Chapter 2

The school started off with bright skies above and a broad distant view around. The bell rung out its pealing calls, and bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked children and youth clambered up the hill side to enjoy such educational privileges as that country had never known. All was peace and prosperity. School was crowded, and everybody was happy. But suddenly the whole heavens were overcast. From horizon to horizon a deathly pall enshrouded the entire sky--and the cloud large enough to do all this was only the size of a black child's face! _Whosoever will may come_, we had said. Did we _mean_ it? Oh, yes, _but_ it is hardly right to sacrifice the feelings of that whole school merely to gratify the wish of--_a nigger_. Did we mean it? Oh, yes, but it is hardly right to imperil the very existence of the school merely to take in that one poor, despised and uninfluential colored child! Did we mean it? Oh, yes, but is it right, is it wise, to receive _one_ when you know that by so doing you will lose twenty--perhaps more--to receive one whom you will have to help, and lose twenty--or perhaps more--who can help you? Did we mean it? Oh, yes, certainly, but would it not be better to reason with the applicant and show her that while we ourselves have no objection, yet things being as they are, she would really do more for her people by staying away than by insisting that she should be received? Why not take some such position as that? We will have peace and harmony and prosperity. We shall be able to tell our friends in the distance we are getting along swimmingly. We are true to our principles. _Whosoever will may come._ We have no trouble with the negro question. We simply let it alone. Our dear brethren down South are perfectly delighted to receive us. We have no trouble with them whatever, and the cause is going forward triumphantly.

_Is_ that the way to meet the responsibility? Imagine the Lord Jesus Christ at the door of that school when that black child came asking admission. What would have been His answer? Say, reader, imagine what _would_ have been His answer. Put on your thinking cap. Summon to your aid all the help that quibbling and dodging and sophistry can give, and after you have gone through it all, what do you think would have been His answer? Well, here is the answer the American Missionary Association sent as quickly as the telegraph could carry it: _Admit all applicants irrespective of color._ And then what followed? Nearly half the scholars picked up their things and left! This happened a few weeks ago. We had about a hundred students. We have now about fifty, and we may lose even those. Letter writing is easy. Talk is cheap. Even _Buncombe_ is not a lost art. But actions speak louder than words. Let us know what follows when _the test is applied_, and then we shall know just what profession of loyalty to principle signifies. Berea stood by its guns, and it has steadily grown in favor with God and man ever since. And it will win in the end. Then what a glorious triumph! No regrets for having played the hypocrite, no regrets for having played the part of a time server, no regrets for having played the part of a trimmer, no regrets for having played the part of a special pleader, no regrets for having concealed its colors behind its back in shameful silence as to its past history, no regrets for having turned away one of Christ's little ones for whom He died, no regrets for having counseled it, while professing friendship, to go elsewhere. What a glorious triumph!

And we, too, shall win--and our triumph shall be glorious. Let us go forward preaching the Word, and when the time comes let there be no attempt to postpone its issue--but let the test be applied. Better go down standing on our principles than live with our principles denied and dishonored.

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RELIGIOUS CULTURE OF THE SLAVES BEFORE THE WAR.

The _Independent_ of Feb. 5 has an exceedingly interesting article on the above subject from the pen of Rev. Dr. J. E. Edwards, Danville, Virginia.

He says that at an early period in this century Southern Methodists sent missionaries to labor with the slaves on the rice and cotton plantations. In 1845 Southern Methodism had in church fellowship 124,000 slaves. At one time the Methodist membership in Charleston, S. C., was in the proportion of five colored to one white. Blacks and whites worshiped in the same house and were ministered to by the same pastor.

One of the early reports of the South Carolina Board has the following: "We claim it best, as a general rule, to include the colored people in the same pastoral charge with the whites, and to preach to both classes in one congregation, as our practice has been. The gospel is the same for all men, and to enjoy its privileges in common, promotes good will."

We read so far and stopped. That language has the marks of the gospel of Jesus Christ all over it. "All ye are brethren." So says the gospel, and this report says the same. But how would it do to take the language above quoted into a Southern white Methodist Conference now! Just let the above report, without comment and without explanation, be introduced to-day into such a Conference, and what an explosion would follow!

It is too bad to quote the rest of the report, because it mars somewhat the beauty of what goes before; but here it is: "That when the galleries or other sittings are insufficient, we consider it the duty of our brethren and friends to provide the necessary accommodations that none may make such a neglect a plea for absenting themselves from public worship." "_Galleries or other sittings._" There is the fly in the ointment. Of course, at communion, the master class was served first and the slave class afterward.

The Church of Christ is His body. But does Christ allow His followers to decide that distinctions shall be made at His table on account of the hue of the skin? When a Temple is erected in which Christ's disciples are to meet for worship, is there anything in the gospel that warrants a division of seats so that here superiors shall sit and there inferiors? Where is the word that warrants it? and what is the analysis that will find it in the spirit of the gospel? All honor to the slave-holders who furnished the means of the gospel to the slaves. All honor to the men and women who pointed the sin-burdened negroes to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. We have no doubt but that as Dr. Edwards says, "Multiplied thousands upon thousands of the sons of Ham will rise up in judgment to bless the faithful men of the South for their long-continued labors in teaching the benighted negro the way of life." We have no doubt of it; but in the resurrection will the whites put in an appearance first and the blacks second? In the day of judgment will the whites lead and the blacks follow? Will there be galleries with hard seats in Heaven for negroes and ground floors easy of access with soft seats for Caucasians? Will the great chorus of Heaven be divided into two parts, a white division and a black division? And will the Hallelujah Chorus as sung by the white choir be more acceptable to God than that sung by the black choir?

Yes, the slave-holders did a great deal for the religious training and the spiritual welfare of the slaves, and in consequence of what they did, with God's blessing, the colored people of our country are almost immeasurably lifted above their benighted heathen brethren in Africa. Yes, that is all so. Does Dr. Edwards ask us to praise them for it? We do. But, brethren, we must also add, "These ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone."

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A TEACHER'S APPEAL.

We publish the following from F. A. Chase, Professor of Natural Science in Fisk University. He pleads, of course, for Fisk, yet his plea holds good for all our higher institutions. We commend it to our friends. The American Missionary Association could make good use, say, of a "_One Hundred Thousand Dollar Fund_" for the scientific departments of its mission schools. It may be that some one whom God has blessed with riches is waiting for just such an opportunity as this particular branch of our great field opens. Special funds for a designated institution, to be used for the promotion of Christian science, as outlined by Prof. Chase, are earnestly solicited:

Are there not some friends of the work among the Freedmen who can appreciate the need of a teacher for a _complete scientific outfit_?

The race has been kept during slavery from all knowledge of science. Their trades and occupations being of the roughest, and having ignorant parentage, nothing has been learned from the business of life, nor in answer to the questioning of childhood and youth. There is no race now admitted to the privileges of liberal education so barren of scientific ideas and so lacking in scientific spirit. Those who know this people solely from their fine literary and oratorical abilities have no conception of their great deficiency in science. It does not need to be said that, until this is remedied, they cannot be expected to hold their own in a scientific age, and in competition with a scientific race.

Though our course of study is brought down to the very minimum of college work, and the instruction is of a most elementary character, still there are eight sciences to be taught. But this teaching, to be successful, requires the use of illustrative material. With the general introduction of illustrations in our modern schools began the rapid progress in science that distinguishes our age. All true teachers of science affirm with one voice that this aid is indispensable even with the most favored races.

In botany, zoology, mineralogy and geology we need specimens--the great type examples on which classification is founded. In physiology and anatomy we need, in default of _material_, cheap models. In natural philosophy, chemistry and astronomy we need apparatus--not the costly instruments of precision, but plain, cheap pieces, that are fitted to illustrate and in some cases demonstrate the many and various principles that are taught.

In the pressure of the growing work upon the society, beyond a small sum for incidental expenses, most of the money appropriated for schools goes for the payment of salaries. Our land and our buildings have come from other sources. But our outfit of school requisites has been for the most part overlooked. Some fine instruments have been presented to us, much more costly than we would have selected for ourselves; but their value would be increased many fold by accessory and supplementary apparatus. Are there not those who can, by special gifts, make up this lack also? Must _we_, of all other teachers of science, be left to make bricks without straw? What answer should be made to those who depreciate the negro's mental capacity? Is it not a pitiful waste of the opportunity, that a factory building should be put up, workmen hired, materials supplied, but no _machinery_ put in? Yet this has been going on with class after class for ten years.

Three-fourths of our graduates follow teaching as a profession, and are more or less teachers of science. They should not only learn that which apparatus alone can teach, but also how to use it themselves. Should a master workman be expected to teach the theory and practice of a trade through the use of _pictures_ of tools and machines?

We have not neglected our opportunities in respect to making collections of specimens about us, and constructing cheap forms of apparatus. We have learned new trades and toiled early and late and often through whole vacations. But, without workshop appliances, part of that accomplished is unsatisfactory, and the major and more difficult part remains untouched. But where one has a great pressure of outside duties incidental to such a work as this, how utterly inadequate such driblets of time as can be spared are for such a task can easily be imagined.

Is there any lover of science and friend of the freedmen who can understand our condition and give us ten thousand dollars for an outfit, and if possible an additional sum as an endowment for annual expenses?

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ADDRESS AT ANNUAL MEETING.

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PREACHING THE MAIN FACTOR IN MISSIONARY WORK.

REV. GEORGE R. LEAVITT.

It is a fact of history that the preaching of the Word has been the great missionary agency. The Bible is a missionary book. The great figure in the Old Testament history was the preacher of righteousness--Enoch, Samuel, Elijah, Isaiah, the great line of prophets--they were missionary preachers. In the beginning of Christianity, the great figure was the preacher--John the Baptist, the Apostles, our blessed Lord Himself. The salient feature in the New Testament may be said to be a succession of great missionary sermons which are expositions of the Gospel. In the history of the Christian Church the great figure has been the preacher. The Church of God is the body of Jesus Christ. As such she is the eye and ear, she is the hands and feet of the Lord, but especially she is the voice of the Lord. Doth not wisdom cry in all time? Did not the Spirit when sent forth lift the voice declaring the great Gospel message? And when the Church has had that possession of the Spirit, has it not been especially her inspiration to cry out with the Gospel message? The great figure in this Association work in the past has been the teacher. We have had a gifted line of men and women in this work, and to them all honor be given. It would be impossible for us to give them the honor which is their due; but in the future the great figure is to be the missionary preacher, the man who can reach masses of men with the Gospel message. We are lifting this race, and what has been true in the past will be true in the future.

Perhaps I can not better exhibit this subject in the little space allowed me than in noticing some of the traits which should characterize the missionary preacher, and while the truth is general and applicable to all parties, I trust that we may be under the direction of the Spirit and take to heart these great traits we shall be looking for in the preacher of the future in the South.

The missionary preacher is a man who, to be effective, should be a man of spiritual morality, a man of irreproachable character. I presume the colored man has been maligned in the South, as his character has so often been brought out among us. One of our enthusiastic teachers was asked, "How many Uncle Toms do you find in the South?" And she replied, "About as many as there are in the North." A truth was there that we ourselves may very well take.

There are three ways in which the Gospel is published. One is in the book, one is by the voice, and the third by the life. The voice lies between the book and the life, and the life is the great publication of the message, and unless we have a voice of a man who is spiritually qualified by a holy life, we have not a competent Gospel preacher. In speaking of this matter of morality, we should have something more in view than natural morals--there is a spiritual morality. We want the higher. A man who has in himself the Spirit of God, produces this type of morality. We can not canvass this subject by the motives of worldliness. It takes two crosses to save the world--the cross of Christ and the cross of the believer. A ministerial brother said, in speaking of certain ones, that they had undergone a deplorable religious transformation, that at one time they held the Gospel of regeneration, but they had come to love the Gospel of recreation. Ah, what a transformation has come over too many of our churches and the community in loving this form of worldliness!

It is a matter of great satisfaction that our schools in the South are doing such efficient work in this direction, as reports indicate, and as private information shows. I quite lately had information from General Armstrong touching this point of high morality that is developed in the school. The young men and young women, he said, compare well with the young men and young women in our Northern schools. This is a matter of great satisfaction, because the preacher of the future is to come out of these schools.

The second essential in the missionary preacher, if he is to be successful, is a mind which is spiritually illuminated, a man who is intelligent in the truth. I presume the great characteristic of the old-time preacher in the South is his ignorance, and if we should select one point at which a change needs to take place, it is at this point of instruction. He needs to be intelligent.

Now, to these things ought to be added training in all branches of knowledge, just as widely as possible, but we must fix our attention especially upon one source of knowledge, namely, the Word of God. The missionary preacher needs to be a man established in the Scriptures. John the Baptist grew in grace. Our blessed Lord Himself grew in grace. The man who is to be effective as a preacher in elevating the world is a man who grows in grace. What is grace? It is the undeserved favor of God exhibited in the plan of salvation for the redemption of man. And the first truths of that grace say simply, but how grandly, "grow in grace;" we are to be "ministers of grace;" to be "masters of grace." The minister in the South is to be a master of grace. Do you know how far it is away? It seems but a step, but oh, what a work when we begin to comprehend the great things of God! Do you know the height, depth and length of the great salvation of the love of God? Ezekiel tells us of the depth of the stream when he first came to it, that to his apprehension the water came up to his foot, but, as he advanced, it came to the ankle, and the knee and the loin, and then it was water to swim in, a river that could not be passed over. Oh, my brethren, we need to understand these great things of God, so that we may become masters of grace, for if we do not, the missionary preacher that comes up under our influence will not be thoroughly qualified for his duties.

Then there is another quality; the missionary preacher, to be effective as a missionary, must be, not only a "shining," but like John also a "burning light." Then nothing shall be concealed. What does the Scripture say in that psalm? "There is nothing hid from the light?" No; "There is nothing hid from the heat thereof." We want a Gospel preacher among those people who has a Gospel heat from which nothing can be hid. How many things we can say of this fuel! We have spoken of the Word of God. The Word of God is the light, and it is the fuel for a fire. Our blessed Saviour when He was on the way to Emmaus with the Disciples enkindled their hearts, not by his personal presence; but when he opened the Scriptures, then they testified, "Did not our hearts burn within us?" That was what took place at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit did not bring the fuel that day, but they had been gathering it as they spoke of Christ, and as they came together to offer prayers, the Holy Spirit came, and the Word was a fire in their bones; then fire came and kindled them, and then came that wonderful effect.

Sir James Herschel tells us in a little story, in fragments of his biography, how after his telescopes became famous they were distributed quite widely through Europe, and when he published his great discovery, he began to receive complaints. Men said to him, in angry letters, "We do not see what you see." In his response to them he said: "Perhaps you do not take the care in your observations that I do," and he spoke of one particular thing that is carefully noted. "Do you take care," he said, "of the matter of temperature? The instrument with which I examine the stars must be of the temperature of the stars as nearly as may be, and when I observe on a winter night I place my glass on the lawn at Greenwich, and let it stand there until the instrument comes to be of the temperature of the air. But beyond that," he said, "not only must my instrument be of the right temperature, but I must be. Oftentimes," he said, "I have been out in the winter air for two hours before I would open my glass, because I must come to be of the same temperature as the instrument itself." What a spiritual truth there is here! God's Word the instrument, and the temperature that of the heavens. But we must be of the temperature of that Bible and that heavens! Oh, for the heat of the Gospel to be in the minister of Christ wherever he stands, and then there will be nothing hid from its searching power.

I think this subject is often presented in a way to confuse it. We speak of heat in a way not to comprehend precisely what we want; and let me touch upon the point which shows what I mean. When the Saviour was at the well with the woman, it was the love in His heart from which she could not be hid. What a lesson Peter learned that day when our Saviour, in His great interview by the sea, asked him: "Lovest thou me?" and said, "Feed my sheep and my lambs." There was a lesson burned into his heart of the personal love of Christ.

I heard Mr. Sankey sing last week "The Ninety and Nine," and he prefaced it by saying that the old hymn was worn out. I was sorry to hear him say that, but there was one accent he gave in singing which was very affecting. When one expostulates with the shepherd that he has ninety and nine with him, he cries out: "It is my sheep." I fancy when Peter came to Pentecost and saw those great crowds before him there was one element of preparation he needed, and the Saviour had taught him how to feed his sheep and feed his lambs, and it lived so in his heart that nothing could be hid from it.

I am speaking too long on this matter. But it is a great subject. This Association has a glorious opportunity. There is no cause that comes to us that touches our inspiration and consecration like this society, and the opportunity is such as, in my judgment, the Christian Church never had.

Now, we say this, we cannot do this work by any other form of service but by preaching the Gospel, with at least these elements in it I have mentioned. We speak of the hand work for Christ, but we want the net work for Christ. When I was in Japan, I saw all over the bay, in the night, little boats of fishermen. The men were in the boats two and two, one holding a torch. They were busily engaged the night through. I asked one, "Is this your mode of fishing?" and I was shown a great seine net that lay upon the shore, and I was told, "This is here especially for day fishing." When I stood before the young men in the school at Kioto I referred to this. I said "It seems to me in Japan you are doing the night fishing now; it is fishing in the night with a torch, but, young men, there is a morning coming when the great net is to be cast, your hands are to be upon it, and you are to have the privilege of a great cast for God." It has come this year, and those young men went out preachers of righteousness, clothed with power to reach the masses of men, and they have drawn in hundreds, and there is hope of the thousands, and that is what we want in this work, men who can go to those Southern fields, to those five millions of whom we have heard, and cast the great seine net of the Gospel; and they are coming.

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THE SOUTH.

REV. JOSEPH E. ROY, D. D., FIELD SUPERINTENDENT.

PROF. ALBERT SALISBURY, SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION.

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