Part 2

We, too, believe in colonization; in the evangelization of Africa by Africans; and the only difference in our aim and purpose from the work with which the Doctor is so fully identified, is that we want to distribute our colonists more widely. It is well to have a Christian republic in Africa. But it is our desire to plant small colonies of twenty-five or thirty, among whom shall be both ministers and mechanics, here and there through the still “dark continent”—points of radiation for the light of life and of Christian civilization which they are to hold forth.

We are full of sympathy and interest with the good work in Liberia. May the Lord bless it abundantly. But the work here is not hopeless. Hundreds of thousands of the Freedmen still answer, from amid all their disappointments and disabilities, “We are rising.” Our plan and purpose desire to take part in both hemispheres of the whole rounded work—to save the African in America and in Africa alike.

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DR. BLYDEN ON THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

The American Missionary Association, whose publications we have prefixed to this paper, in their work of lofty and noble purpose through the South are endeavoring to prepare the negro for higher spheres of labor than “cotton-fields, turpentine orchards, and rice-fields.” Every negro who is at all acquainted with matters in the United States must have the highest admiration for it. Almost alone among the benevolent institutions of that land in the days of the great struggle, they never for one moment yielded to the imperious dictates of an oligarchical monopoly, but gave expression to the idea which they inscribed upon their banner, that one of the chief purposes of their organization was to resist the tyranny of the autocracy which doomed the negro to perpetual servitude. No one could be enrolled among its members who was a slave-holder. They have the gratitude of the negro race.

But history will have a brighter page than even that with which to adorn their annals, when she comes to recount the devotion and sacrifices of the hundreds who have been sent forth under their auspices, as uplifters of the prostrate host in the South, to whom, left as they were, paralyzed by slavery, free movement and real progress were intrinsically impossible without the aid of such agencies as the American Missionary Association. As time rolls on, the romance which clings to those heroes who fought to unfetter the body of the slave, will fade beside the halo which will surround these who have labored to liberate his mind.

(_Methodist Quarterly Review._)

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REV. CHARLES B. VENNING.

One of our most earnest and devoted missionaries at the Jamaica Mission, after severe and protracted suffering, has entered into his rest. Mr. Venning went about fifty years ago, when Negro-slavery was at its height, to work on a Jamaica sugar estate. He was then an ardent young Englishman, and easily led into dissipation and vice. But the Lord arrested him, and the course of his whole life was changed. He entered the Mico Institute, a Training College for Schoolmasters, and was a successful teacher. He then became interested in the efforts of the American Missionary Association, and desired to devote himself entirely to school work and religious teaching among the Negroes in the country districts of the Island. His name stands on the list of missionaries in our first Annual Report, and he has labored faithfully every year since—while his health would permit by active efforts, and when on a bed of suffering by example and counsel.

We quote the following from the letter of a fellow missionary: “I never saw a man who so entirely devoted himself to the work as he did. He had the true missionary spirit. He not only preached the Gospel in his own church, but from house to house and in the most out-of-the-way places; indeed everywhere where men would give a listening ear. No other missionary in the Island did so much for the education of his people as Bro. Venning, and outside of the towns there could be found no people so intelligent as his. He watched over his flock with almost a painful interest—encouraged and reproved. He gathered the poor that were otherwise uncared for about his own door, gave them shelter, fed them from his own table, and clothed them from his own wardrobe.”

One who knew him intimately at the Island writes: “He labored literally night and day most earnestly for the salvation of souls and the welfare of those who had been converted. Being a born educator, he has left his mark upon the generation that has grown up under his instruction. As a private Christian, he was most real and honest, and free from all guile, exemplifying in all his life, in the most striking manner, those beautiful words of Scripture ‘harmless’ and ‘blameless.’ His faith triumphed nobly in the end. In my interviews with him of late, it has been most interesting to see with how firm a grasp he held fast to the assurances of God’s blessed word, and thus found perfect rest and peace to his soul.”

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ITEMS FROM THE FIELD.

NASHVILLE, TENN.—Religious interest is reported in the school. Six persons have professed their faith in Christ. The day of prayer for colleges was observed and we hope that good may result from the day.

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MCINTOSH, LIBERTY CO., GA.—Pastor Snelson writes: We observed the week of prayer. The weather was mild, and consequently we did not have to go into the Academy for the use of the stoves. Last Sabbath, eleven were received into the church by confession and one by letter. It was a blessed day with us. There is much here to do. Miss E. W. Douglass is a great help to us. The people all like her. She is at work any and everywhere. They call her in some places the lady-preacher. I would to the Lord that more missionaries like her were sent throughout the field of the American Missionary Association. Pray for us.

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ANNISTON, ALA.—On Thursday night, December 25th, the colored church was crowded to its utmost capacity to witness the exercises of the school children, which consisted of songs, recitations, etc. The Rev. P. J. McEntosh has had this school and church at Anniston in charge for a number of years and has labored with untiring energy to elevate the colored people, and has met with a great deal of encouragement. After the school exercises, the presents from the Christmas tree were distributed among the children. Several white visitors were present and spoke very highly of the management of the church and school. On Friday night, they gave a fair at which they realized $56.80.—_Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times._

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GREENWOOD, S. C.—Mr. J. D. Backenstose writes: I have just closed my first week of school for this year (1880), and am glad to be able to report a larger number of students than ever before at this place.

I have had to rent a room of one of my neighbors, and we have as many boarders now as we can well accommodate, even with our new house, and more are to come in the middle of the month.

The house is 18×36, containing two rooms 18×18, with two windows and a door in each room and a chimney in the middle. Each room is to contain three bedsteads, and from six to nine chairs. The house completed and furnished will cost $228.68, a little more than we calculated, but it is large, well built and well furnished.

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TALLADEGA, ALA.—Both of the barns, one being new and very valuable, with most of their contents, including hay, grain, corn, and corn-fodder, 300 bushels of cotton-seed, with tools and farm-implements and three cows, were burnt Wednesday night, Jan. 7. Evidently it was the work of an incendiary, but not instigated at all by any prevailing ill-will toward the College. Subscriptions were at once circulated among citizens, both white and black, and while the amount raised is not large, the number and willingness of the contributions prove the interest felt by this community in the College. Efforts will be made to rebuild at once. The loss is estimated at $1,200. It falls heavily on the agricultural department, which is becoming an important factor in the college work. The farm does much toward feeding the large family, and gives opportunity of self-help to the young men.

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NORTH CAROLINA.—While Islay Walden’s people in Randolph county were hauling in logs for the lumber of their new church, the mill was burned, and a part of their boards. The owner not being able to rebuild, and there being no other mill near, the people came together to help him, the young colored preacher putting down $25 from his scanty salary. They hope to have the mill under way again in three or four weeks. Meantime they will hurry in their logs, to be the first of the new sawing.

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TOUGALOO, MISS.—We have a colored man visiting his daughter to-day; his first visit to Tougaloo. He says he is keeping his daughter in school with the money saved by himself and wife on snuff and tobacco since signing the pledge; the result of the work of one of our students who taught in his district.

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NEW ORLEANS, LA.—The Central Church is having a wonderful revival. Mr. Alexander has preached every night since the beginning of the year. The interest is remarkable, crowding the room every evening with a quiet, orderly, and earnest audience; many have been converted. Twenty-eight united with the church Feb. 1st.

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AFRICAN NOTES.

—The long delayed tidings have been received by the London Missionary Society from Messrs. Hore and Hutley at Lake Tanganika. The particulars of Mr. Dodgshun’s death are given. Annoyances and delays interposed by the Arab slave-traders are rehearsed. We give a few extracts from letters:—

“During the seven months of our stay here, we have done much towards making friends with the natives; they have closely observed us, and admit that they can see nothing bad; but the influence of the Arabs is so powerful that they, the Wajiji, are afraid to make any definite negotiations with us apart from the Arabs.

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“The slave-trade at Ujiji is merely a small local affair—slaves captured in war, &c., amongst surrounding tribes, and passed from hand to hand, till they finally come to a stand in some Arab’s _shamba_: this used to be done in the market, but since we came here, it has all been kept out of sight. Once only some Wajiji offered us a slave for sale as they passed by our _tembe_. The traders owning these domestic slaves, have from twenty to one hundred of them (I think Muniyi Heri reaches the larger number); they are their domestics, boatmen, carriers, body guard, and cultivators, and, of course, form the principle population of the place, filling up with huts the spaces between their masters’ larger houses.

“Slavery amongst the natives is another matter. The Wajiji are great slave-holders, slaves being as common as domestic servants at home; but no great numbers are owned by individuals as among the Arabs. A common present between chiefs is one or two slaves, and Mirambo sends small parties from time to time to buy both slaves and ivory. When the Portuguese and Arab slave-trades are crushed out, or nearly so, we shall see and more fully realize the extent of native slavery, or slave customs, which cover the continent through its length and breadth. The former will have cost an immense outlay of the power and influence of civilized Europe ere it is swept away. The latter will take years of faithful mission labor to eradicate.

“To fulfil my promise to an Arab, to whom I said, ‘We do not want to buy except for our own use; but I will send your words to England,’ I add these few lines:—The Arabs say, ‘If the white men will come here and buy, we will grow as much sugar and rice, and spice and oil, &c., as they want, and would much rather get our money in that way, than in dangerous [and, as they admit one by one privately, _illegal_] slave-hunting.’ I keep telling them that the slave-trade is dying out, and they had better look to something else before they are left in the lurch.”

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—“I have great trouble with my sailors who of course are _not_ sailors. On one occasion I was close off Cape Kiungwe. About two A. M., pitch dark, a heavy squall burst on us from the northward, with sheets of rain. I could not see one foot in front of my eyes. This lasted for two or three hours, the boat sweeping along at a great rate without a stitch of canvas, and a nasty foaming sea. All six men became perfectly helpless, and huddled together inside the cabin. The good little binnacle, however, kept the compass-lamp burning, and by it only I knew where to steer; had it gone out, none of them could have put it to rights. I could not possibly let go the tiller; they were perfectly unable to work the paddles had they been required, and it was only after roaring myself hoarse at them that I could rouse them to bale the water out. When they get home they strut about with a little cane in their hands, and boast of their sailorizing.”

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—“I trust,” he writes, “no one will call this mission disastrous, or condemn Ujiji hastily as unhealthy. It is certainly much healthier than Zanzibar, and both Mr. Hutley and myself were never more persistent in our determination to go on. Certainly we want more help, but the work is _going on_. We are living down native prejudices and suspicions, and the lies of slanderers. We will slacken no effort to carry on this work; and I am speaking, not at home, but in the midst of the work and its difficulties. May God induce His stewards to do their part, and see in the vacant spaces of the ranks only cause for new and earnest effort. I commenced this letter with but mournful news; I desire to close it with an expression of thankfulness to God for what health and strength and success He has given us, and with an earnest appeal to all missionary hearts to apply their means and strength with renewed vigor to this work, and to be assured that, however cavilers may talk of disaster, there is no despondency here.”

—On the eve of going to press the Directors have received a telegram from the Society’s agent in Zanzibar, to the following effect: “The Rev. W. Griffith and Dr. Southon arrived at Ujiji on the 23d of September; all well.”

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—An Alexandria despatch to the _Daily News_ says Ismail Eyoud Pacha has been appointed Governor of the Soudan, vice Gordon Pacha resigned.

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THE FREEDMEN.

REV. JOS. E. ROY, D. D.,

FIELD SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA, GA.

AT TALLADEGA.

_At the Faculty Meeting._—Three men and four women present. Prayer. The circle is passed around for matters of business. Besides minor things these results are reached; Will observe the day of prayer for colleges, with an address at morning worship, with a prayer-meeting in the afternoon for the male students, one for the females and one for the faculty, and with a general meeting at night; will hold a Normal Institute on the last two days of the present term, inviting the colored teachers in the region round about to come, and asking Mr. A. W. Farnham, Normal Professor at the Atlanta University, to be present and help; will have a series of familiar lectures, alternating on Friday night with the young people’s sociable. Surely all this looks like business.

_At the Library._—The donation of books to the value of more than four hundred dollars, from Rev. W. H. Willcox, of Malden, Mass., attracts the eye, and feasts it, too. The books are new, of standard and current interest.

_At the Prayer Meeting._—One of the colored young preachers reports the fine large old Bible which, as the gift of some Eastern friend, he had taken into his little church at the Cove on the preceding Sabbath. The people had requested him to express their thanks. Then President DeForest followed. There is a story connected with that book. It came with a box of things from the Congregational Church at Columbus, N.J., Rev. E. B. Turner’s. It came from Harriet Storrs, who is a cousin of my mother. Every page of the book has been prayed over. Out of the Sabbath-school of that old hill-town church, six ministers of the Gospel have been raised up, among whom, I suppose, they count myself, for that was my father’s home; and two wives of foreign missionaries have come from the same source. Surely that old nest must be kept warm for more of such productiveness.

_At Evening Prayers._—It is in the dining-hall, where the students of both sexes and the teachers meet. The repast over, the President, as is his wont, gives a resumé of the current news, the discovery of the intro-Mercurial star, the day’s phase of the Maine affairs, and other such. Then the students at two of the tables recite each a verse upon a particular topic, temptation; then the sweetness of a religious song; then prayer; then a quiet and orderly retiring. It is alone the religion of Jesus that can present such a scene.

_At the Farm._—You enter its enclosure, passing under a graceful arch that bears in large letters the emblazonment, “Winsted Farm.” So everybody knows what town it was in Connecticut that did a good deal toward the providing of that industrial department. The wheat and the rye and the oats are covering the fields with green, even at this mid-winter time. You can see that there is good farming in that locality. You can see it, too, by contrast.

_Co-operative Farming._—During the last season the colored people about our church at Lawson’s, in Alabama, Rev. J. W. Strong, pastor, rented a half-dozen acres of land, and cultivated the most of it in cotton, for the purpose of adding to the fund for supporting their school. They had a board of managers. They worked when called upon. They plowed and hoed. They at last picked out the cotton and found that they had two bales, worth $120. One bale they sent to the colored folks’ Industrial Fair, on the grounds of Talladega College. This church is now also engaged in building a house of worship, having the frame erected, intending, with the aid of $100 from the A.M.A., to go on this season with the finishing, and hoping that a revival will be its process of dedication.

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NORTH CAROLINA.

Our School.

REV. ALFRED CONNET, MCLEANSVILLE.

Our school is put down as a common school. That is correct. Yet we are laboring to make it more than a common school. To this end we have graded it as follows:

A. Normal; B. Normal. A. Intermediate; B. Intermediate. A. Primary; B. Primary.

Through the kindness of friends in the North the school had been supplied with a good many books, and unfortunately, there was a great variety of text-books. We have ordered new, standard books, and have secured uniformity. As we had new books it was easy to require all to begin at the bottom and work up, and to do thorough work.

In a very few instances we have found pupils who can go into two classes in the same branch. In this way they bring up from the first, and at the same time go on with a more advanced class.

The grading, the new books, and the uniformity of books, have each and all had a stimulating effect. They see there is a ladder to climb. They see they cannot start at the top, or the middle, but must begin at the bottom. They study harder. The school has improved in numbers and in regularity of attendance. The number enrolled is 84.

Our pupils are from four counties, including this (Guilford) county. Thirteen are here paying board, or boarding themselves. Of the thirteen all are professors of religion but three: one is a minister, two are preparing for the ministry; one professed religion since he came here a year ago, one of those preparing for the ministry united with the church at the last communion, and one is a teacher. Of those enrolled last year, seven are teachers, six of whom are now teaching, and one attending school. One pupil who is a minister reports over forty hopeful conversions in connection with his labors during the summer vacation.

A year ago we greatly felt the need of dormitories, and accommodations for students to “batch.” For this the Association could make no appropriation. One of the neighbors has put up a building for this purpose, another is building, and a third has converted an old store-room into dormitories, and four families have taken boarders. Last year our school was confined to one room; now we have added a recitation room.

On the whole, the outlook is hopeful. By the close of the present school year twelve to fifteen of our pupils will be able to obtain teacher’s license from the County School-Examiner.

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SOUTH CAROLINA.

Church and School Work—The Cause of the Exodus.

REV. TEMPLE CUTLER, CHARLESTON.

The work goes quietly on here in Charleston—in all its departments. The school is flourishing. It never had so many pupils as now, and was never more popular than under the direction of Mr. Gaylord. We are not ashamed to have visitors from North, South, East, or West, visit Avery. If any of your readers doubt the capacity of these colored boys and girls, let them come and see for themselves.

Miss Wells, our missionary, is doing good work—visiting the homes and teaching the mothers and daughters how to make the home what it should be.