Vol. XXXIII.

No. 12.

THE
AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

“To the Poor the Gospel is Preached.”

DECEMBER, 1879.

CONTENTS:

NEW YORK:
Published by the American Missionary Association,
Rooms, 56 Reade Street.

Price, 50 Cents a Year, in advance.

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

American Missionary Association,

56 READE STREET, N. Y.

PRESIDENT.

Hon. E. S. TOBEY, Boston.

VICE-PRESIDENTS.

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

Rev. M. E. STRIEBY, D. D., 56 Reade Street, N. Y.

DISTRICT SECRETARIES.

Rev. C. L. WOODWORTH, Boston.
Rev. G. D. PIKE, New York.
Rev. JAS. POWELL, Chicago.
H. W. HUBBARD, Esq., Treasurer, N. Y.
Rev. M. E. STRIEBY, Recording Secretary.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

COMMUNICATIONS

relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to the Corresponding Secretary; those relating to the collecting fields to the District Secretaries; letters for the Editor of the “American Missionary,” to Rev. Geo. M. Boynton, at the New York Office.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

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 112 West Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member.

THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

Vol. XXXIII.

DECEMBER, 1879.

No. 12.

American Missionary Association.

It is a real source of regret to us that all our news from the field must be omitted for this month. Next month we shall be flooded with good tidings, we hope, from all quarters.

Friends sending us remittances will please address H. W. Hubbard, Esq., Treasurer, he having been promoted from the Assistant and Acting Treasurership on the retirement of Edgar Ketchum, Esq. Mr. Ketchum still remains on the Executive Committee.

By a mistake at the Chicago newspaper offices, the name of Mr. Samuel Holmes was omitted from the list of our Executive Committee as printed by them, and that of Mr. Andrew Lester retained. The facts are just the other way. Mr. Lester having resigned, was made a Vice-President, and Mr. Holmes is still a member of the Committee.

The Missionary is this month devoted to the reproduction of the Annual Meeting. We wish all our readers could have been there to learn of our work, our situation and our prospects, and to gain those enlarged views of the duty and the opportunity which lie before us in all directions. This grouping of proceedings and papers is the best substitute we can offer.

We print the annual survey of the Executive Committee nearly in full, rather than in abstract, as heretofore, as giving that general view of the work, without which it cannot be appreciated in its extent and variety. Instead of covering several pages with the formal minutes of the Annual Meeting, we condense them into a shorter compass, as giving equal information in a more readable form. The Annual Report, when published in full, will, of course, contain these as well as the reports of the Committees in detail. We have maintained our general division of the field, prefixing the reports of the several committees to the papers and addresses on the cognate subjects, by this classification making the whole more valuable for reference and use. We thus propose to send the annual meeting to those who could not go to it, regretting still that the enthusiasms and impressions of a great assembly cannot be transmitted by types and ink.

We regret the necessity which has compelled us to abridge somewhat almost all the reports and papers following, but the limits of a double number are easily reached with so much material at hand. We have omitted entirely the valuable paper by General Leake, on “Protection of Law for the Indians,” because it has been printed in full in both the Inter-Ocean and the Advance, and because it is so long and yet so compact that it cannot be condensed. It is well worth most careful study.

We are under obligations to our denominational newspapers for their full and faithful reports of our meeting. The Advance, in its regular edition and in an extra, gave full copies of the most important documents and papers read, for which we have secured a wide circulation; while the Congregationalist, through its editorial correspondent, devoted a large part of its first page to the report of the meeting, printed the larger part of the annual report on its third page, and in its leading editorial spoke good words of commendation for the Association, and of exhortation to its friends.

THE FINANCIAL OUTLOOK.

Our work has, in the successful termination of the year, reached an important crisis. We should be sorry to have any one think, because the debt and the expenses of the year have been met, that we are, therefore, about to retire from business and rest from our labors. On the other hand, we are just ready to go to work. It has taken a good share of our strength to carry this back-load; and we have been crippled at the front by the insufficiency of the buildings for our largest institutions. We have been walking as men walk on the ice, holding back lest we should venture too far and make some bad slip.

But that is all, we trust, of the past. God has been good to us. We have prayed for deliverance and we have worked to be free, and prayers and alms have come up together before God, and prayer is always effectual when accompanied with such proofs of sincerity. Now we are free to work. Our feet are on the solid rock of solvency. The Lord has established our goings. The way is open before us and the work lies ready to our hand. Our schools in the South of all grades are opening this year fuller than ever. Several churches are waiting to be recognized and put upon the pilgrim foundation. The completion of the new building in Austin, Texas, and of the four we hope soon to build at other points, will give increased and much needed accommodations. Those who met at Chicago urged us to enlarge the missionary schools among the Chinese on the Pacific Coast; and the new departure in attempting the education of Indian youths at our negro schools offers us opportunities of more permanent influence in that direction than we can hope for in any other way, while the tribes are subject to be moved at will from one reservation to another. The African Missions, new and old, are both calling upon us for attention and expense.

What is the financial outlook for all this? Shall we be able to meet these various calls with anything like adequate efficiency? We answer, with a look of inquiry, Friends, it depends on you. But our expression of inquiry turns to one of confidence as we remember what you have done. We expect to do this larger work; for evidently God calls us to it, and His friends have never failed us yet.

We are encouraged, too, by the beginnings of the year. Our receipts for the month of October and the beginning of November are larger than a year ago. But, do not forget, they need to be so all through the year. We will be as wise and saving in the expenditure as we can; but we can be far more wisely economical on an income which is reasonably adequate to the needs of the work, than on a very scanty one. “The destruction of the poor is their poverty,” says the wise man. Keep us in mind then and in heart, we pray you, that we may all realize that God has brought us out into this liberty that we may serve Him and our generation better.

PROCEEDINGS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING.

The meeting place was the spacious First Congregational Church of Chicago. At 3 p. m. of Tuesday, October 28th, President Tobey assumed the chair, and Dr. W. H. Bidwell, of New York, conducted the opening devotional services. Rev. J. G. Merrill, of Iowa, and Rev. George C. Adams, of Illinois, were elected Secretaries.

The Annual Report was read by Rev. George M. Boynton, and the Treasurer’s Report by H. W. Hubbard, Esq. In grateful response to their cheering character the congregation rising sang, “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.” The hour following was observed as a concert of prayer with the pastors and teachers in the Southern field.

In the evening Dr. R. S. Storrs, of New York, preached a grand discourse from Psalm cxviii. 23, “This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.” President Strong, of Minnesota, and Dr. Robbins, of Iowa, conducted the other services.

During the evening the following greeting was received by telegram and read by Secretary Strieby: “The Prudential Committee and the Executive Officers of the A. B. C. F. M. congratulate the A. M. A. upon the successful termination of their year’s labor, and bid them God-speed in their work for the coming year.”

Alpheus Hardy, Chairman.

On the next morning the following response was adopted by a rising vote: “The A. M. A., assembled at its thirty-third anniversary, receive with grateful appreciation the congratulations of the Prudential Committee and Executive Officers of the venerable American Board, and with thanks to God for the recent enlargement granted to the Board, pray for the continued Divine blessing on its glorious and expanding work.”

M. E. Strieby, Secretary.

Dr. Goodwin, of Chicago, then led in an earnest prayer for the blessing of God upon the two societies and their common work.

Tuesday evening Secretary Strieby read a paper entitled “Providential Calls,” and President Merrell, of Wisconsin, on “The Providential Significance of the Negro in the United States.” These will be found in this Missionary. Field Superintendent Roy gave “A Field View of the Work.” Rev. J. H. Twichell, of Connecticut, read a paper on “The Relations of America and China,” of which we reprint a portion. In the afternoon a paper on “The Necessity of the Protection of Law for the Indians” was read by Gen. J. B. Leake, of Illinois. These papers were referred each to the committee having charge of the cognate subject.

The Finance Committee reported through Mr. J. W. Scoville, approving the management of the Association and calling upon the churches to increase their contributions to its treasury, so that now freed from debt it might do a greater and a better work. The report was followed by remarks from Hon. E. S. Hastings, Geo. Bushnell, D. D., and Hon. E. D. Holton, of Wisconsin.

Rev. Henry A. Stimson reported for the Committee on Indian Missions, and followed the report with an able address, giving a sketch of the causes of the various Indian wars. An animated discussion followed.

Rev. C. H. Richards read the report of the Committee on Church Work, and was followed by District Secretary Woodworth and others.

The Committee on Educational Work reported through its chairman, Prest. A. L. Chapin, of Wis., followed by Professors Willcox and Chase, and Rev. Messrs. Bray, Boynton and Foster.

Rev. A. H. Ross, of Mich., reported for the Committee on Chinese Missions, following the report with a brief address, and followed by Rev. Mark Williams, of China, Jee Gam and others.

Dr. Dana, of Minn., reported on African Missions for the Committee. He also, District Secretary Pike, and Dr. E. P. Goodwin, made addresses.

For these reports in full or in part we refer to the following pages; and for the officers elected for the coming year, to the inside of the first cover.

The morning prayer meetings were led by Rev. James Brand, of Ohio, and M. M. G. Dana, D. D., of Minn. The Lord’s Supper was administered on Thursday afternoon by F. Bascom, D. D., of Ill., and Rev. Thomas Jones, of Mich. At this service a contribution was taken, amounting to $437.46, for the Trinity School at Athens, Ala., for which a special plea had been made in the morning.

President Fairchild and Col. C. G. Hammond presided at the morning and afternoon sessions of Thursday respectively.

A most interesting meeting was held on Wednesday evening, when, after prayer by Dr. Geo. N. Boardman, of Illinois, addresses were made by Jee Gam, a converted Chinaman, and now one of our teachers in Oakland, Cal.; by Big Elk, a converted Indian, from the Omaha Reservation, who was accompanied by Rev. Mr. Dorsey, who acted as his interpreter, and by Rev. James Saunders, a negro minister. These three told the story of their own religious experiences and life. Prest. Alexander, of La., and Dr. Roy, of Ga., followed, and pointed the illustration of this one humanity and one Gospel.

Thursday evening the closing session was held, at which Mr. M. H. Crogman, a graduate of Atlanta, and now Professor in the Methodist school at Nashville, Tenn., made an address which, by the vigor of its thought and the eloquence of its expression, was a sufficient illustration of the capacities of his race. President Tobey and F. A. Noble, D. D., also addressed the meeting. Resolutions of thanks to the First Church and its pastor, the people and press of Chicago, and the railroads which had given especial facilities, were passed. A few last words from Dr. Goodwin, and the benediction from Dr. Savage, of Chicago, and the Association adjourned for another year.

It would not be right to omit the notice of the Ladies’ Meeting held in the church parlors on Wednesday afternoon. Mrs. E. W. Blatchford presided, and the large assembly was addressed by Mrs. Prof. Spence, of Fisk University, and Misses Parmelee and Milton, teachers at Memphis, Tenn.

GENERAL SURVEY.

From the Annual Report of the Executive Committee.

The report opens with brief obituary notices of Rev. Simeon S. Jocelyn, a Secretary of the Society for many years and more lately a member of the Committee; and of Rev. William Patton, D. D., and Rev. George Thacher, D. D., Vice-Presidents; of Miss Laura S. Cary and Mrs. Anna M. Peebles, valued teachers, and Miss Rebecca Tyler Bacon, associated with Hampton in its early days, who have also died during the year. These may be found in full in the forthcoming Annual Report volume.

THE FREEDMEN.

The varying fortunes of the Freedmen through the year have added another illustration to the many which combine to show that an uneducated mass of men is always an uncertain quantity in the national problem. That these once slaves in the South have been wronged and abused there can be no doubt. Advantage has been taken of their ignorance in contracts for labor, and in the manner of their pay. They have been misled and intimidated in the attempt to exercise their right of franchise. It would be useless to deny the facts. The thousands who have left their homes and associations in Mississippi and Louisiana for the chances of new settlement in Kansas, are witnesses as powerful in their silence as in their speech. They have not gone for nothing.

We have no apology to offer for those who have made it impossible for them to remain in peace, and who have sought by force to keep them from departing. But, on the other hand, it becomes us to remember that these evils spring not so much from local as from general causes. The same wrongs are perpetrated and endured, to some extent, wherever there are similar states of society. Ignorance is always at a disadvantage, whether it wants to work or to vote. It is always in bonds to some power and will beyond its own. New York, and perhaps even Chicago, knows something of abused labor and a controlled vote. The local causes which increase the evil may need thorough treatment, but that is not ours either to prescribe or to administer. It is the general cause which we may consider, and to which we are directing all our energies—not to the restraint or punishment of those who do the wrong, but to the removal of the ignorance which gives such large occasion for the wrong.

For our work is foundational and steady. Amid all social and political changes the need for it remains unchanged. We are not engaged in pulling up the shallow roots of weeds, nor in planting flower-beds with annuals, but in sub-soiling our Southern fields, and so preparing the ground for crops of better quality from year to year. The only permanent guarantee against the abuse of any race or class, either North or South, is the diffusion of Christian intelligence among the abused, and of the spirit of Christian love among those who abuse them. This is our work.

We have no word of criticism for those who have chosen to remove to another State. Liberty of emigration is one of the most unquestionable rights of freemen. But there is no charm in the name of Kansas which will make the ignorant or the timid either wise or brave. Let the masses of the colored race be once armed with intelligence, and they can stay or go with equal impunity. Without it they will be anywhere at the mercy of either force or fraud.

Nor is the work of the Association to be limited by any local changes among the Freedmen. The removal of seven thousand men, women and children from so vast a population leaves no noticeable void; nor, even if the proportions of this exodus shall reach the highest numbers at which it has been estimated, will it perceptibly diminish the millions of a race which is year by year increasing in numbers and in thrift.

The only plea which these facts make to us is, that we redouble our efforts to forge for them the armor which alone can be their complete defence.

The Association has not, therefore, felt itself called upon to divert its efforts to the field thus newly occupied. If, as the outcome of this movement, there shall be permanent and large settlements of the colored people in new localities, it may become needful for us carefully to consider the claim which they may make on us for such service as we are trying to render their brethren in the South.

We have cheerfully forwarded such gifts of money and clothing as have been entrusted to us to local agencies, in which we had reason to have the greatest confidence, for the relief of the present distress, and have kept ourselves to our main work.

EDUCATIONAL WORK.

Our eight chartered institutions, in the eight leading States of the South, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, have continued to do thorough and faithful work. One has been added to the number of our normal schools, making twelve in all. Twenty-four common schools have been aided—six more than the previous year. The total number of schools of all grades has been 44.

We have had in all 190 teachers in the field; of these 10 have also fulfilled the duties of matrons, 6 have been connected with the business department, and 11 have been pastors of churches, but all have been actively engaged in teaching.

The total number of pupils has been 7,207—almost exactly the number reported a year ago. These have been distributed as follows: Primary, 2,739; Intermediate, 1,495; Grammar, 633; Normal, 2,022; Collegiate Preparatory, 169; Collegiate, 63; Law, 28; Theological, 86. This shows an increase in the professional schools, a decrease in the collegiate, and over 500 more in the normal department than last year.

The reports of the quality of the work thus accomplished have been most encouraging. Greater regularity of attendance has been attained than ever before, and the ambition to keep up with the classes entered has been marked. The same persistence in overcoming obstacles to entrance arising from poverty and distance from the schools which marked previous years, has been no less conspicuous during that just passed. The range of study and instruction has been much the same as heretofore. The work of the class-rooms has been too good to need to be materially altered.

The industrial and practical training has been that in which there has been the most marked improvement and expansion. How to work is quite as important a branch of knowledge for the colored boys and girls as how to teach. Indeed, that they maybe able to teach others how to work is a large part of their vocation. How to behave themselves on the farm, in the shop, in the work-room, sick-room and the kitchen, is as needful for them to know as how to behave themselves in the school-room and in the church of God. This training is receiving more and more wise and thorough attention, and we are sending out young men and young women better and better fitted to be the teachers and leaders of society, as well as of the school.

Our schools and teachers have been evidently growing in favor and esteem, both with the colored and white people of the South. A most noticeable instance of the attachment of the colored population to the schools, and their appreciation of their value, was given very recently at Athens, Alabama. It became necessary to give up the school at that place, or to rebuild at an expense of not less than $5,000, which latter it was deemed impossible to do. Word to that effect was sent to Athens. The grief of the people was intense. It did not, however, expend itself in tears, but became motive power. They offered themselves to erect the needful building, pledged over $2,000 at once, and by gifts of labor and material provided fully for it, and are at work upon it now. They propose to make brick sufficient for its completion, and a surplus to exchange for the lumber which will be required. They are all at it. A blind man, who can do nothing else, offered to turn the crank to draw the water. Whether they will be able, in their extreme poverty, to accomplish all they have undertaken, yet remains to be seen; but such zeal in a good thing is surely worthy of special notice. When the colored people attempt to co-operate with us to such an extent, we cannot desert them. The school will go on.

During this year it appeared to the Committee that a sufficient fund had been accumulated to warrant at least a beginning of the permanent building for the Tillotson Normal Institute, in Austin, Texas. The foundation is already laid, and the contract drawn for the enclosure of the building. This great State, with its rapidly increasing population of colored people, and its insufficient provision for their education, demands the earliest possible completion of this building, and the equipment of the institution for efficient work.

With the four buildings completed the previous year at Mobile, New Orleans, Macon and Savannah, we are now in possession of better and more permanent equipment for our school work than ever before. But it is yet quite insufficient for its pressing need, which is most felt in the necessity of enlarged provision for boarding pupils, for it is, after all, in those who are thus brought under the continuous influence of their teachers, and away from the debasing surroundings of cabin life, that the best results of mental and religious training are realized. The call for such relief has been continuous and increasing in its urgency; but we have been obliged almost to deny it a hearing in the poverty and pressure of these past years.

The near future will, however, we trust, do much to relieve this long-felt want, through the generous gift to the Association of $150,000 by Mrs. Daniel P. Stone, of Malden, Mass., from the estate of her late husband, of which, though it is not yet in our possession, we have been fully assured. In accordance with the expressed wish of the donor, this money is to be used in the erection of buildings at Nashville, Atlanta, New Orleans and Talladega. These buildings will largely increase the accommodations of these institutions for the class of pupils which has been named, and will greatly diminish the percentage of expense for their education, as but few additions to the corps of teachers already in the work will be required. In these normal and collegiate institutions it is the variety of studies rather than the number of students to which the teaching force must be adapted. We may add fifty per cent. to the number of pupils, and need to add only five per cent., perhaps, to the number of teachers. There can be no more acceptable gift than that of these new buildings for well-established schools—none which will so add to their effectiveness.

A few school buildings belonging to the Association have been, of late years, rented to local school boards, in cases where greater good could be accomplished for those for whose use they were intended than by retaining them in our hands. It has been a saving to our treasury, a widening of their usefulness, and a bond of fraternity between the friends of education North and South.

We may only, in passing, refer to the beginning in the accumulation of valuable libraries made in some of our institutions. There is yet room for much needed enlargement of this important branch of our educational service.

Two things yet remain to be done that our schools may be placed upon a permanent and satisfactory basis, and these are adequate provision for the maintenance of professorships and of scholarships. We have been compelled to confine ourselves chiefly to making appropriations for the salaries of teachers, simply because without them there could be no schools at all. This was the one thing indispensable from the very start. But, increasingly, the need of student aid makes itself manifest. Gifts have been secured from churches, Sunday-schools and individuals for this purpose, and more money must be raised from similar sources. Yet it is evident that this must not be taken from the fund by which the teachers are sustained. That would be to increase the number of applicants, and, at the same time, to close the doors at which they seek admission. We must not try to lengthen the skirts of our coats by cutting them off at the shoulders; they will fall off from us altogether if we do that. This is our problem: both to maintain our teachers and to support more students. It cannot be solved by any process of subtraction. Can it be done in any other way than by addition to our income? And it must be done, if we are to make our work tell as it ought upon the vast negro population of the South. To overcome the obstacles which stand at every step in the way of attaining the thorough education needed by those who are to be the leaders of their people, demands a power of will and an energy of perseverance such as few individuals of any race possess, unless they are assisted all along the way.

The origin and surroundings of these colored students must be continually borne in mind. They have nothing to help them in the homes from which they came; nothing to help them in the prevailing sentiment of the white people toward them; the fewest possible openings for such remunerative labor as is ready for white students in similar conditions, and checks on their ambition of every sort. Nor is it strange that they lack that stamina which generations of culture and self-restraint impart. Their help, both moral and material, must come from us, and those who, like us, believe that they can be and should be thoroughly trained before they are sent forth to lay foundations for the upbuilding of their race. Student aid must be freely and systematically given, or our higher schools will accomplish their beneficent design at great disadvantage, and only to a very limited extent.

But the glory of our schools and colleges is more than in all else in their religious character and influence—that they are Christian schools and missionary colleges. Indeed, they are so completely at one with the church work that it is difficult to draw a line between the two departments, and to tell where the one ends and the other begins. A few particulars may best illustrate the influence of faithful Christian instruction and example. Of 52 graduates of Atlanta, 50 at graduation were professing Christians, and none have fallen away. Later we hear, “All the members of the classes to be graduated now profess to be Christians.” A revival is reported during the year, and not less than 30 conversions. Fisk reports several additions to the College church at every communion, and as many more of those converted there to other churches. At Talladega we hear of “a precious work of grace; 37 were received into the church. All but two of the girls, and all but four of the 45 young men, who are boarding scholars, are professing Christians.” The pastor at Hampton writes: “Nowhere can teachers be found more earnestly evangelical, laboring often beyond their strength to bring souls to Christ. 11 of the Indian students were, in March, received into the College church.” At Berea, the graduates of this year are all professing Christians. These are examples of the good accomplished and reported. In several of the lower schools, also, we hear of many being brought to Christ.

Nor are these Christian students idle in the Master’s vineyard. They go out to their school work in vacation time, and have learned as they go to preach. The help which was given, the previous year, to lengthen the short terms of a few common schools, thus furnishing employment for our student teachers, was thought to be fruitful of good results by our best and most experienced instructors. It has been deemed wise to somewhat enlarge the work in that direction.

108 teachers from Fisk, in 1877, taught 9,332 pupils. Over 10,000 pupils, during the year 1878, are estimated to have been taught by those educated at Atlanta. On this basis, we feel justified in estimating that at least 150,000 pupils have been reached by our present and former students during the year. They also go out to do Sunday-school and missionary work on the Lord’s day. Talladega reached 1,200 Sunday-school scholars through its students during the last year, and in all the years some 20,000. A high educational official testifies that the students of Tougaloo “almost invariably start Sunday-schools as soon as they open their day-schools.” So the seed is sown not by the way-side, nor on the rock, nor among the thorns, but where it “also beareth fruit and bringeth forth, some an hundred-fold, some sixty, some thirty.”

A few words, by way of bridging over to our church work, as to our Theological Departments. They are four—at Nashville, Talladega and New Orleans, which are ours altogether, and at Washington, where we continue to share the support of the Theological Department of Howard University with the Presbytery of that city. There are 86 students in these schools, of which number nearly one-half are at Howard University. They are sending out ministers, well trained both intellectually and spiritually, into our churches and those of other denominations.

THE CHURCH WORK.

The present number of churches in connection with the Association is sixty-seven. These are supplied with pastors, some of them white ministers of experience and culture, who, for health’s sake, are glad to be in the South; others, young and earnest men, who prefer to devote themselves to work among the lowly; others still are colored men, who have been educated in our own or similar institutions, and who are doing good work among their own people. Some of these are also principals or teachers in the schools, thus doing double duty.

The number of church members is 4,600, of whom 745 have been added during the year. This work has been under the supervision of Dr. Roy. It has been a time for making acquaintance with the men and the field, but his first visits have been full of service in quickening and counselling those on the ground, and in correspondence with the administrative force at home.

Three new churches have been established during the year—at Shelby Iron Works, Ala., at Cypress Slash, Ga., and at Flatonia, Texas.

After a careful survey of the material and opportunity, we are neither prepared to rush in and organize new churches wherever it may be possible, nor to abandon the field as unfitted to our polity. We could probably buy up a hundred churches within a year at $100 apiece, and then should be worse off than when we began, loaded down with useless burdens. There is nothing in the nature of the South or in the character of the negro by which the people of that region or that race are unfitted to be good Congregationalists. It only demands intelligence and the power of self-control. Where these have been developed by Christian education there is readiness and preparation enough. Hitherto our churches have flourished under the shadow of our schools and of their graduates. But as the sun goes toward the west the shadow broadens, and the field for churches of our order is enlarged. There are some half dozen localities now waiting and ready to organize Congregational churches, to which our Field Superintendent will give early attention and assistance. Discriminating and timely help at such points will accomplish far more in the end than rapid and ill-considered assistance. Too many churches, both North and South, die early, because born too soon. We design and purpose to extend this work as fast, and only as fast, as we may do it with the hope of permanent results.

A goodly number of these churches report religious interest during the year, and, indeed, some of them are engaged in seasons of special effort and ingathering at this time; for in the South—strange as it may seem to us—the summer gives an interval from farm work which is often and successfully devoted to special Christian effort. A letter just received informs us of such a series of meetings in one of our churches in North Carolina, with a congregation of 200, who bring their lunch and stay from morning till afternoon, and often till the evening service too.

The impression made by these churches upon ministers who went among them for the first time last winter was very noticeable, and their testimony agrees as to the decorum, as well as fervor, of their colored congregations. Nor are they without the witness to their progress, which is indicated by efforts looking toward their self-support and a participation in the general work of missions. These all have Sunday-schools connected with them, in which are gathered 6,219 scholars, besides which some of our teachers are engaged in Sunday-schools connected with other Christian churches. The cause of temperance receives constant attention in both schools and churches. Juvenile and adult organizations are found in nearly all of them, and the young men and women go out pledged, not only to abstain themselves, but to make it part of their mission to persuade others to follow their example in this respect.

To the six Conferences into which our churches were organized one has been added during the past year—that of North Carolina. The Georgia Conference takes the place of that of South-eastern Georgia. The Congregationalism of the South is thus fully associated. The meetings of these bodies are full of interest. Their discussions are practical and admirably sustained. Their fellowship is cordial and Christian, and their spiritual power is in some cases remarkable. The South-western Conference, this year held at New Iberia, La., was signalized by the quickening and reviving of the churches represented, and by the conversion of fifty souls.

Councils are called for ordination of pastors from time to time, and in all customary ways the churches mutually advise and help each other.

We should be greatly remiss did we not call attention also to the work done in the homes of the colored people by devout women who have given themselves to this missionary work. The need of such work can easily be imagined, but cannot be appreciated fully without a knowledge of the facts. At Memphis, Tenn., Atlanta, Ga., Miller’s Station, Ga., Charleston, S. C., etc., faithful visitations have been made from house to house, and Bible-reading, cottage prayer-meetings, practical instruction, and occasional temporal relief, have been administered by lady missionaries, while many of our lady teachers have cheerfully engaged in similar work, so far as their engagements would allow. No general organization of Northern women has been attempted in this behalf, but of their own motion circles have been formed at Detroit, Mich., Waukegan, Ill., Oberlin, Ohio, and other points, whose object it has been to provide the expenses for these messengers of mercy. The work, though limited in its extent, has been fruitful of good results.

Before leaving this hurried review of the Southern field, we are happy to say that our corps of workers, as a whole, has never been more admirably efficient than now. There are fewer changes in the force from year to year than formerly, and those who have just gone for the first time into these schools and churches are men and women of superior intelligence and character. We look for grand work and great results, through God’s blessing on their labors in the coming year.

AFRICA.

About the beginning of the current year, the Rev. Floyd Snelson, who was at the head of the Mendi Mission, was obliged to return to this country on account of the health of his wife. We greatly deplored his loss, as we trusted much to his wisdom and experience for a wise administration of our work in that far land. To Rev. A. P. Miller were committed the position and responsibilities thus vacated. He, with Rev. A. E. Jackson, and their wives, Dr. James and Mr. White, constituted then our missionary band.

On the 13th of February, Elmore L. Anthony was sent, via Liberia, to join them. His various experiences as a slave, a soldier and a student, had fitted him to take special charge of the industrial work at Avery, though we believed him to be as much a missionary in spirit as those who had preceded him. He was submitted to a severe medical examination, and pronounced sound in health; for we have concluded that those only of unimpaired health should be exposed to the debilitating influences of a tropical climate. He has so far fulfilled all our expectations.

We have just sent another missionary to the field. Nathaniel Nurse, a native of Barbadoes, who has resided already in Liberia five years, and who has been maintained at Fisk University for the last two years by English and Scotch friends, sailed on the fourth of this month. He has shown much enterprise in the past, which we hope will be effectively applied to the missionary work on the West Coast.

Our force consists then, at present, of these six men and the wives of two. The men have endured the climate wonderfully well, having suffered only temporary disabilities, and having been laid aside but little from their work. Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Jackson have not been as well, perhaps, because they were not in as firm health before leaving this country, but have not been compelled, as yet, to leave the Mendi coast, even temporarily.

Last year we had but a single church to report, of 44 members, at Good Hope Station. Since that time a church has been organized also at Avery. These two churches now include a membership of 85, and have 190 Sunday-school scholars in connection with them.

The school at Good Hope Station has been in a condition of growing prosperity, and has enrolled during the year 245 scholars, with an average attendance, as collated from the monthly returns, of 156. At Avery the school has been small, the children being frequently diverted by their parents to work of various kinds. About a dozen children have been taken into the Mission Home to be educated under permanent Christian influences. A school has also been sustained at Debia, and a preaching service.

The industrial work has been carried on with energy, the mill and property have been put in better order, some 16 laborers have been employed in the saw-mill, the coffee plantation is beginning to be productive, and we trust that this arm of the service will prove increasingly a means of education to the natives and a help in the support of the mission.

Our missionaries have not been content with merely maintaining the work as they found it, but have been exploring the interior to study opportunities for its enlargement. They found the people peaceable and friendly, and open to their approach not only, but inviting their permanent settlement. It is their plan to use native Christians for preaching at out-stations as far as they may be able.

Our missionaries have had to labor under the disadvantage of a very limited experience in organizing and carrying on either church or school work. They all went directly from the college to the foreign field. They have made fewer mistakes of judgment than might have been anticipated. We regard this experiment of African missionaries to Africa as practically solved. Their endurance of the climate and their general success in the work are evident. More and more clear to us, from year to year, is the connection between our work on the American and the African continents.

And now, while our original mission field is again becoming fruitful under these new conditions, the question is brought to us in a way we cannot refuse to consider. Shall we, in addition to this, undertake a new field upon the other side of the “Dark Continent”? The generous offer made by Robert Arthington, of Leeds, England, of £3,000, to this Association, to aid in the establishment of a mission between the Nile and the Jub, and from the 10th parallel of north latitude down almost to the equator, compelled us, early in the year, to examine the field and the possibility of undertaking it. A large committee, through books and travellers, made as thorough investigation as was in their power, and were supported by the Executive Committee, as a whole, in regarding the proposed location as offering advantages in accessibility over almost any of the new fields recently opened in equatorial Africa; but they delayed any distinct acceptance of the proffer until this fund should be swelled from other sources to not less than $50,000. In this state of abeyance the whole matter remained until a very recent date. Dr. O. H. White, the Secretary of the Freedmen’s Missions Aid Society in Great Britain, has been sanguine as to the willingness of the English and Scotch brethren to further aid us in the establishment of the proposed mission. He has already received contributions to a considerable amount for this object, and at the last regular meeting of our Committee, after careful discussion, the following resolution was unanimously passed:

“Voted, that on condition of the receipt of £3,000 from Mr. Robert Arthington, of Leeds, as offered to us by him, for the establishment of a new mission in Eastern Africa, and of a like amount from the British public, raised through the efforts of Dr. O. H. White, the Association pledges itself to devote thereto the sum of $20,000, and with the blessing of God and the assistance of the friends of Africa in Great Britain and America, to undertake permanently to sustain that mission.”

The Committee were encouraged to take this step by the fact that the debt of the Association was no more an obstacle, that several thousand dollars were already in hand from the Avery estate, bequeathed for this very purpose, and by other, as they thought, evident leadings of Providence in this direction. And now if these conditions be met, and this new work at no distant day be fairly entered on, the Mendi Mission on the West, and the Arthington Mission on the East, will support one another in their plea to Christian England and America for generous and prayerful sustentation. Our foreign work will thus be more complete than it can be with but a single mission, and we shall be able to present a wide field for the generous devotion and self-consecration of the sons of Africa now in this land.

This new field is among the real heathens, unclad, and with their native barbarism made worse by all the atrocities of a slave-hunting ground. That evil is, providentially, fast passing away. During the past year Col. C. G. Gordon has overcome the mightiest of the slave traders, and his large and desperate force. When the influence of the Arab invaders is withdrawn, with their unnatural stimulation of tribal wars and the ready market they afford for human beings, other of the native kings, under the influence of even a few Christian men, will follow the example of Mtesa, who has lately forbidden the sale of slaves in his dominions under pain of death. So the Lord has set before us an open door, and no man can shut it. Shall we not go in and set up our banners in the name of Immanuel?

THE INDIANS.

The Indians still remain under the care of the Department of the Interior. We believe that the Administration earnestly desires the promotion of their true interests, but the grievous wrongs under which they have so long suffered still continue to be visited upon them, and will so long as an impossible policy is attempted to be carried out by an insufficient force. The question as to the legal status of the Indian is now before the courts. Until his rights there, and to hold property by a secure tenure, are established, he will be exposed to provocations which we cannot expect him to bear in silence.

To us was assigned, several years ago, the nomination of six Indian Agents, who were to report to us as well as to the United States Government. We trust that this work has been to the advantage of these tribes, as our agents have, with perhaps a single exception, maintained good character and reputation amid all the temptations of that trying life. And yet our relations to the Department are not what we could wish them to be. In four of the six agencies where we make nominations, changes have been made necessary during the past year. In two of them agents have been appointed by the Department without our nomination or approval, so that we have no longer any responsibility for the agencies at Red Lake, Minn., or Green Bay, Wis., nor have we, under these circumstances, the same motive as at first to secure good men for these places, when they may be so easily removed, or our nominations thrown aside for others backed by another kind of influence.

Our missionary at S’Kokomish, Rev. Myron Eells, is still patiently pursuing his good work. He is pastor of the church of 23 members, and has three other preaching stations. In these four the attendance upon public worship is nearly 200; 110 children are in the Sunday-schools; 128 families are under his pastoral care. Mr. Eells has travelled among the neighboring people, and diffused his influence over a wide area.

A new element in work for the Indians has been the educational work at Hampton. 77 Indian boys and 9 Indian girls have spent the year at the Institute, contented and studious, and responding to patient and skillful teaching with marked and steady progress. During the summer a number of them gained great credit to themselves by their good conduct on the farms and in the families of Massachusetts among which they were distributed. It is hoped that the number of girls allowed to enjoy these privileges may be considerably increased. Captain Pratt has obtained permission to do a similar work at Carlisle, Pa.

The great feature of the advantage in this training is the continuous influence under which these students are held. It is indispensable to the best work as Christian educators of those who are not helped by their home life. Our experience is the same among the Freedmen, the native Africans and the Indians.

It may be, in the providence of God, in this direction, that the Indian work of the Association is to be pursued and enlarged in the future. The Committee recommend, for the present at least, co-operation with General Armstrong in the work he has so well begun in this direction. The result of his experience, thus far, is his decided conviction that “there is no better way to elevate the Indians than in negro industrial schools.” An effort in this direction promises greater results, for the same expenditure of money, than the attempt to found new missions among the Indians.

THE CHINESE IN AMERICA.

The condition and numbers of the Chinese on the Pacific coast, after all the various agitations of mob, and State, and National Congress, have not been materially altered. The sand lots have still echoed with the blasphemies of Kearney and his followers, and even some of the churches, with scarcely less vigorous proclamations, that the Chinese must go. California has adopted a new Constitution, though the question whether its Chinese provisions are constitutional is yet unanswered. It discourages immigration, imposes conditions on resident Chinamen, forbids their employment by any corporation, and requires cities to remove them beyond their bounds or locate them within prescribed limits; and, finally, both houses of Congress, yielding to political pressure, in the presence of the resident Minister of the Chinese Government, ignored its solemn treaty, and declared that no ship should bring to this shore more than fifteen Chinese immigrants at any one time. We have to thank the President of the United States for the veto which alone prevented this action from becoming law.

And yet the Chinaman is, on the Pacific coast, in numbers not increasing, but not materially diminishing. He does not come, because he can do better elsewhere. He does not go, because he has not yet attained the object of his coming. Meanwhile, several Chinamen have, during the year, been naturalized in other States, and the force has thus been broken of the decision that, being neither white nor black, he cannot be allowed to vote.

Our work has not diminished in our twelve schools under the superintendency of the Rev. Wm. C. Pond. Only three less pupils (1,489) have been enrolled than the year before. 252 has been the average attendance all the year through; 21 teachers are now in the service, including 5 Chinese helpers; 84 gave evidence of conversion during the year, while 137 have renounced idolatry. Mr. Pond says: “The total number of whom we have cherished the hope that they were born of God, from the beginning of our work until now, cannot be less than 235. The Congregational Association of Christian Chinese has now 198 members, of whom 44 were received the past year.”

We believe that this work, with that of our Presbyterian and Methodist brethren on the Pacific coast, is both acceptable to God and approved of men.

FINANCES.

We come now to the statement of our financial history and condition. With profound gratitude to Him to whom the silver and the gold belong, and with renewed confidence in those to whose stewardship he has entrusted it, we make this record: (1.) The expenses of the year have been fully met; (2.) The debt of the Association is entirely extinguished; (3.) On the 1st of October the balance in our treasury amounted to $1,475.90.

It is sixteen years since the Association has been reported free from debt. The expansion of its work, which the changes effected by the war imperatively demanded, involved us in these unpaid obligations, which increased upon us almost yearly until, in 1875, our debt was over $96,000. Then came the turning point. It was diminished by a little over $3,000 during 1876; in 1877 it was reduced by about $31,000, to $62,800. Last year $25,000 more of it was liquidated, leaving, at the beginning of this year, $37,389.79. And now we are able to say that that whole amount is paid. $28,808.67 have been sent us for that express purpose. The balance has come from our general receipts from the living and the dead. And this has been paid in cash. We began to fear that our constant plea in this behalf was injuring the support of our regular work, and last year we set apart, to cover it, a residue of western lands of sufficient value; but the debt is absolutely gone now and not balanced against anything, and that property is free to be converted to other uses.

The total income of the year has been $215,431.17—nearly $20,000 more than that of the preceding year. $15,000 of this increase is, however, from bequests which have amounted to $50,034.16.

For the ability to make these cheering statements we thank God, and in the remembrance of His past goodness we take courage. It looked an almost impossible thing that that great debt of nearly $100,000 should have disappeared, and that in these “hard times.” But the way to know the goodness of God is to try some hard thing in His name. To Him be the praise.

We would not leave the false impression, however, on the minds of any, that these years of retrenchment have been easy years for us, or that the past twelve months have been free from causes for anxiety. Twice during the year we have been $10,000 behind last year’s receipts or this year’s needs. We were greatly perplexed in our unwillingness to increase the old debt or to incur a new one, when, in one case, a large gift, and in the other a large legacy, lifted us over the shallows and enabled us to set sail again rejoicing.

CONCLUSION.

And now what is the significance of our present condition? We are out of debt. We have the promise of a far better equipment for our work in the way of buildings. The Mendi Mission is fairly manned, and, we trust, on the way to a new and wide usefulness. The Freedmen call for all the aid we can supply. All motives of love for self, for country and for God conspire to urge us to increase our efforts for their Christian education. Africa is stretching out its right hand now, as well as the left, which we have been trying so long to fill, and Christian England comes to help us answer the plea. It has been demonstrated at length that our Southern schools may help to solve the Indian as well as the Negro problem, and the Chinaman is yet at our western gate.

Is not the voice of God to us like that He spoke through Moses to those who had just escaped the taskmasters of Egypt?—“Speak to the children of Israel, that they go forward.”

REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE.

The Committee on Finance, to whom was referred the financial statement of the Association for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1879, as presented by the Treasurer, beg leave to report that, in the discharge of the duty assigned to them, your committee have carefully examined the accounts of the Treasurer, including a detailed statement of receipts and disbursements, also a statement of endowments and a full list of all the property owned by the Association, the correctness of which have been fully certified to by the Board of Auditors appointed by the Executive Committee.

The total receipts of the Association for the year have been $215,431.17. The cost of collecting, including the salaries of the District Secretaries and all other expenses connected with their offices, has been 5-84/100 per cent. of the amount received. The cost of publication, including the distribution of 25,000 copies per month of the American Missionary, has been 4-13/100 per cent., and the cost of administration 4-97/100 per cent.

Your committee are impressed with the care, fidelity and economy shown in all departments, and can suggest no way of reducing the percentage of expenses except by enlarged contributions. It costs just as much time and just as much paper to acknowledge the receipt of $50 as it does of $100. If the patrons of the Association will double their contributions they will lessen the percentage of expenses one-half.

After long years of struggle the Association is now out of debt and ready for an advance. The machinery is in order, and the motive power necessary to keep it in motion is the earnest prayers of God’s people and a liberal supply of the money which is so rapidly finding its way to our shores. In view of the grand work which has been done and the still greater work to be accomplished, your committee desire to urge upon the friends of the Association the necessity for a large increase of contributions the coming year, so that the missionaries and laborers in this good cause may “go forward.”

Jas. W. Scoville,
Samuel Hastings,
Geo. Bushnell,
Chas. L. Mead,

W. G. Hubbard,
Joseph H. Towne,
W. J. Phelps.

THE FREEDMEN.

REV. JOS. E. ROY, D. D.,

FIELD SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA, GA.

EDUCATIONAL WORK.

Report of the Committee on Educational Work in the South.

After speaking of the importance, the providential and varying character of the work, the report concludes:

As now conducted, the agencies of the Association are directly concerned with all grades of instruction, embracing common day schools, boarding schools, normal schools, chartered colleges, theological and other professional schools; blending also with mental, moral and spiritual culture the teaching of industrial occupations, and a training in good manners and right behavior in all relations. It seems best that the work should continue to have this multifarious character, that it may mold the whole life of this race as it rises into free manhood and full citizenship, and bring a positive religious influence to qualify the whole movement. Nevertheless, it is to be desired and expected that, in the progress of events, the way will be open for systems of public instruction to be introduced and maintained at the South which will provide for the primary education of negroes as well as white men, and so in time relieve the Association of much of its elementary work. In this matter our wisdom is to fall in with the indications of Providence, with no special anxiety either to hasten or to hinder the steps of the movement, but to do our utmost to prepare the way for wise and right action when it comes.

As a missionary society we must for a long time give chief attention to the education of teachers and preachers for the colored people. That must be done at the South, for Christianity and civilization can never be regarded as fully established among a people till from among themselves, in their own home country, are drawn out trained teachers, leaders and ministers of religion. Our normal schools, colleges and theological seminaries must, therefore, absorb, in large measure, the vigorous efforts and resources of this Association, that the foundations of these institutions may be strengthened and their courses of instruction advanced and improved, and especially that aid maybe judiciously extended to the young men and women who come out of great poverty to seek the advantages of these institutions and to offer themselves for the service of Christ among their own people.

The report very fitly emphasizes this last-named need, and we do earnestly commend it to the consideration and timely beneficence of our churches.

The report shows unmistakable tokens of the Divine favor to this department of our work during the last year. Notwithstanding the pressure of hard times and the embarrassment of debt on our Association, the work has been steadily maintained, the number under instruction has been kept up, and in the normal schools largely increased; the standard of scholarship in the higher institutions has been advanced; strong testimonials of appreciation of the quality of the education given from Southern men of standing and influence, and from Northern visitors, have been multiplied; and above all, God, by the precious work of His Spirit on the souls of students in nearly every one of the institutions under charge of the Association, has owned this work, and taken it into full identification with the plan of His redeeming providence. For all this let our devout thanks be given to Him who permits us to co-operate in His good work of mercy for a lost world.

As we enter on a new year of this missionary labor, the signs are full of encouragement and hope. The Association is free from debt, with money in its treasury. A Christian lady has pledged a large benefaction for providing much needed material accommodations for this educational work; the rising sentiment of our nation is demanding new guarantees for the rights of the oppressed Freedmen; old obstacles to the work are giving way, and the return of financial prosperity gives promise of larger means at the disposal of our churches for the Master’s work. May we not hope, also, that a fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost upon the churches, upon the executive officers of the Association, and upon the whole working force of missionaries, teachers and helpers on the field, may inspire all with a new spirit of holy consecration, and lead on this educational work in a movement, fresh and strong, towards the consummation which we seek and which the Lord designs? For this let us fervently pray.

A. L. Chapin,
G. B. Willcox,
Geo. M. Boynton,

Thos. N. Chase,
J. Brand,
S. D. Cochran.

CHURCH WORK.

Report of the Committee on Church Work in the South—Abbreviated.

The annual report of the condition and work of churches in the South under the care of this Association gives occasion for gratitude and encouragement; for, while the numbers in themselves seem not large, we are to remember that the work is comparatively a recent one. In 1864 there were but four churches under the fostering care of this body; in 1869, only twenty-three; while now they have grown to sixty-seven, with 4,600 members; 745 of these members were added to the churches during the past year, and 85 per cent. of the additions were on profession of faith.

It is much to have 6,219 pupils in Sunday-schools, being drilled in the first principles of Divine truth and into a better knowledge that religion must mean righteousness. And when we remember that the 7,207 scholars in the other schools are all under positive religious influence of the sort we are accustomed to, and the 150,000 pupils taught by teachers who have been trained in the schools of the American Missionary Association are indirectly receiving something of the same influence, we must feel that the religious work of this Association in the South is a large one.

A thoroughly good work has been done during the year in “edifying the churches,” building them up into a sturdier virtue, more rational views, and a more intelligent zeal. They are evidently growing in the features of a healthy church life. At several points there has been very encouraging progress in the matter of self-help, in building churches and supporting the ministry—a point of prime importance in the development of self-respect and manly ability. There has been an awakened interest and effort in the temperance reform, aiding to correct vices which have been the Freedmen’s besetting sins. There has been a marked improvement in the homes of the colored people, influenced by the personal visitation of devout and sympathetic women who have gone South for this very purpose. Following this hint, it is suggested by some that perhaps Christian colored women, trained in our institutions, of tried discretion and tact, maybe found fitted for a similar work among their own class, and may find a large usefulness opening to them as city missionaries. These churches, too, in the expression of fellowship at formal ordinations, and in the wide-awake meetings of their seven conferences, have done something to promote that spirit of co-operation which the colored man needs to learn.

But while we must give special care to the nurture and training of these infant churches, and while it were to the last degree unwise to rush into every opening and organize new churches indiscriminately at every point where it may easily be done, it is an important question whether the time has not arrived when we may wisely do more in this direction than hitherto. We have fortified our strategic points and entrenched ourselves in educational fortresses that form a cordon of arsenals all around the field, to supply material of war. Shall we not now deploy the troops to feel the way forward, and, pushing out from our base of supplies, begin to occupy the land?

A variety of reasons easily suggest themselves for giving greater prominence to this part of the work. The educational needs of the colored race seemed to demand it. With unquestionable wisdom this Association lays chief stress upon its educational work in the South; but it should not be forgotten that the Church is a leading factor in that work. The schools help the churches. Twenty or more of the churches are in more or less close connection with the colleges and schools of this society, and they are among the best and the most flourishing. The more the negro is educated the better he likes our style of religion, and the better he makes it work.

Moreover, the young ministers we are training need them as fields. And now that we are raising up a conscientious, godly and well-instructed class of pastors, where shall they find flocks unless this Association gathers them?

Again, Dr. Strieby’s admirable paper last year showed that wherever these churches exist, the thrift and material prosperity of the colored man is greatly increased. He gains in self-respect, economy, foresight, patience. He has a better home and more money, and is every way more of a man. Now thrift is a potent civilizer, and if we would help the negro in this respect we can do it largely through the churches.

It is to such churches, too, that we may look for recruits for that great missionary work in the dark continent which now begins to open before the Christian world with such magnificent opportunity. We look for new Livingstones among our colored brethren of the South, and there is a call for them. The eyes of English missionary societies are fixed upon the open door of Africa, and it seems probable that they will want to send out and support all the well-qualified colored missionaries we can furnish. But this cannot be done unless there is a greatly increased missionary spirit among the colored people themselves; and to cultivate this missionary spirit we need more churches.

Nor will it do to excuse ourselves from this work on the plea that there are other churches in the South to which the negro, by immemorial traditions and long association, is better accustomed, and still others which may be at first more attractive to him than ours. The question is not, what would the untutored negro prefer, but what will best secure his development and help him to a nobler life and character. The other method of argument would surrender him to the Roman Catholics at once.

As a matter of fact, the introduction of these churches of the pilgrim sort is found to have worked well in two directions. It improves our somewhat frigid method to be warmed up with the African ardor; and it improves the negro to be toned down and disciplined to self-control by our methods. A sound, healthy religious life has been developed in many of our churches in ten years, which could not have been developed in fifty years in those churches where the ebullient spirit of the negro is allowed to run to riotous excess unchecked.

It is a noteworthy fact also that our churches have had a large influence upon the other churches about them. They have been recognized as presenting a higher type of piety and character. Their quiet methods of worship have made the boisterous methods of their neighbors unfashionable. Their higher moral standards have been a tonic to the conscience in the others. They have set the negroes to clamoring for an educated ministry.

While, then, we would not multiply churches for the mere sake of multiplying them, we deem the time opportune for laying new stress upon this part of the work. We would increase our constituency in the South in Christian churches which shall share with us in the work of education and in home missionary endeavor, and in the newly-opening foreign field; and we would ever remember that to elevate the negro we must keep him in the glowing presence of the cross, red with the heart’s blood of Divine love, and of the crown, which may be his as well as his white brother’s, in that great kingdom where there is neither white nor black, but where “Christ is all and in all.”

C. H. Richards,
F. P. Woodbury,
A. P. Foster,
F. Bascom,

J. F. Dudley,
D. Peebles,
U. Thompson.

PROVIDENTIAL CALLS.

BY REV. M. E. STRIEBY, D. D.

It is just a third of a century since the American Missionary Association was organized. That period has been crowded with stirring events, working marked changes at the time in the opinions and history of mankind, and pregnant with other and far-reaching consequences. In no respect has this been more true than in regard to the races for whose benefit the Association was mainly formed. Thirty-three years ago slavery ruled in America with the iron hand, and with the purpose and prospect of enlarged sway; now the slaves are free, and the far-reaching consequences of that event are but beginning to be realized. Thirty-three years ago tropical Africa was almost as much unknown as in the days of Herodotus and Ptolemy; now its great central lakes have been traced and mapped, the great mystery of the Nile sources has been solved, and Stanley has traversed the continent from Zanzibar to the mouth of the Congo. The far-reaching consequences of these discoveries to commerce and to Christian civilization we have not yet begun to realize.

The American Missionary Association was called into existence to take some humble part in these events. The wisdom of its existence was recognized at the outset by the few only; by the many—even of good men—it was regarded with indifference or hostility. We that took part in those stirring times find it difficult now to recall their intense earnestness—the inexorable control exercised by slavery over the pulpit, the press and the forum, the unbounded anxiety of conservative people to avoid or to crush the agitation, and their utter impatience with those who persisted in it. On the 7th of March, 1850, Daniel Webster made his famous speech in support of the Fugitive Slave Law, and it is humiliating to recall the fulsome eulogies of that speech that came from pulpits and theological seminaries, as well as from politicians and merchants, and it arouses anew a sense of indignation to think of the intimidation attempted toward those who opposed that infamous law. But there were men in all the churches and in both political parties who were fully aroused to the guilt and danger of slavery—who felt that the hour had come when, through all opposition and danger, they must press for its overthrow. Among these persistent agitators were not only such stalwart leaders as John Quincy Adams and William Lloyd Garrison, but a large number who may be represented by our late and honored brother, Rev. Simeon S. Jocelyn, who, though one of the gentlest, most amiable and most cautious of men, yet possessed a conscience so unclouded, and a sympathy with the slave so strong, that no fear of consequences could deter him.

Such God-fearing men had no commission merely to denounce and destroy. Their call was to aid in spreading a Gospel untinctured with the guilt of slavery, polygamy or caste prejudice. They strove earnestly to induce the most honored and loved of missionary boards, with which they had heretofore co-operated, to throw off all responsibility for slavery and its attendant vices. In this they were unsuccessful, and as they could neither cease to labor and contribute for missions, nor work with societies which they believed to be chargeable with that responsibility, they could do no otherwise than form one that should be free from it. In this way, and from this motive, the American Missionary Association came into existence. It was formed in no spirit of captiousness or fault-finding; not for discussion, but for work in the Master’s vineyard. Hence it soon established missions abroad—in Africa, Siam and among the recently emancipated slaves in the West Indies; at home—among the white population of the West, the Indians, and, even at that early date, among the Chinese in California, the refugees from slavery in Canada, and in the Slave States themselves.

Among the dark memories of those early days were the infidel tendencies in the anti-slavery ranks. The reformers were so goaded by the indifference and opposition of the orthodox churches that some of them retaliated with bitter denunciations against Christianity itself. From the outset the American Missionary Association took decided ground against this tendency and in favor of evangelical religion, and this not vaguely nor without temptation to swerve. At the convention in Albany in which the Association was organized, an influential Unitarian suggested the probable sympathy and aid of that wealthy denomination if the platform could be made sufficiently broad and “liberal” to admit of co-operation. Its response was given in its constitution, which required “Evangelical sentiments” as a condition of membership; and that there might be no mistake as to what it meant by “evangelical,” a star note was appended giving its explicit definition—a creed as commendable for its brevity as its sound orthodoxy. The elder Dr. Tyng once said: “I love the American Missionary Association because it is true to Christ as well as to the slave.”

Thus launched, and with this flag at its mast-head, the Association responded to its first call, and sped on its way, till from the terrific storm-cloud of war there sounded forth its second call. That next providential call was to the work among the Freedmen. It was so recent, and the response is so fresh in mind, that a brief rehearsal will suffice. Abraham Lincoln voiced the sentiment of the North when he said that the war was carried on to save the Union. God revealed His own purpose to be not that only, but also to free the slave. It was not two months after the first cannon shot fell on Fort Sumter till the escaping slaves found their way to Fort Monroe, and the force of circumstances, in spite of all reluctance, compelled their recognition as free men. Those escaping fugitives began their march from Egypt to Canaan. A few scattered bands headed the column, but soon its numbers swelled till the proclamation of emancipation, like the words of God to Moses at the banks of the Red Sea, said to four and a half millions of people, “Go forward.” When the sea opened to them and closed upon the armies of their oppressors, they were free; but they were, and are still, in the wilderness. Yet two lines of spontaneous enthusiasm broke forth—that of the ex-slaves for learning, and that of the North to supply it.

In that day there was no longer a question as to the need of the American Missionary Association, or of the wisdom of its existence. It was complimented with having “builded wiser than it knew.” Churches and individuals chose it as their channel for reaching this new field of patriotic and Christian labor. The Boston Council of Congregational Churches of 1865 recognized it as having been providentially raised up for the hour, and voted a call to the churches to give it $250,000 for the year. The Association promptly met this new responsibility, and organized the necessary measures for collecting funds at home and abroad, and with so much success that when the year was ended its treasury had received a little more than the great sum named. It has since moved forward with larger resources and a larger work. Its income for the fourteen years from its organization till the war began averaged $40,810.57 per annum; for the fourteen years since the war, $279,269.18 per annum.

A third call comes to the Association—the call of this hour. The early enthusiasm in the Freedmen work subsided. This new call springs from no sudden revival of that enthusiasm, but rather from that “sober second thought” that follows the reaction from it, and which comes from the pressure of hard, stern facts. I cannot, therefore, explain the present aspect of affairs without reverting to the cause of that decline of interest. The zeal of Christian people slackened when they found the work among the Freedmen could not all be finished in fifteen or twenty years. This was the general expectation at the outset, strange as it may seem—nay, amusing, if the mistake were not so serious. The orthodox and well-ordered Christian man has no doubt of the need of perpetual help for the West, and he cheerfully aids it through the accredited channels, the Bible, Tract, Sunday-school, Education, College and Church Building Societies, and especially the honored Home Missionary Board; though those Western settlers have behind them the culture of more than a thousand years, with the personal education of New England homes, schools and churches, and also the business training among the shrewd and thrifty people. But these Negroes, who have behind them only untold ages of barbarism and oppression, and whose homes are huts, whose schools are few, whose ministers are ignorant, who have no capital and no business training—when these people loom up before this good Christian man, he is amazed and discouraged if a few years, a few books and a few teachers do not end all responsibility for them. His creed in regard to them is as brief as his patience, and may be given in the words of the poet:

“They need but little here below,
Nor need that little long.”

In like manner the well-ordered citizen lost his enthusiasm for the Freedmen. He had been so long under the strain of anxiety about the war that he was weary of it and of everything that reminded him of it. Then there followed a succession of events in regard to the Freedmen that played upon his hopes and fears till he was doubly weary of them.

First came the accession of Andrew Johnson to the Presidency on the death of President Lincoln. Bright hopes arose. Lincoln was too mild; but the stalwart war-Governor of Tennessee, the unflinching Union man, the Moses of the colored people, as he styled himself, he would do what Lincoln’s amiability would have left undone. What a Providential ordering it was; the silver lining on the black cloud of the assassination. But alas, how soon the change! This Moses led the colored people not to Canaan, but delivered them over to the murderous bands of the Ku Klux; and the North, who again found the whole affair lying at loose ends, was very much discouraged. Then General Grant was elected, and hope again sprang up. The soldier-President would take care of the Freedmen. He did; but the troops stationed at the State houses of Columbia and New Orleans became at length an intolerable vexation to the South and an utter weariness to the again discouraged North. President Hayes brought again “the era of good feeling.” The troops were removed. There was a time of quiet for the colored people. Wade Hampton and Lamar pledged the reciprocal good will of the South. I believe that these leaders were sincere, but they little understood the import of their pledge, or the mighty power that slumbered in the elements beneath their feet, “We now witness the upheaval of that power, the sweeping away of those pledges like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, the crushing again of the Negro, his relief by flight to Kansas, and the symbols of Southern methods and purposes revealed in the Chisholm murder and the Yazoo tragedy.”

These facts, this serious aspect of affairs, and the palpable inefficiency of temporary remedies, are awakening the North to a fresh sense of responsibility and to the use of thorough remedies. One evidence of this is found in the turning tide of political affairs. A still more ominous one is foreshadowed in the enthusiasm gathered around the flag of the Union. In 1872 Charles Sumner—zealous Union man as he was—moved in the Senate that the names of victories in our civil war should not be inscribed on our national regimental flags, and in the decline of public interest those flags lay neglected in the cases where they were deposited. But a few weeks since the State of Connecticut removed her flags from the State Arsenal to the new Capitol in Hartford, when, lo, ten thousand veteran survivors and one hundred thousand spectators, making the grandest popular demonstration ever witnessed in the State, assembled to bear those flags with honor to their new resting place. I believe in the power of the ballot, and I revere the flag, but I want to raise my humble voice in warning against expecting too much from elections, and against the terrible effects of an appeal to arms. Has not the nation awaited with anxiety many times for election returns only to be disappointed in the permanent effects, and have we not felt enough of the dread evils of war to stand aghast at the thought of its renewal? Let me use the words of Paul and say, “Behold, I show you a more excellent way.”

I present three pictures:

The first shows a gathering of colored people peacefully assembled to promote their political welfare. But see that rush of armed men, the brief unequal struggle, and the flight of those who met only to exercise a constitutional right. In the background of the picture is a jail broken open and the venerable Judge Chisholm and his little son clinging to his knees, and his heroic daughter endeavoring to shield her father, all butchered in cold blood. In that background is another scene. That strong man, the leader of Ku Klux bands, whose hands are dyed with the blood of innocent colored men, and who could show the medal which the grateful South had given him, is himself murdered in open day, because he dared to announce himself not as a Republican, but as an independent candidate for office. The worst of all is that there is no legal remedy for these crimes. The National Government cannot reach them with punishment, and the State governments will not. They can only be tried in Southern courts and before Southern juries, and these have acquitted the murderer of the Chisholm father and children and refuse to try Barksdale for the Yazoo murder. Thus does the South make itself solid, and wipe out in blood the least traces of dissent from its supremacy. The North is moved by all this—indignant, determined, and well it may be; for what now avails the four years of war and the fourteen years of attempt at justice and conciliation?

But I show you another picture. It carries us back a few years. The Legislature of South Carolina is in session. Its members are mostly black men. They have generally no property and pay no taxes, yet they have taxed that already impoverished State to the verge of destruction, not for public improvement, but to lavish it upon themselves, in suppers, wines, personal perquisites, in jobs and in railroad schemes. No more scandalous or reckless plundering of a public treasury has ever been practiced in America, and that is saying a great deal. Why is this little handful of mock legislators allowed to do this? Why do not the people rush in upon them and hurl them from the places they so dishonor? Why? Simply because there stands as a guard a file of United States soldiers—not themselves sufficient in numbers to be formidable, but representing the National Government, and to touch them is to touch it. The South is indignant, determined, and do you wonder? The troops are now gone, the black legislators are dispersed and white taxpayers are in their places; and rising above all other considerations is the purpose of these taxpayers that, at whatever cost, and by whatever needed methods, be it by tissue ballots or by shotguns, those irresponsible plunderers shall never come back again into power. You blame them; but I fear you would do the same yourselves under like provocation. If the General Government, by means of a bloody war, should subdue the Western States, and then enfranchise in any one State enough Indians to outvote the whites, and those Indians should re-enact the plunderings of the Columbia Legislature, how long would the West bear it? I suspect that very quickly every Indian would be converted into a good Indian; but it would be in the Western sense—he would be a dead Indian. Brethren of the North, make the case your own. Put yourself in your Southern brother’s place, and judge him by your own impulses. What, then, is the true remedy for this great evil? To answer this we must honestly consider what the real evil is. These South Carolina taxpayers do not crush these black voters because they are black. They would do the same to the “poor whites” if they, having the numerical force, should enact the same wrongs. Nor is it because they are Republicans. It would be the same if they called themselves Democrats and did the same things. The trouble, therefore, is not with the man’s color or party, but with the man himself—with his ignorance, his degradation and his facility in being used as the tool of designing men. The remedy, then, is not to change his color or his party, but his character. All other remedies are delusive, and it is a national folly and crime to tamper longer with them. We have tried them; and to try them over again will be but to swing like a pendulum between the soldiers in front of the State house and the bulldozers at the elections. It is a shame and a grievous wrong to leave matters as they are. It is a wrong to the blacks to compel them to suffer in the South or flee to Kansas. It is unfair to the South to put them to the dreadful alternative of suffering or doing such great wrongs. It is a shame for an enlightened nation to keep itself thus embroiled, to the hindrance of its prosperity and the jeopardy of its peace.

Let me show you my third picture, which presents “the more excellent way.” In the foreground is a school-house and near by is a church. Around and in the distance are pleasant little homes and well cultivated lands. These are the instruments for working the needed change; they will make the Freedman intelligent, virtuous and industrious; will give him property and responsible interest in the welfare of the State. But you say this is a long process. Admitted; but what if there is no other? A slave can be changed into a freeman in an hour, but to change him into an intelligent man will take years; to transform millions of ignorant, cringing and penniless men into intelligent and responsible citizens and Christians will require generations. The acorn favorably planted will germinate into an oak in a few days, and though small, it is a real oak; but it will be many years before its broad branching arms will give wide shelter, or its girth and strength of stem will yield heavy timber. A few such plants started in good soil and carefully tended will come forward rapidly, but the wide growth on arid plains or in cold swamps will long remain dwarfs. The rapid progress of some of these colored people under adequate training shows what can be done; the backwardness of the mass shows what must be done. Here is the call to this Association to bear its part in this great work in America. It is no light task and no short work. The North is once more aroused to its magnitude as well as its necessity, and in that great effort the better portion of the South is ready to join us. God forbid that any delusive scheme or guilty indifference should hinder its steady progress.

The wide Atlantic rolls between America and Africa, but a strange connecting wire links the two together. The battery at yonder end was charged with the dreadful electricity that arose from burning villages, slaughtered people and captured slaves. The sounds that swept along that wire were the wails of the “middle passage.” The delivery at this end was the toil, the tears, and the blood of the slave plantation. That connection is now broken. Does God mean to establish no other? Yes, the battery is to be placed in America, charged with the light of its learning and religion; the hum of the wires will be the song of the returning heralds of salvation, and the delivery will be the breaking forth of Gospel light in benighted Africa. Such a change is worthy of God’s wonder-working grace, and, thanks to His name, it has begun.

Converging lines of providential purpose have met. In 1856 Burton and Speke began the first movement in the great line of modern discovery in tropical Africa; in 1858 they first sighted Lake Tanganyika. In 1860 Speke and Giant set out on the second expedition from Zanzibar; in 1862 they caught their first glimpse of the Victoria Nyanza. Thence onward moved the heroic procession—Sir Samuel Baker, Winwood Reade, Col. Gordon, Livingstone and others, till last of all Stanley emerged at the mouth of the Congo in August, 1877. A marked line of American convergence also began in 1856 with the first shedding of blood in the struggle with the slave power in Kansas. John Brown’s raid came in 1859. The rebellion began in 1861; the slaves were proclaimed free in 1863, and their education began almost with the war. Other societies have their own coincidences in this great work, but this Association having the distinction of opening the first school among the Freedmen, it is a matter of special interest with us that about one month after Stanley reached the mouth of the Congo, we sent out our first company of colored missionaries to Africa, all of whom had been born in slavery, were educated since emancipation, and, moved by the love of Christ and of their fatherland, had gone thither to preach the Gospel. This is to us the beginning of the other part of the great work to which this Association is called, for Africa and for America.

We have the appliances for the work in our schools, our theological departments and in our churches; in our experiences in tropical Africa of the terrible death-rate of white missionaries, and in the comparatively good health of the colored. Moreover, our decks are cleared for action by the removal of the debt that has so long hampered us. We can now handle our sails and our guns. May the winds of heaven waft us on our course! Then again we see a way of relief from the retrenchment enforced upon us by the debt and the hard times. Buildings were needed—some to be enlarged, others to be newly erected—but all such claims had to be sternly denied, much as it cost us to deny; but now, in the good providence of God, the generous benefaction of Mrs. Stone comes to our relief to supply just such buildings. The return of prosperity to the country encourages us to hope that the added expense in sustaining the enlarged work will be met. That return of prosperity—shall it be a curse or blessing? Shall it be the mad rush of muddy waters urged on by avarice and ambition, and bearing on its turbulent surface only reckless adventure, wild speculation, extravagant personal expenditure, unscrupulous public plunderings, ending at last and again in the dead sea of stagnation, bankruptcy, and, worst of all, in the wrecking of character, imprisonment, insanity, or suicide? Shall it not rather be consecrated, that it may be sanctified and perpetuated—like the beneficent waters of the Nile carried out into channels of benevolence, purified as it is quietly borne along and broken in smaller rills, bearing everywhere over this sin-parched earth the streams of salvation, making it to bloom with the beauty and fragrance of holiness and to bear fruit to the glory of God? Christian people ought to begin with the rising tide of this prosperity to enlarge the streams of their benevolence, lest, before they are aware, they be swept into the irresistible current. Especially do we ask the friends of this cause to recognize this auspicious era and plan to meet in some adequate measure the vast work before us.

The hour and the call have come. The nation is re-awakened to its great duty to the late slaves; they are themselves awaking to the glorious opening for them as citizens and Christians in America, and they are enthusiastic to aid in redeeming the land of their fathers. The possibilities of African regeneration are enkindling the hearts of Christians in Germany, in Great Britain and in America. God’s providence is opening the way and sending His commands along the lines. Well may it be said to the Church of Christ in America as Mordecai said to Esther, “Who knoweth whether thou art not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

THE PROVIDENTIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NEGRO IN AMERICA.

REV. E. H. MERRELL, PRESIDENT OF RIPON COLLEGE.

The significance of the negro in America cannot be understood without study in the light of the providence of God. It is not presumption to seek in the course of events the divine thought; it is rather presumption to assume that events occur without a divine purpose. “They that love to trace a divine hand will always have a divine hand to trace.” It is true that men have committed unspeakable folly in attempting to force the thoughts of the great God into the channels of their intellectual pettiness. Philosophies of history written with a provincial scholarship, under the eye of an unsound philosophy or the extravagancies of religious enthusiasm, must from the nature of the case be unsound; so a too particular and minute description of the ways of Providence in the interest of a preconceived theory of life, or of some specific reform or “cause,” leads to fanaticism and exposure to contempt. There are sins committed only by the good, if the solecism may be tolerated, and among them is a profane assumption of knowledge in regard to the purposes of God. But, on the other hand, it is greater folly to assume that God has left the world out of His thought and providential care, and that the course of the world is not made by the efficiency of His word. It is absurd, also, to assume that great providential courses are undiscoverable by the intelligence of man. “When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day: for the sky is red and lowering. O, ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but ye cannot discern the signs of the times.” We may make ourselves quite ridiculous in attempting to literalize the tails, wings, breastplates, teeth, hair, faces, crowns, shapes of the horse-like locusts of John’s apocalypse; but it is quite within the reach of our faculties to find the key to his book and to unfold its prophetic instructions and consolations. The use of the tabernacle as the dwelling-place of Jehovah’s glory it is possible to find by a simple exercise of the ken of philosophic interpretation; but the symbolic import of the coverings of fine twined linen and woven goats’ hair and rams’ skins dyed red, we must leave to the dogmatism of unlettered exegesis. It is not our fault, then, that we are looking too intently for the ways of God through the history of the world, but rather that we do not look aright. * * * * If it be true that “the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will;” that “He changeth the times and the seasons; He removeth kings and setteth up kings;” that “promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south; but God is the Judge; He putteth down one and setteth up another;”—if it be true that the Lord “that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the earth” by Himself also, “frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad;” that He “sayeth of Cyrus, He is My shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure,” surnaming him, and girding him, though he knew him not;—if, in short, the Lord is God, and His providence extends over nature, over nations, over individuals, over free acts, and over sinful acts,—surely we shall not gather the significance of any great matter in the world’s progress without such a study of the facts, and such an interpretation of them as shall disclose the main trend of the divine purposes.

I think I hazard little in saying that the foothold of the Negro in the United States is providentially significant in relation to a great onward movement for the evangelization of the world. And in this statement I have more in view than the Christianizing of the dark continent. In relation to this, it may signify much; but in relation to the whole kingdom of Christ, it signifies more.

(1.) The truthfulness of this statement holds our conviction when we view the facts in relation to the great end of all history; and this is no transcendental or visionary gaze. It is the perpetual characteristic of human folly to see events only in their immediate relations; whereas, the present moment can interpret nearly nothing. Philosophy concerns itself with remote causes and ends. “Providence,” says Guizot, “hurries not Himself to display to-day the consequence of the principle He yesterday announced. He will draw it out in the lapse of ages. Even according to our reasoning, logic is none the less sure because it is slow.” God’s thought is from eternity; but it is only because God has purposed that a science of history is possible, or the end of history discoverable. Its philosophy is often based on the assumption of the unity of the race; for the unity of the race it is better to say, the unity of the divine purpose. Said Augustine of old: “God cannot have left the course of human affairs, the growth and decay of nations, their victories and defeats, unregulated by the laws of His providence.” And as the latest deliverance of philosophy we have from Professor Flint, “The ultimate and greatest triumph of historical philosophy will really be neither more nor less than the full proof of Providence, the discovery by the process of scientific method of the divine plan, which unites and harmonizes the apparent chaos of human actions contained in history into a cosmos.” Suppose we assume, as the end of history, the establishment of a kingdom of righteousness, or the perfection of the members of the race for an endless society; that the increase of wealth, the extending of knowledge, the refinements of culture, have ultimate value only in relation to such a kingdom or society; that the method of procedure toward the attainment of this end involves the encouragements and chastisements, the rewards and disciplines, the pulling down amid building up, the slaying and making alive, which belong to the law of discipleship for character. Suppose, further, that we find ourselves living in a period when the Christian world is peculiarly stirred with missionary enthusiasm, and laboring to bring the whole world to membership in the everlasting kingdom; and yet, again, that we have brought to the midst of the most Christian nation millions of the most barbarous people, and put in such relation to that nation that the questions concerning them necessarily involve religious and missionary aspects—assuming all this, and taking into view the profound agitations, the vast numbers of beings involved, the enormous commercial interests that have been staked, the slow uprooting of inveterate race prejudices, the transforming of societies, the hot wrath of God in sweeping commonwealths with the besom of civil war, it becomes easily credible that the Negro in the United States signifies a great providential on moving the conversion of the world. To find in this Negro problem nothing but the lust which brought him to our shores, or the instrumentality of the wealth which he has been the means of accumulating, or the object of a sentimental pietism which would colonize him, or a nuisance for progressive abatement, is to attempt to solve the puzzle of a bewildering maze without the exercise of wisdom, or to have exit from a labyrinth without a clew. But, with the right end in view, all the mysteries of it are easily solved.

It has been recently said, by an able English writer, that the great plague of 1348-9 “is a totally new departure in English history, incomparably more important in its permanent effects than the conquest of William, the civil war of the fifteenth century, the civil war and the revolution of the seventeenth. It has left abiding results on the present condition of England. To it we owe the peculiar position of the English aristocracy and the equally peculiar position of the peasant. It created the poor law and the trades’ union. It was the origin of Lollardism, which was itself the precursor of the Reformation. Fortunately, it occurred after representative institutions had become a necessary part of English political life, or it would have destroyed them.” Under Providence, Lollardism and the Reformation were the final cause of pestilence, and it might have counted far more if the end had been more exactly understood at the time of the desolations.

(2.) But that the Negro in the United States means, under Providence, a forward movement in the work of evangelizing the world may be inferred from the moral and Christian element he has forced into American politics. The final cause of a special Providence may not be apprehended by the large part of those who are the witnesses of its procedure; but its drift may be noted from the things they are constrained, under God, to think and say and do about it. A nation may be girded to a task, even without recognition of the hand or purpose of Him who girds; but that nation will be saying and doing very significant things. Now, the great enthusiasms of our political life for the century following the achieving of our independence have resulted in one way or another from the presence of the Negro. And this is the same as to say that the Negro has been the unwitting cause of the moral and religious elements in politics; for there are no great enthusiasms which have not a basis in either morals or religion. The courts, Cabinet, Congress, legislatures, the pulpit, the platform, the hearth, have furnished the arena for debate, harangue and purpose, which have enlarged our views of the brotherhood of man, kindled an unexampled enthusiasm for humanity, and deepened those moral convictions which are the basis of sound character. But for all these superior achievements in virtue, the black man has been the occasion, and must have our thanks. Selfish men, irreligious men, profane men, under the guidance of an unseen hand, have become the stout advocates of the Christian principles of brotherhood and of duty to carry a Gospel to every Creature. * * * *

This advocacy of righteousness toward man, and of the rights of man as man, has become so much a matter of course with us that we are likely to overlook its vast significance. Even on our Puritan soil it was not from the beginning so. The “austere morality and democratic spirit of the Puritans” even did not keep them clear of sin of human bondage. “Their experience of Indian ferocity and treachery, acting on their theologic convictions, led them early and readily to the belief that these savages, and, by logical inference, all savages, were the children of the devil, to be subjugated, if not extirpated, as the Philistine inhabitants of Canaan had been by the Israelites under Joshua. Indian slavery, sometimes forbidden by law, but usually tolerated, if not entirely approved, by public opinion, was among the early usages of New England; and from this to negro slavery—the slavery of any variety of pagan barbarians—was an easy transition.” But at the time of the Declaration of Independence public sentiment had already greatly changed.

In the original draft of this document there was a specific indictment of George III., which was prophetic of the “furnace blast” beneath which the nation for a hundred subsequent years was to “wait the pangs of transformation” into a man-loving, mission-promoting people. Mr. Jefferson, in the draft of the immortal Declaration, reflected the public thought and feeling so closely that he has been accused by many of plagiarism. We seem thus early to find the pre-intimations of a nation in its public acts ranging itself on the side of a vast scheme of Providence. The indictment referred to is as follows: “Determined to keep an open market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.” Mr. Jefferson, in his “Works,” says: “The clause, too, reprobating the enslaving of the inhabitants of Africa was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia;” and he adds, “our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under those censures; for, though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.” It is as impossible, at present, as it is needless to proceed from this initial point through discussions for the formation of platforms and parties, and from these to specific laws, and from laws to the violation of them, and civil war. If a just God has been ruling among the affairs of the nation, it is infidelity to doubt that He has been guiding this vast and tumultuous slavery conflict to some great end for the enlargement of His kingdom in the earth. The moral and religious aspects of American political questions for the last three generations have a Divine significance unsuspected by the actors in our national drama.

(3.) But of greater significance still is the fact that the coming of the Negro incorporates a missionary element in our national life. In the large advance movement now making for the evangelizing of the race, it is evident that the colored people are not to go out through a Red Sea into a wilderness, to become a peculiar people to whom shall be committed the oracles of God, and from whom shall arise one like the Messiah. No person is now so superficial as not to see that, whether we will or not, the Negro has come to stay. He is becoming even more and more an element in the sum of those experiences which we call our national life. He has not come to fit himself to become an uplifter; he is rather here to do that work which shall fit and cause this new and great nation to become in a peculiar way the uplifter of peoples. It is the resistance of this idea which has been the fundamental reason of all our national turbulence. Providence meant one thing; the selfishness of man another. God has given unmistakably the “sign of the prophet Jonas;” man sees nothing but the redness of a lowering sky. Can we fail to be impressed with the fact that a being whose not remote ancestors were, if not savage, at least barbarian, has now come into the possession of every element of American civilization? The negro has our language, dress, civil customs, religion, domestic and social life, and in the main, our vices. He is a voter, law-maker, executive, educator, freeholder, priest, and head of a Christian household. He has reached high proficiency in many branches of learning, and is skilled in all the arts with which we are acquainted. In a vast number of cases, through crime be it granted, he is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. He is less a ward than citizen, and hardly more pupil than instructor. His absolute severance from fatherland,—his history, his tenacity of life and of race characteristics, yet, while retaining race characteristics, his greedy absorption of the best elements of civilization,—his poverty and his possibilities, awakening our sympathies and challenging our benevolent enterprise,—his tenacious hold upon our soil, our customs and our hearts,—these and many things beside indicate that he has come to stimulate, to lift us to a higher form of evangelical enterprise than that exhibited hitherto by any people. We are not merely to make missionaries of the black people; but we through them are to be ourselves made missionaries. It seems to be the will of God that the nation should set itself to the work of Christianizing the world.

(4.) To add yet another evidence that the signs of the times are to be interpreted in the line of advancing evangelization, I would mention the genius of the Negro for piety. Colonel Preston, who has written intelligently on the subject of the religious education of the Negro, says that he has adopted all the vices of the white race except suicide, duelling and religious skepticism. His voice is not more flexible and pure than, his faith is confiding and strong. And this is not a small matter. The world doubtless has great need of brains, but it has vaster need of character. Of the stones God can raise up children to Abraham; but it requires no miracle to raise up children to Plato. There is no fear for the brains of any race that will accept Christianity. To virtue, knowledge will surely be added. It is foolish for us Anglo-Saxons to assume that we have found the best expression of religion. It would be like the claim of the Pharisee, who assumed that the end of the law was fulfilled in himself. The worldliness of the church is at the present time more conspicuous than the churchliness of the world. A person who lives simply according to the doctrine of Christ is so singular as to get special notice in the church news of the religious press. So long as it can be truthfully said that “it is only by a special and rare experience that young men in the church settle the question of their life-work by the simple test of usefulness and duty; and if a young man is found pondering the question in this view, it is regarded as a case of unusual piety, and he is directed at once to the ministry; and if an older man begins to inquire how he can do the most good with his property, it is accepted as evidence of special growth in grace, a ripening for heaven”—so long, I say, as this can be truthfully said, it is perfectly within bounds to affirm that the current expression of the religion of Christ is nothing less than a shame. It is rational to hope that the Negro may help us to a fitter expression. I admit his crudities, extravagancies and immoralities, but he has a genius for religion nevertheless. It has been conjectured that there was a period when the ancestors of the Athenians were to be in no otherwise distinguished from their barbarian neighbors than by some finer taste in the decoration of their arms, and something of a loftier spirit in the songs which told of the exploits of their warriors. But these rude attempts were prophetic of their æsthetic triumphs; they had a genius for the beautiful.

It seems to me that Africa is the fitting continent in whose mysterious solitudes the greatest explorer of this generation should die in service and on his knees. He symbolized the possibilities of the Negritto race for the expression of the life of the Son of God, and mutely prophesied of the ages to come. This race, with its greed for civilization and its natural capabilities for religion, is in vital connection with the foremost nation of these latter times. Does not this signify the incoming of a more thorough righteousness, a loftier faith, and a great advance movement for Christianizing the world?

Whether I have correctly formulated the course of Providence or not, it is clear that the Negro is in the United States for a purpose, and that purpose is no petty one. He has been the occasion of the most exhaustive discussion of the subject of the rights of man, of the formation of a great national party, and of the largest civil war of modern times. He is now the most considerable element in national politics. If Providence is a scheme of means and ends, in which particular events are chosen to further great ends, and if a just God is presiding over the destiny of our nation, it is simply illogical to conclude that the foothold of the Negro on the continent is not a thing of vast significance. And if this be true, every question concerning him has a new importance. If Pharaoh had understood that the Hebrew bondsmen were a chosen generation, he would have carried on the brick business in a different way. This whole Negro question needs study in a new light, “lest haply we be found even to fight against God.” Governor St. John, of Kansas, in answer to a question from the South, how to stop the Negro exodus, has recently said:

“Rent the Negro land and sell him supplies at fair prices. Stop bulldozing him. Respect the sanctity of his family. Make him feel that he is just as safe in his person and family, and in all civil and political rights, as he can be in Kansas or any other Northern Slate. Then he will not want to come North. Unless you do this, the Red Sea will open before him and he will pass over dry-shod; and you of the South, attempting to stop him, will be overwhelmed, as was Pharaoh and his hosts.”

These are sharp words, and their rebuke is doubtless needed. It is probably not important to stop the Negro exodus. For both the Negro and the white race it is needful that large numbers be removed from the scenes of their old servitude. The Negro will rise faster and will more readily be the connecting and reconciling link between two antagonistic forms of civilization. This is but a stage in those wilderness wanderings by which he is being fitted to perform his part in the drama of the world’s renewing. In Kansas and everywhere he must have chance to develop according to what is in him, and there need be no fear that he will not act his part well.

This theme suggests many practical matters concerning the importance and the methods of home evangelization. These cannot be discussed in this paper; but I wish to raise again the question asked by large numbers of our most sagacious men, viz.: whether, in view of what seem to be vast providential designs concerning the inhabitants of this continent, our home work is not suffering comparative neglect? This is my deliberate conviction. For the colored man, at least, we are doing but a fraction of what it would be profitable to do. He is very far as yet from entering into his rest, and for long years yet we are to share with him “the pangs of transformation.”

“Before the joy of peace must come
The pains of purifying.
God give us grace,
Each in his place,
To bear his lot,
And murmuring not,
Endure, and wait, and labor.”

CHURCH WORK IN THE SOUTH.

BY REV. C. L. WOODWORTH.

The subject before us is “Church Work in the South.” This work, though it seems to be fundamental to every missionary organization, has yet been sharply challenged both as to its propriety and expediency. Put thus on the defensive, it may be well to recur to first principles, in order to satisfy ourselves that the church is the unit idea in all Christian labor. And to unfold that idea in the conversion of men, and to make it potential in society, through the preaching of the Gospel and the sanctified lives of believers, is the end of the family, of the school, and of all the forces which go to civilize and uplift communities. That work which does not aim at the church as its end, however refining and ennobling it may be in itself, fails, utterly and infinitely, to realize the ideal of the New Testament, or the ideals of history as seen in the progress of Christ’s kingdom in the earth. When, therefore, a society like the one whose anniversary we are now celebrating presents itself for our suffrage and our support, it becomes our privilege, and perhaps our duty, to question its mission and its right to live. Should it appear that secular education is the object mainly aimed at, then we would say it has just as much right to live as there is reason for the work it is doing. But if, on the other hand, it should appear that the regeneration of men, and the founding of pure and intelligent churches, is its central thought and aim, and that all other instruments in its hands are but tributary to this, then we would say it has just as much right to live as there is force and authority in the last command of our ascended Lord. This will become evident if we examine:

(1.) The Commission under which a society like this does its work. The warrant for a missionary society, as for all missionary effort, is found in the words of our Saviour to his disciples, just before he went up on high: “All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth; go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Analyze these words, as repeated by three evangelists, and, we submit, they leave upon the mind the single, distinct impression that the work he commissioned his disciples to do was to teach or to preach Christ; was to call to repentance, and show how sin could be atoned and remitted through the blood of the Crucified. That message is given to this society—the most important ever committed to men; and to proclaim it freely and fully, all its resources of men and of money, of learning and of influence, should be put under contribution. This is the work than which nothing greater nor grander can be conceived.

(2.) This will further appear if we study the model of missionary work, which is presented to us in apostolic labor and example. If the words of our Saviour define the work to be done, the example of the Apostles defines and illustrates the manner in which it should be done. And beginning at Jerusalem, we find that the Apostles and the company of the believers gave themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. When the endowment of power had come, they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. They were now divinely empowered and set apart for their work. The Holy Ghost is now their inspirer and guide, and when the multitude came running together to see what this strange thing could mean, Peter, with the eleven, stood up and delivered that searching discourse which went with convincing and converting power to the hearts of 3,000 men.

Indeed, what is the Acts of the Apostles but a record of missionary operations conducted by inspired men, who were specially empowered and guided by the Holy Ghost, in which the preaching of Christ was the all-absorbing theme? Peter and James among the Apostles, and Philip and Stephen among the deacons, were illustrious preachers in their day, and models of devotion to the single purpose of winning men to Christ. Converts were multiplied, churches organized, and believers made to feel that the one supreme work was to teach or to preach Christ. The movement began on the day of Pentecost by preaching Christ, and on that line it continued its triumphant way while the Apostles lived. They neither sought nor asked for anything more. They were content to wield the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. And so they preached Christ, “to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which were saved, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

(3.) If we needed other evidence that this line of work is the true one, we have it in the historical examples of other successful missionary work since the time of the Apostles. We only need to examine those great religious movements in history which not only lifted the Church, but started the human race forward on higher courses of thought and life, to satisfy ourselves that the Gospel was the quickening power, and furnished the motive and impulse to the astonishing results which followed. A single text ringing in the ear of the monk as he slowly and wearily climbed Pilate’s stairs at Rome, on his knees, “The just shall live by faith,” explains the Reformation. That was the key-note to all the preaching and writing of Luther and the Reformers. That truth lifted and saved men; that truth organized the free thought and the Protestant churches of Germany, and made the Reformation a success.

The Puritan movement in England, to some extent contemporaneous with that in Germany, proceeded on the same principles. Men mighty in the Scriptures were raised up to preach the word. They relied on nothing but the simple Gospel of Christ. All the might of king and council and Parliament could not crush a movement having its sources in the word of God. It crystallized into dissenting churches; it flowed beyond the British Islands on to the continent of Europe and to the continent of America, taking possession of a new empire and a new world.

The Methodist movement, under Whitefield and the Wesleys, was still another uprising and following of the human mind after the simple truths of the Gospel. Though educated men themselves, they had almost a contempt for human learning and the wordly appliances on which other churches so much relied. The preaching of the word accompanied by the power of the Holy Ghost was their sole reliance. On that principle they organized their churches, literally preaching the Gospel to the poor, and, at the end of a century, had a membership outnumbering any Protestant church in Christendom. It would be easy to show that modern missions, at home and abroad, have been most successful as they have relied most fully on the simple preaching of the word, and that the building up of churches has been the saving power of communities intellectually, morally and even materially.

(4.) Applying now the facts and principles barely glanced at in this review to the subject in hand, we shall find that, so far as the South is concerned, pure and intelligent churches are at this moment more a necessity even than schools are. The education of the intellect is vitally important; but for its own security it should rest on the broader education of the moral nature. The former will make keen, sharp men, shrewd in business and other transactions, but only the latter can be trusted to make honest, faithful, conscientious men. While we insist that Christian schools are the true handmaid of religion, we must not be tempted to substitute science and culture for piety, nor to make schools stand for more than churches. The church alone is fundamental, but for the best results they belong together and should go together. Schools can be made and should be made helps to religion; but we mistake their nature entirely when we imagine that there is anything in the ordinary studies of the class-room—the classics, the mathematics, or the natural sciences—to sanctify the heart or subdue the will to God. The colored race is vastly more run down on its moral side than on its intellectual side. This is true of all degraded, barbarous races. The direct effects of slavery on the colored race were its moral effects. To be sure, it left the race poor and uncultivated; but that might have been borne and easily repaired had it left the moral integrity of the race intact and pure. The school of slavery perverted the moral nature, and until that is rectified, no process of intellectual education can lift the race on to the high level of a true manhood and a great future.

Men and nations are lifted and made truly great through their moral qualities rather than through their intellectual. At any rate, if history teaches any lesson it is, that no nation has long exhibited great intellectual qualities which has not been sustained by greater moral qualities; and that no nation, ancient or modern, has become intellectually great that was not first morally great. The age of Pericles in Greece, and the Augustinian age in Rome, when the human mind in each of those countries reached its climacteric, was preceded by those great moral virtues among the people which made them severely simple, honest, brave and true. Greece had her Homer, her Solon, her Æschylus, her Euripides, her Sappho, before she had her Pericles. Rome had her Romulus, her Numa, her Cato, her Scipios, and for mothers, her Cornelia, her Marcia and her Portia, before she had her Augustus. England had her Alfred, her Bede, her Wickliffe, her Knox and her Reformers, before she had her Bacon, her Shakespeare and her Milton. Germany had her Luther, her Melanethon, her Calvin, her Zwingle, and her long line of Protestant confessors and defenders, before she had her Goethe, her Schiller, her Humboldt, her Herder and her Beethoven. The ancient nations, whose masterpieces in literature and art are still the models on which we form our taste, declined intellectually precisely as they declined morally. The great age of English literature was a greater age of moral heroism; and Germany’s highest intellectual development is but the consummate flowering of the moral forces which have come down from the Reformation. Both will decline as the moral supports on which they rest are weakened or undermined.

In the light of the past, it would seem clear that if we merely sought the highest intellectual development of the colored race, we would educate most assiduously their moral nature—their weakest and most neglected part. But this can be done effectually only through a pure and intelligent ministry of the word. In pure churches alone can moral instruction, based on Divine authority, find its highest sanctions. The secular teacher, indeed, may instruct in morals and religion, but his words do not carry the sanctity nor the authority of him who ministers at God’s altar in holy things. It is in the Church, where men speak in the name of God, and where the soul is brought face to face with the claims of God, that the highest moral motives are pressed and felt. And hence we say, the Church foremost, and everything tributary to the Church, because the Church deals supremely with the moral nature, through which degraded races can alone be lifted.

(5.) There is a farther necessity for such churches, in order that we may save the present and coming generation of educated young colored men and women from skepticism and infidelity. The moment we educate a young man or a young woman to read intelligently, or to speak and write the English language grammatically, we have educated them out of the old colored churches. They will not listen to men whose vocabulary has more sound than meaning, and who violate with every sentence every law of correct speech. The white churches are not open to them in any such sense that they feel at liberty to enter them on any footing of Christian equality. Unless we provide for them something which is more pure and rational than their own churches, free from the clamors and excitements of mere animal passion, we send them into the streets and away from the house of God. After a young man or a young woman has remained in school long enough to see the ignorance of the colored preachers, and has gained sufficient intelligence to make moral distinctions, it is inevitable that he should turn from such teachers, and revolt from such moral and religious guides.

If they are compelled to judge religion only by the specimens of it which they see around them, why should not a common intelligence reject it altogether? Our education, therefore, must either lead our students out of the old churches into infidelity, or it must lead them into churches where an intelligent ministry and a pure worship will satisfy both intellect and heart. I can conceive no greater wrong we can do that race than to destroy their faith in the religion taught and practiced in their churches, if we do not supply them with a better. A race without a religious faith is lost; and, while our education destroys the old, let us be careful to put in the place of it the new and the true.

(6.) And, finally, pure and intelligent churches are a necessity in order to create a reservoir of piety and ability sufficient to nurture and bring forward the young men and women needed for the work of redeeming Africa. If the colored race in this country is ever to be broadened to the full conception of saving Africa—is ever to be made capable of laying broad and deep the foundations of Christian States on that dark continent—if it is ever to be inspired to the effort of such an undertaking—the movement must begin at the foundations of character, in the moral sensibilities and convictions of the soul. And a movement that is wide enough and strong enough to sustain such an attempt must begin at the house of God, must have its roots in Christian homes, must be fed in the closet, at the family altar, with the word of God and the breath of prayer. The movement which saves Africa will be a race movement; will be the light and pressure of Divine truth upon the minds and consciences of the people, and a baptism of Pentecostal fire consecrating them to the work. But to what agencies shall we look for such mighty spiritual energies as are needed for the recovery of a race to Jesus Christ? The Church is the vast reservoir of spiritual forces, and she utilizes other instruments as they are needed to accomplish her work. But if it should happen that we should mistake instruments or methods for power, even schools for the Church of the living God, we should soon find that the body without the spirit is dead.

It would avail little if here and there one in our schools might be persuaded to enter the African field. What could he do without the prayers, the sympathies, as well as the moral and pecuniary support of his race behind him? And what certainly would there be of a supply or of a succession of laborers, unless the churches were holding their members to the work and were pushing forward their children to offer themselves in its behalf? The churches alone can create a race sentiment broad and deep and potent enough to bear up an enterprise aiming at the Christianization of Africa. It is the Gospel, ministered by holy men, which unifies and exalts communities. It is the Church, as the centre and representative of divine power, which stands for God, and the word and the ordinances entrusted to her keeping are his only visible hold upon the world. If we would have Christian scholars in training for Africa—as teachers, as preachers, or as statesmen—they should come from homes and churches in which the spirit of Christ, the spirit of humanity, and the spirit of missions was as the breath of life. On the one hand, we want the churches as the inspiring and sustaining power both for men and money, and on the other, as the motive and model for the work we are called to do. Our missionaries need to live and move in an atmosphere of holy self-denial and charity, to be empowered by the prayers and godly zeal of the great brotherhood of the saints, in order to a full consecration. We can expect men and money for the work in sufficient number and amount only as the churches, like mighty reservoirs, gather and hold all their forces of brain, of heart, of will, of wealth and of learning, of piety and of power, for Christ.

AFRICA.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.

The report on the Association’s work in Africa, submitted to your committee, shows that the Mendi Mission has reached once more a degree of prosperity and promise. In its church, school and industrial work it has been prospered, and in the plan of preparing and using native helpers do we find the great principle of all successful schemes for disseminating the Gospel wisely adopted. Furthermore, the signal fact seems now already permanently established that the Freedmen are the providential missionaries for the dark continent. They endure the climate as Europeans cannot, and, as trained for their work in the seminaries of this society, they evince a capacity which fits them for a rare evangelical service in the land of their ancestors.

But the matter to which it is especially fitting that your attention be directed with unwonted seriousness is the conditional decision recently arrived at by the Executive Committee of this Association to accept Mr. Arlington’s offer of £3,000, and open in Eastern Africa a new mission station. That indicates what all interested in the great problem of Africa’s Christianization should welcome with thanksgiving and prayer, viz., that this Association is to take a new and advanced part in this latest missionary crusade. Now its work will have a higher significance and a wider reach; for under God does it more and more seem that to this Association is to fall the high part of preparing the needed missionaries for Africa. The relation of the educational work of the Association to this grand enterprise becomes impressively apparent. There is a compensation in God’s providence, and in this instance it is inspiring to believe that our Freedmen, as the best fitted agents, are to become the preachers of Christianity to the land from which their ancestors were cruelly carried away as slaves. Here, now, is something proposed which will tax our faith and test our courage and consecration.

The field for the proposed mission seems to be wisely chosen, and in the Nile basin, making one more in a chain of mission stations recently opened, will this Association have its place and do its share in redeeming the continent to which the entire church now is turning with a yearning heart. It is somewhat significant that the proposed field for this mission is in a portion of the continent most desolated by the slave trade. Pre-eminently appropriate is it that this society, so long the friend and advocate of the slave, should carry the tidings of “the liberty wherewith Christ makes men free” into the midst of tribes which have suffered from this terrible traffic.

The full and studied report of the Foreign Committee, in the April number of the American Missionary, on the character and promise of the special field designated by Mr. Arthington, makes it unnecessary for your committee to add anything touching upon this point. The careful investigation made in the first instance confirms the wisdom of Mr. Arthington in naming to this Association the field he has. His own letter, published in the March number, shows that he had conferred with the best authorities as to the location of the mission, and that he has chosen a district that offers unusual attractions for such a station as this Association should establish.

We believe your committee but voice the feeling of all friends of this Association when expressing the hope that the conditions on which this missionary advance depends will be promptly met, so that without delay measures can be adopted to enter this open door, and improve this latest and greatest opportunity of doing for the millions of the long-forgotten and long-despised continent. It is very evident that the foreign work of the Association is to become of increasing importance and magnitude, for to it has providentially fallen the high privilege of preparing the workers especially required in African evangelization. With its old mission on the West Coast rising now into fresh usefulness, on its new basis of depending upon Freedmen missionaries and native helpers, and the projected station south and west of Gondokoro, in a field full of promise, it will become a great evangelistic power in Africa. The springs and feeders of its work will be in those noble educational institutions established in our Southern land, for from these will go forth the colored men and women who will show of what holy sacrifice and achievements they are capable.

We should not forget that to this Association belongs the honor of inaugurating in this country the more recent phase of African evangelization. At the annual meeting in Clinton, Iowa, in 1874, was the first note sounded for a missionary advance into the heart of the dark continent, and in the annual gathering of 1875 and every year since has it been a prominent subject for consideration. Mr. Arthington was induced to make his offer to the Association because of its early and pronounced sympathy with this plan of interior missions in Africa, and we, of our own belief, would be disloyal to the flag we first gave to the winds of heaven if we did not gird ourselves for this new venture. This Association cannot afford to be absent from the Christian forces now entering the far land, for by Providence and the signal history of past years, and its peculiar relation to the African race, it is called to take its place, highest of all, in the lustrous belt of missions that now extend from the Zambesi along the chain of lakes to the region in the Nile basin which we are to man under the name of the Arthington Mission.

M. M. G. Dana,
H. T. Rose,

G. D. Pike,
S. J. Humphrey.

THE MENDI COUNTRY AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD.

BY REV. G. D. PIKE.

The territory under view is bounded on the east by the River Niger, on the north by the Great Desert, and on the west and south by the Atlantic Ocean.

(1.) Its surface is varied by mountains, plains, forest and rivers, while its coast is indented with bays and harbors of grand proportions. Skirting the coast there is an alluvial region extending for fifty miles to a mountain forest range eighty miles in width; then follows an open plateau which extends to the Niger and beyond. The soil of this plateau is described as a rich prairie land, of such productiveness and beauty that it is regarded by missionaries who have seen it as the garden spot of the world.

(2.) The climate of the country is admitted on all hands to be hostile to efforts for the advancement of its people, while the coast has been fitly styled “the burial-ground of white men.” A deadly malaria, poisonous both to man and domestic animals, checks the progress of industries and the work of Christianity. It is believed, however, that this malaria is more especially confined to the low mangrove swamps of the coast, and that after the forest belt is passed the open plateau will afford healthy localities.

The sanitary condition of a country can be determined in a measure by its domestic animals. The pestilential vapors of a malarious region are said to be absorbed to a greater extent by quadrupeds, living constantly in the open air, than by mankind, living a portion of the time in-doors. The ancient Greeks observed this fact, and incorporated it in verse centuries ago:

“On mules and dogs the infection first began,
And last, the vengeful arrow fixed in man.”

Now the open plateau we have mentioned may be called the “cattle-belt of the Mendi country and its neighborhood.” Here unnumbered herds of horses, cows and other domestic animals abound, making it somewhat evident that the climate may be found favorable for the development of an advanced civilization.

(3.) The products of this country are such as are common to the tropics, and are very abundant. Coffee grows spontaneously. India-rubber enough for generations could be easily obtained. Vast areas of timber lands, characterized by trees thirty feet in diameter, with spreading branches sufficient for the shelter of a regiment, abound in the forest belt. Here are found great varieties of dye-woods, and other woods that admit of a beautiful finish. Lumber is in great demand, and the saw-mill belonging to this Association is taxed to its utmost, and quite unable to furnish a supply sufficient for the market near at hand. The export of palm-oil from this locality is very great, and at present is doubtless the leading article of merchandise.

It is quite possible, however, that within a generation the most alluring wealth of the country will be its treasures of gold. This precious metal is found in a belt extending from the Gold Coast inland three hundred and fifty miles. Of the productiveness of the gold mines or pits, as they are called, we can judge but little otherwise than by the meagreness of the facilities of the natives for collecting gold, and by the amount found among the different tribes. From what can be learned I am led to believe that the great enterprise that shall yet stir the thought of the mercantile world in behalf of this region will be that of the gold hunter. In support of this view we have facts before us like the following: The king of the Ashantees is covered with golden ornaments. He is served by his cook with a golden spoon. His spies, to the number of a thousand, wear golden breastplates, his officers carry gold-hilted swords, and his subjects use gold dust for money. The chiefs of the land manufacture golden images to display their wealth, while their attendants are embellished with golden badges. Even on the great plateau, three hundred miles inland, gold is the money of the country. In Bouré the people do nothing but dig up gold, which they exchange for food with the neighboring tribes. The indications certainly are, that if so much gold is secured by native women, who wash out a little surface sand in their simple gourds, mines of wealth must lie beneath awaiting the more powerful machinery of an American civilization.

(4.) We come now to notice the internal improvements projected for opening up this country to commerce and the higher development of its people. Lines of steamers ply from the Senegal to the Niger, and ports are opened where trade is carried on equal in amount to $20,000,000 annually. The Niger and its tributaries afford navigable waters for 3,500 miles, enabling the merchant to proceed with boats from Timbuctoo to the Atlantic. Steamers already ply upon this river and inland trade is rapidly developing.

At present there are many obstacles to overcome, of which the superstition of the natives is not the least. There is, however, a project full of promise for reaching this country. By recent surveys it has been ascertained that opposite the Canary Islands, in latitude 28° north, running five hundred miles south-east in the Great Desert, there is a sink two hundred feet below the level of the Atlantic, extending to within one hundred miles of Timbuctoo, the great city of Central Africa. This sink or depression has a width of one hundred and twenty miles, and contains sixty thousand square miles of land. Explorers agree that a channel once connected its north-western extremity with the Atlantic, where it terminated in a sand-bank, which prevented the waters of the ocean from flowing into its bed. Its mouth is formed between perpendicular rocks, and measures about two and a half miles in width, and is blocked by a sand-bar, three hundred yards across, with a height of thirty feet above the sea. All that is needed is to excavate a ship canal three hundred yards long through the sand-bar, and the inland sea will be speedily formed. When this is accomplished the Mendi country and its neighborhood will be a vast island, approachable from many directions, and a belt of civilization will be closed in until the whole area is blessed with peace and abundance. Then “Afric’s sunny fountains” will “roll down their golden sands” into the lap of the older civilizations, and receive in return the riper and richer results of the heaven-born blessings of the Gospel.

(5.) It is fitting, furthermore, that we consider the character and condition of the people of this domain. As to their physical proportions, we have reason to believe that back of the malarial belt they are well formed, muscular and endowed with powers of great endurance. The tribes of the interior drive down the inhabitants of the forest range into the lowland, where the law of the survival of the unfittest obtains on account of malaria leaving alive the coarse, muscular men of the coast. Of the mental capacity of these people a good illustration was seen in Barnabas Root, a real heathen, who came to this country and was graduated at a Western college and also at the Chicago Theological Seminary, ranking among the best scholars of his class at both institutions.

The capacity of this people is also indicated by some splendid achievements on African soil. A native among the Vey people invented an alphabet with two hundred characters, in which communications could be sent by letter and the language preserved in books. Still another contrived an instrument before the invention of the telegraph, called an eleimbic, for conveying sound, and by means of which messages could be sent for several miles. Native women manufacture cloth, woven in different colors; they also make a species of twine as delicate and useful as any in the world. Clay vessels that hold water, iron axes and implements of utility of native manufacture, also abound.

Timbuctoo, the queen city of the Desert, at the north-eastern boundary of the country we are considering, contains 20,000 inhabitants, and is laid out with regular streets and well-built houses. Here is found a great mosque with nine naves and a tower 286 feet high and 212 wide, while other mosques of great age and importance greet the eyes in this wonderful city. These indications of skill are found among native Africans, even if due, especially in Timbuctoo, to the Mohammedan faith. Cities and towns in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and further along the coast, are the result in part of a foreign civilization, but still in some measure attest the capacity of the real heathen.

These people not only evince capacity for the development of material wealth, but for the science of government. They evidently believe in experiments in governmental civilization. For example, the king of Dahomey selects the most robust of his wives for a body-guard and organizes regiments of amazons. These are said to be most courageous soldiers and absolutely devoted to their calling. He also displays his appreciation of object lessons in temperance reform by keeping a drunkard on rum, that his hideous aspect might deter the people from that vice; while the boys who act as porters on the coast promote the observance of Sunday laws by charging for their services on the Lord’s day sixpence extra for breaking the Sabbath.

The question, however, with which we have chief concern relates to the religious instincts or capabilities of these people. These may be measured in some degree by the sacrifices they make and by the notions they entertain. For example, among the Foula tribe the offerings to the Fetish must be made by a “sinless girl.” Among the Mendi, they believe in a supreme being who made all things, who punishes those who wrong their friends; they thank him for blessings, and blame him for trouble and sickness. The fetishism of the African is based upon religious instincts, and indicates the strength of his aptitude for faith, prayer and self-denial.

We have not at command any comprehensive knowledge of the habits of all the tribes of the Mendi country and its neighborhood. We are able, however, to give some account of the unprejudiced conduct of the Ashantees during a four years’ war, as observed by two German missionaries held as prisoners at Coomassie for that length of time. They narrate a condition of heathendom that ought to inspire us to pray and labor for the enlightenment and redemption of this wretched people.

The worst phase of their condition is exhibited in the practice of offering human sacrifices. We are told that when the king visits the burial-place of his ancestors he offers a human sacrifice on approaching the skeleton of each one, and in this manner some thirty persons are slaughtered. When about to repair a roof at the burial-place after a storm, as many more victims are offered to appease the wrath of the departed. On funeral occasions many villagers are killed, till it pleases the king to forbid the further shedding of blood. The arms of poor wretches are cut off in midday, while they are compelled to dance for the amusement of the king before being taken to execution. If the victims will not dance, lighted torches are applied to their wounds until the drums beat, and then their heads are taken off.

During the Ashantee war 136 chiefs were slain. According to the belief of the people it was necessary to send a considerable retinue after them to the other world. For this reason a ceremony called a “death-wake” was instituted, at which, for each Coomassie chief, 30 of their people were killed. If an equal retinue was assigned for chiefs in other localities, the slaughtered persons would number 4,080 souls. At the funeral festivities of Kokofu more than 200 human beings were sacrificed, the king beheading several with his own hand. On the death of a prince many of his wives are slain, and if the number he possessed is not deemed sufficient, the king adds a selection of girls, who are painted white and hung with golden ornaments. These sit about the coffin for days, but are finally doomed to the grave as attendants for the departed. The apology for such practices is given by the king of Dahomey in the following language: “If I were to give up this custom at once, my head would be taken off to-morrow. These things cannot be stopped, as one might suppose. By and by, little by little, much may be done. Softly, softly; not by threats. You see how I am placed.” A missionary of much experience on the coast tells us: “The practice of offering human sacrifices is founded on a purely religious basis, designed as a manifestation of piety, sanctioned by long usages, upheld by a powerful priesthood, and believed to be essential to the very existence of the tribes where it exists.”

But, thank God, over these dark areas of Pagan land we believe the “morning light is breaking.” Already about the Mendi country and its neighborhood there are twenty-three central mission stations, many, if not all of which are circled with tributary “out-stations,” lighting the country like a galaxy of planets and stars and suns. Here different religious societies have organized more than one hundred churches, and one hundred times as many converts, and gathered 20,000 children in its schools. To this it must be added that nearly a score of dialects have been mastered, and portions of the Scriptures printed in as many tongues; while millions of real heathen have felt the blessed influence of the Gospel. As you will see by the map, there is a belt of missions from the Senegal on the north along the coast to the mouth of the Niger, and up the Niger the native black Bishop Crowther has located nine mission stations, manned by converted heathen, who are pushing northward toward Timbuctoo, with their steamers and other facilities for extending the work.

We, of the American Missionary Association, are in the heart of this great domain. The Mendi tribe is supposed to occupy a region hundreds of miles inland, and to number two millions of souls. The work of our missionaries on that ground is fruitful of suggestions and encouragement. The faith and aspirations of all, I believe, was expressed by Mr. Anthony, a colored hero from Berea, Ky., in his letter to New York: “If you had the money I would say, send 100,000 missionaries to Africa at once.” The Freedmen are rapidly fitting themselves to go up and possess this land for Christ. Give us the money and we will send them forward.

At some of the fashionable watering-places by the shores of the sea, during the past summer, you noticed chains of electric lights illuminating the fairy-like towers and palaces and abodes of ten thousand pleasure-seekers, who, amid music and gayety and song, sported in the tide as it broke in billowy grandeur on the snowy sands; darkness was changed to day, and night abolished by the wonderful discovery of Mr. Edison. So, I think, our missionary stations in Western Africa are electric lights, dispelling the darkness and ushering in that light which is the truth and the way. Mr. Edison maintains his luminaries by batteries with positive and negative poles, two extremes operating one over against the other. Not otherwise is it with the lights of the missionary world. They must be supported by the great batteries of prayer and sacrifice. Praying and giving must be our watchword. Pray the Lord of the harvest that He send forth the laborer into His harvest, and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

THE INDIANS.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.

Your committee, to whom has been referred that part of the report of the Executive Committee which concerns the American Indians, beg leave to report as follows: