Chapter 2

5. The Government should adopt a liberal policy in regard to the use of the vernacular in the Indian schools. We are all agreed that the English language should be brought into use among the Indians at the earliest practicable period. But the experience of all the past, in Indian civilization among the ruder tribes, has shown that Christian influences have been most successfully brought to bear by the use of the vernacular, in giving them the knowledge of the Word of God, in teaching them a practical morality, and in preparing them for civilized life. We ask, therefore, that no restrictions be placed upon Christian people in their efforts for this great object.

6. We ask that the Government exercise an absolute impartiality in dealing with the different denominations of Christians, in the distribution of appropriations, in the granting of lands for missionary uses, and in the appointment of officers, agents, teachers and employés. We ask no favors in these respects, and we desire that none shall be granted to others.

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NOTES FROM NEW ENGLAND.

BY REV C.J. RYDER, DISTRICT SECRETARY.

"_Miss_ ----:

"DEAR MADAM: I understand you have got the school, but I can't possibly board you, as social equality is not custom in this country. I don't think it would be pleasant for you nor for us, either. I wrote this in order for you to look out some other place. You need not depend on getting board with us.

"FEBRUARY 2, 1889."

This letter was written to a cultivated Northern young lady who had graduated at one of the best high schools in the country and held a special recommendation, besides her diploma, on account of her excellency as a student and practice teacher. She went South to help these people in their great need. It was for Christ's sake and in "His name" that she entered this field. She secured board of a white family, but when they learned that she was going to teach the blacks and seek to lead them to Christ, this letter was sent her. Every door was closed against this Christian woman because she was trying to save the poor and ignorant! And it is eighteen hundred and eighty-nine of the Christian era and in free America!

But this plucky Yankee girl did not so give up her school. She found a boarding place in the home of one of our missionaries, two miles away, and she tramps across these two miles twice a day, patiently putting in her best services, to bring light into the dense darkness of the very community whose doors were closed against her!

In connection with this incident of narrow prejudice read these words from Dr. Haygood's "Pleas for Progress." "In all truth and common sense there is no reason for discounting in any respect a white man or woman simply for teaching negroes. It is absurd. I believe it is sinful." These earnest words were spoken by the eloquent divine to his Southern brethren, August 2, 1883, six long years ago. If they only carried the conviction of the people to whom he appealed! How strangely they sound, standing so close to this letter refusing board to a young lady because she is teaching these very negroes! "How long, O Lord, how long?"

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The semi-annual meeting of the Woman's Home Missionary Association met in the Beneficent Congregational Church, or "Old Round Top," as the street car conductor called it, Providence, April 3d. The weather was extremely unfavorable, as New England weather has been lately, as a rule, but there was a good attendance and deep interest. All the missionary societies of the Congregational churches which do work in America were represented. The field work of the Woman's Association has passed into the control of the national societies. The future looks very bright for its increasing usefulness.

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And now Pleasant Hill, Tenn., rejoices in the sweet music of one of the Smith organs. Mr. S.D. Smith is making many schools happy and adding greatly to their efficiency by his generous gifts of organs.

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WHAT THE WORLD SAYS.

BLACK SAINTS AND WHITE.

Do colored folks retain their complexion when they go to heaven? This is a question of some importance to the members of the Diocesan Convention of the Protestant Episcopal churches of Charleston, S.C. Not long ago the Convention appointed a special committee to consider and report upon the subject of the admission of negro clergymen and laymen as members of that body. Their action was taken with the view of bringing the Charleston churches, if possible, into harmony with the other Episcopal congregations of the State. In 1887, the former had seceded in consequence of the adoption of a resolution which the Charleston brethren regarded as a virtual obliteration of the color-line.

Thursday, the report of the committee was made public. It proposes a separate convocation for the colored churches under the ministration of the bishop, and consents to the admission to the Convention of colored clergymen who have been associated with the church for twelve months prior to May, 1889. If the report is adopted, three negro ministers will sit as members, but no lay delegates will be eligible. The committee were willing to forego their prejudice out of deference to the holy office. They felt that the color of a clergyman's skin, although it was no doubt a very serious ground of objection when it happened to be black, should not overcome the respect due to the sanctity of his official calling. His cloth, so to speak, saved him, and what would have been denied to the man it was possible to concede to the priest.

Under these circumstances the gravity of the question, "Do colored folks retain their complexion when they go to heaven?" is obvious. The concession which the committee of the Diocesan Convention make is but a re-affirmation of the Charleston brethren's aversion to anything that smacks of an approach to association of the two races on terms of equality. If there are colored saints in Paradise, it will be utterly impossible for the Charleston white saints of the Episcopal denomination to feel at home there. The only chance of reconciling them to a heaven so liberally disposed would depend on the adoption of some such plan as that recommended by the committee as a _modus vivendi_ in the church on earth. That is to say, if the colored saints were corraled by themselves--if their convocations were separate from the convocations of the white saints--if they were not admitted to the white circles of celestial society as equal partakers of the privileges of the heavenly kingdom--the Caucasian angels from Charleston might be willing to pass their eternity in such a place.

It is very essential for them, therefore, to know whether there are in fact any colored saints in heaven; and, if there are, whether the divisions of the Father's house into "many mansions" admits of an arrangement whereby the angelic brunettes may occupy one set of quarters and the Charleston blondes another. Until these problems are solved to their satisfaction, we do not see how our Christian friends of the chief city of South Carolina can contemplate a future life with any degree of equanimity. Their faith may be equal to the removal of mountains and their virtues may entitle them to all the felicity of the spirits of just men made perfect, but if it is the rule of the "happy land, far, far away" that a black saint is just as good as a white one, how much more rational it would be for them to prefer annihilation to immortality.

_Brooklyn Daily Eagle._

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PARAGRAPHS.

We would continue to remind pastors and churches of our Leaflets, which we will be happy to furnish, on application, to those taking collections for our Association.

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The _Daily Standard-Union_, of Brooklyn, is a good judge. It says:

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY for April, published by the American Missionary Association, New York, is full of information useful and edifying to all interested in domestic missions.

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The "Student's Letter" found on another page is worth attention. The writer, Rev. Spencer Snell, gives a modest and yet vivid picture of his struggles for an education, and he is now--we say it for him, as he does not--the able and acceptable pastor of our growing church in Birmingham, Alabama. We wish in a quiet way to suggest to our friends in the North that "it pays" to spend money to educate such men.

Rev. James Wharton, the evangelist, who has been efficiently preaching to the American Missionary churches in the South this winter, has left this country for England, where he will remain until the first of October, when he will return again to his specific work in which the churches have been greatly blessed. The churches which he has visited, and which have added to their numbers through his ministration, are Louisville, Ky., Sherwood, Nashville and Memphis, Tenn., Athens, Florence, Mobile and Montgomery, Ala., Jackson and Tougaloo, Miss., and New Orleans, La.

Many prayers will go with him across the sea, and many welcomes will greet him on his return.

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SOUTHERN ECHOES.

PRAYERS OF WOMEN AT THE MEETING OF FAREWELL TO A MISSIONARY.

"O! Lord, thou knowest how I love her. Thou knowest how I have run to her in every trouble, as a chicken does to its mother."

"O! Lord, you know what she has been to me in the greatest trouble I ever had. You know I think more of her than of any being in the whole world, except my husband. Will you please to be with her when she gets ready for the train, and when she goes from the house to the train, and on the train, and when she goes to the house from the train, and bless her all the time."

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Mrs. W----, an old lady, said: "My old man ax me every night when he come from work if there be a meeting up yonder. He do like to go to meeting. He think a heap of that young preacher up yonder. Last Wednesday night after meeting, he say to me, 'Mary, I'll be good to you after this,' and I say the same to him. It do me a heap of good to go up yonder. I learn more than I ever knowed before. I knows what the texts means now."

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SATISFACTORILY EXPLAINED.--A few days since, during a recitation in geography, a teacher was endeavoring to explain the subject of electricity in the lesson on "Thunder and lightning." It had been stated that when a flash of lightning darts to the earth it is said to _strike_. A precocious lad of twelve summers (winters included), raised his hand and upon recognition said: "Do _people_ have any electricity?" Upon being informed that every one possessed the subtle force in a greater or less degree, his dusky, good-natured face lighted up, and he added, "Then is that the reason why some people always want to strike?"

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BOOK NOTICE

_Pleas for Progress._ By ATTICUS G. HAYGOOD, D.D. Publishing House of M.E. Church South, Nashville, Tenn. Price, $1.00.

Dr. Haygood is a Southern man who stands with his face toward sunrise and not sunset. As a writer, he is interesting and vigorous. He sometimes forgets to take off his "Titbottom spectacles" when he looks southward, but he puts in tremendous blows against the wrong which he sees. This volume before us contains papers and addresses delivered at various times and places, both North and South. It is a very valuable book for those who desire to learn what the really Christian people of the South think on these great National problems that the American Missionary Association is helping to solve.

The lecture on "The Education of the Negro," delivered at Monteagle, Tenn., and published in this volume, is a sample. Dr. Haygood states "four root objections" to negro education: 1--Ignorance; 2--Stinginess; 3--Prejudice; 4--Fear that education will "spoil the negro as a laborer" and bring him into "social equality" with the whites. The author shows the absurdity of all these objections.

The volume is full of statistics and will prove a valuable mine of facts. The discussions are clear and generally convincing. We commend the book highly.

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THE SOUTH.

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THE GEORGIA CONGREGATIONAL ASSOCIATION.

_Rev. S.C. McDaniel and others, Committee of the United Congregational Conference of Georgia._

DEAR BRETHREN.--Having been appointed by the Georgia Congregational Association as a committee to confer with you in reference to a union of the two bodies represented by you and us, we desire to express to you our gratification at the receipt of your request for such a conference, and our earnest desire that such a union should be consummated. With this end in view, we would respectfully submit for your consideration the following propositions:

1. We cordially invite the churches composing the United Congregational Conference to become members of the Georgia Congregational Association. Upon the acceptance of this invitation by the United Conference, we agree to recommend to the Association the passage of a vote immediately placing upon the roll of the Association the names of all the churches of the United Conference.

2. In case the foregoing proposition should not be acceptable to you, we propose that each of the bodies represented by us should pass a vote disbanding its organization, with the understanding that all the churches of both bodies should then come together and form a new organization. Upon the agreement of your committee to recommend to the United Conference the adoption of this proposition, we agree to make a similar recommendation to the Association.

3. If neither of the foregoing propositions should be acceptable to you, we propose that the United Conference place upon its roll the names of all the churches and ministers of the Georgia Association. Upon the agreement of your committee to recommend such action to the United Conference, we agree to recommend to the Association the adoption of a vote declaring its organization disbanded as soon as the churches composing the same are received by the United Conference.

With reference to the foregoing propositions we would say further:

It is our conviction that any union between the organizations represented by our respective committees should be as comprehensive and thorough as possible, and that to this end the churches of the Georgia Association should be enrolled as members of the District Conferences, in fellowship with the United Conference within whose respective boundaries the Association churches may be located. And the foregoing propositions are made with the understanding that a vote shall be passed by the United Conference recommending the District Conferences to receive the Association churches as hereby suggested.

Of these three proposed methods of union, our own preference is for the first. As the Georgia Congregational Association is the older body and represents the historic Congregationalism of the State, going back not only to the early years succeeding the Civil War, but even, in the record of one of its churches, to the colonial period preceding the Revolution, we feel that a respect for the traditional usages of our polity would suggest the absorption of the newer churches by the Association as being the older State organization. But as in our opinion the result to be achieved is of more importance than the method by which it shall be achieved, we would not insist upon the method of our choice. If more acceptable to you, we should gladly form a union on the basis of either the second or the third proposition already stated. Our chief desire is for a complete and hearty union, in which, acknowledging the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, we may live and work together in the love of Christ, the Elder Brother of us all. That our Heavenly Father may graciously help us all in perfecting and maintaining such a union, is our earnest prayer.

Your brethren in Christ,

GEO. V. CLARK, HORACE BUMSTEAD, GEO. C. ROWE, L.B. MAXWELL, EVARTS KENT, FLOYD SNELSON, C.F. SARGENT.

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EVANGELISTIC LABORS.

REV. JAMES WHARTON.

You last heard of my work, I believe, from Memphis, Tenn., where God revealed his gracious power among the students of LeMoyne, and also at the Congregational church. Altogether, some one hundred and thirty-four professed a hope in Christ during my visit there. I then went to Jackson, Miss., to hold services in the new church there; a pretty little building, situated in a very central and prominent part of the city. For eleven nights, I preached to not a very large, but to an interesting congregation. Twelve professed conversion, their conversion proving a source of great joy, not only to themselves, but to their friends and acquaintances.

I also visited Tougaloo University and spoke to the students. Between fifty and sixty at the close of the address arose for prayer. I feel sure if I could have spent a few days with them, that most of them would have decided for Christ, but they remain under the good and wise instruction of the President, Rev. F.G. Woodworth. I hope to visit them again.

I then went to New Orleans, to find the Central Congregational Church recovering itself under the leading of the pastor, Rev. Geo. W. Henderson. We believe that it will steadily grow, and be a great influence for good in that large and wicked city. At Straight University, I found the religious interest going on quietly and steadily under the care of Professor Hitchcock and Rev. W.L. Tenney, some cases of conversion taking place during the week of prayer.

I came to Montgomery three weeks ago, and a revival there has surpassed any I have seen for the last thirteen years among the colored folks of the South. In fact, many of the old-time people say they never saw such a deep interest manifested in this city. The third night the church was filled to overflowing, and hundreds were outside the door who could not get in. The power of God came down upon the people in such a way that at the close of the preaching the seekers fairly ran to the front benches, taking them by storm. All around the front they sat or knelt. We placed chairs in rows on the platform, and the crowd was so thick I could scarcely get a place to stand. The pastor, Rev. R.C. Bedford, and the Christians, worked hard among the unconverted, and now at the close of the three weeks' services, more than two hundred are rejoicing in a new found hope.

One case was that of a young man, the son of a Methodist preacher, both deaf and dumb, who gave reasonable evidence of conversion as the love of God filled his heart, and another was a young man who had been a wild young fellow, who had at the time of his conversion a five barrel loaded revolver in his pocket, and which I now have. One whole family is now rejoicing that God has brought salvation to that house; father, mother, son and four daughters are among the converts. Another father rejoices over four of his sons and daughters converted. Husbands and wives have started together on the road to Zion. On the streets and wherever you go, the people are talking about, and rejoicing over, the conversion of some of their friends or relations.

This finishes another winter's work among the dear colored people, which has been one of the happiest and most successful I have known for many years.

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THOMASVILLE, GEORGIA.

The Connecticut Normal and Industrial School, Thomasville. Ga., closed its winter term, for a few days' vacation, on March 26th, with appropriate exercises. The _Thomasville Daily Times_ says, "The growth and management of the school is very gratifying to our people, and everyone wishes it continued success and prosperity." The _Thomasville Enterprise_ speaks of "the results of the seven sweet-faced patient lady teachers," and adds, "If yesterday's exhibition was a fair sample of what the pupils can do, the American Missionary Association, and the corps of teachers it has employed, have not labored in vain; that a great deal of hard, honest work has been done, was fully exemplified."

Again we are reminded that _Thomasville_ is not _Quitman_, and also of the fact that Southern people are generally quite generous in their appreciation of the work and the methods of our Association.

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MRS. LYDIA HERRICK BENNETT.

On Saturday, March 16, the great household at Fisk University was suddenly saddened by the announcement of the death of Mrs. Bennett, who, after an illness of four weeks, was called to her rest.

In 1867, Mr. and Mrs. Bennett gave up their work in a pleasant Northern parish, and came to Fisk University, where they have labored together for almost twenty-two years. During these years, Mrs. Bennett has been not only an efficient helper to her husband and a wise and tender mother to her children, but has contributed much to the work of the school. Her strong mind and fine intellectual tastes especially fitted her for life in an institution of learning. During the last few years, she gave much time and labor to the preparation of a botanical collection for the Scientific Department of the University.

Mrs. Bennett was also the warm personal friend of the young people. Since her death, many tender expressions from present and former students bear witness to appreciation of her quiet, earnest, Christian character, as manifested both in her own life, and in her ministry to others. Why such a life, apparently so indispensable to her husband and children, and so helpful to a large body of young people, should be thus suddenly terminated we cannot understand. We can only accept the dispensation of Him "Who doeth all things well."

H.C.M.

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STUDENT'S LETTER.

HOW I WAS EDUCATED, LED TO CHRIST AND INTO THE MINISTRY.

BY REV. SPENCER SNELL.