Chapter 3

Our principal, seeing my earnestness, gave me the privilege of living at the "Home," which enabled me to work out my board and tuition. I gladly accepted. And it is here the lasting influence began its effect upon me. Indeed, I cannot state the first impression made, but I do know the best; that is, it was here I became a Christian and was made to accept Christ as my Saviour. I think I professed religion in March of 1893, during Mr. Moore's work there. From this step I began to build a principle that would be able to stand the many temptations that would come upon me. The next best thing, it was here (at Emerson) I was made to realize the evil effect of alcoholic liquors, and when, as before that time, I had some toleration for wine, etc., I pledged myself against it and became a strong defender of "Prohibition." I was fortunate in being awarded a prize for the best-made speech on Prohibition in a contest given by Emerson Institute on May 22, 1894; and I almost decided to become a temperance lecturer.

It is impossible for me to enumerate the myriad of good influences that have surrounded me by being a student in Mobile. But permit me to say that if there is any one thing in earth that I owe for my stableness in that which is right, it is my having been immediately under the good influences of Emerson Institute and its earnest teachers. I have been made to see the power of a good education. My mind, heart, and soul have been broadened; and now I am able to look upon humanity from a broader point of view. It has certainly given me a more congenial spirit, and wherein I may have been conceited, I am not now. One very important influence is that I have decided to never stop short of the very best possible education. I have been made to believe that morality is the only standard for ideal Christianity.

A few words of what I am doing and shall do. I shall soon be teaching my motto, "A high moral standard," pure and upright, to benefit the largest possible number in shortest possible time. I shall endeavor by God's assistance to instill in my pupils these true principles of right doing and the possibilities brought through education. And as I have been influenced by Emerson Institute and its teachers, I shall try and do likewise to those whom I shall assume authority over.

I think that you will be able to get an idea of how I have been influenced by Emerson Institute by the narrative which I have given, although scattering.

I trust that you will pray for my success, and that I may be able to stand the _test_. I have endeavored to give veracity in this matter, with no exaggeration. Neither have I spoken in hyperbolical terms, to make the wrong impression. Trusting that this is the question that you asked me, properly answered, I am hopeful that your stay with us this year has been crowned with success, and that you may return next year with even greater determination, and that the results may be a hundred-fold. Kind wishes to all the teachers. I am,

Yours sincerely,

W. L. Jones.

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GRAND VIEW CHURCH.

REV. W. W. DORNAN.

The Grand View Congregational Church is situated on Waldon's Ridge, overlooking the pleasant valley of Tennessee. The outlook on the southern side reaches to the Unaka chain of mountains in North Carolina, a distance of about seventy miles. Westward and northward rise in the background of the forest the mountains of the Cumberland plateau. On the east, the trees shut out everything but the sky.

We are about 800 feet above the sea-level, giving a most delightful and salubrious atmosphere. The moral atmosphere is equally good. The nearest place for liquors and their accompanying vices is in the valley beneath.

The Congregational Church was organized at this place on October 15, 1885, under the superintendency of the American Missionary Association. The congregation was composed wholly of people from the Northern States, who had come to the mountains seeking health. These, to the number of about twenty-five families, form the neighborhood of Grand View. Outside of this place are to be found the people of the mountains, scattered across the mountain-top, in a little clearing here and another there. In the midst of the woods, during the summer, it is a "discovery" to find the log house, the home of the mountaineer. The occupation of all is farming. There is no other means for a livelihood.

Many of the church members own their own homes; usually two-story frame buildings.

During the present pastorate twenty-one have united with the church; fourteen by letter, seven by confession. Out of this number we have nine who are mountaineers, the first acquisition of the native element to the church. We have a small but neat building, seating 150, in which services are held every Sunday morning and evening. A Christian Endeavor Society embraces a large number of the young people for whom we labor.

This church is in connection with a large and flourishing school. The students come to us from three States, and thus the influence of the American Missionary Association is scattered far and wide. We are the center of a large but poor class of people who have no means to help themselves. If they are ever to help themselves, they must receive a start from outside. When they do get a chance they usually go ahead.

We have among our students many teachers of the public schools lifting the tone of the whole mountain. Last year about sixteen of the students taught school during the vacation, covering a territory from Red Belt, Georgia, to Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee. Several lawyers, former students, are now practicing at the bar in Tennessee and other States. To our honor one of our graduates is a missionary in China; many have gone forth to usefulness. Many, if not all, of these would have been unable to do anything for themselves but for the benevolence of the churches and the planting of the school and church in this place. The ideas with which the Association set out to work are no longer theories, but established facts.

The success of the Association, I believe, lies, next to God's blessing, in the fact that they realized that not only the school is needed to make better men and women, but also the church to fit these men and women for the struggles of life. Both together are needed to do the work.

In this place, where "the work which this society is doing touches every fiber of our national life," that which produced the sterling manhood of New England in the past days, and made our national life a possibility and then a fact, can, in a like manner in the future, produce such men and women on the mountains and in the valleys of the South.

Such a work should give hope and courage to every friend of this Association, and I believe that in the last day it will be a great surprise to many to know how many homes they have helped to brighten, and how many lives they have helped to bless, and how many souls they have helped to save.

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The Chinese.

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VISITS TO THREE MISSIONS.

BY REV. JEE GAM.

The missions visited were those at Marysville, Oroville, and Watsonville. At each place an anniversary was held, at which Dr. Pond wished me to make an address. But I felt that I had other duties to do besides this:

1. To see that those brethren who had not been baptized should come to baptism.

2. To urge those scholars who ought to join the Congregational Association of Christian Chinese to do so at once.

3. To strengthen and stimulate the brethren, not only to stand firm in their faith, but to press forward to save men through Christ.

4. To urge them to give generously to our work.

5. To preach on the street, that I might lead some one or more to Jesus.

At Marysville I lost no time in getting the names of those who had not been baptized, and who seemed ready for baptism; then the names of pupils who ought to join the association. Then I enlisted the co-operation of the baptized Christians. We just _surrounded_ four of our brethren and urged them to give themselves publicly and wholly to Christ. They objected that they would like just to know more, but they had been under instruction between one and two years, and had confessed themselves believers six or more months ago by joining the association. We thought them well qualified to receive baptism. Finally they consented, and then we all shook hands and rejoiced. They were baptized by Dr. Pond the following Sunday evening, when after the anniversary we received the Lord's Supper and listened to Dr. Pond's sermon on our motto for the year, "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost."

The method of winning the three pupils for the Association was the same only with the added efforts of all present.

The contribution was generous. At my first mention of this matter they all held up their pledge-cards, duly signed, and with the amounts they were able to give written upon them.

On Sunday afternoon we held a street meeting, which all the brethren who could attended, and all helped.

The next day (Monday) two Marysville brethren went with us to Oroville at their own expense. The weather was intensely hot, but this did not prevent a cordial welcome to us, both at the depot and at the Mission. And here we settled down to work just as we did at Marysville. The result was that three brethren were baptized and one scholar joined the association. The new brother is an educated young man, but was a great devotee of gambling, at which he has generally lost money. On my first visit to Oroville, two years ago, I admonished him to quit this bad habit and become a Christian. He frankly acknowledged the sin, but was reluctant to cease from it till he could win back what he had lost. So I could not persuade him. And when I reached Oroville this time I was made sad at hearing that he was still a gambler, though still a pupil in the school. He came to the Mission house that evening at about 10 o'clock, and, after hand-shaking, sat down in a corner of the room. Seeing in this a fine opportunity, I said to the brethren present, "Let us gather about Jee Loy and win him to Christ to-night." There were six of us, myself included. We asked him what objection he had to becoming a Christian. He mentioned many, but we disposed of them all, not, however, without talking for nearly two hours. During the brethren's turns to speak I prayed in my heart many times, invoking God's help on our words, and begging that his heart might be opened to the truth and to Christ.

But he still refused. I then said to him, "Will you go home and think the matter over very carefully and let us know to-morrow evening?" He said that he would. A prayer was offered and he went home. We were overjoyed when he came the next evening to tell us that he had decided for Christ and would join the association, which he did at once. We were all filled with thanksgiving.

Three other things made us glad: (1) The addition of three brethren to our Bethany Church in Oroville; (2) the steadfastness and boldness of our brethren as shown at the street preaching service; and (3) their generosity. For when I spoke to them about Senator George C. Perkins and his allowing them to occupy this building for twenty years without charging a cent of rent, or even our paying the taxes upon it, and suggested that they make him a life member of our California Chinese Mission, as quick as lightning "Yes," "Yes!" was heard all over the room. In a very short time the whole amount of $25 was subscribed; and they intend, with God's help, to make Mrs. Perkins a life member next year.

The anniversaries at Marysville and Oroville were the best we ever had in either place. The Lord's Supper, in each case, was observed at the mission after the anniversary service closed, and this was followed by Dr. Pond's discourse, so that the services did not end till about 11.30 o'clock.

At Oroville, even after this, a pleasant social was held, and we tried to bring another to Christ, but did not succeed; and finally, the night being so nearly gone, and the morning train for San Francisco starting at 4 o'clock, we did not go to bed at all, but strolled through Chinatown and enjoyed the cool night air after a hot, laborious day.

At Watsonville we had similar exercises, and the joy of extending our fellowship to Dr. Quon Hun, a highly educated Chinese physician, who had attended our school for several months, and who, after studying the Lord's Prayer all alone, was led into the light of Christ, and composed a beautiful Chinese poem upon it. He had charge of the tablets of one of the Tongs, and had also his own private shrine in his office. But he returned the tablets and destroyed his own idols. He is a man greatly respected, and will be able to do a great work for Christ, though doubtless he will encounter much odium and persecution.

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Bureau of Woman's Work.

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THE ASSOCIATION JUBILEE.

BY SEC. D. E. EMERSON.

Not long after emancipation a freed-woman, about 50 years old, who was learning to read, came to the word "unbound" in her lesson, and exclaimed, rapturously, "How good, to feel unbound!"

If the American Missionary Association, its work, principles, and all that it represents, could be expressed in one word, that word would be _emancipation_--deliverance from bondage, deliverance from caste prejudice, from ignorance, superstition, and darkness. Its mission is to preach the gospel to the poor, to loose the chains of the bound, to proclaim "The truth shall make you free."

It was a little company of earnest men and women that gathered in Albany, N. Y., in September, 1846, to form this organization. Its early history was not only of works, but of "witness," fearless and undaunted. It had a God-given mission, and this conviction sustained its brave adherents during those years of severe trial and testing. Yet all was not discouragement. Every year brought added strength in numbers and in funds. Every year showed more plainly that the hand of the Lord was in this movement.

So it worked for fifteen years, gaining varied experience in industrial, educational, evangelistic, and church work, in methods of administration, in wise use of funds. At the close of this period it was conducting prosperous missions at thirty-seven stations in its foreign field, and in the home field it had under its care 120 churches. Then came the rebellion and war, and the unmistakable call of Providence to the rapid development of missions southward. Immediately the Association, now encouraged and supported by all the churches, moved in the wake of the Union army, beginning in 1861 to work for the contrabands at Fortress Monroe, where 1,800 colored people had sought the protection of the American flag. All its varieties of experience and resources were called into action. It became a philanthropic society to feed and clothe the suffering, a Bible society to distribute the word of God. It became an industrial society to help people to homes and teach practical farming, trades, and housewifery. It established social settlements, with groups of missionary teachers living in one household among the degraded and despised people, to whom they ministered; an educational society with its system of schools; a church society, seeking always the salvation of souls and gathering of converts into churches.

Now it was that the wisdom, the heroism, the unfaltering faith of this Association, strengthened by fifteen years of valorous adherence to the gospel principles of emancipation, prepared it to launch out upon its great mission. The demands were almost overwhelming in extent and variety.

First, Fortress Monroe, then Norfolk and all eastern Virginia, Newport News, and Port Royal; then the Carolinas, Mississippi, and Tennessee. So closely did the missions follow the victorious armies that by the time the war-storm had fully cleared away, the American Missionary Association had 320 missionaries preaching and teaching the gospel to the freedmen, with 16,000 pupils in its schools. No wonder that it was said, "Behold how God has fitted this Association for this vast and mighty work."

The development of this marvelous work has many thrilling chapters among the forty-nine that have been already written. They tell the story briefly of the devoted men and women who have been carrying on the blessed work of emancipation. They show how not less than 3,000 women have given of their best talent and strength to this Christ-like service. They speak of the perils by shotgun and by fire; of imprisonment, ostracism, and scorn; of persecution, that it was believed the progress of the age had made impossible in these later days, but which the State of Florida has been able to revive. But these chapters tell also how the truth has been setting many free, blacks and whites alike, bringing them into a truer conception of God's fatherhood, man's brotherhood through sonship by Jesus Christ.

The American Missionary Association finds its highest testimonial in the work itself, in its system of Christian schools, including graded primaries, academies, normal and industrial schools, in its colleges in each of five states, and in its advancing church work. Nay, its best testimonial is in the product from these schools and churches, the teachers and preachers, lawyers and doctors, the good farmers and mechanics, the upright mothers and fathers, the sweet though humble homes, the conscientious Christian citizens, in whose influence and leadership lies the hope of the African race. It finds its testimonial in the loyalty and devotion of its missionaries, their self-denial for the cause they love. It has seen a gifted woman from a home of comfort going year by year for twenty years to this work of emancipation for the "bound" in Georgia and Tennessee, among a despised people, and, when called from earth and earth's opportunities, leaving a liberal sum to continue the work of Christian education. It has seen many another consecrated missionary take from the savings of a lifetime, to enable the Association to light one more lamp for the dark places of the South, and not a few turn back three-fourths of their small salaries to help in sustaining the work. The liberality of the missionaries testifies not only to the genuineness of the work, but to the importance of the field and its irresistible appeal.

With such a history the American Missionary Association stands before the churches in this, its fiftieth, year. God has graciously widened the fields before it. The 4,000,000 of freed slaves are a race of 8,000,000 in our midst. "Never since the apostolic age has there been open to the church a field so vast, so urgent, so hopeful."

God has graciously widened the mission fields of the Association; the mountain regions of the South have been opened, and the gospel, carried with such personal risk fifty years ago, reaching only here and there a few, may be carried freely to the 2,000,000 of our mountain countrymen mentally and spiritually bound. God has graciously widened the fields. The Indian missions present their claim, for wherever a pagan Indian tribe remains there may the gospel be carried quickly and without personal harm. The providential call has been heard also, and answered by this Association, for the Chinese within our borders and the Eskimo on the Alaskan coast. The work of this Association may well be the glory of the churches. God has done His part. He has opened the fields, He has richly blessed every effort toward enlightenment and Christian civilization. The missionaries have done their part in prayer, in labor, in gifts, in voicing the earnest appeal of these poor, whose greatest need is Christian education and a pure gospel.

Now, the Association has come to its fiftieth year, the fiftieth chapter in its serial history. Standing always for emancipation, it is itself enthralled in the toils of a terrible debt. It trusted the churches; it believed that the action of the churches in separating their Indian work from the government, relinquishing $22,000, would be followed by $22,000 additional gifts from the people of God, that the Indian missions should not suffer loss. It believed that the growing claim of the Southern mountain work and the claim of this great African race in our midst would not be disregarded. It still believes in the churches. There has been only a temporary withholding. In the sisterhood of missionary societies, two have been freed from debt. Now by one grand concentration of gifts to the Jubilee Fund of the American Missionary Association, shall it not be enabled to celebrate a remarkable record, a marvelous work, a divine call to present widening fields of usefulness and a jubilee of financial freedom that by the grace of God shall last? May we not then confidently look for the opening of the windows of heaven, and the outpouring of such a blessing on home churches and mission fields as shall summon the attention of an indifferent and unbelieving world to the certain and rapid progress of the kingdom of God?

Jubilee Year Fund, Additional Shares.

EMELINE J. KELLOGG, Manchester, Vt. ANDRUS MARCH, Charlton City, Mass. CAROLINE CROWELL, Haverhill, Mass. CHRISTIAN UNION CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Upper Montclair, N. J. Mrs. S. M. COWLES, Kensington, Conn. Mrs. M. A. BACHELOR, Whitinsville, Mass. Mrs. C. A. RANSOM, Wellesley, Mass. CENTRAL UNION SOUTH CHURCH, Concord, N. H. TWO FRIENDS, Wellesley, Mass., two shares. WOMAN'S MISSIONARY SOCIETY, River Falls, Wis. FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Great Barrington, Mass. Rev. JAMES W. BIXLER, Trustee, New London, Conn. FRANK L. ANDREWS, Fall River, Mass. Mrs. R. S. CURTIS, Hampden, Me. SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Manchester, Conn. PLYMOUTH CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL, Worcester, Mass. TABITHA L. CUSHMAN, East Los Angeles, Cal. CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL, Greenville, N. H. "DEBTOR TO THE A. M. A.," Auburndale, Mass. Mrs. ELLEN M. WELLMAN, Malden, Mass. W. H. M. A., AUXILIARY OF CHURCH OF THE PILGRIMAGE, Plymouth, Mass. CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Yankton, S. D. WALNUT HILLS WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY, Cincinnati, O. JOHN M. WILLIAMS, Evanston, Ill. PLYMOUTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Lawrence, Kan. Mr. and Mrs. GAYLORD THOMSON, Medina, O. CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Granby, Mass. Mrs. LOTA B. WHITE WALES, in memory of Rev. O. H. WHITE, D.D., Dorchester, Mass. A FRIEND, New Britain, Conn. FRIENDS, Milford, N. H., two shares. LADIES IN SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, West Winsted, Conn. Miss ANNA E. FARRINGTON, through WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION OF NORTH CAROLINA, Oaks, N. C. WOMAN'S MISSIONARY SOCIETY, Hancock, Mich. A FRIEND, Concord, N. H., two shares. Mrs. S. A. PRATT, Worcester, Mass. EVANGELICAL CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Westboro, Mass. CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Oakham, Mass. TWO FRIENDS, Park Street Congregational Church, Boston, Mass. INDIVIDUALS IN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Cumberland Centre, Me. BELLE OLINGER, Williamsburg, Ky. Mrs. W. H. CATLIN, Meriden, Conn. WOMAN'S ASSOCIATION, First Church, Detroit, Mich. RESIDENTS, Cumberland Gap, Tenn.

Previously reported, 238 Subscriptions reported above, 46 ------ Total number of shares reported, 284

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RECEIPTS FOR JULY, 1896.

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_THE DANIEL HAND FUND_

_For the Education of Colored People._

Income for July $7,920.00 Previously acknowledged 47,663.09 ----------- $55,583.09 ===========

CURRENT RECEIPTS

MAINE, $371.59