Chapter 1

The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 6, June 1896

by Various

Edition 1, (November 21, 2006)

CONTENTS

Editorial The Jubilee Year Fund. FIFTY-DOLLAR JUBILEE SHARES. THE ACCEPTABLE MITES. NO COLOR-LINE IN CLEVELAND. ORANGE PARK NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL IN FLORIDA CLOSED BY THE SHERIFF. OUR CHURCHES. THE TALENTED TENTH. ALASKA MISSION. The South. HISTORY OF A CHURCH IN ALABAMA. MEETINGS AMONG THE HILLS AND AT A CONVICT CAMP. A BRIGHT AND CANDID VIEW OF OUR MOUNTAIN WORK. REVIVALS. ITEMS FROM THE FIELD. The Indians. REVIVAL--LIBERAL CONTRIBUTIONS. Crow Agency, Montana The Chinese. Jubilee Year Fund, Additional Shares. RECEIPTS FOR APRIL, 1896. WOMAN’S STATE ORGANIZATIONS

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION, Bible House, Ninth St. and Fourth Ave., New York.

Price, 50 Cents a Year in advance.

Entered at the Post Office at New York N. Y., as second-class mail matter.

AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

PRESIDENT, MERRILL E. GATES, LL.D., MASS.

_Vice-presidents._

REV. F. A. NOBLE, D.D., Ill. REV. HENRY HOPKINS, D.D., Mo. REV. ALEX. MCKENZIE, D.D., Mass. REV. HENRY A. STIMSON, D.D., N. Y. REV. WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D., Ohio.

_Honorary Secretary and Editor._

REV. M. E. STRIEBY, D.D., _Bible House, N. Y._

_Corresponding Secretaries._

REV. A. F. BEARD, D.D., REV. F. P. WOODBURY, D.D., _Bible House, N. Y._ REV. C. J. RYDER, D.D., _Bible House, N. Y._

_Recording Secretary._

REV. M. E. STRIEBY, D.D., _Bible House, N. Y._

_Treasurer._

H. W. HUBBARD, Esq., _Bible House, N. Y._

_Auditors._

GEORGE S. HICKOK. JAMES H. OLIPHANT.

_Executive Committee._

CHARLES L. MEAD, Chairman. CHARLES A. HULL, Secretary.

_For Three Years._

SAMUEL HOLMES SAMUEL S. MARPLES, CHARLES L. MEAD, WILLIAM H. STRONG, ELIJAH HORR.

_For Two Years._

WILLIAM HAYES WARD, JAMES W. COOPER, LUCIEN C. WARNER, JOSEPH H. TWICHELL, CHARLES P. PIERCE.

_For One Year._

CHARLES A. HULL, ADDISON P. FOSTER, ALBERT J. LYMAN, NEHEMIAH BOYNTON, A. J. F. BEHRENDS.

_District Secretaries._

REV. GEO. H. GUTTERSON, _21 Cong’l House, Boston, Mass._ REV. JOS. E. ROY, D.D., _153 La Salle Street, Chicago, Ill._

_Secretary of Woman’s Bureau._

MISS D. E. EMERSON, _Bible House, N. Y._

COMMUNICATIONS

Relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to the Corresponding Secretaries; letters for "THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY," to the Editor, at the New York Office; letters relating to the finances, to the Treasurer; letters relating to woman’s work, to the Secretary of the Woman’s Bureau.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

In drafts, checks, registered letters, or post-office orders, may be sent to H. W. Hubbard, Treasurer, Bible House, New York; or, when more convenient, to either of the Branch Offices, 21 Congregational House, Boston, Mass., or 153 La Salle Street, Chicago, Ill. A payment of thirty dollars constitutes a Life Member.

NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.--The date on the "address label" indicates the time to which the subscription is paid. Changes are made in date on label to the 10th of each month. If payment of subscription be made afterward the change on the label will appear a month later. Please send early notice of change in post-office address, giving the former address and the new address, in order that our periodicals and occasional papers may be correctly mailed.

FORM OF A BEQUEST.

"I give and bequeath the sum of ---- dollars to the ’American Missionary Association,’ incorporated by act of the Legislature of the State of New York." The will should be attested by three witnesses.

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY

VOL. L. JUNE, 1896. No. 6.

The Jubilee Year Fund.

Extract from the appeal of the Executive Committee of the American Missionary Association:

*Fifty Dollars a Share.*

It is proposed to raise during the next six months a special Jubilee Year Fund of $100,000 in shares of $50 each, with the hope and expectation that these shares will be taken by the friends of missions without lessening those regular contributions which must be depended upon to sustain the current work.

FORM OF A PLEDGE.

Share, $50. $100,000.

THE JUBILEE YEAR FUND OF THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

I hereby take ..... shares (Fifty Dollars each) in the Jubilee Year Fund of the American Missionary Association, to be paid before the close of the fiscal year, Sept. 30, 1896.

_Name_ . . . . . . .

_P. O. Address_ . . . . . . . .

FIFTY-DOLLAR JUBILEE SHARES.

In the last number of THE MISSIONARY we gave the gratifying report of 34 shares taken for this fund, and in the present number we have the pleasure of adding 75 more. We are fully aware of the difficulties under which we send forth the call for responses to this much-needed fund. Other appeals have been made, and are still pressed upon the churches, all of them worthy of the generosity with which they are met.

But the ability of the churches to meet the demands of their varied mission work is not exhausted, and the spirit of consecration among the followers of Christ, even when self-denial must be practiced, has not reached its limit. We therefore urge our appeal with strong confidence that we shall not be felt to be intruders, but that we are simply trying to fulfill the duty imposed upon us in carrying the Gospel to the most needy and destitute in our land.

We must repeat the plea made by our Executive Committee that in giving to this Jubilee Fund, the contributions for our regular work, to which we are committed and whose claims we cannot repudiate, may not be neglected.

THE ACCEPTABLE MITES.

ANDERSONVILLE, GA.--"Please find inclosed $2.31, which is a contribution from our church toward paying the debt of the American Missionary Association. It is very little, but more than I supposed the people would raise, there is so little money in the place."

GREENWOOD, S. C.--"It is a great pleasure to me to hand you herewith bank draft for $11, which is the amount of our collection for the Lincoln Memorial Day. I have delayed the remitting of this amount somewhat to give others an opportunity who wished to contribute, but were not quite ready. The amount is not large, but it is from the people and expresses in a measure their interest in the work of the American Missionary Association. The collection represents offerings of the young and old from a cent to a dollar. What was done was done with a free heart."

NO COLOR-LINE IN CLEVELAND.

The Methodist General Conference and the hotels in Cleveland, O., deserve great credit--the hotels for according to all delegates, regardless of color, equal accommodations, and the Conference for its hearty indorsement of their action. If this greatest gathering of the largest Protestant church in America had nothing else to do, it might go with its grand meeting from city to city securing this recognition of the brotherhood of man. It is ardently hoped that the generous and liberal-minded hotel keepers in Cleveland may not "backslide," and that if any single colored delegate, clerical or lay, should come alone to Cleveland, even before the close of the "six months’ probation," he might not find the door closed against him.

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church may be equally useful at its meeting in Saratoga in preaching this same gospel of the brotherhood of man, and in this case, too, permanency is very desirable, and it is hoped, therefore, that in this event there may be the illustration of the good old Presbyterian doctrine of the "perseverance of the saints."

ORANGE PARK NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL IN FLORIDA CLOSED BY THE SHERIFF.

It will be remembered that on Friday, the 10th of April, seven teachers and two patrons of the Orange Park School, at Orange Park, Fla., were arrested for violation of an enactment legalized a year ago by the State Legislature under the instigation of William H. Sheats, the State superintendent of education.

The enactment, which we protest is in no just sense a law, forbids not only white and colored persons to be instructed within the same building at the same time, but it also forbids a white principal or matron or guardians of the school rooming or living within the same building where their pupils are.

This enactment against the personal rights of education in a private Christian school not supported or aided by the State, if sustained, would destroy nearly all of the institutions carried on by Northern benevolence in all of our Southern States. It would take the guardianship of manners and morals out of the hands of those who have planted and sustained the institutions until now, and who, in view of the millions yet uneducated and untrained, are now needed as much as ever. It is not surprising, therefore, that the National Council of Congregational Churches at Syracuse in October requested the Association to take this question to the highest courts, nor that the General Conference of the Methodist Church in Cleveland has just passed a resolution denouncing this iniquitous enactment, or that we are receiving constantly from our State and local associations assurances of sympathy and support in our contest against this reversion to barbarism. We quote a few of the opinions which have come under our observation.

From the _Congregationalist_:

"The ethics of Christ, Pilgrim traditions, and the U. S. Constitution seemed paramount to the opinions of Florida legislators, and the highest officials of the American Missionary Association decided to defy and test the law. That the denomination stands back of them may be reasonably inferred from the resolution passed by the last Triennial National Council. Let the American Missionary Association have the sinews of war with which to employ the ablest counsel."

From the _Outlook_:

"The State of Florida not long ago took action which is a disgrace to itself and a blot on the fair fame of our republic. Let our people squarely face this issue. While we are protesting against the treatment of missionaries in Turkey and calling upon the Government to use all its power in their protection, Christian teachers widely known and honored in one of the great States of this republic are arrested simply because they presumed to instruct a few white children under the same roof with colored children. It is hard to speak of such conduct in mild words. The question as to whether this is in reality a free republic is once more at issue. The action of the State of Florida is as barbaric as the persecutions of the Middle Ages."

From the _Independent_:

"Let the reader observe that this is not a law applying merely to the public schools of the State. Such a law we condemn, but we could not be surprised at it. This law is directed at this particular institution, which is not a public school but a private academy supported by the American Missionary Association. We have been amazed that in this nineteenth century Christians could be massacred by the thousands for not accepting the Moslem faith and no hand raised to defend them. But that was in Turkey. Here in the United States more than thirty years after the Proclamation of Emancipation in one of the sovereign States of the Union, half a dozen men and women are arrested for the crime of treating black children and white children alike, for not drawing a caste line in their own private grounds in a school they conduct at no expense to the State. It is a curious humiliating occurrence for this Jubilee year of the American Missionary Association."

From the _Advance_:

"Florida’s disgraceful Sheats law, specially designed for the teachers and supporters of Orange Park Academy, has at last been put in force. The teachers of the Academy, the pastor of the church, and the parents of the white pupils have been arrested for violation of this law, which forbids any one to maintain or patronize a school in which white persons and Negroes shall be taught or boarded within the same building.

And this is the State of Senator Call, who is declaiming so eloquently in behalf of the Cuban insurgents, more than half of whom are of Negro blood."

From the _Boston Standard_:

"A year ago the unconstitutional and vile Sheats law was passed by the legislature of Florida. It was understood that this law was particularly aimed at the Orange Park School, of the American Missionary Association, whose fiftieth anniversary is to be celebrated in this city next fall. This villainous statute was enforced in the case of the Orange Park School on the entire body of teachers, white men and women of spotless character and self-sacrificing devotion to the mission, because of educating teachers for the elevation of American citizenship. The normal school is one of the best and most useful of the educational agencies at work in the South, but had dared to ignore the outrageous statute which makes it a crime for any school, public or private, to teach black and white scholars in the same building or have any white teachers to eat and sleep in the same house with their Negro pupils. If these discretionary rights are not guaranteed by our national Constitution to American citizens, then the professed abolition of slavery and of the color line in citizenship is a wretched farce. Nobody can question the intent of the proclamation of emancipation of the constitutional amendment that places the Negro on the same legal plane with the white citizen of this country. We do not doubt the supreme and binding authority of this legislature. We mistake the temper of the American people if a blaze of indignation is not kindled by this outrage from the Atlantic to the Pacific."

From _Frank Leslie’s Weekly_:

"Under these provisions no citizen of Florida, it will be noted, can under certain conditions educate his child. He is excluded absolutely from the best educational institutions in the State if these admit pupils of both white and colored parentage. The defiance of the law was in obedience to a definite determination on the part of the American Missionary Association to make a distinct test of the statute."

From the _Boston Daily Advertiser_:

"The Sheats law in Florida was passed through the influence of malice, prejudice, and partisan venom. Efforts have been made in other Southern States to perpetrate similar outrages, but for the most part without avail. The better public sentiment all over the South is strongly against such meanness. This better sentiment has asserted itself successfully elsewhere, and we do not doubt that it will do so very soon in Florida."

From the _Boston Journal_:

"The American Missionary Association will be sustained by an enlightened public sentiment in fighting to the last resort the outrageous Florida law which makes it a crime to teach colored and white pupils in the same school."

These comments are but samples of the sentiment which comes to the Association respecting this attempt to challenge the constitutional amendment which came with the emancipation of the colored people from slavery. But now there is

A SECOND CHAPTER.

After the teachers were arrested it was supposed that this would be the end of the persecution until the statute should be tested by the courts. Accordingly they returned to the work in the school as before. On the 4th of May the Sheriff was instructed by the State Attorney to inquire into this continued violation of the law, and if he found the school to be going on as before, to arrest and rearrest, as long as the school should be continued. In consequence the school was forced to close its sessions, as the teachers were informed that they would be arrested over and over again, and that new bail would be required for every successive day; this not only for the teachers but for the patrons, which would be impossible in the case of those who are colored. This is in accordance with the published pronouncement of Supt. Sheats that he will prosecute and persecute this Orange Park School out of existence.

MEMBERS OF THE ALBANY CONVENTION.

We are desirous of securing the names of the survivors of the little band that gathered in Albany fifty years ago, and formed the American Missionary Association. A few years since, we made a similar call to this in the pages of THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY, but the responses were very few. At the present date, we know of only two persons, Rev. John H. Byrd, Lawrence, Kan., and Rev. Peter B. Thayer, Garland, Me., who were present at that time. We hope, if there are any other survivors, they will write to us promptly, and if there are persons whose eyes fall on this little notice who happen to know of any person who was present at that meeting, we will be much obliged if they will send us the name and address.

OUR CHURCHES.

We intend to present to our readers from time to time brief sketches of some of our churches located in the South and elsewhere, with some account of the condition of the membership as to property and education, with glimpses of their poverty and hard struggles to support the pastor, with occasionally the cheerful story of those who reach self-support. On another page will be found a sketch by Pastor Snell of the church in Talladega, Ala.

THE TALENTED TENTH.

In the discussion concerning Negro education we should not forget the talented tenth man. An ordinary education may answer for the nine men of mediocrity; but if this is all we offer the talented tenth man, we make a prodigious mistake. The tenth man, with superior natural endowments, symmetrically trained and highly developed, may become a mightier influence, a greater inspiration to others than all the other nine, or nine times nine like them. Without disparagement of faithful men of moderate abilities, it may be said that in all ages the mighty impulses that have propelled a people onward in their progressive career, have proceeded from a few gifted souls. Sometimes these have been "self-made" men, so-called, whose best powers were evoked by rare opportunities. Oftener, they have been men of thoroughly disciplined minds, of sharpened perceptive faculties, trained to analyze and to generalize; men of well-balanced judgments and power of clear and forceful statement.

It is this talented tenth man of our colleges that in after years reflects more honor on his _alma mater_ than the other nine; it is this tenth man that is the recognized leader in his profession and the leader of public opinion. To him, rather than to the other nine, the many look for suggestion and advice in important matters. He is an uncrowned king in his sphere.

This being true, I repeat that not to make proper provision for the high education of the talented tenth man of the colored people is a prodigious mistake. It is to dwarf the tree that has in it the potency of a grand oak. Industrial education is good for the nine; the common English branches are good for the nine; but that tenth man ought to have the best opportunities for making the most of himself for humanity and God.

The powers of this talented tenth man are often latent; unsuspected by others and even by their possessor, and are evoked only under favorable conditions, sometimes comparatively late in the youthful period of life. In a symmetrical course of study calculated to bring into exercise every mental faculty, somewhere, as by a touchstone, the particular aptitude of the pupil may be discovered, the secret springs of power be opened; and the man, having discovered himself, leaps forward to pre-eminence among his fellows. Scores of such men and women are among the students in the schools for the colored people of the South. A mere common education will not disclose their uncommon powers; they need the test of the best. And somewhere, at several central points at least, provision should be made for the higher education of the talented tenth as well as ordinary education for the other nine.

The great need of the colored people of the South is wise leadership along all lines of development; men of large and comprehensive views acquired by contact and communion with the world’s great thinkers; such men are needed to-day even more than nine times as many with a little more practical knowledge concerning the use of the saw, the jack-plane and the blacksmith’s forge. In our educational work for the colored people, therefore, proper provision should be made for the talented tenth.--DR. MOREHOUSE in _The Independent_.

ALASKA MISSION.

The following sentences from a personal letter of Miss Anna L. Dawes state a profound truth in terse and impressive form:

"If any one is willing to go up there and live with those Eskimos, I think the rest of us may well enough agree to help. Indeed, nothing has been so good for me for some time as his (Mr. Lopp’s) visit. It not only makes our Christianity (mine at least) look like a mustard seed, but makes you wonder whether it isn’t a _dead_ seed at that! I have been to hear Mr. Moody to-day, but he didn’t begin to give me such "conviction of sin" as the urgent and eager interest Mr. Lopp showed in going back to his people up there. I wonder just what the Lord does think of us all--some of us, anyway?"

Mr. Lopp, whom Miss Dawes refers to, is pleading for funds to make it possible to open the mission among the Eskimos. The American Missionary Association was obliged to discontinue it for a year on account of the straitened condition of the treasury. We are now making every effort to gather funds outside of the current income of the Association, that there may be at least one Christian mission conducted by Congregationalists in this great northern mission field. Mr. Lopp’s plea for "_his_ people" and abandon of self-sacrifice both on the part of himself and his wife, impress every one, as they did Miss Dawes.

This is the only mission of the Congregational denomination in Alaska. No other denomination plans to occupy this station if given up by the American Missionary Association. The work requires about five hundred dollars more than has been subscribed, and this must be in hand by the first of June, when it is necessary for Mr. Lopp to sail, if he goes this year.

THE SOUTH.

HISTORY OF A CHURCH IN ALABAMA.

BY REV. SPENCER SNELL.

The beautiful and healthful city of Talladega is located among the Appalachian foot hills. The First Congregational church was organized in the year 1868. The first members were people who came out of the colored Baptist Church, and who had begun to look for a more intelligent mode of worship and better religious instruction than it was possible to have in churches whose pastors had been slaves and were uneducated.

The first pastor of the church was Rev. H. E. Brown, of Ridgefield, O., whom the American Missionary Association had sent into the South. Since his retirement the pulpit has been occupied by several pastors, including the acceptable services of professors of Talladega College. My pastorate began in 1894.

There are friendly relations between our church and the other colored churches near at hand. The pastor is often invited to preach in the other churches. The pastors of two of the Baptist churches are graduates of our school here, and the pastor of one of the Methodist churches is now taking lessons in our seminary.