Part 3

The church work goes on slowly. The feeling of unity and harmony is increasing, and, so far as I can see, may be said to be universal in the church. We have had stormy weather in Plymouth for some time; it has been a sort of Cape Hatteras, around which the winds have revelled, but now the sky is clear and the sea smooth. We have a large growth of tares in the church that does neither us nor anybody else any good. If we should undertake to root it out, I do not know how much wheat might come up with it, nor how much wheat we would trample down in getting to it. Oh, how wise we need to be in dealing with these people; what a broad mantle of charity we have to throw over them. Those of us who glean after the reapers in this field, where the “patriarchal institution” once flourished, find that either the type of piety that prevailed in the “Abrahamic household” was very defective, or the “Abrahamic duty” was woefully neglected. Certainly, the idea of religion that prevails among the former dependents of these modern patriarchs, is not that of either the Old or New Testament. But why throw stones at the old defunct institution? What did I say? Defunct? I wish to God it was defunct, and that these freemen had a fair chance and a free fight for their rights and liberties. But that day is a long way off; and I fear the shimmer of the morn is not yet seen. I want to be just as hopeful as possible. I never was a croaker. I generally see the bright side of a thing. But sometimes, when I come in from some tale of oppression and misery, the clouds just shut right down—it is midnight. When I am made to know that there are 20,000 poor wretches here in this city that are the carcass on which rich cormorants are fattening, my soul is sick within me. Congress may investigate the cause of the emigration of the colored people to all eternity, and come to what conclusion they may, it won’t stop. I pray God it may not stop until enough laborers get away from the South to give room for those who remain to grow. God knows the truth, and He will open some way for His people to go out. I assure you His new Israel has not yet come to the land flowing with milk and honey. What think you of a man supporting a family of four on 25 cents a day, and paying five dollars a month for house rent? What think you of a family of five living on the wages of the daughter who gets six dollars a month working out, and paying five dollars a month for house rent? _Hungry mouths will stifle conscience._ Or, how long could the good people of the North live on hasty-pudding without molasses or milk, morning, noon and night, and nothing else, day after day and week after week?

Do you say, why not go back into the country and work the land? So I said to one who had brought his family of five or six down here to starve with the rest: “Why didn’t you stay up in the country?” “Couldn’t lib up dar no how. Starve up dar shuah. Rent so high couldn’t lib. Had free acres of land and a po, misable shantie, and had to work fo days ob de week fur de rent, and but two days to tend my own crop. Hab to buy ebreting ob de commisary. Hab to pay twenty cents a pound fur meat (bacon), and forty cents a peck fur grits (corn meal). Starve to deff up dar shuah.” Four days’ work every week for the rent of three acres of land! The best land in that section is worth four dollars per acre. Call the man’s work worth twenty-five cents a day. His rent was one dollar a week—fifty-two dollars a year. No wonder the landlords are not anxious to sell land to the colored people, when they can get four times the value of the land every year in work at twenty-five cents a day. Defunct institution! Yes, on the statute book. “But, my man, why didn’t you buy the land at four dollars an acre?” “Well, sah, some ob ’em did buy de land. I dunno how much dey pays; but I knows when dey’s paid two or tree stalments dey can’t pay no mo, and gibs em up.” Do you wonder the people listen to glowing pictures of better opportunities somewhere else? If these people had a decent chance at home, they would not listen to invitations away. The fact is, they are perfectly helpless, and there is nothing for the mass of them but to sit down and wait, wait, wait, through the long, long years till the morning comes. I do not wonder they emigrate. I pray God they may continue to go, until those who remain shall have their hands full to supply the demands for labor. It may not be better for those that go, but it will be better for those that remain. The more you thin out your woodland, the taller and stouter will be your timber. The only hope for this people is a scarcity of laborers. There are so many who must have work, or die, that every vacancy has a dozen ready applicants. Twenty-five cents a day, I am told, is all that some of these planters will give to man or woman; and they can get enough at that price. In such circumstances, you cannot expect people to haggle long about the price of labor. The cry is simply, “Give me my hire.” And then, if you remember that two hundred years of slavery in a man’s blood is not a very good preparation for independency, you may get a pretty good idea of the situation of the people.

But my letter is too long. Tell the churches to pray for the freeman of the South. I do not say freedmen, because there are thousands here who were never slaves and are no better off. Ask the churches to help us to give them the only consolation they can at present have—a sure and intelligent hope of a better world than this on the other side—and not expect them, out of their deep poverty, to pay for their own schooling or preaching just yet.

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GEORGIA.

Report of the Committee of the Board of Commissioners to the Atlanta University, June, 1879.

A large majority of the entire Board attended the examination of the colored University at Atlanta, which receives an annual donation of $8,000 from the State. The report of the special committee appointed to make a suitable minute of the exercises and the condition of the Institution was unanimously adopted. It is as follows:

TO THE BOARD OF VISITORS:

Gentlemen—The undersigned, your appointees, herewith submit the following report upon the final examinations of the Atlanta University, for the school year just closed.

The Board attended these examinations in an almost entire body. They were promptly and courteously met by President Ware and his associates, and the examinations proceeded with systematic regularity. The exercises were designated by neatly printed programmes, with the time and place of recitation distinctly set forth.

The examinations were fairly conducted and disclosed the fact that the most advanced methods of teaching were employed. These methods were mainly topical, supplemented by appropriate questions, which evinced that the students had an intelligent comprehension of the subjects under consideration. We were especially impressed by the evidences of patient, systematic, untiring training on the part of the teachers, so well adapted to the colored, or any race, and by the progressive manner in which a subject was developed. All branches taught, passed in review before us, and whether the immediate subject was reading, grammar, history, mathematics, the classics, or other branches, the means employed and the results attained were entirely satisfactory. The examinations were entirely oral and the decorum and order maintained were of a high character.

The cleanliness of the recitation rooms, the preservation of school property and the gradual improvement of the grounds were marked.

The final exercises at Friendship Church were very creditable to the institution. The subjects of the speeches and essays were appropriate, without political bearing, and they were delivered and read in a becoming manner.

Comparing the examinations with preceding ones, we are satisfied that the University is steadily on the up-grade, and that it is becoming a centre of great interest among the colored people.

The religious training of the pupils appeared to be excellent.

The Normal feature of the institution we regard with especial interest. In no way can education be so rapidly extended, or its improved methods so effectually multiplied, as by the special training of teachers. This we believe to be the great educational want of our State.

We have one suggestion to make, viz: as the oral recitation has been now so satisfactorily developed, would it not be beneficial to introduce some written examination work in the higher classes, as affording a better comparative test, and as advancing the examinations fully up to the modern standard?

It is your committee’s opinion, based upon the foregoing, that the State has acted wisely in her appropriation to the Atlanta University, and that a continuance of it is to her best interests.

Respectfully submitted,

H. C. MITCHELL,

Chairman Special Committee.

T. G. POND, C. M. NEAL.

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On motion the above report was ordered to be submitted to the Governor.

H. H. JONES,

Chairman of General Board.

J. T. WHITE, C. M. NEAL.

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ALABAMA.

Why He Likes It.

REV. H. S. DEFORREST, TALLADEGA.

A minister recently called to one of our schools in the South, gives these reasons for liking his place.

1st. I am needed. This is a great work and the workmen are few. It is not at all here as it used to be, and perhaps now is, in Boston on a Saturday morning, scores of men standing with carpet-bag in hand, waiting for a chance to preach, and many waiting in vain. We have here more of field than we can occupy. On all sides comes up the Macedonian-African cry, “come over and help us.” I am often weary on Saturday and poorly enough prepared for Sunday, but am spared the anguish of not knowing where to go or what to do. Besides, there is so much of self-denial in the work that there are probably not a great many thinking that, if I should die or leave, there would be a vacancy, and if there should be a vacancy they would like to fill it. Not many are interested in my will; few would care for my shoes,—I hope to wear them myself and wear them here. For,

2nd. There is here a grand, perhaps unsurpassed opportunity for influencing men. I am not only a Home Missionary, but also a Foreign Missionary to Africa, and that last with special facilities. I am master of the language, and do not work at the disadvantage of a half-learned and half-murdered tongue. Neither is there any prejudice against me as a Foreigner because of my brogue, or my dress or my habits. Without the honors of a Foreign Missionary, I am also without many of his disadvantages, and my national and Yankee peculiarities, which might hinder across the sea, help on this side of the Atlantic. This is indeed a missionary field, but operated with special facilities. It is a double missionary field. For,

3d. The most pressing work in our own country is here. As surely as in 1861 our national peril is largely in the South. Ignorance is dense; immorality is rampant: lawlessness is wide-spread, while intelligence, morality and obedience to law form the only basis for such a government as ours. To save our country, we must save the South; to save the South, we must save the Southerners, and there are no Southerners more hopeful and more deserving than the late slaves. They are down but their faces are upward. Give them a hand and they will take it, especially if it be a “Yankee hand,” and a little lifting develops a good deal of spring in themselves. Thus it is that Patriotism as well as Humanity and Christianity keep me here, and no campaigning in our recent war seemed more a duty of loyalty than that in which I am now engaged. I am glad to be in the ranks and to still wear the blue. But,

4th. Looking beyond our broad land, I hope, standing here, to reach some portion of the “Dark Continent.” I regard this as a good _pou sto_ for moving Africa. Our students, more than those who have been life-long readers, use their memories. They are more impressible than the young of some other stock. They have a strong desire, as they are helped, to help others. Apparently the great missionary movement of the next few years is to be in Africa. The call is already heard for men. Some of these men are here, and the impressions now made, the very words we now speak, may yet be felt and heard in lands whence the fathers of these men were stolen, and in the jungles which the white man may well fear to tread.

5th. Besides, there are some special rewards in this work. If we have the white man’s contumely, we have the black man’s love. A more grateful and appreciative people than some of these, fresh from the prison-house of bondage but now rejoicing in a double freedom, I have never seen. Seldom is a pastor more fervently and affectionately prayed for than are some of us here. And I suspect as the Lord judges souls—He seeth not as man seeth—we have our companionship chiefly with the foremost of this part of the Land. These and similar considerations have led me to think that this College stands somewhere on Mt. Pisgah. Certainly just now I would rather be here than in any other part of the Universe of God. Tell our friends at the North that we do not need their sympathy but we do need their help. With more of means we could greatly multiply our labors and their results. Let those at the rear at least send on supplies, and more abundantly.

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Is the Work in Vain?—Building Progress—A Missionary Spirit.

REV. HORACE J. TAYLOR, ATHENS.

Sometimes one is tempted to say that the work here is in vain. We know, for instance, that a great deal has been done during the last fifteen years by the Principal of Trinity School, and yet one can see that the work is by no means finished. Have not some people at the North been thinking that, after fifteen years of good work among the colored people of the South, the A.M.A. ought to be about leaving the field here for some other? Some here say to me, it will be a work of centuries to bring up this people; others, that the colored race never will be fit for anything but farm laborers; they must be hewers of wood and drawers of water. Some people in Ohio think the religion of the colored man in the South is a “pure and undefiled” religion. Some people here think there is no use in trying to give the colored man a pure system of religion. “They get together and shout and carry on, and that is all they are fitted for.” “Their religion is impure and defiled, and they cannot appreciate a pure religion.” So say the enemies of the colored race. Well, this is partly true; too true. The colored man has emotion, and his late masters were too often content with that “religion” in the slave. As slaves they were allowed to preach and steal and commit adultery, and all together, too.

When we think of the pit from which they have been lifted, and of their ancestry—only a few generations ago heathen all of them, cannibals some of them—can we think that the results are less than we might expect? A great deal has been done here, and there is a great deal to show for it. Some might think there was not much to be seen of good results. A church of forty-four members—three less than two years ago, five less than one year ago—some weak ones, the church as well as the school still pecuniarily dependent on the A.M.A., they will not be ready to cut loose from the fostering care of the Association for some years yet.

Christ said that the kingdom of heaven was like a grain of mustard seed, or like a little leaven. These churches and schools act like leaven in a mass of ignorance. And this leaven works. And it is because of this leavening power of the Gospel that we are encouraged. The whole will be leavened in time. But time is necessary. The Congregational churches have undertaken a mighty work, and they must patiently stick to it for years yet. Much as can be seen of the results of the work here, more than half of it cannot be easily seen. Other churches have been enlightened and helped. Even those who try to keep out the light can’t prevent some of it getting through the chinks.

You will want to know about the work for the new school building. If we had had the least idea that we must work five months with less than one hundred dollars in money, we never would have undertaken the job. We hoped a fair share of the subscriptions would be paid in cash. One or two had themselves to buy the moulds for making the bricks, and the shovels to dig with, and the cord to line the ground with. We had no boards to cover the bricks, so, instead of kilning the bricks as they were made, they were piled in an old log house. Many were broken in this way. Then they were moved when we had boards to cover the kiln; and many more were broken. And from the 1st of August—we didn’t begin to prepare the ground till July 17th—till November we had heavy and frequent rains. The papers said such a season had not been known for many years. We were hindered in our work, and lost bricks from the rains. But we have over a hundred thousand bricks, and a total expense of one hundred and fifty dollars. If the workers next summer can have the money, as we hope, they will not work to such disadvantage, for they will have boards on hand, and can kiln the bricks as they make them, and have tools. The building will be finished, but it takes more time than we at first thought. Such a school-house was not necessary fifteen years ago. Our neat church building, and the necessity for a substantial school building, are proofs of the great work done here by Miss Wells. I enjoy this work, and have become attached to the people. But it is too nice a place for me. I never expected to preach from a carpeted platform. I must go far hence to more destitute places beyond—to the islands of the sea. But the work is one. Whether in Alabama or Micronesia, under the A.M.A. or the A.B.C.F.M., we are working for one Lord, to establish the kingdom of Christ on earth. We can but praise Him that He calls us to work in any corner of His wide vineyard.

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MISSISSIPPI.

Sunday-Schools—Student-Conversions—Crowded Rooms.

MRS. G. STANLEY POPE, TOUGALOO.

The year thus far has been most pleasant and profitable. During the fall term we had an unusually large number of students who entered into study with faithfulness and energy.

Many who had been teaching during the summer, gave most interesting reports of their work. The Sunday-school and temperance work had been vigorously pushed with excellent results; one of which is over thirteen hundred signers to the temperance pledge. Some conversions in their Sunday-schools were also reported; and quite often now some one speaks in our prayer-meeting of receiving a letter from a pupil asking for prayers that he may become a Christian.

Just at the close of the fall term we were visited with a remarkable outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Our good Dr. Roy had been here, and a sermon which he preached left impressions which brought some to decide for Christ. And then the Sunday-school lessons. I remember watching the young people during the closing exercises of Sunday-school the Sabbath before Christmas, and I saw that there was deep feeling, and felt sure that there were some who would not long resist the Spirit, and during the next three days there were nineteen conversions.

Three or four others have since then found Christ. There is also a marked Christian growth and a growing interest in the study of the Bible. Our hearts are greatly encouraged, and we go forward rejoicing that we are permitted to work for Christ. Truly “The Lord hath done great things for us whereof we are glad.”

At present we have one hundred and four boarders, with the prospect of more soon. Every room is occupied, and we are crowded to what seems the utmost limit of our accommodations. What we shall do with those yet to come, is a problem which neither mathematics nor the laws of expansion have solved. Shall they hang up in the trees or bivouac under them? We want to put an addition to the “barracks,” but have not the means necessary. Dear friends at the North, shall we turn these young people away? What is your answer? We hope that by a year from now, a good substantial building will be at least in process of erection, that shall do away with some of the temporary accommodations we now have.

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TENNESSEE.

School Work and Week of Prayer.

E. A. H., MEMPHIS.

Next week will, I believe, close my second month’s work here. I find the work very pleasant, and am enjoying it greatly, though I think I am working harder than I have ever worked in a school before. The school has filled up very rapidly since the holidays. My room is full to overflowing, and I have been obliged to seat a few of my pupils in the Normal room. That room and the Primary are also quite full. Of course, these additions to the school have made the work of the teachers much harder. Besides my work with my own pupils, I am having some practice work done. Four students from the Senior Class of the Normal Department, are engaged for a short time each day in teaching in my department, and under my supervision. This corps of teachers is changed once in two weeks, thus giving each pupil in that class a chance to work. I also meet the Senior Class three times a week, for talks with them on school and class work, taking up the objects to be gained by recitations and the best methods used. I think I can see already that this work is doing good, and I hope that it may prove of great value to the pupils.

We have been observing the week of prayer in the school, by fifteen minute prayer meetings, directly after school. At first, these were held in a recitation room, but Thursday evening the meeting had grown so large that it was held in the Intermediate room, and Friday evening in the Assembly room. A good deal of interest has been shown, and a number have expressed a desire for the prayers of Christians. We hope that the interest may deepen and much good be done.

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TEXAS.

Two Hours’ Work by a Student-Canvasser.

The following letter, with enclosure of $3.50 and fourteen names for the MISSIONARY for six months, will not only explain itself, but may furnish a suggestive example to many.