Part 2

It is quite true, sir, that the Head of the Church, as has been proclaimed from this platform, and from that at Lowell, again and again, is imposing on you the discipleship of the world, the duty of carrying the Gospel to all the nations of the earth. It thus lies upon the Christian nations so honored to stretch out their hands to lift the other nations up to the plane on which they are themselves living. But there has been brought to America, it seems to me, a specially difficult task. She has had thrust within her national boundary at least three separate races, that are on a different stage of intellectual development and civilization from that which she has reached; or if it be too much to say that these races have been thrust within her boundaries, then that the high and laudable ambition, which has moved you as a people to keep this great continent to yourselves, and to take as much more as you can get, has brought upon you this obligation in connection with the great races which are to be found on your soil. We are aware that the spirit and the policy of the world is hounded on, perhaps now more than ever, by that proud and insolent dictum of science, falsely so called, ready to be applied to the affairs of races as to other things—“the survival of the fittest.” No doubt there are men among you who are ready to take up the spirit of this maxim and to apply it all around, and to feel, as has been said here about the dead Indian, that it is the province of the stronger people simply to overrun, and press out, and hustle over the frontiers, or over the shores of your continent, the weaker races. Now, sir, as I understand it, you have been called to this vocation of bringing up these weaker races, of incorporating them into your own national life, of clothing them with all the honors and responsibilities of citizenship, of giving them a full status in the Church and in the township, of making them what you are yourselves, gradually scattering their darkness by the light of your intelligence, and vitalizing their enfeebled and degraded manhood by the overflow of the surplus energy of your own manhood. There has been given to you this great task to perform, to show the nations a better way of dealing with the weaker races than any nation has yet reached; and if the spirit of the American Missionary Association can but be breathed into the American people as a whole; if you can control your political action, if you can determine the issues in your Congress by that spirit, and control all your dealings with those peoples by it, one of the very brightest of the many crowns which will sit on the brow of the American nation will be the crown which you will win in that service. This is the work to which you are called.

I have been asked since I came here how I could explain the fact that the citizens of America seem to meddle so much in politics. I do not think we of England meddle enough with them. The existence of a political church among us forces a certain political contention upon us with which you here have nothing to do. But I take it that it is one of the highest, most urgent vocations of the Church of Christ, in this and in all lands, to see to it, that, so far as her influence shall go, by teaching and by testimony, by debate, by criticism, by all kinds of fair mental conflict to penetrate the political life of the nation with the spirit of Christ. It will not be well with you in America, any more than with us in England, whether with regard to your work for the black man and the Indian and the Chinese, or with regard to your own national stability and progress, until this work has been gone earnestly about. We can afford to rise above party politics, but we are bound to preach that righteousness, that truth, that spirit of self sacrifice, without which neither church nor nation can be made great and stable.

* * * * *

GENERAL SURVEY.

The battle cry of the American Missionary Association now is ENLARGEMENT. We are called to this by recent encouragements, and by the demands of the future.

THE ENCOURAGEMENTS OF THE PRESENT.

FINANCES.

We present our _financial_ situation as one of these encouragements, and first in order, as being special, we mention the receipt of $150,000, the donation of Mrs. Valeria G. Stone, of Malden, Mass. This munificent gift has been so confidently anticipated, that Prof. T. N. Chase has for some time been occupied in maturing plans for the buildings to be erected by it, so that the work at all points will be pushed forward with rapidity and economy. We hope, therefore, at our next Annual Meeting, to announce that buildings have been erected at several points in the South that shall afford much needed facilities to overcrowded schools, and that shall serve as monuments to the liberality and wisdom of the donor, more fitting, because more useful, than the most costly shaft or obelisk.

Next in order, but not least in significance, we refer to the _financial exhibit_ of our Treasurer, with its favorable balance sheet. The receipts for the year, aside from Mrs. Stone’s donation, have been $187,480.02, which together with the amount on hand Sept. 30, 1879 ($1,475.90), makes a total of $188,955.92; and the expenditures, $188,172.19; thus giving a credit balance of $783.73.

As a part of the gratifying results of the year’s expenditures, as we had no debt to pay, we can point to _four_ school buildings newly erected or greatly improved; to _six_ church edifices completed; to _two_ in the process of erection; to _five_ repaired and improved; and to _three_ parsonages repaired, one in process of erection, and one built by the people. Among these new school buildings we are glad to number the large and commodious edifice for Tillotson Institute, Austin, Texas, a permanent outpost, we hope, in the rapidly increasing population of the great South-west.

Such a balance sheet, carrying on the one side our regular work and these new and greatly needed buildings, yet held in even poise by the generous donations of our friends, is an argument for enlargement at other points calling for it with increased importunity. We dare not be presumptuous, but may we not trust still further to the God of the poor, and will not his people sustain us in the trust?

FREEDMEN.

Our _Educational_ work among the Freedmen furnishes the next source of encouragement.

The _increasing appreciation_ of our schools by both the white and colored people of the South, is manifest. Georgia continues to give the substantial assistance of her annual appropriation of $8,000 to the Atlanta University. A large majority of the State Board of Examiners attended the anniversary exercises this year. Their examinations were close, their report to the Governor wholly favorable, and their recommendation of the continuance of the appropriation unhesitating, the closing words of their report being: “Who can doubt the wisdom of continuing the appropriation?”

The State of Mississippi was represented at the Commencement exercises at Tougaloo by her Superintendent of Education and other influential citizens, who, after careful inspection, gave public assurance of State aid. The first instalment, we are confident, will reach us this fall. Soon after the war, when this State was under Republican rule, it granted aid to Tougaloo. Under changed political control, this grant was for a time withheld, but now while overwhelming Democratic majorities are regularly reported, the proffer of aid is renewed. The significance of the fact is that both political parties, much as they may differ on other points, are agreed in sustaining the Tougaloo University.

Another evidence of such appreciation is found in the attendance at our school anniversaries, of persons who represent public sentiment. At Hampton, President Hayes, Secretary Schurz, the Governor and an ex-Governor of Massachusetts were present; at Berea, the audience numbered probably 1,800 or 2,000 persons, two-thirds being of the white race; at Fisk, there was reported “a crowded house;” at Atlanta, the audience was packed; at Straight University, New Orleans, it is reported that “the audience, both in numbers and intelligent appreciation, was one of the best ever gathered for the purpose in the city.” Our work is not now done in a corner, nor under the ban of good people, North or South.

The colored people show their appreciation of the schools by an increased attendance. The roll is larger than last year in the aggregate, and in nearly all the departments. The total number of pupils reported this year is 8,052 against 7,207 last year. The largest proportionate increase is in the theological, grammar and normal grades.

Our schools are meant to be _religious_. If not, they are as nothing to us. We watch, therefore, with great jealousy, the developments in this direction, and we are gratified to be able to report interesting revivals at Fisk, Tougaloo and Woodbridge, with conversions and a quiet spiritual work at other schools. The usefulness and activity of our students as they go out in vacation or at graduation may be illustrated by facts like these: “One pupil who is a minister reports over forty hopeful conversions in connection with his labors during the summer vacation.” Another writes: “I was assigned to a place where there was no school-house or church. The people had their meeting under an arbor. I worked with the patrons until they built me a school-house.” From Memphis the report is: “Sixteen of our young people have, during the summer, taught 1,035 day pupils, and very nearly as many Sunday-school scholars.” The returning pupils at Tougaloo reported that “the Sunday-school and Temperance work had been vigorously pushed with excellent results, one of which was over 1,300 signers to the Temperance pledge.”

Our _Theological Departments_ are the flower of our schools, and the germinating seed for our church work. They have this year, as we have seen, increased in the number of their students and in their efficiency. Talladega reports that “eight young men will graduate from the Theological Department, all of whom will enter the Congregational ministry in the South. They are now warmly welcomed to the pulpits of all denominations.” From New Orleans: “The Theological Department is larger than in any previous year. Four of the class are ordained ministers, of whom two are pastors of churches in New Orleans.” The Theological Department of Howard University reports that “sixteen students were sent forth to preach, all of whom go to the South to the Freedmen.”

With such a record before us, a work so useful and that needs almost indefinite expansion, invites to that expansion by its very success.

Our _Church Work_ shows a steady and healthful growth. The number of churches in the South is 73 as against 67 last year; of church members, 4,961—last year, 4,600.

In the four new churches organized, and in the six new edifices erected, and two in the process, five repaired, and in the parsonages improved and built, we see the additions to the outward scaffolding, within which is going forward the spiritual work of preparing the polished stones of the sanctuary; and we see the added force of workmen ascending this scaffolding, in the ordination of four young men to the Gospel ministry, and in the reports from our Theological Departments of well trained young men graduating and entering the service.

That spiritual work is indicated in part by the reports of precious revivals and ingatherings into the churches. The pastor at New Orleans writes: “It is my happiness to record one of the most precious revivals in the history of the Central Church.” From Shelby Iron Works, Ala: “The meetings closed with twenty-one conversions reported. Last Sunday fifteen came forward, entered into covenant with the church, and were baptized on profession of their faith. Some eight or ten are to unite by letter the first opportunity, who were not ready to join last Sunday.” From Savannah, Ga,: “There has been an unusual work of grace among this people, and the meetings have been quiet and orderly as with a New England congregation.”

We have been impressed this year with the unusual mention in the reports from the churches of the attendance and interest _in the prayer meetings_. If the prayer meeting is the pulse of the church, we should infer that the life blood flows warmly from the heart in our churches in the South.

The disposition for _self help_ is a plant of slow growth among a people marvelous for their faith and passive endurance, but little used to forethought and activity. We have felt the need of developing “this grace also,” and have, therefore, taken unusual pains to induce the churches to aid more fully in the support of their pastors. The responses have exceeded our expectations; in almost every instance the additional sum we have named has been given, and in some instances more.

Other facts of the same purport are seen in such extracts as these, culled from the “Detailed Report.” The pastor of the church in Atlanta proposed that the _church debt_ should be paid off. With a little help from the North, and from the professors of the University, it was done, making about $563 raised by the church, aside from current expenses, in six months. They have also aided in securing a fine bell of 800 lbs. The young church at Marietta, Ga., raised $300 for their new church edifice. In a church collection for the American Missionary Association in Marion, one man put in $5, being one-tenth of his crop—a bale of cotton. A man and his wife are sustaining their daughter in the school at Tougaloo with the money saved on snuff and tobacco since they signed the pledge. The church at Wilmington, N. C., claims to be the banner church among the constituents of the American Board, having given more than any other, according to number and means, as judged by the report of Dr. Alden.

The _Sunday-Schools_, as reported, show a slight increase in numbers, but the reports are not full, and hence the figures do not properly represent the strength of this arm of the service. Revivals have occurred in some of the schools. The _Temperance cause_ holds its place in the hearts and efforts of our workers in the South. In the churches, schools, mission schools, and by the teachers who go out in vacation, is the good work pushed forward.

The _Conferences_ in the South have held their meetings, and Dr. Roy, who was enabled to attend several of them, was delighted with the excellence of the sermons and papers and the ability of the discussions, as well as with the fervor of spiritual life. Some of the Conferences appointed delegates to the National Council. A marked feature at one of these meetings—that of the Alabama Conference at Selma—was the social and religious welcome it received from the white families and churches. Dr. Roy thus reports it:

“You have been told of the new era in our work, marked by the opening of half a dozen of the homes of the first families in Selma, Alabama, for the entertainment of the white members of the Conference. It was not merely the offer of their houses as eating and sleeping places, but it was a delicate and attentive Christian hospitality, which invited the guests around from home to home in order to the extension of acquaintance. When grateful words were said to Major Joseph Hardie for having led the way, he answered that that gave him too much credit; that the places had all been opened cheerfully, and that, after the sessions were over, other families had said: ‘Why didn’t you give us a chance? We would like to have had some of those folks.’ Another host, referring to the mutual satisfaction, said: ‘It is just because we are getting better acquainted.’ In the same line was the opening of the Presbyterian pulpit, morning and night. The exercises of the Conference were of a high order and well sustained throughout. It was much like one of the Western General Associations.”

THE INDIANS.

The experiment of educating Indian youth at Hampton and Carlisle is a confirmed success. We have in the office two pictures—one representing a company of these young Indians as they came to Hampton, in their blankets and with their stolid countenances, and the other taken after they had spent a year in the school. The change in dress is less significant than the bright and intelligent look of the faces in the last picture. A visit among them, as they are engaged in the school-room and at various mechanical employments, accounts for the change. The joint education of the two races, the black and the red, seems helpful to both.

Four agencies, the same number as last year, are under our nomination, and we have favorable reports from each. At the Lake Superior Agency some years ago, the Indians wanted blankets, beads and trinkets; now they want a boarding school. At Fort Berthold, 40 new houses were built this season; at the Sisseton Agency, the Indians dress entirely in citizen’s clothing, live in log houses and cultivate 4,025 acres of land, and the scholars in the boarding and day schools show marked improvement; at the S’Kokomish Agency, the morals, manners, health and homes of the Indians are improving—most of the houses have been ceiled and furnished with good, tight floors. More land has been cleared, and 1,000 fruit trees have been set out.

CHINESE IN AMERICA.

Of our mission on the Pacific coast, the efficient Superintendent, Rev. W. C. Pond, says that not only more, but better work has been done this year than ever before. The total enrolment of pupils is 67 greater than last year, but the most marked gains are in those reported as having ceased from idol-worship, and as giving evidence of conversion; in the former, 180 against 137 last year, and in the latter, 127 against 84.

AFRICA.

The aspect of our _Mendi Mission_, in a surface survey, seems discouraging. A deeper view discloses one great element of success, and moreover reveals lessons of wisdom that will be of much more value than any transient success.

After maintaining this mission for 30 years with white missionaries, with a rapid death-rate and meagre results, Providence seemed to open to us a plan for using the Freedmen of America, trained in our schools, as missionaries to Africa. Three years since a company was sent out, with Rev. Floyd Snelson as a leader. His age and experience guided the mission well, and the next year new recruits were added. But the failure of Mrs. Snelson’s health compelled him to return with her to this country. The management fell into younger and less experienced hands, and dissensions and complaints ensued. Prof. T. N. Chase, of Atlanta University, accepted our invitation to visit and inspect the mission. Accompanied by Rev. Jos. E. Smith, the pastor of our church in Chattanooga, he spent two months at the mission, making most careful examinations, the result of which he embodies in an extended report. It may suffice here to say that Mr. Chase found many things in an unsatisfactory condition, chargeable in some degree to moral delinquency, but more largely to immaturity of experience and of judgment.

From Mr. Chase’s report and our own knowledge of the affairs of the mission, we reach these results:

1. The colored man of America _can_ endure the climate of western tropical Africa. We have sent to the Mendi Mission 17 persons of that race—seven men, five women and five children. Of this number _not one man has died_, and _but one_ has been compelled to leave on account of ill-health; nor have any of these, with this one exception, suffered from the African fever so as to hinder their work, except temporarily. The children were not sick; of the women, one died, the wife of Dr. James. Mrs. Miller has been compelled to return as far as England for the recovery of health. In the single case of death and in the three of failure in health, the cause can be traced to the germs of disease in the constitution, existing there prior to leaving America; but in every case of a sound constitution, good health has been maintained. In this we see hopeful evidence that, with careful previous medical examination, the _colored people of America can furnish missionaries for tropical Africa capable of enduring the climate and of rendering active service as missionaries_—a result full of encouragement.

2. Due allowance must be made for the inadequate training of the young colored missionary. The Anglo-Saxon race has behind it 17 centuries of culture; the negro race in America, 17 years. This should make a difference as to the races. The white candidate for the post of missionary was born in a Christian home, reared in a Christian community, educated in early days with the best culture of school and church, enjoyed afterwards the training of the best college and seminary, with their full corps of highly educated professors, with all the advantages of large libraries, apparatus and lectures; and above all, that unconscious education that comes from constant contact with practical men and cultured society. The colored candidate was born a slave, lived in the slave quarters with no refinements of home or surroundings; his education was in our young and imperfectly equipped schools and colleges, and his knowledge of the world is bounded by this limited horizon. This should make much difference with the individual. Perhaps these facts on both sides have not been duly considered. They will hereafter be fully recognized by us, and will lead us to place the management of our African mission for a time in charge of a white superintendent. They will also dictate a great deal of caution in selecting candidates for that field. We may send fewer at first; we will try to send those that are best prepared.

3. Our experiment with colored missionaries in West Africa has not been discouraging when compared with our former efforts there with white missionaries, or with those of other societies in other parts of Africa. A new impulse has been given to African Missions by the startling discoveries of Stanley and others, and if the Christian world expects these new missions to be crowned with immediate success, it will soon be undeceived. There, as elsewhere, missions must furnish heroes and martyrs, must fight battles, suffer defeats, win victories and endure hardness. Leviathan in the African jungle is not easily tamed, and the efforts which would overcome the barbarism which has for ages defied civilization, and even discovery, will test the “perseverance of the saints.”

In the missions growing out of the new impulse for Tropical Africa discouragement and trial have been nearly everywhere encountered. Of the sixteen missionaries sent so promptly by the Church Missionary Society to establish the mission in Mtesa’s kingdom, some have died, some have returned on account of sickness, and the whole work is now in abeyance. The mission of the London Missionary Society at Ujiji is still pushed forward, yet with much sickness and several deaths, among which is numbered that of the lamented Secretary Mullens. The Livingstonia Mission on Lake Nyassa is compelled to abandon its first station on account of the tsetse fly. The Scotch Blantyre Mission has had the sad experience of wrongs practiced by the missionaries upon the natives, attracting the attention and stirring the sorrow of Great Britain.

We are not alone, then, in the trials of our African Mission, nor must we, more than others, be discouraged. Africa was not forgotten in the Redeemer’s plan. His people must meet and overcome difficulties. The assurance that the colored American can endure the African climate is worth all the effort we have made.

THE DEMANDS OF THE FUTURE.

1. Enlargement in the work already in hand among the _Freedmen_.