Part 1

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EDITORIAL.

FREE FROM DEBT! 307 DEATH OF PRESIDENT WASHBURN, 308 NEGRO “AUNT” AND “UNCLE,” 309 YOUNG MEN IN THE SOUTH, 310

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FRED DOUGLASS AT THE GOWDEN GATE, 311 PARAGRAPHS, 311 THE USE OF A LIFE, 312

GENERAL SURVEY.

FORTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, 313

THE CHINESE.

REVIEW OF THE YEAR, 324

RECEIPTS, 326

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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.

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[A]PRESIDENT, Hon. WM. B. WASHBURN, LL.D., Mass.

_Vice-Presidents._

Rev. A. J. F. BEHRENDS, D.D., N.Y. Rev. F. A. NOBLE, D.D., Ill. Rev. ALEX. MCKENZIE, D.D., Mass. Rev. D. O. MEARS, D.D., Mass. Rev. HENRY HOPKINS, D.D., Mo.

_Corresponding Secretary._

REV. M. E. STRIEBY, D.D., _56 Reade Street, N.Y._

_Associate Corresponding Secretaries._

Rev. JAMES POWELL, D.D., _56 Reade Street, N.Y._ Rev. A. F. BEARD, D.D., _56 Reade Street, N.Y._

_Treasurer._

H. W. HUBBARD, Esq., _56 Reade Street, N.Y._

_Auditors._

PETER MCCARTEE. CHAS. P. PEIRCE.

_Executive Committee._

JOHN H. WASHBURN, Chairman. A. P. FOSTER, Secretary.

_For Three Years._

S. B. HALLIDAY. SAMUEL HOLMES. SAMUEL S. MARPLES. CHARLES L. MEAD. ELBERT B. MONROE.

_For Two Years._

J. E. RANKIN. WM. H. WARD. J. W. COOPER. JOHN H. WASHBURN. EDMUND L. CHAMPLIN.

_For One Year._

LYMAN ABBOTT. A. S. BARNES. J. R. DANFORTH. CLINTON B. FISK. A. P. FOSTER.

_District Secretaries._

Rev. C. L. WOODWORTH, D.D., _21 Cong’l House, Boston_. Rev. J. E. ROY, D.D., _151 Washington Street, Chicago_.

_Financial Secretary for Indian Missions._

Rev. CHARLES W. SHELTON.

_Field Superintendent._

Rev. C. J. RYDER, _56 Reade Street, N.Y._

_Bureau of Woman’s Work._

Secretary, Miss D. E. EMERSON, _56 Reade Street, N.Y._

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COMMUNICATIONS

Relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to the Corresponding Secretaries; those relating to the collecting fields, to Rev. James Powell, D.D., or to the District Secretaries; letters for “THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY,” to the Editor, at the New York Office.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

In drafts, checks, registered letters or post office orders 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 151 Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member.

FORM OF A BEQUEST.

“I BEQUEATH to my executor (or executors) the sum of —— dollars, in trust, to pay the same in —— days after my decease to the person who, when the same is payable, shall act as Treasurer of the ‘American Missionary Association’ of New York City, to be applied, under the direction of the Executive Committee of the Association, to its charitable uses and purposes.” The Will should be attested by three witnesses.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] Deceased.

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THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

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VOL. XLI. NOVEMBER, 1887. No. 11.

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AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

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FREE!

With gratitude and thanksgiving to God and our friends, we are permitted to announce that our treasurer has closed his books with the balance on the right side. The receipts of the year cover all the expenses of the year, wipe out the debt of $5,000 with which the year began, and leave $2,193.80 with which to start out on the coming year. For this glorious result we are especially indebted to the magnificent rally of our friends in the month of September. The falling off in our receipts last February of about $9,000 as compared with the same month of the preceding year, and the heavy deficit of July, in which we ran $17,000 behind, made the outlook very dark indeed; but it has proved that it was the deepening darkness before the light. As we are able to see it now, our friends settled down to the determination that the year would end right. They have done it. There was no excitement about it. They just kept on quietly planning and working and giving until they rolled up what was needed, and more. Not without sacrifice in many instances. Our eyes have moistened, oftentimes, as we read the words accompanying the gifts. Indeed, in some instances gladly would we have returned the contributions could we have done it without offending the givers. We mention one instance, that of a home missionary in the West, whose wife, by self-denial, had saved five dollars to have some long-needed work done. The person who did the work, probably knowing the needy circumstances of the family, refused to keep the compensation, and returned it. There was only a single dollar in the possession of the home missionary when the five dollars were returned, and seventy-five cents of that were to be paid for a necessary bill in a day or two. Those five dollars were sent to our treasury. The letter that brought the gift was full of thanksgiving that the sender was able to aid us. Even this does not tell the story of the noble spirit that lay behind it all; for there came with the money the request that it should be credited to the Congregational Church! This is only a single example. We could refer to a great many such. Large and small, the contributions have been sent, from churches and individuals, from rich and poor, from young and old, bearing the evidence of interest and sacrifice and work; and the result is, we have closed the year free from debt.

By this outcome we are again impressed with the strong hold that the American Missionary Association has upon the churches and the Christian public. They believe in it; they love it, and they mean to stand by it.

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It is right, in this connection, that our friends should know that the Executive Officers of the Association have very earnestly co-operated with them to secure this happy result. Appropriations have been made after the most careful scrutiny. Economy has been practiced at every possible point. The knife has been applied until, in numerous instances, the quick has signaled its pain. New work, urgently inviting, has been refused. Regret and perplexity have been experienced because of inability to meet what seemed to be absolute necessities. We trust that during the coming year, while continuing to be no less careful than we have been, we may be able to do some of the things that during the past year we were obliged to leave undone. But we must beg our friends to remember that this can be only as our receipts are increased. The small balance with which we set out is not much to build upon. It will be quickly swallowed up in meeting claims that have been postponed. The outcome calls upon the friends of the Association to prepare for a year of more extended work and more liberal benefactions than ever before. The standard raised by the National Council in Chicago should be kept steadily in view—$350,000 from the churches for the prosecution of our work!

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It is with profound sorrow that we record the death of our honored President, Hon. Wm. B. Washburn. He was born in Winchendon, Mass., in 1820, and died in Springfield, Mass., Oct. 5. He was attending the annual meeting of the American Board, of which he was a corporate member. While sitting on the platform of the City Hall, in which the meeting was held, he quietly and suddenly and unexpectedly fell asleep in death. “He was not, for God took him.”

Mr. Washburn’s life was a most successful and honored one. He graduated from Yale College in 1844 with the Christian ministry in view, but being called to straighten out some entanglements in a business firm that had become badly involved, he revealed such business capacity that his continued services were deemed indispensable. He settled in Greenfield, Mass., and built up a large business in the manufacture of wooden-ware. He took an active interest in everything that pertained to the welfare and prosperity of the town in which he lived. He became director of the leading bank in Greenfield and afterwards its President. He was a director of the Connecticut Valley Railroad and several other local corporations. Early in the war he was elected United States Representative, being complimented with the _entire_ vote of his district. He was so popular no one was put in nomination against him. Five times he was sent to Congress by successive reëlection. Massachusetts elected him its Governor in 1871 by 27,000 majority over John Quincy Adams. He resigned his seat in Congress to be inaugurated Governor in January, 1872. He was reëlected Governor for two more terms and resigned his Governorship to fill out the unexpired term in the U.S. Senate caused by the death of Charles Sumner in March, 1884.

In 1881 he was elected President of the American Missionary Association. His valuable services as presiding officer at the annual meetings, his wise counsels and wide influence, greatly advanced the interests of the Association.

His funeral, which was private, took place Saturday, Oct. 8th, at his residence in Greenfield. The Association was represented by Secretary Powell and Treasurer Hubbard, and Charles L. Mead, Esq., of the Executive Committee. A life full of honors worthily and modestly borne is ended here, but it still lives in the works that do follow and in the immortal life beyond the grave.

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NEGRO “AUNT” AND “UNCLE.”

A correspondent of the Atlanta _Constitution_, who signs himself or herself “Georgia,” asks:

_Editors Constitution_: Why is it that so many of the respectable white people of this country claim blood affinity with the Negro race by condescending to call them “aunt” and “uncle”? An “aunt” is a father’s or mother’s sister, an “uncle” is a father’s or mother’s brother. Now, why should a Negro be made to believe that he is a blood relation of white families by calling them “aunt” and “uncle,” terms of the highest family respect? Is there any wonder that some Negroes think they are as good as a white man, when they are called by these endearing names? The Negro is an imitator of the white man, and if we are to keep the races apart, let no such example be set for the Negro’s imitation.

What absurdity this is, and withal how insulting to the colored people. Not unlikely the person who wrote it was brought up by a colored nurse. The genuine affection with which many of the Southern white people speak of the old colored uncle and aunty is often very touching. They belong, however, to the “Old South.” The “New South” is speaking another kind of language. When Mr. Grady in his speech at the New England Society’s dinner in New York informed his auditors that the New South recognized fully the Negro’s rights, it must have been in grim sarcasm. Did he mean by the New South the white people of Georgia? That interpretation of his language would save the other Southern States from the censure of his misrepresentation. But Georgia, by the recent conduct of its Legislature in the discussion and manipulation of the Glenn bill, contradicts nearly everything Mr. Grady said in that speech on that subject. The right to be legislated against, to be branded with essential and eternal inferiority as a race, to be insulted, to be abused, to be discriminated against at every point,—this is what the white people of Georgia believe if the voice and conduct of their legislators mean anything. We presume Mr. Grady did not know this when he made that speech. If he did know it, he violated the hospitality that honored him as its guest.

But the colored people will have their rights. The time is not yet, but it is coming. Hostile legislation and violence cannot prevent it. Christian education will solve the problem.

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YOUNG MEN IN THE SOUTH.

The friends of the South look to the young men for regeneration, and yet the situation is complicated by a peculiarly unfortunate circumstance. A Southern boy that was six years old in 1860 was allowed to run the streets, boss the slaves, and do anything but study. It can be stated as a general proposition that the Southern-born men in the prime of life in the South to-day—that is from 30 to 35 or 38—are uneducated. A man with gentle blood in his veins and a patch of weeds in his head, so to speak, is no ornament to any community, and the chances are that he will be a danger to it. If one would understand the full application of this fact let him run over the lists of the Southern Legislatures and note the ages of the members that make the most trouble. Again, the migration of young men is a cause of disquietude. Through the low country from the Carolinas to Louisiana, where agriculture is at a low ebb in consequence mainly of the credit system, the young men are continually becoming dissatisfied and leaving. Our Northwest is full of these ambitious Southern men. Certain Southern States are for various reasons putting premiums unwittingly upon emigration. Kentucky has been almost swept as with a broom, the better class of young men having been carried across the Ohio River. This is not the case with Tennessee, which is twenty-five years ahead of Kentucky in civilization. Tennessee seems destined to become one of the most important educational centers of the South, and it is in a fair way of holding its young men. Texas is another State which is holding its young men. This is a matter that the law-makers of the South will do well to consider. A commonwealth that cannot hold its young men cannot hold its own in the race for supremacy.—_Springfield (Mass.) Republican._

A partial confirmation of the above views is furnished in the action of the Georgia Legislature respecting the co-education of the races. Mr. Glenn is a young man. His wild followers are in the main young men. Just now these youth are in the saddle and they are not backward to show the world what kind of men they are. In our opinion, there have been greater and wiser statesmen. It is something of an explanation, however, to know that in all probability they are men of no education. The works of ignorance are very apt to be works of darkness.

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FRED DOUGLASS AT THE GOWDEN[A] GATE.

BY REV. J. E. RANKIN, D.D.

Fred Douglass, doffed this mortal state, Stood waitin’ at the Gowden Gate, Inquirin’ for St. Peter: He heard within that gran’ auld hymn, Like distant waters, breakin’ dim, Old Hundred, in Long Meter.

He knocked, and knocked, and waitin’ stood While white folks, a great multitude, Went in, without cessation: He thought he heard in undertone: “This is the white folks’ gate, alone!” Distract, in consternation.

They hurried through, without a glance— He was to them na circumstance— Upon the very canter: He saw their backs were maistly labeled, For places in advance they’d cabled, And hailed doon from Atlanta.

At length, there came one martyr, Glenn, And pointed to an auld slave-pen, Fitted for nigger-quarters: It stood against the city-walls, Arranged within with auld-time stalls, Just as before they fought us.

“Your name, I think, is Douglass, Sir, An’ nigger poisons in you stir, O hell itsel’ th’ infection! Ten thousand æons you must wait, Till you are purged withoot the gate;— Submit, then, to inspection.

“For, Heaven no place, as well as earth, Can find for those o’ nigger birth, For Master or for Madam: You married, too, on earth a white;— And that deserves a deeper night, Than first befell auld Adam!”

And sae the Gowden Gate was slammed, And in yon pen was Douglass crammed, For doom sae unrelaxin’: Till he had passed from state to state, Been bleached all white, from heel to pate, An’ made an Anglo-Saxon!

FOOTNOTE:

[A] Golden

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Mr. L. Maxwell, a graduate of Atlanta University, a member of the Hartford Theo. Sem., and who during the summer has had charge of our Congregational Church in Savannah, Ga., went with a friend a few weeks ago by railway to McIntosh. They paid for first-class tickets and went into the so-called “white car.” The conductor merely intimated to them that they were in the wrong car. This did not suit the white passengers, who, to the number of twenty-five, insisted that they should leave. They found the conductor and appealed to him. To his credit be it said, he came and informed the passengers that as conductor he was compelled to protect the colored men, and hinted that they better not interfere with them. This settled it. The boys took their first-class seats in the white people’s car and rode unmolested to their destination. This is certainly a report of progress. All that is needed is a little backbone on the part of railroad officials at the South, and the colored people will have their rights in railway travel.

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The Kentucky Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church convened recently in Louisville. Bishop Miles having called the meeting to order, before proceeding to business startled the Conference by saying:

“I have received complaints against a great many of you preachers who do not pay your debts. You are liable to be arrested, and I fear I shall have to call a private session to consider the matter. If you don’t receive enough money for preaching, you had better quit and go to work at something where you can make more money. You need not say a word. I know you, and I’ll just give you until next Friday to get square with your creditors. I hope you’ll do this, because I don’t want to expose you, but if you don’t come up and do right the public will know it, and you will be left without an appointment.”

It is certainly a sad condition of things when a Bishop has thus to reprove ministers, and so many of them. It is no surprise to those who know the kind of men who are ministering to the colored people. There is no greater need among the colored people than that of a morally and intellectually competent ministry; but it is gratifying to know that there are such men in positions of influence and power as Bishop Miles. It is in the speedy multiplication of such men that the colored people’s future, under God, depends.

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Our thanks are due and cheerfully rendered to Rev. and Mrs. John P. Cowles, of Ipswich, Mass., for one hundred copies of a book entitled “The Use of a Life.” These volumes are to be distributed among our missionaries. The life whose use these pages trace was that of Mrs. Z. P. G. Bannister, whose work as a Christian educator and missionary supporter has entered into the life of the nation and the work of the world’s evangelization. The inspiration of her work at Derry, where she was associated with Mary Lyon, and at Ipswich, in the education of young ladies, spread westward until from the Atlantic to the Pacific it has been felt. Mrs. Bannister was a most remarkable woman. She was rich in her intellectual endowments; rich in her knowledge of the Scriptures; rich in the strength of her consecrated life to magnify the kingdom of Christ and thereby make all her scholars the friends of missions. Scholarship, thorough and severe, she believed in, but it must be consecrated to Christ and used for the extension of his kingdom. The story of this book is an inspiring one, and its perusal is especially commended to Christian young women who are asking the question, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”

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Of late there has been an effort made to revive the spirit of patriotism among us by organizations and by recalling war incidents. But we need a re-laying or re-enforcing of first principles. American patriotism must be a Christian patriotism.

And while on this theme, we can hardly help referring to the false patriotism prevailing in a portion of our country where the colored people are still so generally proscribed. Were they not the loyal ones in the civil war? And yet they have few rights. This is their native land, yet they are denied suffrage. They are manfully trying for an education, but little encouragement do they get from those around them.

Among the truest patriots to-day in our land are those teachers and preachers who have gone among this race to help elevate them, but they are still, as for these two decades past, ostracised by the whites, some of whom are altogether their inferiors, and who, if they themselves are to be elevated, it must, it would seem, be accomplished largely through the elevation of these colored citizens, by these same despised Northern teachers!

No! A true American patriotism must not ignore these six millions for whose condition the whole people are, and have been, responsible. And if the Government cannot be induced in some form to give federal aid towards educating those needy millions, then surely the true patriot of to-day, whether North or South, will individually contribute to support such organizations as the American Missionary Association, whose object it is to help the poor and oppressed now among us, whether they be the freedmen, the Indians or the Chinese.

FROM A SERMON BY REV. E. N. ANDREWS, HARTFORD, WIS.

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FORTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

GENERAL SURVEY.

THE SOUTH.

Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, gave evidence of a keen and just appreciation of the needs of a race just escaping from centuries of bondage, when he said to his son-in-law: “Thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt show them the way wherein they must walk and the work they must do.”—Ex. xviii, 20. These freed slaves, under the leadership of Moses, needed instruction in reference to religious duties, the conduct of their lives, and the larger work that opened to them as _free_ men. This counsel of the old Midian Priest applies equally in its principles to the problem the A. M. A. is helping to solve among the freed men of the South to-day. This work must be fundamentally that of instruction. No revival excitements, no moral shocks, will effect the cure of superstitious ignorance which the social, political and religious forces of the past have united to make most dense. Slow and patient methods of instruction only can dispel this darkness. This fact emphasizes the importance of the

EDUCATIONAL WORK