Part 8

And looking at the work already commenced among the freedmen, what a goodly field is opened before us! What a beneficent influence we can exert, not only on the seven millions in our own land, who are part of our body politic, but upon a whole race counted by its many millions in different parts of the world! What stores of prophetic power are lodged in every true church we establish! We have but the merest hint and initial sign in the little bands now gathered of the possibilities lying before us!

We commend this work to the churches at the North, and plead that these older churches cherish a lively and effective interest in all this outgrowth of themselves. There is danger that there may be abatement of interest in this direction, and that the fostering hand and special sympathy these weak churches, now that they are churches, need in their struggles, be withheld. That distinctive feature of Congregationalism which marks it off from sheer independency needs to be emphasized. There are claims of community in faith and order that should be gladly owned, and perfect understanding and interchange should be cherished between all parts of this fellowship of saints, mutual confidence and the gracious tenderness of a love deeper than any kinship of race should cement us in one.

By our liberal things we shall stand. We have sent men and women and means with large generosity, that inquired not whether they served our own denomination or another, if only Christ’s cause be promoted. The work already done is a fair movement to self-forgetful charity. We should now make our beneficence more and more the channel of grace and fellowship to brethren whom we have made brethren. If we do indeed hold this church polity on such terms of intelligence as to make it fit to hold it at all, if it be no fault of the awakened ones at the South that they hold it, then what has been so good and fruitful here we should make strong and fruitful there. And if this Association has come in its legitimate growth to the establishment of self-governed churches, accept them as our own. Our seal is on them from the first. The time is ripe for larger advance, and for more confidence in our own work.

It is with gratitude we acknowledge the liberal plan with which this Association is now supplementing its evangelizing and teaching work with the timely and necessary work of church erection. It is part of the same work. Nearly fourscore neat and serviceable church edifices have already arisen under its auspices. No better work and none looking more to permanent results has been done. Many a missionary and pastor has found his work at once enlarged and all his means of good multiplied, when the house of God has been given him by its aid. And every such edifice stands forth as an eloquent witness of your loving care for the people of the South, and serves as a bond of union between the distant parts of our land.

The same divine ordinance that opened this field to us, prescribes our work in it. Now that our mission reveals itself, shall we not accept it thankfully, impress ourselves purposely on this vast field, and let the poor of all classes feel the strength of Christian community and fellowship—for we are one?

LEWELLYN PRATT, Chairman.

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ADDRESS OF REV. T. P. PRUDDEN.

Assuming that the church work of the Association was not for sectarian propagandism, but for saving men from sin and its consequences, he proceeded:

Is it not evident, first of all, that the Church of Christ is _the_ great and divinely ordained instrument for establishing the Kingdom of God? Schools are undoubtedly instruments. But their place is to supplement, not supplant, the Church. In that long line of Christian work which, beginning at Jerusalem, has well-nigh encircled the world, has not the Church of Christ been the chief machinery through which the good seed of the Gospel has been sown and the crop harvested, through which Christ’s servants have done his work, through which a goodly influence has been exerted, and through which Christian institutions have been founded and preserved? We are seeking the civilization of a down-trodden race, but what force was ever such a civilizer as the Christian Church?

Church work is necessary if we are to retain and conserve the results of school work. Let secular education train a man, and he becomes more polished and better equipped for life and work. He has greater power, but it may be a power for sin and selfishness, as truly as for God and righteousness. Let Christian education work upon him as it does in the schools of this Association, he is still more polished, he has a spiritual life. Not when in school, but when the school is left, is the Church most necessary. The influence of the college cannot be about a man in his home, the influence of the Church can. The help of a teacher is transient, the help of a pastor and the associations of a church are permanent. To expect these to retain the best fruits of that Christian education which this Association is so widely diffusing, unless churches take up, and carry on what the schools have begun, is to expect more of the colored race, with its inheritance of degradation, and slavery and little training, than we expect of the white race with its inheritance of Christianity and freedom, and abundant training.

Closely allied to this is the need of church work to withstand the evils that are incident to awakened thought and increased knowledge. The air is laden with a sentiment of irreligion. Educating a freedman is breaking up the hard sod of ignorance in which such seeds of evil fall without taking root, providing instead a soil that is very receptive.

As our educational work is, and must be, destructive of the religion of the old slave days, it becomes more emphatically our duty to provide a positive and intelligent religion to take the place of that which we destroy. Not to do so is to bring a possible curse along with our good. Moreover, churches must furnish zealous men and woman, whom education may prepare to do the Lord’s work. It is not enough to rely upon the possibility of conversion while the students are in college. The Church has an earlier and a broader opportunity. It forms the homes and the influences that form the children. A vast proportion of the pastors and missionaries of the North have gone to college as Christians, instead of becoming Christians when there. They have come from Christian homes. They were sent by Christian parents whose love for God and man was planted and trained in Christ’s Church.

And, brethren, need I remind you that we are sowing for a slowly maturing harvest.

The special work for the colored race to do in this country and in Africa is appalling, by reason of its vastness. And when we ask how it shall be done, I affirm that the churches of Christ in the South are to be great instruments. Successful foreign missions require vigorous home missions. Do you smile at the idea of these feeble churches ever furnishing financial support? One of them is reported this year as giving $90 to this Association, $70 to the American Board, $77 to home missions, while it spent $687 for itself.

The time of defense and apology for church work is passed. It is no longer an experiment. The night of doubt and preparation has gone. The morning of small things when, waiting for more abundant light, we moved with commendable slowness, has opened and glided on into the broad full day. Now we can do what we never could before.

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EXTRACTS FROM THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE.

Your Committee on Finance beg leave to report that they have carefully examined the books of account and the various annual statements of the Treasurer, and that as statements of the business done by the Association they find them all in the most satisfactory condition. The books are kept by a simple but comprehensive system of double entry, by which a double-system of checks against error is provided, and individual and representative accounts are each kept in proper form. The annual statements of receipts and expenditures, of investments, of permanent funds and of real estate held by the Association are all properly certified to as correct by the Auditors. The committee commend the financial administration of the Association for its economy and faithfulness.

The permanent funds held in trust by the Association, the income of which is used according to the direction of the donors, amounts to $203,863.60. These funds are invested mostly in U.S. government bonds and in first mortgages on productive real estate, which are an ample security for the amounts which they represent. The entire safety of these investments speaks well for the financial officers of the Association, and the wisely conservative regulations of the by-laws of the Executive Committee regarding investments warrants the fullest confidence in the continued security of funds committed to their care.

The permanent investment of the Association in lands and buildings for church and educational purposes in the South, of which it holds undisputed titles in its own name, is inventoried at $483,370. Berea College, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, and Fisk and Atlanta Universities hold their own property by their own boards of trustees. The estimated present value of all these properties amounts to at least one million of dollars.

Here are a million dollars worth of tools and machinery, all in good running order, exactly adapted to the business in hand and located at the best possible points for doing it. Does not this fact appeal mightily to the churches to see to it that this great investment which they have made be used to the best possible advantage? He would be a poor business man, who would invest a million of dollars in a “plant” and then scrimp his business for lack of current funds. That would be a poor business, which with that amount of money well invested for its purposes could not secure the working capital necessary to use it to its full capacity.

It takes a long time and much hard work to gather from the benevolent a million dollars and to expend it judiciously in the erection of churches, school-houses and colleges. Every dollar of this money is freighted with prayer and winged with love. It will be found again presently as treasure laid up in heaven. It is like an inspiration to think how much of Christ’s spirit is represented in these buildings built for the love of Him. But they must be used. The very stones and brick will cry out against us, if we neglect to follow up what has been done with still greater work in the future.

The Executive Committee in their annual report call for one thousand dollars a day, as needed for current expenses the coming year. In order to raise this sum the ordinary contributions must be increased to $225,000, an advance of one-half over last year. In view of the great issues at stake, and the unexampled opportunities of the Association for doing its work, your Finance Committee recommend that this increase be made.

Let this be the key-note of our appeals this year: _One thousand dollars a day; 50 per cent. advance on all contributions._

All of which is most respectfully submitted,

ERASTUS BLAKESLEE, for the Committee.

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ADDRESS OF REV. D. O. MEARS, D.D.

Now the question comes right here: shall we give according to what we are, or what we have? One of the largest contributors in New England told me the story of his conversion the other day, and it was this, as we sat in the evening by his fireside. “My wife and I,” he said, “had acquired a competence; money seemed to be coming in. I had been brought up outside the Christian faith, and while such a one was preaching on one occasion I debated the question: Can I become a Christian? My wife found the light and for days I wrestled with the question. Light would not come. I knew what it was; it was my pocket book; shall that be included? When I decided my pocketbook for Christ, then light broke in; and,” said he in that narration, as a fit appendix to the whole, “I have never put my means in any place where I have ever lost in all my experience.”

It is said that after the events at Pentecost, Andrew went down to China and preached and that Thomas also, whose finger ached to pierce the nail-torn hands of his Master and whose fist was almost doubled that it might be thrust into that pierced side, went down to China to preach the everlasting Gospel. Now 75,000 of that race, whose great engineering works were the world’s marvel 250 years before the call of Abraham, whose emperor wrote a classic a thousand years before David touched his sacred pen, are at our very doors; and if it was worth while for Andrew and Thomas to go from Jerusalem to China it is worth our work to preach to them and teach them and call them to us when they are so near, is it not? I remember it is written in the prophets, as I suppose Matthew read, “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands to God,” and Ethiopia received the preaching of Matthew, so say many. I remember that Mark founded the church in the upper part of that dark continent. I remember that when our blessed Master fainted under the cross it was an African who put his brawny shoulder under it and walked by the side of our Lord, his Lord, to the crucifixion. And almost as a revenge, though not revenge, Simon, the zealot, who looked to Africa, was crucified himself in lower Egypt. If these thought it worth while to evangelize Africa, what shall we say of the 7,000,000 of Africa’s sons at our very doors?

The question now comes: Can we give? Is there money enough to give? There is an article in the “Century” for November, I think it is, which states, after computation from two cities of considerable size, that four-fifths of the inhabitants were attendants upon church services. The figures struck me with absolute astonishment and consternation. And, you remember, a year ago it was said that fully one-fifth of all the property in the United States, according to calculation, is held in the hands of Christians. I saw this so late that I had not time to go over it extensively; so I took the single city of Worcester. I took the 322 highest tax-payers in that city, and I called on a man who I supposed knew best the church-going habits and pew-owning property of these leading business men, and I said: “Will you tell me where this one goes and that one goes?” We marked them off last Sunday night, and of the whole 322 we found only 65 whom we did not know to be church-goers; and it is safe to say from the percentage that 25 of the 65 were church-goers—men who belonged to families that we felt sure would attend the house of God. We knew that 255 attended church; and adding the 25 that were doubtful, we had 280 out of 320 of the leading men in the city of Worcester that attend the Protestant churches in that city. Take the banks. There are eleven banks in Worcester, and we went over the names of the directors and trustees. Out of the entire number (there were two unknown) we found only three individuals that were not represented in a church, and two of these were the same man—that is, one was a director in two banks.

Now, what is the use? Shall we say that the money belongs to the evil and the piety to the good? The piety and the money, the heart and the gold, are ever in the church. We are reading of a house to be put up in a celebrated watering-place that will cost $750,000. I saw that in the city of New York the land where that great opera-house is, brought the sum of $700,000. The owner of this property in either case would keep two great organizations like this going; and I said, “What! do we want some of that money that is to build that summer resort by the sea?” No, we don’t want it. “But we would like some of that money that is beneath that splendid building that is costing its millions?” No; we don’t want it. If men will build houses for self, let the Christian do his work for the Master, and let us outdo the world.

But I must hasten. There is this demand of the nation upon us. It is said that Robert Peel was riding with his daughter on her birthday—he had given her a splendid riding habit, and the two were admired by all who saw them, and the father looked with pride upon his daughter—and in less than a week the daughter was beneath the sod. The seamstress had sewed the habit while sitting by the side of the bed of her husband groaning under the delirium of the typhus; and in the chill that came upon him she had cast the garment over him. The typhus of the garret became the typhus of that celebrated house. And we are concerned with the swamps, with the morasses, with these debased and poor colored people. We cannot afford to be other. I would, if there were time, enlarge upon this in connection with the report so admirably given; but I must pass on.

It is said that the Puritan captain Hodgdon was riding one day at the head of his company near the mountains when he heard the sound of a bugle. As he heard it he said to his soldiers: “Halt!” and every man leaned on his arms. “List! I love to hear the sound of the bugle: there is so much of God in it.” Yesterday came the report from the counties of Kentucky. It was a bugle-blast to this assembly. Was God in it? 500,000 people who could not read their names, though written in characters that might be read 100 rods off—500,000 illiterate, ten years of age and above, in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia! From the mountains there comes the sound of the bugle that has stirred us. Did it wake us up? Was God in it? I heard a voice in that sound. We are told in our press and from our platforms that the A. M. A. is not doing full work in the South, and other helpers must come. Wait. Don’t hurry. The bugle has sounded; it was God that was sounding it. I ask for no vote of this assembly. I call for no show of hands. Yet, if you wait before God, you must answer in the name of this world to his call: “I ordain you to go and devote $50,000 to the mountain work, in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.” It must be done. There is no drawing back.

It is said that when Robert Bruce was marching to meet Edward, and came within sight of the glittering sheen, he said to his soldiers, “Kneel down, every one”; and the army of Robert Bruce, with their eyes to the earth and their lips moving, offered their prayers to God, then rose up—a little army—and defeated the English. It was God’s voice that sounded like a bugle. It is for the soldiers to pray, and to fall where the bugle calls.

One other point only, briefly, in regard to this question of the demand that Christ makes on us. We must never establish a condition that he has not established; never set up a standard which he has not set up; but follow him and receive the blessing while we follow. It was the remark of Augustus that he found Rome of brick and left it of marble. Our fathers, a century ago, found this nation half slave and half free. It is now left a free nation. God grant it may become, by Christian effort, as good as it is free! In a dark day of our war when the armies were failing, and the hopes of the nation were placed in Lincoln and Lincoln lost hope, when our courage depended upon him and our flag seemed as if about to be rent by an unseen hand—when Lincoln said, “I see no hope”, for the rush of the armies seemed away from the South and up back to the North, Stanton uttered the words that gave courage to his heart: “Weary man, don’t you know that the churches of the North are everywhere praying for you?” And the weary look passed away from his face, and the smile came back to its wonted place. The children of Father Abraham need the prayers of the churches of Christ.

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WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT GIVING.

BY REV. WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D.

In his sermon entitled “How to be a Christian in Trade,” a discourse which illustrates the wonderful combination of practical sagacity with spiritual insight, for which he was so remarkable, Dr. Bushnell says that “the great problem we have now on hand is the Christianizing of the money power of the world,” and again that “what we wait for, and are looking hopefully to see, is the consecration of the vast money power of the world to the work, and cause, and kingdom of Jesus Christ. For that day, when it comes, is the morning, so to speak, of the new creation. That tide-wave in the money power can as little be resisted when God brings it on as the tides of the sea; and like these also it will flow across the world in a day.” This witness is true, and it becomes us all, to pray and labor for the fulfilment of the prophecy that men shall come, “their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord our God.” But here the revival must begin in the Church itself. In former times we have had revivals with distinct characteristics. One was remarkable for the blessing which rested on preaching, another for the spirit of prayer which seemed to be poured out on the people generally; another for the interest that was evoked in the study of the Scriptures. What we have yet to see is a revival of which the chief distinguishing feature shall be liberal giving to the cause of the Lord Jesus, and when that comes it will be the prophecy of yet grander things for the promise “prove me now herewith if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it,” was made, not in connection with an exhortation to prayer, as so many who quote it seem to believe, but with immediate reference to the honoring of God with our substance, for thus it runs: “Bring ye all the tithes into the store-house, and prove me now herewith.” While, therefore, it is true that a spirit of liberality in the support of the cause of Christ must be a fruit of renewed life in the Church, it is also true that its manifestation by the Church will be the forerunner of such spiritual triumphs as it has never yet achieved. Thus it is of great moment that we should use means for the awakening of Christians to a sense of the importance of this matter, and few things, in my judgment, would more efficiently contribute to the attainment of that end than setting briefly and pointedly before them the teachings of the word of God upon the subject. I cannot hope to cover all that ground in the few minutes now at my disposal; the most I shall attempt will be to take a general survey of it.