mass.; Prof. Cyrus Northrop, New Haven, Ct.; Rev. Sam’l Scoville, Stamford, Ct.; Rev. Joseph Anderson, D.D., Waterbury, Ct.; Rev. Wm. H. Willcox, D.D., Malden, Mass. We also have invited Pres. Julius Seelye, Amherst, Mass., and Hon. John P. Page, Rutland, Vt., and hope for favorable responses. For reduction in railway fares and other important items, see fourth page of cover.

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In addition to the speakers from the North announced above, much interest will be added to our Annual Meeting by addresses from some of the prominent workers in the Southern field.

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During the vacation of our schools and workers, there is a dearth of intelligence from “the field,” which must be the MISSIONARY’S apology for its leanness. The next number will be made fat with the good things prepared for us at Norwich, and may be delayed on that account, after which there will doubtless be abundance from our teachers and pastors, who will by that time have their work well in hand once more for another year’s labor.

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The St. Louis School Board has added oral lessons in etiquette to its course of studies. A few scholars read in turn five pages from a manual of etiquette, and then a conversation is held on the topic by teacher and pupils. We do not see why good manners are not as essential as good grammar.

So says the _Congregationalist_, and so says the AMERICAN MISSIONARY. In several of our Institutions at the South, a small text-book on good manners is used with accompanying oral lessons. Colored pupils take well to such instruction.

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Chicago is the freest city in this country. There is no discrimination except in brains and money. Every place is open to the colored man. The schools of the city have white and colored children on the same seats and in the same classes, and no “kicking” is heard. But what is the strangest of all, there are two colored ladies who teach schools composed of white as well as colored.—_Ex._

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It is possible we may yet go to the negro to learn many things, especially the virtues allied to, and growing out of, patience under provocations, of which certainly he has been a wonderful example. The editorial fraternity of the country would do well to imitate the example of the colored brethren, who at the meeting of the Colored National Press Association, recently held in Louisville, disposed cheaply of what has hitherto been regarded as the editors’ inestimable and inalienable right by resolving, “That when differences arise among us, we will eschew vituperation and personal abuse, and that the columns of our papers shall be kept free from everything calculated to detract from the tone and character of journalism.”

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The defense Roman Catholicism makes against Protestant ruffianism varies according to environments; in Uganda it takes one form, in the United States another; but it is good to see the necessity of some form of it, as stated in one of the Roman Catholic journals in Mexico as follows: “It is necessary that the Catholics rise resolutely and make a rapid and voluntary movement in defense of their belief. To-day, unfortunately, the Protestants come with a subvention, and their teachings are extending throughout the whole country. They circulate their writings at the lowest prices, even give them away, sometimes in tracts, sometimes in papers, which is the favorite method of sowing the bad seed; and, sad to say, in exchange, the Catholic weeklies are dying off for lack of subscribers to sustain them. Protestantism is becoming truly alarming among us.”

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The colored Baptist churches of Virginia and South Carolina, believing the time has come when they should go forth to the millions of their fatherland with the Gospel, have sent out two missionaries; and now the churches of Virginia unite in calling a convention to meet at Montgomery, Ala., on the 24th of November. This call is as broad as all the colored Baptist churches and other religious bodies of the colored Baptists of the United States, and is “for the purpose of eliciting, combining and directing the energies of all the colored Baptists in one sacred effort for the propagation of the Gospel in Africa.”

This may seem to some a somewhat narrow call, but it is for a broad work—a work that shall yet elicit the energies of all our Father’s children of whatever color and denomination, until the dark continent shall be made glorious by the Sun of Righteousness.

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Mohammedanism, whatever its affinity for Africa as it has been, and its baleful power because of this, has no outlook for the future of that sad, but soon to be made glad, continent. The _Foreign Missionary_ well says: “If we consider only the physical condition of success, it must be allowed that Islam has an immense advantage in its central position and its vicinage to the field to be won. There is much also in the greater similarity of character between the Moslem and the heathen tribes as compared with Europeans, whose habits are so utterly different from those of all African tribes. But on the other hand, the forces of Christianity have now well nigh surrounded Africa, and are pushing through a hundred avenues into the interior. Discovery, time, commerce and civilization, are handmaids of the Gospel as they are not of Islam. That can only endure the dim light which survives from a past age. It belongs to an age which has passed away, and to a type of civilization which is everywhere sinking into decay.”

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JUBILEE SINGERS.

These singers of world-wide fame will once more enter the “service of song” for Fisk University. They have devoted their wonderful voices to its benefit for six years, during which they left their marvelous impress on vast and select audiences in America, Great Britain, and the Continent, including the highest and humblest in rank, and have reared as their monument the substantial and beautiful Jubilee Hall, at Fisk University. The past two years they have taken for needed rest, and in giving concerts for their own benefit; and in dedicating themselves to the up-building of the University, it is now for endowment, as it was then for building.

During all these years, their voices have been more and more highly cultivated, without losing their freshness and originality, or their power to move most deeply the hearts of vast audiences, as was so signally manifested in the enthusiastic gatherings they met recently at Chautauqua.

The name and fame of these Singers have been repeatedly appropriated by unworthy imitators. This true Jubilee Troupe, when again heard, will need no credentials except their own voices to certify to the public that they are the original Jubilee Singers.

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Gen. Garfield heard the Jubilee Singers when he was at Chautauqua, and closed his eloquent speech with this beautiful tribute:

“I heard yesterday and last night the songs of those who were lately redeemed from slavery, and I felt that there, too, was one of the great triumphs of the republic. I believe in the efficiency of forces that come down from the ages behind us; and I wondered if the tropical sun had not distilled its sweetness, and if the sorrows of centuries of slavery had not distilled its sadness, into voices which were touchingly sweet—voices to sing the songs of liberty as they sing them wherever they go.”

In his speech responding to a serenade by the “Boys in Blue” in this city, he expressed this noble sentiment in reference to our colored fellow-citizens—a sentiment which must become a fact established beyond the possibility of successful assault before there can be either peace or safety for the nation:

“We will stand by them until the sun of liberty, fixed in the firmament of our Constitution, shall shine with equal ray upon every man, black or white, throughout the Union. Fellow-citizens, fellow-soldiers, in this there is all the beneficence of eternal justice, and by this we will stand forever.”

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_Atlanta’s Colored People._—Atlanta, and the world outside that Chicago of the South, will doubtless be surprised to learn that her colored people give in $250,000 of taxable property. There are over six hundred who pay tax on values ranging between $100 and $1,000; some forty ranging from $1,000 to $6,000 and over. In business pursuits, there are 40 boot and shoe makers, 40 retail grocers, 75 draymen, 25 hackmen, 20 blacksmiths, 12 barbers, 2 tailors, several boarding-house keepers, 2 caterers, 5 confectioners, 3 dealers in fruits, 1 dentist, 1 undertaker, 1 veterinary surgeon, 1 mattrass maker, and 1 billiard-table keeper. Of bootblacks, newspaper venders, porters, peddlers, drummers, messengers, hostlers, waiters, and those engaged in mechanical pursuits, we have no special data, for they are numerous.

There are eighteen churches in the city, with an average membership of 350, the three largest having each over 1,500. Over 5,000 children and adults are in the Sabbath schools, and 1,278 children, about one-half in the public schools of the city. There are three lodges of Good Templars among them, having a total membership of about 200. Two lodges of Good Samaritans and Daughters of Samaria have a membership of some 500. The Brothers Aid Society number some 250, and the Brothers of Love and Charity 75. The Gospel Aid Society, Daughters of Bethel, and Daughters of Jerusalem—benevolent institutions—number a total of about 600. The Masonic lodge has some 50 members. There are lodges of Odd Fellows whose combined membership exceeds 600. These institutions have encouraged them to form habits of sobriety and economy, and imbued them with feelings of charity and benevolence. There are five military companies, and they show great proficiency in the manual of arms.

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COMMON SENSE FOR COLORED MEN.

[The following letter with the above caption is from the New York _Evangelist_, and was written by the Rev. Moses A. Hopkins, a colored preacher of Franklinton, N.C. It contains so much truth, and good, hard, common sense, that the MISSIONARY is constrained to send it along. This is done with a slight but emphatic caveat in regard to one paragraph, to which exception is taken as misleading. To say “the pinching poverty which drove a few idle and ignorant Freedmen to Indiana, Kansas, and Africa” does not come up to the proportions, as the writer would imply that it does, of a satisfactory explanation of this great movement which has taken more than 40,000 colored people from their old to new homes, at great expense, both of suffering and money.

From Florence, Ala., many of the most intelligent and well-to-do of these people exodized. Among those who went to Africa were many intelligent and thrifty men, sufficiently so to send out an agent and arrange for the movement, with means to place themselves in their new home, and they were unanimous in assigning reasons which justified them in the experiment.—ED. MISS.]

Many designing men, “filled to the brim” with sledge-hammer rhetoric and campaign eloquence, for more than a decade have “used sorcery and bewitched the colored people” with their “cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive,” till many of the Freedmen thought that the time had fully come when the last should be first and the first last, and were waiting and watching for their turn in the White House and Congress.

But having hoped against hope, till hope deferred and poverty had saddened their hearts, most of them have turned their minds to the soil, which now promises “seed to the sower and bread to the eater.” On every hand “the valleys are covered over with corn,” and God, the poor man’s Friend, has just granted the tillers of the ground “a plentiful rain,” which causes “the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice.”

The present prospect of a bountiful harvest has greatly inspired our people to labor and to appreciate honest toil, and to remember that the great mass of the Freedmen will make better plowmen than Presidents, and better sowers than Senators. The pinching poverty which drove a few idle and ignorant Freedmen to Indiana, Kansas and Africa, has taught those who had the good sense to stay at home, that God will not bless idleness and ignorance among any people. Most of the Freedmen have decided to buy land and labor on it; to build houses and dwell in them, “and to plant gardens and eat the fruit of them”; to seek the peace of the country and the cities where God has caused them to be carried away captives; and to remember that in the peace and prosperity of this country shall they have peace.

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OUR SCHOOLS AND THE COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM.

The settlers of New England showed their uncommon common sense by the early establishment of Harvard and Yale—the nursing mothers of the common school system which has made these States what they are. These colleges are not the ripened fruit of the common schools, but the creators of them. For these colleges, we are indebted to a class of men among the Pilgrim Fathers, educated in the universities of the old world, a class not to be found among the colored people of the South, and because of which alone, if for no other reason, their condition differs immensely from that of the Freedmen, who have no ability to create the instruments by which they can be lifted up from the degraded condition in which slavery left them.

The deep-seated prejudice of the Southern white against the fact of negro education, his bitter unwillingness to see the experiment tried, coupled with his scornful incredulity that anything worth the effort could be accomplished, made it certain that those most deeply concerned, because of the new relation these people sustained to them, in the elevation, through schools, of the negro, would originate no efforts to this end. This gospel, like every other, must be sent to those who are to be specially benefited by it, and must be sustained, like all missionary enterprises, by those who know its value, until it can vindicate itself to those to whom it is sent.

It is not rash to say that, but for outside pressure, few, if any, of the Southern States would now have a system of common schools, provided for by State legislation, even for the whites; even less bold is the assertion that, but for the proved results of missionary schools for the education of the colored people, the South, and a large proportion of those in the North, would be utterly incredulous as to the possibility of making scholars of the negroes; and that the common schools forced upon the unwilling South by the constitutions formed by conventions in which the Southern sentiment found no expression, would never have gained favor as they have with the people, but for the trained teachers which our schools and the schools of other societies have furnished. As in New England, so in the South, the trained teacher makes the schools, which are thus the children of the colleges and normal schools.

Wherever we have been able to send competent colored teachers, the whites are in favor of sustaining the common school system; and it may with modesty be said, that the A.M.A., perhaps more than any other agency, has won for it a place in the future of these States, ten of which, according to the latest reports, appropriate $49,829 for normal instruction in colored schools, a large share of which goes to institutions established by Northern charity, to carry on a work the value of which had been fully proven by these schools before these States contributed a dollar for such a purpose.

In 1878, out of a total school population in the recent slave States, including the District of Columbia, of 5,187,584, 2,711,096 were enrolled, being nearly 62 per cent. of the whites, and something more than 47 per cent. of the blacks. Nearly twelve millions of dollars was expended upon the schools for that year, and for the most part it has been very equitably divided between the races, except in Kentucky and Delaware, in which States the school tax collected from the colored people alone is appropriated to colored schools.

Thus the teachers of negro schools have fought a great fight, and have won substantial victories, for a system of education which is to regenerate the South, and, more than any other and all other agencies, is to convert elements of danger, which, neglected, would soon have proved the ruin of our republic, into elements of strength and greatness.

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A NEW SOUTH, NOT A NEW ENGLAND IN THE SOUTH.