Part 1

VOL. XXXV. NO. 3.

THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

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“To the Poor the Gospel is Preached.”

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MARCH, 1881.

_CONTENTS_:

EDITORIAL.

PARAGRAPHS 65 SENATOR BROWN ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION—OVERTURE TO THE NATIONAL COUNCIL 67 MIXED SCHOOLS 68 EXCEPTIONS AND THE RULE—CONVERSION VERSUS EDUCATION 69 INCONSIDERATE GIVING 71 THE INDIAN PROBLEM: Gen. S. C. Armstrong 72 GENERAL NOTES—Africa, Indians 74 ITEMS FROM THE FIELD 76

THE FREEDMEN.

NORTH CAROLINA, MCLEANSVILLE—Severe Winter, Good Progress, etc. 78 GEORGIA, ATLANTA—Sequel to Begging Letter: Mrs. T. N. Chase 79 ALABAMA, MOBILE—Emerson Institute 80 MISSISSIPPI, TOUGALOO—A Changed Home 81 TENNESSEE, NASHVILLE—Cabin, Frame House and Little Brick 82 TEXAS, PARIS—The African Congregational Church 83

THE INDIANS.

COMMUNION SUNDAY AT HAMPTON: Miss Isabel B. Eustis 85

WOMAN’S HOME MISS. ASSOC’N

ANNOUNCEMENT 87

CHILDREN’S PAGE.

CHILD’S LETTER—A CRUMB FOR THE BOYS 89

RECEIPTS 89

AIM, STATISTICS, WANTS, ETC. 96

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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.

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. 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. Rev. CYRUS W. WALLACE, D. D., N. H. Rev. EDWARD HAWES, D.D., Ct. DOUGLAS PUTNAM, Esq., Ohio. Hon. THADDEUS FAIRBANKS, Vt. Rev. M. M. G. DANA, D. D., Minn. Rev. H. W. BEECHER, N. Y. Gen. O. O. HOWARD, Washington Ter. Rev. G. F. MAGOUN, D. D., Iowa. Col. C. G. HAMMOND, Ill. EDWARD SPAULDING, M. D., N. H. 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. 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. Dea. JOHN C. WHITIN, Mass. Hon. J. B. GRINNELL, Iowa. 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. Rev. W. H. WILLCOX, D. D., Mass. Rev. G. B. WILLCOX, D. D., Ill. Rev. WM. M. TAYLOR. D. D., N. Y. Rev. GEO. M. BOYNTON, Mass. Rev. E. B. WEBB, D. D., Mass. Hon. C. I. WALKER, Mich. Rev. A. H. ROSS, Mich.

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, C. T. CHRISTENSEN, H. L. CLAPP, CLINTON B. FISK, ADDISON P. FOSTER, S. B. HALLIDAY, A. J. HAMILTON, SAMUEL HOLMES, CHARLES A. HULL, EDGAR KETCHUM, CHAS. L. MEAD, SAMUEL S. MARPLES, WM. T. PRATT, J. A. SHOUDY, JOHN H. WASHBURN.

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. XXXV. MARCH, 1881. No. 3.

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American Missionary Association.

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We call attention to our new pamphlet (No. 6,) which contains the papers read at the woman’s meeting held at Norwich, Conn., Oct. 13th, in connection with our Annual Meeting. This has been published, and will be sent to those of our friends who express the wish to have it.

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“Communion Sunday at Hampton,” by Miss Eustis, and Mrs. Chase’s “Sequel to a Begging Letter,” we are confident will each be read with very tender, almost tearful gratitude, and will thrill the reader with most sweet hopes of the triumphant success of our prayers and labors for the despised and wronged, but soon to be redeemed, races. The grace that is redeeming them is also sweetly touching the hearts of many with reference to them.

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In this number of the MISSIONARY, the W. H. M. Association announces the purpose of bringing and keeping before the Christian women of our land their relation to the great work in which this Association is engaged.

When the claims of the colored women of the South and of the Indian women of the West have been heard and recognized by their sisters of New England, we are confident that the work of elevating and saving them will receive a new and wonderful impulse. We call attention to the announcement and suggestions made.

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The acceptance by Rev. Henry M. Ladd, of Walton, N. Y., of the position of Superintendent of the African missions of the A. M. A., and his readiness to enter upon the work by the 1st of February, was announced in the last number of the MISSIONARY. Mr. Ladd sailed for the Mendi mission on the 12th of February, and was followed on the 16th by Rev. K. M. Kemp, a native of North Carolina, and a graduate of Lincoln University, who, with his wife, are to re-enforce that mission.

After a visit to our missions on the western coast, Mr. Ladd expects to enter upon an exploration of the Upper Nile basin for the purpose of locating the Arthington mission.

We have at once an interesting fact and practical suggestions in the action of the Ladies’ Missionary Society of Elgin, Ill. This society is a branch of the Woman’s Board for the Interior, and is equipped with two treasurers—one to receive contributions for the foreign, and the other for home work.

At the meeting referred to, papers were read on the work at Hampton, on the work at Fisk, and on the school and church work of the A. M. A., which gave great interest to the meeting, and awakened enthusiasm for this branch of home mission work.

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W. E. Blackstone, of Oak Park, Cook County, Ill., has published a general directory of missionary societies of this and other lands, which will be a great convenience to those who wish to communicate with such, and a source of valuable information to those who would get a comprehensive view of the work the church of Christ is doing for the evangelization of the world. This pamphlet is neatly and compactly gotten up, and is well worth the 25 cents asked for it.

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One who is spending his first year at the South writes as follows: “When I listen in the prayer-meetings to remarks and prayers, especially the latter, I cannot help wishing that the churches of the North could be present to be ‘edified,’ for they surely would be. I know those who have given largely to the A. M. A., both as men count largeness and as the Lord counts it (and His way is not always man’s way), and they would have more than felt satisfied with their investment just to have been present for one hour in some of the meetings at which it has been my privilege to be in the last two months. I am satisfied that we are building wiser than we know when we are seeking to introduce a ‘colored element’ into the Congregationalism of the Republic; but how much wiser, I do not profess to be able to measure even in imagination.”

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_The tone of Southern sentiment_ is changing toward the negro, in all parts of the South. In his recent message, Gov. Jarvis, of North Carolina, took occasion to speak in warm terms of the pleasant relations existing between the races, and adds: “I am glad to say negroes are becoming more industrious and thrifty.”

He refers, with satisfaction, to their industrial fairs held at Raleigh, and to the encouragement shown them by the whites, and urges it as an imperative duty that full and equal justice shall be done the blacks, and that they shall not be left to work out their destiny unaided. He favors greater provision for public schools, and recommends that the school tax shall be 2.5 mills on the dollar.

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That was quite a love feast held in the Opera House, Lynchburg, Va., a few weeks since, when local politicians, United States officials and Northern business men of the city united, regardless of party prejudices, in tendering a supper to capitalists from Pittsburgh, and all joined in applauding the name of Blaine, from whom a telegram was received during the evening, “until the rafters rang again.”

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Whatever opinion we may form as to the justice of the charges made by Senator Dawes or the sufficiency of Secretary Schurz’s reply, we can and do rejoice that they seem to vie with each other in demanding justice for the Poncas, and we would commend not alone to the Massachusetts Senator, but to all the members of Congress, the appeal of the Secretary of the Interior, and express the conviction that the American people will not hold them guiltless of a large share of the guilt incurred in that matter, if they fail, before adjournment, to carry out the recommendations of the President. Mr. Schurz concludes his letter to Senator Dawes as follows:

“Permit me now to make an appeal for the Poncas to you, Senator. Let these Indians at last have rest. Recognize their rights by giving them the indemnity they justly asked for and which I asked for them years ago. Let them quietly go about their farms and improve their homes and send their children to school, undisturbed by further agitation. That is the best service you can render them. They would probably be in a better condition already had that agitation never reached them.”

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SENATOR BROWN ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION.

Hon. Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, who has recently been elected U. S. Senator, has for a long time manifested an interest in our work. A short time since he gave $50,000 to an institution under the auspices of the Baptists, for the education of the whites. On the night before his election, in an address to the Legislature, he expressed his appreciation of the importance of education in the following words:

“I have the educational question very much at heart. Disguise it as you may, the New England States, with their schools and universities, have dictated laws to this continent. They have sent New England ideas all over the West, and they dominate there. Look at Prussia, that little Empire over which Napoleon rushed and almost obliterated. Hardly a generation passed before it had in turn humbled France and taken the power from its Empire. The bright-eyed boys in your mountains and wire-grass may represent you nobly before the world if you educate them. We must also educate the colored race, and they ought to be educated for the benefit of the Union, and by the friends of the Union. I would devote the proceeds of the public lands to this purpose on a basis of illiteracy. The colored people are citizens, and we must do them justice. Let us give them every legal right. Social rights will take care of themselves.”

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OVERTURE TO THE NATIONAL COUNCIL.

It is felt by many of our missionaries South that their work would be facilitated by a creed, prepared under direction of the National Council, suited to the average intelligence of the Freedmen who apply for admission to our new churches. To this end, therefore, the Central South Conference, at its recent meeting in Memphis, drew up an overture setting forth the reasons why such creed should be provided, and presented it to the Council at St. Louis. After preliminary statements, the overture adds:

“Our eight colleges and our two score normal and high schools, with their more than 8,000 students, and these, with their 150,000 pupils in primary schools, where they teach, are rapidly preparing the material out of which churches of our faith and polity will be developed.

“These children of nature, with their ready faith but rude culture, coming into the inheritance of this New Testament way of the churches, need the ‘sincere milk of the word’—a declaration of doctrine that shall not be in the nomenclature nor in the philosophy of a past age, but in the language and after the spirit of our improved New England theology. They need a form of sound words such as that when they have once learned it they will not need to be taught over again what it does not mean in spite of its phraseology.

“As a duty of brotherly love and of honest recompense we owe them the best things we have to give in the way of the freshest and ripest statement of the ideas and doctrines which have leavened the East and the West, and are now setting the South in foment.”

We trust the Committee appointed by the Council to formulate a statement of doctrine will meet the want.

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MIXED SCHOOLS.

Opposition to mixed schools in the South is not confined to the white race. Intelligent colored people see that these mean no opportunity for them as teachers, at least for some years to come. Those who would be willing to wield the birchen rod over colored children are as yet largely in excess of those who would consent to have a colored teacher wield it over them.

Mixed schools are needed in all the sparsely settled neighborhoods, which includes, of course, all the country outside of the larger villages, as none other can be effectively maintained. None others can be harmonized with the democratic ideas upon which our institutions are based, and it is safe to say that anything which is favored by every public and private interest, and is opposed only by prejudice, will in the end gain the day. Victories are being won with such rapidity that we can afford to wait patiently for this one, which when gained will prove the Appomattox of this war.

Almost all that can be gained for the negro by legislation has been accomplished; to overcome prejudices which wrong and hinder him, will now depend largely upon himself. The gratifying fact, attested by prominent men all over the South, is that he is playing his part with commendable manliness, and is gaining what will never be long withheld from those who deserve it—the respect of his white neighbors.

It would be well for those who complain of the slow progress made for better feelings and sentiments among the Southern whites in regard to the negroes, and their manifest unwillingness to accord to them their rights, quietly to digest a recent letter from the Superintendent of Schools in Cambridge, Mass., who explains that he has not employed properly qualified colored teachers in that city, simply because there is so much color prejudice among the people that he deems it inexpedient to do so.

We know of a young colored woman, a graduate of the high-school of the town in which she lives, admitted by all parties to be the best scholar of her class, and one of the best ever graduated from the school, who cannot find employment in the profession for which she has so ably qualified herself, only because she has a trace of negro blood in her veins. When Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and we may as well include the whole of New England, have reached and occupied sufficiently long to feel comfortable upon it, the ground which they insist the South ought to take at one bound, the South may be more favorably affected by their preaching of equal rights.

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EXCEPTIONS AND THE RULE.

There may be exceptions which, after all, confirm the rule to which they do not wholly conform, but to say that it is by exceptions the rule is to be proven, is to betray a blind adhesion to maxims whose claim to credence is their antiquity alone.

A partial and hasty generalization from two or three particulars suffices for the enunciation of a general law applicable to all cases. The declaration of a more careful investigator that a number of particular facts are not harmonious with the law as enunciated is met, not with a revision of the law, but with the assertion that exceptions do not invalidate, but prove the rule.

A naturalist in the tropics describes water as being under all circumstances a fluid. The solid block of ice which drifts for the first time into his field of observation he will not accept as disproving his doctrine, but as being the exception necessary to confirm it.

It becomes a matter of interest to know in what way exceptions do confirm what they seemingly disprove, and how many maybe admitted before we shall revise our classifications and re-state our general rule, because false in its old form. Unquestionably an indisputable exception proves at least that the rule is not universal, and suggests that there may be a thousand more facts out of harmony with it.

Anglo-Saxon prejudice and conceit have laid it down as a general rule, a law of race, that the negro is only a somewhat superior grade of monkey, incapable of any high degree of intellectual development; that the only good Indian is a dead Indian, and the best use he can be put to is to make a target of him for the training of our soldiers in musket firing.

The American Missionary Association has been engaged for the past score of years in developing exceptions to these dicta, and it is time to raise the question seriously whether these only prove the rule or demand its revision!

We respectfully submit that the experiments made show a large number of exceptions; in fact, the number has been numerous exactly in proportion to the largeness of our opportunities and facilities for developing them. A serious doubt ought by this time to take possession of the public mind whether $32,000,000 spent in Indian wars during the past dozen years is not rather expensive target practice, and whether the results shown by those who, under great disadvantages, have been attempting to civilize and Christianize the Indians, are not of such character as to demand most emphatically that our method of dealing with them shall be changed.

We also challenge attention to the results of our educational experiments in the South, as demanding in all fairness that they shall be made on a national scale, and not simply by the private enterprise of philanthropists.

It is time the old answer of ignorance and stupid imbecility that exceptions only prove the rule should be thrown to the dogs, and we should as a nation convert the dangerous elements with which we have so wickedly and foolishly dealt into sources of national power and safety.

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CONVERSION VERSUS EDUCATION.

It was a wild and weird scene that we looked down upon from the gallery of one of the prominent colored churches in a Southern city a few months since. The preacher had, at 10 o’clock, p. m., finished his part of the service, having preached an excellent and very simple sermon, in which there was nothing calculated to produce the violent scenes which followed, and having come down from the pulpit, the brethren and sisters took the meeting under their own management.

Up to this time it had been as quiet and decorous as a deacons’ meeting in New England. A stentorian “son of thunder” now led the singing, and a general movement of the whole assembly at once began. Soon, nearly a hundred “seekers” were kneeling at the “mourners’ bench,” a row of seats extending across the church, in all stages of physical and spiritual abasement. Prayer and song followed each other in rapid and boisterous succession, while the congregation of believers marched and counter-marched, each one discharging at once his duty and a volley of counsel or encouragement to the mourners as he passed along the line.

Black was the ground and prevailing color. The lights were hardly sufficient to resolve this nebulous blackness into faces, black sun-bonnets of the sisters, and black-coated forms of the brethren moving to and fro through the room, while the singers sang, the exhorters exhorted, the mourners mourned in dismal howls, and the shouters shouted and leaped in ecstatic joy. Now and then, one would come to the surface of all this uproar, to tell what voices he had heard, what visions he had seen, what dreams he had dreamed, and receive the assurance from the minister: “I have no more doubt that he has got religion, than I have of my own existence,” which would be the signal for a general shout of “glory to God!” that made the preceding bedlam seem tame, and gave renewed impetus to the marchings and songs and prayers.

These meetings had been in nightly session for weeks, and continued for weeks afterward, prolonged often, as on this night, until 2 o’clock in the morning. As we left, about midnight, our driver, an intelligent negro, said: “You are going away too early. Things will get pretty warm after awhile. ’Ligion strikes a nigger first in the foot and then works up; it is just beginning to work, it will be lively after awhile;” of which there could not be much doubt.