Part 1

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EDITORIAL.

FINANCIAL, 129 PARAGRAPHS, 130 LINCOLN MEMORIAL CHURCH, 132 THE PRAYERS OF THOSE WHO PRAY, 133 AN INCIDENT, 134

THE SOUTH.

NOTES IN THE SADDLE, 136 REVIVALS—STRAIGHT UNIVERSITY—FISK UNIVERSITY—SAVANNAH—STORKS SCHOOL, 139 CONCERT AT FISK UNIVERSITY, 142

THE INDIANS.

FAILURE OF THE SIOUX BILL, 144 THE GRAND RIVER MISSION, 145

THE CHINESE.

A NEW HOME, 146

BUREAU OF WOMAN’S WORK.

THE MOTHERS’ LEAGUE, 147 PARAGRAPH, 148

FOR THE CHILDREN.

DOLLARS FOR SELF AND CENTS FOR CHRIST, 149

RECEIPTS, 151

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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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PRESIDENT, Hon. WM. B. WASHBURN, LL.D., Mass.

_Vice-Presidents._

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

THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

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VOL. XLI. MAY, 1887. No. 5.

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American Missionary Association.

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We have reached the half-way turning point of our fiscal year. With March the first six months of our year ended. Our mission stations are all manned. Churches and schools, with all their multitudinous outshoots of work, are taxing the energies, abilities and devotion of our workers. Never in the history of this Association was the work more manifestly blessed of God, or more imperative in its calls for vigorous prosecution. Our schools are crowded. Multitudes of students are turned away because there is no room to receive them. The calls pour in upon us from every quarter for more dormitories and recitation buildings—for more help for worthy and needy students, for more missionaries, preachers and teachers, to go into regions most destitute and urgent for relief. Whole counties are reported in which there is neither a church nor a school; whole sections of country in which there are thousands and tens of thousands of people for whose souls no one seems to care. Revivals are reported in connection with nearly all our churches, and the evidence is overwhelming that great harvests are waiting the reaping in almost every direction. What are we to do? What would the churches have us do? We are their servants; we report to them the outlook; we send out to them the call; we impatiently await their authoritative response. That response must be in money.

Our financial situation is this: At the present writing we have paid out $14,555.84 more than we have received the current year. This, with the debt coming over from last year, makes us $20,339.55 in arrears. It is impossible either to arrest or cut down the work at this point in the year so as to secure relief. But even if we could, would we be justified in doing it? Our total receipts last year were $335,704.20. Our appeal for the current year is $350,000. Our total receipts up to March 31st were $127,605.47. Our readers can very easily figure out for themselves whether any blame can rightfully be charged to those who have the management of the Association in hand, and also whether, in view of the facts, the thought of curtailment should be cherished for a moment.

On the basis of our receipts last year, we should have received by the end of March $167,852, and on the basis of our appeal, $175,000. It will be seen, therefore, that in the prosecution of the work we have not exceeded the appeal of this year, nor even the scale of last year. Here, then, presses our problem. Summer is not a good time for collections. The necessity for special appeals, such as we have been obliged to make during the past few years towards the end of our fiscal year, has been as irksome and disagreeable to us as it has been to our friends. It is on this account we now raise the question: Cannot an effort be made during the next two months to so increase the contributions to the A. M. A. that the summer will find us delivered from possible embarrassment? It will necessitate earnest work on the part of our friends; but with such an important field urgently calling for the enlargement of missionary work, with so many evidences of the Divine approval resting upon it, and with so much ability in the possession of our friends, may we not hope that the churches will lay hold of the problem and solve it at once?

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SUICIDE POSTPONED.—There is an old story with such a good moral that we recall it to the minds of our readers. A man of large wealth, living in Paris, became so tired of a monotonous life that he determined to commit suicide. On his way to the spot decided upon, it occurred to him that he might as well give away the money that he had with him, which was quite a large amount. He found so much pleasure in bestowing this upon the poor people whom he met, that he concluded to postpone the suicide until he had had time to enjoy some more of the same beneficence. It is needless to add that, instead of disgracing himself by suicide, he became a public benefactor.

SELECTED.

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RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION.—“I have just been reading my AMERICAN MISSIONARY for April. I am terribly stirred up by it—am under a dreadful temptation to _covet_ money that does not belong to me. I am poor and I have to pay for my board and my room, and cannot get without stealing the wealth that is so foolishly spent by others.

“The treatment of the Chinese, too, is an _abomination_. I am naturally high-spirited, and, although in my 83d year, do not feel more meek and quiet than in my early years. It cannot be that the blessed God whose ‘mercy endureth forever’ can look with favor upon our nation. Alas! alas! what can be done?”

SUBSCRIBER.

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One of our missionaries writes: “A man who has a family of ten children, and next to no school privileges, came fifteen miles with a daughter of sixteen years to see me about getting three children into school. A good man, and deeply interested to educate his family. But I had to turn him away for lack of room. Such instances are constantly occurring. The only way the young people on these mountains who live remote from school can be educated is to hire rooms and board themselves.” There is a plea in these words for the erection of dormitories to accommodate needy and worthy students. Such dormitories would not cost much, perhaps not over $500 each. But the current funds must be used for our current work. Gladly would we tell our missionary to put up a few dormitories and let these pleading ones be cared for. But we have no money to appropriate. Can any of the readers of the MISSIONARY help us out? Only we must raise the caution, that the help given at this point should not be allowed to interfere with gifts to our general work.

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SECRETARY BEARD has taken hold of the Southern Department of our work with a great deal of earnestness. He has just returned from a somewhat extended apostolic visitation of our churches and schools. Many of our readers will remember Dr. Beard’s enthusiasm and zeal for French evangelization, but he stands ready to confess that the necessities underlying the work of the American Missionary Association far exceed any that he has ever felt for mission work before. We knew it would be so. It is simply impossible to convey a full idea of the far-reaching needs and to set forth the imperative claims of the great work in which the A. M. A. is engaged.

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The friends of the Indians have watched with much solicitude the action of the recent Congress on the numerous bills before it relating to Indian affairs. It is a matter of great rejoicing that the most important of these, the General Allotment Act, has passed. This allows the Indians to take their lands individually by allotments and patents, and makes the allottees citizens of the United States. This bill is far-reaching, and covers in a measure the objects aimed at by some of the others which failed. Among these last is the Sioux bill, which proposes to divide up and dispose of parts of the Sioux reservation in Dakota. In another column will be found an excellent article, by Rev. A. L. Riggs, showing the loss, and yet the incidental benefits, that may arise from the failure of this bill. We will only add, that some of the provisions of the Sioux bill can indirectly and after some delay be carried out under the General Allotment Act.

The failure of the Mission Indian bill is a source of unrelieved regret and indignation. These Indians, whose sad story is told so pathetically in Helen Hunt Jackson’s “Ramona,” are still left unprotected, and their lands are still exposed to the incursions of unscrupulous white men. It is to be hoped that the nation will demand of the next Congress that justice shall be done to these Indians.

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Lincoln Memorial Church, Washington, D.C., has hitherto carried on its work in the Lincoln Mission building. This building is held in trust by the Lincoln Industrial Association to sustain educational, industrial and religious work. This association was in no way connected with the church; it had several local enterprises under its auspices in the same building in which the work of the church was carried on. Thus the growth and usefulness of the church were greatly hindered, as it had no control of the building and the various enterprises carried on in it. It was clear that a church representing a higher type and standard of Christian life and worship than the average church of this community was greatly needed in this growing section of the city. It was also evident that if the Lincoln Memorial Church should supply this demand, steps should be taken to so adjust the property and renovate the building as to make a permanent church home and to promote the most hopeful growth of the work by putting all the departments of work carried on in the building under the management of the church. Secretary Beard and Superintendent Ryder, of the A. M. A., and the pastor and officers of the Lincoln Memorial Church held a conference, October 29, with the Board of Directors of the Lincoln Industrial Association to consider the most practical plan of putting the control of the property and all departments of work, educational, industrial and religious, carried on in the building, under the auspices of the Lincoln Memorial Church.

After the subject was fully discussed the following resolution was unanimously adopted by the Board of Directors of the Lincoln Industrial Association: “_Resolved_, That the Lincoln Industrial Association hereby declares itself in full sympathy with the desire of the Lincoln Memorial Church that the entire property, together with all the auxiliaries in Christian and industrial work, be put under the direction of the Lincoln Memorial Church here organized, and to that end any additional action necessary will be carried out.”

When the action of the conference was presented to the church it was voted that the church accept the trust and that steps be taken immediately to repair and improve the church and parsonage and all other parts of the building, as far as practicable, so as to make the building more desirable as a place of worship and center of Christian work, and a home for the pastor’s family. A building committee was appointed and an appeal was made to the public and friends for funds for the immediate repair and improvement of the building.

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“THE PRAYERS OF THOSE WHO PRAY.”

One of the devoted workers of the A. M. A., telling in a simple yet thrilling way of his heroic work in the South, concludes his article (in THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY for March) with a request for the “prayers of those who pray.” What can he mean? Does he not, when struggling to put up a building in the wilderness, want money more than prayers, or at least as much? Would he not be glad of anyone’s sympathy and prayers? Very likely; but yet we see in his request an unconscious recognition of the fact that those who make a business of praying are the ones whose help is worth something; whose sympathy is palpably felt.

Those who pray! Oh, what a blessed thing is habit, when rightly guided. How much pleasanter to make effort, to do work, in familiar channels. What added life does it give to our intercourse with the Father to realize that he is already acquainted with us, that he has heard us on similar subjects before, that he knows the general trend of our desires and longings already. When we go before a court of law with our suits we employ an experienced pleader to present our case, and rightly; his training, his _habit_, is the lubricating element; without it progress would be slow, difficult and tedious. In spiritual matters we cannot do our pleading by proxy; priests were abolished when Christ made himself accessible, through the Comforter, to every heart, and we must now act each for himself; therefore let us see to it that we do not make this part of life uninteresting, unfruitful and dreary from sheer stiffness, inexperience and unfamiliarity. James says (v. 16) “the supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working.” A righteous man is one who is working in lines approved by God, and this necessarily implies that he is in communication with God; therefore the maker of this appeal is right in addressing himself to those who are used to praying; there is every probability that they will be “righteous men” and that their prayers will “avail much.” What sort of a phenomenon is a church member who is not in the habit of praying? Even though his subscription to the A. M. A. this year be a liberal one, what certainty is there about his action next year? One who prays for this worker in Tennessee, and gives him a dollar, or a dime, may be of more real help than a giver of ten dollars who does it merely as a duty, or to quiet his conscience. The former has enlisted his _friendship_; and an accessible friend is better than a brother afar off—even if he be a millionaire, oftentimes.

The _prayers_ of those who pray! Ah, yes, that is it. Love and sympathy are what move the world. If one loves us we need not worry about his material gifts to us. If a child of God prays for us he has a real interest in us and will _try_ to give us money (if we are in need of it); and the exertions of such are multiplied a hundredfold by God’s arithmetic. “Those who pray” find that God doesn’t require them to assume the attitude of Abraham, “Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once.” If the loving children of God were permitted to only send up one brief prayer and then have to step back, their interest might die out. No; the rule is “pray without ceasing,” “_whatsoever_ ye ask.” God can raise up helpers out of the very stones of the ground; but he is not likely to do it unless he sees that his children desire and need the help and will faithfully use it. Let us all _pray_ for the faithful ones who carry our burdens by going into the wilderness to do God’s work in our stead, who relieve us of a portion of our duty by doing more than theirs, and our material aid will certainly be larger and of more value than it could possibly otherwise be. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Our prayers follow our thoughts; if we think and pray as benevolent persons it is likely that we shall be benevolent.

SUBSCRIBER.

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AN INCIDENT.

“Will you come with me, to-day, and visit some of my poor people?” said a Southern lady missionary to me, on my first visit to the sunny South.

Of course I would go. I was anxious to meet with my brethren and sisters whose skin color differed from my own. I longed for acquaintanceship with them, to see what they had received.

We soon reached a conglomeration of cabins that had a ridiculous resemblance to rooks’ nests. How does it come that sticks in old age look so much more disreputable than stones? These wooden cabins looked far worse than the stone hovels of Achil Island. These lately enfranchised people living here were all renters, and they paid the utmost possible rent for the poorest possible shelter.

The cabins were built in clusters of four, so that one corner of each rested against a clumsy chimney, built in the middle in such a manner that each cabin had a corner fire-place.

In one of these little tenements, in an old arm-chair, cushioned with shreds and patches, and set close into the chimney corner, sat a very old colored woman, with her shaking hands spread out to gather to her the warmth of the fire of fat lightwood splinters that blazed and crackled before her. The damp, chill wind whistled through every crevice and cranny of the rough, ill-matched boards of the door and the slight wall. The whole cabin was almost as airy as a corn crib. It was admirably built for ventilation, and was in the full enjoyment of it.

The old woman, popularly supposed to be over a hundred, looked around at us, her face one mesh of wrinkles, her wool as white as snow, but she was wonderfully bright and cheery. She was a great sufferer from asthma and rheumatism, could not lie down in bed at all, but was confined to her chair night and day. She was one of those of whom I had been told as having a near acquaintance with her Lord as with a personal friend.

“How are you to-day, Aunt July?” said my friend.

“Howdy’, howdy’? I’se well, an’ glad to see you, honey; bress de Lawd.”

“I’ve brought a friend with me to see you; a friend from over the sea.”

“Bress you, honey, I’se glad to see you, too. De good Lawd sends his chilluns to look me up. He does so, ’cause he don’t ever forget me.”

“The box has come, Aunt July, and I’m so sorry that there’s nothing in it at all that would fit you; nothing but children’s things.”

“Bress de good Lawd, it’s a-comin’; I feel it’s a-comin’, but it wasn’t to come in dat ar box, sure enuff, honey.”

“I did wish and pray for a warm woolen shawl to wrap around you at night when the fire goes down,” said the missionary lady, kindly. “You see,” turning to me, “the nights are quite cold this time of the year, and see how open the cabin is. If she could only lie down in bed and cover up warm, but she cannot, and she must suffer dreadfully when the fire goes out. I do wish so much that she had a shawl.”

“Well, honey, you is kind to ole Aunty, an’ I’se thankful; but we wasn’t ’greed ’bout dat ar’, honey. You ask de Lawd for a shawl, an’ I ask for sumpin’ warm, wid sleeves in it, so’s not to slip off in de night when I falls asleep an’ de fiah done gone out.”

“You see, I’se real glad when de sleep comes,” she said, looking at me; “I’se glad of de rest in sleep, but de fiah done go out. My son, he’s jest as good as he ken be to me, an’ he leaves heaps ob wood, but when I sleeps de fiah done go out. I ask de bressed Lawd to sen’ me sumpin’ with sleeves, so’s it would keep on when I’se sleepin’.”

Then I suddenly remembered a long wrap of Canadian factory material that had been with me in many a mountain ramble over the water. I had put it in my trunk without any very definite reason for doing so, against all the good natured ridicule showered upon me by friends. I had not used it, seemed to have no use for it, until this need flashed upon me. Before many minutes it was fished out of the bottom of my trunk, brought there and fitted on the aged sister. It was warm, it had sleeves, and when it was buttoned on, it reached to the ground.

“It’s just like my bressed Master, dat is,” said old Aunty, her sunken eyes shining with gladness. “I ask fer sumpin’ warm, with sleeves, an’ he sen’ me what cover me all over down to de feet. Bress de Lawd, it is allars above what we ask. Now you can see how He done care fer ole Aunty. It’s allers jest so, He cares.”

I looked at her, old and poor, asthmatic and rheumatic, helpless and dependent, and her thankfulness shamed me. In putting on the wrap, my friend pointed out the scars of ancient floggings ridged and furrowed in the dark skin. The ploughers had ploughed on her back, and made long their furrows. She was one of His. Was this in any way being in fellowship with His sufferings? She was old, very old, ten years past the allotted period of three score and ten, she believed, when the tramp of armies heralded freedom for her in the sunset and twilight of her life.

“I’se sitting in my cheer, such a cumf’able cheer, an’ my heart is singing all de time, because my bressed Lawd ’members me an’ loves me, an’ answers all my pra’rs.”