The American Missionary

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

PRESIDENT.

Hon. Wm. B. Washburn, LL.D., Mass.

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

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

TREASURER.

H. W. Hubbard, Esq., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.

AUDITORS.

M. F. Reading. Wm. A. Nash.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

John H. Washburn, Chairman; A. P. Foster, Secretary; Lyman Abbott, Alonzo S. Ball, A. S. Barnes, C. T. Christensen, Franklin Fairbanks, Clinton B. Fisk, S. B. Halliday, Samuel Holmes, Charles A. Hull, Samuel S. Marples, Charles L. Mead, Wm. H. Ward, A. L. Williston

DISTRICT SECRETARIES.

Rev. C. L. Woodworth, D.D., Boston. Rev. G. D. Pike, D.D., New York.

Rev. James Powell, Chicago.

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. G. D. Pike, D.D., at the New York Office; letters for the Bureau of Woman’s Work, to Miss D. E. Emerson, 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.

FORM OF A BEQUEST.

“I bequeath to my executor (or executors) the sum of —— dollars, in trust, to pay the same in —— days after my decease to the person who, when the same is payable, shall act as Treasurer of the ‘American Missionary Association’ of New York City, to be applied, under the direction of the Executive Committee of the Association, to its charitable uses and purposes.” The Will should be attested by three witnesses.

AIM AND WORK.

To preach the Gospel to the poor. It originated in a sympathy with the almost friendless slaves. Since Emancipation it has devoted its main efforts to preparing the Freedmen for their duties as citizens and Christians in America, and as missionaries in Africa. As closely related to this, it seeks to benefit the caste-persecuted Chinese in America, and to co-operate with the Government in its humane and Christian policy toward the Indians.

THE

American Missionary.

American Missionary Association.

The Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association will convene in the Central Congregational Church, Brooklyn (Dr. Behrends’), Oct. 30. For further information, see 4th page cover.

THE NERVE OF MISSIONS.

The first effort on record, so far as we know, to cut the nerve of missions, was made by Satan himself in the Garden of Eden when he affirmed to our first parents, “Thou shalt not surely die.” The reason for missions comes out in the great truth of Scripture, that men are lost without the Gospel, and are saved only by the Gospel. The advocacy of any view that relieves the mind of a sense of the lost condition of unbelievers cuts at the nerve of missions. The purpose of God the Father in sending his Son was that “Whosoever believeth in him might not perish.” The fact that Christ came to seek and save the lost makes it clear that whatever serves to convince the world that men are not already, and will not continue eternally to be, lost without the obedience involved in the exercise of faith in Christ, runs counter to the whole drift of missionary endeavor. The gospel of repentance was foremost in the preaching of John the Baptist, of Christ and the Apostles—repentance because “He will thoroughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

However much good may come from missions to civilization, howsoever much they may add to the comfort, the intelligence, the personal enjoyment of those who may receive the benefit of them, nevertheless the grand inspiring motive of missions is to save lost souls. Those in the closest sympathy with Christ, those who have consecrated themselves to work for him, feel this most deeply. There are many who appreciate the excellent example given us by our Saviour when on earth, many who are actuated by kindly impulses, who wish well for the happiness of their fellow men here and hereafter; but if these men fail to realize that Christ’s mission was to save the lost, and that the lost can be saved only through the preaching of His cross, they are not, as a rule, deeply interested in the work of promoting missionary efforts at home or abroad. They do not manifest in any good degree the actuating power of any nerve of missions. Help must come, progress must be made, indeed, the world must be brought to Christ, so far as we can see from history, or from observation in the present generation, by those who believe and are ready like Christ himself to do all in their power to bring a lost world into the fullness and blessedness of the Redeemer’s kingdom.

SECOND NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSEMBLY.

This Assembly, to which reference was made in our July Missionary, was held at Ocean Grove, Aug. 9, 10, 11 and 12, for the purpose of bringing together prominent persons to awaken public sentiment in favor of aid for the education of the illiterate masses in our country.

The meetings were conducted by Rev. J. C. Hartzell, D.D., and the topics discussed embraced nearly every phase of educational work, relating more especially, however, to the negroes, the poor whites and the Indians. In our limited space, we can give simply two or three leading features of the discussion.

The subject of National Aid to Education deservedly received large attention and found its way into addresses other than those on that particular topic. Secretary Strieby presided during the session when it was considered, and the time was occupied by Prof. Painter, Hon. J. P. Wickersham, Senator H. W. Blair and others. Mr. Wickersham gave a comprehensive résumé of the aid provided by foreign nations for schools, pointing out its benefits and also its evils. He argued that, although it generally was the wisest and the only successful way for the people to provide education for themselves, yet under conditions like those in a portion of our country, help should be given by the government. True patriotism, he said, requires us to keep an army of schoolmasters in the South now as much as it did to maintain an army of soldiers to put down the rebellion. The urgency of national aid to education at once was emphasized by Judge Tourgee in the expression that ten million dollars for this purpose to-day would be worth more than ten thousand millions twenty years hence. Senator Blair, who recognizes fully the value of aggressive and thorough methods of reform, declared, and we think truly, that if every leading newspaper would give one strong editorial urging the importance of national aid, if every popular lecturer would devote one hour to public discussion of the subject, and if every minister would preach one sermon in its advocacy, the next Congress would pass a bill for an appropriation for the purpose among its earliest acts, and the people of the nation would applaud with hearty commendations.

The Negro in America came up for a full share of attention at a morning session. A goodly number of colored bishops, doctors of divinity and professors in educational institutions were present. Their zeal for bringing about reform had been heightened by the fact, that in so good and moral a community as Ocean Grove, they were requested to occupy a dining-room by themselves, near the kitchen, in the house where they were entertained. There was no color-line drawn, however, at the meeting. Dr. Rust, who presided, claimed that as the Africans came to this country as invited guests, that as we even sent our ships for them, they were entitled to more respect than ordinary foreigners. That respect was certainly[261] accorded them on this occasion. Dr. Ward, of the Independent, led off with a clear-cut address on the Danger-Line in Negro Education, setting forth the folly of those who hold that education unfits men for useful labor. The gist of this topic he gave in a sentence: “We must educate or we perish.” Rev. J. C. Price (colored) of North Carolina, urged that the Negro must solve his problem by his own impressibility. So fitting and eloquent were his words, that when his limited time had expired, the audience, with prolonged applause, refused to allow the next speaker to be called, and it was only when the Chairman assured them that Mr. Price was but one colored orator among the many he had to bring forward and announced Bishop Campbell that the speakers were allowed to proceed. Dr. Tanner, also colored, read a paper on “The Color-Line,” taking the ground that in this country there must be no class distinction, but that we must be one people. A new code of ethics, he said, was proposed, a code not known in any other nation. It was that equals may associate with equals, if they are of the same color. The session, which had been participated in by two white speakers, was brought to a close by Bishop Campbell, whose good-natured appearance brought freshly to mind the anecdote that had just been told by Rev. J. W. Hamilton, of Boston, the pith of which was the reply of the black man, that if the negro had no soul, religion made his body feel mighty happy.

An evening was given for a public reception of missionaries, teachers and preachers who have labored in the South from the North since the war, about 150 of whom were present. Gen. John Eaton presided over the immense gathering assembled to welcome them. Pres. Braden, of Nashville, Tenn., Sup’t Salisbury, of the A. M. A., Gen. S. C. Armstrong, and others, made addresses.

All the meetings were full of interest, and the managers will publish a report of the proceedings in pamphlet form.

The little company which met in Albany Sept. 3, 1846, to found the American Missionary Association, is rapidly passing away. Another of those original founders, Hon. Freeman Walker, of North Brookfield, Mass., at the ripe age of seventy-nine entered into rest July 11, 1883. If less conspicuous than some others, he was not less clear in his convictions nor less staunch in his defense of the liberties and rights of his fellow men. He had large official trusts in town, and State and nation, extending over many years, and was always the incorruptible citizen, as he was the humble Christian.

He inherited all the mental keenness, as well as the moral toughness and tenacity of the Puritan ancestry, in the eighth generation of which he stood in regular descent. He had hardly reached his majority before he placed himself in the ranks of the few who then stood on the side of[262] the slave. His heart and his hand, his purse and his home were at the service of the fugitive in the days of slavery, and since the emancipation as fully at the service of the freedmen.

The Association has had no firmer friend than Mr. Walker, and few, in the measure of their means, have more liberally contributed to its treasury. He belonged to a generation of heroes and martyrs—men of daring courage and of mighty faith. They were honored of God, and are now coming to receive the homage of mankind.

Sixty Years in the Harvest Field is the title of a biographical sketch of Havilah Mowry, Jr., published by A. S. Barnes & Co. The book contains 360 pages, and is valuable by way of suggestion as to how laymen may employ their leisure even in the humble walks of life in bringing sinners to Christ. Mr. Mowry, after working as a blacksmith for a series of years in Connecticut, entered upon service as city missionary at Brooklyn, N.Y., where he labored for many years with marked success. The book is worthy of a place in Sunday-school libraries, and fitted to promote evangelistic work.

A GIFT BY A BOHEMIAN BOY.

We publish below a letter from Dr. Alden, Secretary of the American Board, to District Secretary Woodworth, of Boston.

It is a touching fact that a boy in that far-off land should remember the black children of our own country. It shows how strangely the impulse of Christian sympathy strikes from land to land, and suggests the propriety of making this humble gift of the utmost value to him that gives and those who receive. We, therefore, propose, as a simple method of reaching that object, that any person or Sunday-school sending us $10 for the purpose shall receive one of these pieces of money. The donors to this object will receive the pieces in the order of application. If more gifts than the ten are forwarded, we will return them to the donors or appropriate them by permission to the colored children of the South.

“Rev. C. L. Woodworth, D.D.—My dear brother: I take great pleasure in committing to your trust the inclosed pieces of money, ten pieces in all, each of them the value of ten kreutzers, making 100 kreutzers in all, or probably about half a dollar of our currency. It is the gift of a boy in Prague, Austria, whose name is Bohumil Burda. The name ‘Bohumil’ is the same in signification as the ordinary name Theophilus, that is to say, ‘a friend of God.’ This boy placed the money in my hands when Dr. Clark and I were at Prague, saying that he wished it to be given to the ‘black children of America.’ I give you the exact coins which he had laid up after the self-sacrifices of several months, in his warm spirit of Christian[263] benevolence, and I commit them to you as a sacred trust, assured that you will know how to multiply them, and how to use them in such a way as will be not only for the interest of the black children of America, but for the awakening of their interest in the needy and the promising children of Bohemia.

“With best wishes for the success of the Society which you now represent, I remain yours most fraternally,

“E. K. Alden, Sec. A. B. C. F. M.”

BENEFACTIONS.

Henry L. Kendall, of Providence, has bequeathed $1,500 to the Hampton Institute.

Dr. Eliphalet Clark has left a bequest of $50,000 to the Kent’s Hill Methodist Seminary in Maine.

An unknown contributor, of Massachusetts, has given $5,000 to Williams College to establish a physical gymnasium.

Charles L. Colby has given $1,000,000 to establish a new university in Wisconsin. It was his father, Gardner Colby, who endowed the college which bears his name in Waterville, Me.

The large liberality of Dr. Lucien C. Warner, of New York, will provide a building three stories high, and 150 feet by 120, for the Conservatory of Music at Oberlin. It is expected to cost from $30,000 to $50,000.

Mr. and Mrs. Mills have just added $20,000 to their gifts to Mills Seminary, Oakland, Cal., and fifteen acres of land. Another gift of $5,000 has also been received, and one of $2,000 from Mrs. Wm. E. Dodge.

The trustees of the estate of the late Frederick Marquand have given a subscription to the Elmira Female College of $25,000, on condition that an equal sum be raised by the friends of the college.

The Canadian government has appropriated $44,000 for the establishment of Indian schools in the Northwest. Two schools are to be built with this money—one Protestant and one Catholic.

Mr. Moody has recently received from a gentleman in Boston a gift of $50,000 for his school at Northfield, on condition that an additional $50,000 be raised. Several scholarships of $3,000 each have also been received lately.

The demand for a new building at the Tillotson Institute, Austin, Texas, of which mention was made in our December Missionary, is very urgent. Last year the number of students turned away for lack of room was greater than the number admitted. Twenty thousand dollars, in addition to the amount already pledged for the purpose, are needed at once.

[264]

GENERAL NOTES.

THE INDIANS.

—W. H. McKinney, a Choctaw from the Indian Territory, graduated this year from Roanoke College, receiving the degree of B.A.

—Thirty Nez Perces women, widows of the men who fled from Idaho in 1876, have been permitted to leave the Indian Territory and return to their old homes.

—The Department at Washington has entered into an agreement with the managers of the Lincoln Institute, Philadelphia, whereby that institution is to undertake the education of fifty Indian girls.

—Bishop Whipple, when on a recent visit to the Indian department of the missionary diocese, administered the communion to 247 Chippewa Indians. There are eight churches in the Chippewa mission. One just building will cost $10,000.

—Three hundred acres of land have been purchased, south of Lawrence, Kansas, for the site of an Indian Industrial School, located by the last session of Congress. Suitable buildings will be erected for the accommodation of 500 pupils. Ten thousand dollars have been raised for the object by private subscription, and it will probably be completed by November 1.

—Information is published in Nebraska to the effect that the tradition that Indians will not work is untrue. On the line of the Minneapolis & Omaha Railroad they hang around the section houses and insist on being hired whenever any extra work is to be done, and every regular gang has both Winnebagoes and Omahas in it. They make efficient laborers, often giving better satisfaction than foreigners in the employ of the company.

THE CHINESE.

—The revival power is being manifested to a greater extent in Japan than elsewhere.

—A union for Christian work among the Chinese of Brooklyn, N.Y., has been formed, with Andrew A. Smith, Secretary of the Park Commission, at its head. A reading-room and headquarters will be established at 991 and 993 Fulton street.

—There are now more than 300 Chinese Christians on the Hawaiian Islands, and stated religious services for them are maintained at four different points. One of these Celestials, a member and a deacon of the Church in Honolulu, has built a school-house in his native village in China, and now supports a Christian teacher there, thus showing the importance of evangelistic work among the Chinese of these Islands.

—European statisticians are gradually reducing their estimates of the population of China. It used to be put at over 400,000,000. Behm and[265] Wagner reduce their estimate for China and Corea from 434,500,000 to 379,500,000. Peterson reduces his estimate by 75,000,000, making the present total 350,000,000. Dr. Happer, missionary, believes this can safely be reduced another 50,000,000. Mr. Hippisley, Acting Commissioner of Customs, thinks 250,000,000 more nearly correct than 350,000,000. The losses by the Taeping and Mohammedan rebellions, and by the famine and pestilence which swept the provinces of Chili, Shantung, Shansi, Shensi and Houan, are variously estimated at from 61,000,000 to 81,000,000.

AFRICA.

—King Mtesa, of Uganda, is dead. He welcomed and co-operated with Capt. Speke, the discoverer of Victoria Nyanza, and has played a prominent part in all the events that have occurred in his kingdom, whether they were in the interest of exploration or mission work.

—The German Reichstag is said to have voted 1,000,000 marks, about £50,000, for the expense of a German exploring expedition into Central Africa.

—Mr. H. M. Stanley is said to have used more than a million yards of Manchester goods in paying the workmen employed in constructing the road to Stanley Pool.

—Drs. Bachmann and Wilms, of Munster, set out in May for a journey of several years in Africa, especially in the Transvaal, which they contemplate exploring with reference to botany and zoölogy. They hope also to develop commercial relations between Southern Africa and Germany.

—Since the overthrow of Arabi Pasha, the missions of the United Presbyterians of America have been more prosperous than ever. Their work, which is largely among the Copts, is approved by the Coptic Bishop, and one of the young men recently licensed by the mission has been engaged to expound the Scriptures. So great was the interest in his first sermon that he was obliged to repeat it three times. Women disguised themselves in male attire in order to get into the streets to hear the preaching. An effort will be made to establish a regular national evangelical church in Egypt.

—From reliable statistics it appears that the progress of Islamism in Africa, during the last hundred years, has been appalling. At the Mohammedan Missionary University, at Cairo, in Egypt, there are at this day 10,000 students under training, ready to go to any part of the world to teach the doctrines of Islam. Missionaries meet these Moslem priests not in Turkey alone, which is the centre of their power, but also in Persia, India and China, and in the heart of Africa. Very few have been led to renounce their faith for Christianity. This is owing to the fear of persecution, for the Moslem holds that it is not only proper, but a duty to kill any one who abjures his faith in their prophet.

THE COLOR-LINE.

Opinions Gathered from the Press.

CASTE PREJUDICE.

REV. W. H. WARD, D.D.—ADDRESS AT CLEVELAND.

Christianity in India has utterly succumbed to caste once. The missionaries of the last century, after beginning nobly, yielded and allowed caste to rule in the Christian church. “I have carefully avoided all coercive measures,” said Schwarz, in 1787. Bishop Heber allowed caste. Not till 1833 did the English Church missionaries decide, through the voice of the noble Bishop Wilson, in a peremptory pastorate letter of July 5, 1833, that no mercy should be shown to the accursed thing. “The distinctions of caste,” said he, “must be abandoned decidedly, immediately, finally. Birth condemns no class of men, from generation to generation, to inevitable contempt, debasement and servitude. The enforcement of this order broke up churches. A Sudra would sooner give up his Christianity than take the communion with a pariah. The war has been long, and is not yet fully concluded. An American Lutheran missionary lately felicitated himself that now the two castes have been prevailed upon to take the Lord’s Supper together. In a London missionary station some ten years ago a few pariahs were converted, whereupon the Shanars, at their own cost, built a chapel for their low caste brethren, lest they should have to worship with them. A few years ago a missionary led several low caste Christians into a chapel door, whereupon the high caste occupants hastily scrambled out of the window. * * *

Do I say that caste is broken down? Not quite. Even yet it lingers: and where it lingers chiefest is, it shames me to say, in education and Christianity. To the infinite disgrace of the church, the chief denominations of the South divide on the caste line. The white Christians and churches are put purposely into one denomination, and the colored into another. We have white Methodists and black Methodists; white Baptist associations and black Baptist associations. What denomination is there but the Roman Catholic, the Episcopalian and the Congregational, in which whites and blacks can stand equally before God? In the South both whites and blacks accept this condition, for the most part, as right. It does not occur to them to protest against it. Even the negroes accept the humiliation to which they have become accustomed. No voice of protest is raised. Whites and blacks alike seem satisfied that God’s church united above should be divided below. Why lingers Jerubbaal amid the wheat-threshings of Manasseh? Why comes no Gideon forth, inspired with the zeal of the Lord, to cut down this horrible idol of his father’s house? * * * *

When the colored race were slaves, the color marked the social distinction of service. That is all past now. They may be servants still. Then the social distinction still holds. We cannot break up these right social distinctions. We cannot prevent the existence of classes in society. We choose those of our own sort, with whom we are intimate. But in the name of God, in the name of the hopes and rights of the poor, in the memory of the accursed experience of the ages of serfdom, in the East and in the West, we demand that neither law nor recognized custom shall impose on social conditions the Satanic burdens, the hopeless, crushing weight of impassable caste. It is accursed in the hall of legislation, accursed at the ballot-box, accursed in the court-room, accursed in the church-pews, accursed at the Lord’s table—most accursed when it sets an impassable gulf between high and low, white and black in the school-room.

A QUESTION OF CASTE.

BY REV. HORACE BUMSTEAD, D.D.

It should be remembered that this prejudice in the South is more one of caste than it is one of race. It is in the former relation of master and slave that the distinction between the races has its strongest roots. The personal antipathy on the ground of feature and color—the race prejudice pure and simple—is not so great in the South as at the North, where fewer colored people are met with. I have heard a Congregational pastor, in one of the most enlightened communities of Massachusetts, declare that he did not think he could endure the presence of a colored cook in his kitchen. One of the best Northern teachers in the South confesses that when he first met with colored people in the horse-cars of Washington he would sit as far from them as possible. But Southern men and women who were nursed at the breasts of slave mammies in infancy, have played familiarly with colored children in childhood, and have been served all their lives by the darker-skinned race in a multitude of ways and in the closest personal proximity, can feel little, if any, of this personal antipathy. It is the distinction between a serving class and a ruling class which chiefly causes the separation here. But as the colored people acquire intelligence and property, and the white people learn more of the dignity of labor, this distinction will cease to coincide with the color line.

But it is said that white students will not now attend school with the colored, and that we must take the facts as they are. But the facts are not all on one side. For years the students of Berea College, in Kentucky, have been about equally divided between the two races, and have studied harmoniously together. And why? Simply because, for a large surrounding region, Berea College has offered the best and cheapest opportunity for an education. Let all the institutions of the American Missionary Association be amply endowed and equipped, so that they can offer to the poor whites more and better than can be obtained anywhere else, and the wasteful and needless expedient of missionary color-line schools and colleges will no longer be thought of.

The Congregationalist.

NOT ON ACCOUNT OF COLOR.

EDITORIAL IN INDEPENDENT.

Professor James M. Gregory, of the Howard University, made some capital remarks on the “color line” at the recent banquet in Washington, in honor of Frederick Douglass. “The color line,” as he justly said, “was drawn when the Negro was made a slave in this country,” and the prejudice existing against him is “not on account of color, but by reason of previous condition, his color serving to indicate his identity with a race held as bondmen.” “This prejudice,” he added, “is purely American. Colored men traveling in other countries have not found color a mark of degradation. If they are reminded of their color at all, it is by Americans they meet, who are not magnanimous enough to treat the negro courteously even on foreign soil, where race prejudice is not tolerated.” * * *

Let the practice of the American people be as impartially just as is their Constitution; and our colored fellow-citizens will have no grievances of which to complain. We congratulate them upon the fact that the Constitution has taken them under its charge, and upon the further fact that the day-star of a bright and promising future is gradually shedding its light upon their horizon. The doctrine of equal privileges and equal responsibilities will in the end lift them to the level of an unquestioned and developed manhood; and then the “color line” will wholly disappear.

ONLY HALF TRUE.

A friend, who is familiar with the blacks at the South, writes us that the statement[269] that “the colored people prefer to be in churches by themselves” is only half true. He adds that, so far as it is true, it is because they either shrink from the restraints of a pure and intelligent religion, such as that of the whites, or from the scorn or ill-concealed toleration of their white fellow-worshipers; and that, if sure of a cordial welcome by the whites, they do not prefer to worship by themselves. We are glad to give publicity to this statement, although it is contradicted by that of every one else whom we remember to have heard speak of the matter. Is there not another reason which tends to separate white and black Christians into distinct churches? Do not the latter, even when assured of a cordial welcome by the whites, usually prefer an emotional, hortatory style of preaching which is very dear to them, but which disturbs, if it do not even amuse, the whites? Certainly it is so here at the North.

The Congregationalist.

ONE DESTINY.

BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

There is but one destiny, it seems to me, left for us, and that is to make ourselves and be made by others a part of the American people in every sense of the word. Assimilation, not isolation, is our true policy and natural destiny. Unification for us is life. Separation is death. We cannot afford to set up for ourselves a separate political party or adopt for ourselves a political creed apart from the rest of our fellow-citizens.

The Independent.

CHRIST OR CASTE.

BY H. K. CARROLL.

Shall we go into the South to exalt Christ or to surrender to caste? Shall we go to the Negro as to a being made a little lower than man, and reach down to him, not to lift him up to our plane, but to help him live better and be content on his own lower plane? Or, shall we go to him as to a brother of our own blood, unfortunate, degraded, despised, and strive thus to save him and improve him on Christ’s plan? If we go for Christ, we go inevitably to bear reproach, to submit to ostracism; we go to contend against untold difficulties, to meet with discouragements, to fail, it may be, for many years, of at least great numerical success. * * * The secret of much wrong thinking and wrong practice concerning mixed churches is the idea which both Dr. Curry and Dr. Wheeler seem to regard as universal, that the Church is a social institution. If this be once admitted, Dr. Wheeler is right in contending that the lines of social distinction which are drawn in the drawing-room will inevitably be drawn in the Church. Here is a basis quite sufficient to build white and colored churches upon; but it is just as certainly broad enough for other social distinctions, which Methodism, of all branches of the Church Catholic, has been the least willing to admit. Seeing, as Dr. Wheeler sees, that the employer and the laborer, the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned form different and more or less distinct classes in society, we cannot only justify churches organized on the color line, but we must be prepared to justify churches organized exclusively for the rich; churches for the poor; churches for the educated and churches for the uneducated; churches for merchants and distinct churches for clerks. The idea that the Church is a social institution, if rigidly adhered to, would give us a system of class distinctions as intricate as that of India. There are two great facts which make the whole human race absolutely equal, absolutely without distinctive claims or advantages, before the altar. The first is the fact of universal sin; the second is the fact of universal need of salvation. Men of all degrees, from the prince to the peasant, from the millionaire to the pauper, from the most profound scholar to the most unlettered backwoodsman, from the whitest European to the blackest[270] African, meet in church on a common platform. They leave their social distinctions, their rank, and their peculiar privileges outside the church door. Here is the one place where all the sons of God may meet and work together as one family. The Duke of Wellington knelt at the altar with a plain farmer and received the sacrament. “Here,” said he, “we are brothers.” The Church is associational rather than social. It exists in society, is formed from society, and exercises the most powerful influence on society; but its province is neither to break down nor build up distinctions in society. It may inculcate principles, which men and women will carry into their social relations, for the cure of such evils as may exist in society; but it is not its province as an organization to form and regulate society. Its distinct work is to draw all men to Christ and help them to live a righteous and useful life.

The Independent.

THE CHRISTIAN LEAGUE.

BY REV. WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D.

“This company must be a clean one, and there is no lack of sound and reputable men in our churches.”

“How about the colored brethren?” queried Mr. Strong.

“The colored brethren must be left out,” was the answer, “not for social, but for ecclesiastical reasons. One of the first duties of this league of ours, if it ever gets into operation, will be the suppression of these colored churches. When the colored people abandon their own organizations, and join the other churches, they may come in as representatives from them. We will have no color-line in the Christianity for which this club stands. I’ll go as far as any other man in fraternizing with colored men; but with colored churches, never. The sectarianism whose only basis is the color of the skin is the meanest kind of sectarianism.”

The Century.

IT DECIDES NOTHING.

BY REV. D. M. WILSON.

We are told that the colored prefer to be by themselves. Were this true, it would decide nothing as to the proper method of church work. The several castes of India would have preferred to remain separate even after nominally embracing Christianity; but this could not be. Among Christians there is but one fold and one Shepherd. The very object of religion is to make men one in Christ and one in Christian fellowship. If this be not done, nothing is done to any good purpose. Our separate schools and separate churches have during the last eighteen years done more to separate and alienate the two races than two hundred and forty years of slavery had done. In the times of slavery both races were in the same churches. Why not now? One thing is too plain for an honest man to deny, and that is the fact that, had the whites treated the colored during these last years with the same courtesy that they extend to a Roman Catholic Irishman and his children, we would never have heard of a colored school or that ecclesiastical monstrosity, a colored church. The results are disastrous to both parties. The colored are left to themselves and the blind lead the blind. Nine-tenths of their preachers have no more fitness for preaching than they have for lecturing upon fluxions. Were one of their churches of average capacity for senseless noise and uproar within earshot of my residence, I would regard it a number one nuisance. But it is not their fault that they are by themselves. A brute only moderately domesticated soon understands when he is not welcome, and acts accordingly. When slavery had disappeared, the colored saw but too plainly that they were not welcome any longer in their old churches, and they went forth into a darkness deeper than they had before know.

The Independent.

[271]

MORE AT HOME BY THEMSELVES.

REV. JAS. H. FAIRCHILD, D.D.

The colored church came into existence not because the colored people were not welcomed to all the other churches, nor because a separate organization was desired by those who had been most favored with education and culture, but because considerable numbers of them felt more at home with a style of service and instruction more like that with which they had been familiar.

Oberlin, the Colony and the College.

WHITE AND COLORED CHURCHES.

BY C. L. GOODELL, D.D.

Having lived over ten years in a Southern State and been an interested observer of colored people and a sympathetic helper wherever I could be, I feel a deep interest in the settlement of this question concerning the mixing of the races in the churches.

Whenever there is a call for a church of Christ, let the brethren come together and organize it, and start it off with all the wisdom given them, as to location and other practical matters. It is a little republic ordering its own affairs, with whatever fact and counsel it may seek from sister churches. If it be a colored church, let it take in whatever white Christians may come to its door, in case it would take in a colored Christian applying under similar circumstances and of the same Christian character and fitness. Not many white Christians will come; some might, owing to their peculiar relations to the church, or to the neighborhood, and so on.

If a white church be organized, let it receive whatever colored Christians may knock at its door, in case it would receive white Christians applying under similar circumstances and of the same Christian character and fitness. Let that be the rule. There are always individual cases which must be settled each by itself. Not many colored people will come; some might, owing to their special relations to the church or some member of it, and so on. This law is fundamental in God’s order of society. It applies to Chinamen and Indians and all races in our communities. Take them as they come. Not many will come. They prefer to be together; and it is better they should be as a general thing. * * * Colored Christians ought to have free access and welcome to white churches. As soon as they find out that they are really loved and esteemed, and can come into white churches as brethren, they cease to desire it. They are happy and helped by this knowledge; but they would rather worship together, just as every other race would. They love to exchange fraternal salutations and have many interests in common; but in the regular work and worship of church life they choose to be one of the distinct branches of the great body of whom Christ is the head. I know this from years of practical experience.

The Independent.

THE COLOR LINE IN CHURCHES.

There is no place in the country where the question of the color line can be so easily and so fairly tried as in Washington. Here is a population of 60,000 colored people, with sixty-five colored churches. There are also in the District 124 white churches, nearly or quite all of them having one or two colored members, generally the sexton and his wife. But every colored adult in Washington knows that the Congregational Church is the only one in which he stands on an equal footing with his white brethren and sisters, as their great leader, Frederick Douglass, told them, “only one church in the national capital over whose doors is the beautiful inscription, ‘Freedom to worship God without distinction of color.’” And the pastor of that church, Dr. Rankin, is as much beloved and as much trusted by the[272] colored population of this city as a man can be. And the leaders of the colored people all come here. Hon. J. M. Langston, United States Minister to Hayti, Hon. B. K. Bruce, ex-senator and now Registrar of the Treasury, the professors of Howard University and a few others come; and yet I doubt if there are two dozen colored members in this church. There are two colored Congregational churches in Washington without a white man in them, and to them all the colored Congregationalists go. Nor is it to be wondered at. To the great majority of them the preaching would be over their heads. Their education and position in life deprive them of meeting their white brethren on an equality in parish or prayer meeting. They naturally go by themselves, not that they are forced to, but because they prefer it. The emotional demands of their nature are not met in the cooler atmosphere of the white man’s religion. And so it must be throughout the South. Each race will for the present prefer churches of its own color. If two churches are formed in one place at the same time the whites would not care to sit under the imperfect education and narrow compass of thought of the colored preacher, nor would the darker portion of the audience enjoy the more cultivated sermons or prayers of the whites. Until the average education of the black is more advanced let them keep separate. The mixing of the races is sure to come, but it will require generations to do it. All the present can do is to offer them open doors. If they decline to enter it is their own action. But with growing wealth, with education equal to that of their white neighbors, will come social intercourse, and not till then.

W. R. H. in Congregationalist.

RESOLUTIONS OF A. M. A. AND A. H. M. S.

At the recent annual meeting of the American Missionary Association, held in Cleveland, O., a petition was presented requesting the appointment of a committee to report on the policy of the Association in regard to race or color prejudice in the support of schools and churches. As the Executive Committee, to whom that petition was referred, are entering upon enlarged church work in the South, they feel called upon to take early action on this petition, and make the following announcement:

1. That in accordance with the New Testament doctrine upon which the Association was founded, and by which it has from the beginning been governed, that God has made of one blood all the nations of men, we reiterate the rule, which we believe that fidelity to Christ requires, that all our churches and schools shall open their doors impartially to persons of every class, race and color.

2. That in obedience to the same New Testament doctrine, we shall require that all churches aided by us shall unite with neighboring churches of the same faith and order in Christian fellowship in the same conferences or associations, and in church councils, and in other usual means of fraternity and fellowship, making no distinctions on account of race or color.

3. That this Association will not enter upon any new church work in any city or town where the American Home Missionary Society has already established a church work, without previous conference with the officers of its sister society.

The American Home Missionary Society is taking steps to enlarge its work in the Southern States. Recent statements and inquiries having been made which show a misapprehension, on the part of some, of the methods of its work in that part of the country, the Executive Committee deem it proper to state: That the American Home Missionary Society still adheres to its long-established usage in declining to aid in the support of a missionary to serve any church, whether in the South or North, which refuses to receive to its membership any applicant,[273] solely on account of color. That it still expects, as it has from the beginning, that any church, wherever situated, that receives its aid in supporting a minister, will unite with the association, convention, or other ecclesiastical body of the denomination within whose bounds he is appointed to labor; and by participating in councils, conferences and other customary gatherings for mutual help and edification, will show its Christian fellowship with other Congregational churches. And that, in case of proposals to form or aid churches in cities or towns where the American Missionary Association has organized missionary operations, this society will not enter on such work without first corresponding or conferring with its sister association.

A MISTAKEN POLICY.

BY REV. W. HAYNE LEAVELL.

This is my deliberate conviction, based upon such knowledge of the Southern People as comes from the fact of having been born and bred among them, and from my observation among the more cultivated families that go there from this region.

You will permit me to say, therefore, that in my judgment the proposed policy of our societies is a mistaken one. Most of the reasons that influence our brethren who guide the policies of these missionary organizations I have considered, and largely sympathize with their spirit; and if the plan were practicable, I would see no Christian reason why it should not be carried out. But if we desire to secure a foothold for Congregationalism among the respectable white people of the South, and enlarge our borders in that direction, we must adopt the only policy that will gain this end, and have churches composed predominantly, if not exclusively, of white people, as well as churches composed mainly of black people for the blacks.

We may argue against caste in the churches of Jesus Christ, and resolve that we will not be a party to its perpetuation anywhere under the sun. Very well, then we must not hope for a successful propagation of our denominational principles among the ruling classes of the South, for they will not enter into church relations with the colored people. After the churches are separately organized, and while they are separately maintained, they will affiliate in associations and conventions, but the limit will be drawn at the line of the church. However unrighteous, this is a stubborn fact—and anybody who has good knowledge of the Southern character will know that it is to remain as stubborn for all time to come.

Mixed churches among us, where colored people are comparatively few, and in the South, where colored people are so numerous, are very different things. For among us the predominant element in the churches will remain predominant, and it is an easy matter for 500 white Christians to associate with five of another race and color. But for 250 white Christians to associate in churches on equal terms with 250 “colored” Christians is another, and by no means a comfortable thing. Before the war, negroes and their masters were in the same churches and enjoyed the association, but the negroes sat in the galleries, and in other ways were not put upon an equality.

WHO SHALL WORK SOUTH?—THE QUESTION STATED.

BY REV. L. W. BACON, D.D.

A gravely important and difficult question as to the future policy of the Society (A. H. M. S.) was submitted in behalf of the executive. It was one technically within the competency of the executive to decide, but too important to be so decided, without larger counsel: Shall the Society’s system of operations with missions and superintendencies be extended over the Southern States? In favor[274] of this measure are urged (1) the desire to make the field of the Society’s work co-extensive with the nation; (2) the duty we owe to white people, as well as black, at the South; (3) the alleged demand for the Society’s aid to communities of Congregationalists who have moved to the South. Against it are (1) the measureless inadequacy of the Society’s present or probable resources for the urgent instant demands of its present field; (2) the wastefulness of organizing and supporting a second system of superintendencies over the field already occupied by the superintendencies of the American Missionary Association, and the chances of friction or collision between the two systems; (3) the impossibility of drawing any line of demarkation between the two systems of missions on the same ground, except a color line: the emphasizing of the color line, in the most obtrusive and offensive manner, not only by two orders of missionaries, one to whites and one to blacks, but by two orders of mission churches, one for black people in which whites shall be tolerated, and one for white people where blacks shall be tolerated with not so much as a common superintendency to co-ordinate them; and thus the danger of indelibly fixing the color line, fortifying it by new vested interests, and defeating any kindly tendency toward the effacing of it from the Christian Church. Such considerations as these led the congregation (we can hardly say the Society), after deliberation and debate, and especially after the very able speech of Mr. Blakeslee, to decline committing itself to this great and not easily revocable step, and to leave it for a year’s consideration, and though a later and less considerate vote was obtained in a form which seemed to throw doubt upon this decision, nevertheless the reluctance toward the new policy was of such a weight and character that a prudent executive may be trusted to keep it in view and move with caution, in a matter that does not press for instant action.

The Advance.

A QUESTIONABLE PROCEDURE.

BY REV. HORACE BUMSTEAD, D.D.

The American Missionary Association and the Am. Home Missionary Society have both announced their purpose to enter upon enlarged church work in the South. Is it not questionable whether it is best for the Home Missionary Society to enter the Southern field at all? Does that Society propose to do the same broad work for all races and classes which the A. M. A. aims to do, and in good measure has done? If so, why duplicate missionary machinery for this region? Or is it proposing to do a work less broad, and if so, are its friends ready to support it in so doing?

The Congregationalist.

THE OHIO IDEA.

RESOLUTION OF CONGREGATIONAL CONFERENCE AT AKRON.

Whereas, During the past twenty years the work of the Congregational churches for the needy millions of the South has been performed in a manner that is fast winning the respect and sympathy of all classes; first, by its being based upon Christian needs without too evident attention being paid to denominational advantages; second, by its uncompromising fidelity to Christian principles in respect to the spirit of caste;

Resolved, That we, the members of the Congregational Association of Ohio, do earnestly deprecate the adoption of any permanent policy by which Congregational churches shall be established in the South, practically, though not professedly, on the basis of what is called the “color line;” and that in our judgment two distinct Congregational Societies, the one working mainly for the white and the other for the black race, in the same field, will inevitably tend to perpetuate race prejudice, set at variance Congregational brethren themselves, and so defeat the end of true religion.

[275]

WHAT IS A COLOR-LINE CHURCH?

BY PROF. C. G. FAIRCHILD.

The State Conference of Ohio recently protested against the establishment by Northern missionary funds of churches based “practically, though not professedly, upon the ‘color line.’” What is a color-line church? A church at the North composed largely or exclusively of colored members, following naturally a race line of cleavage, as do the Irish or German, is not in this sense a color-line church. Most white churches at the North have only white members; but probably there is not one of them but would receive a colored member without hesitating in the slightest about his color. These are not color-line churches. There are many important white churches at the South that have had for many years colored members; but the colored members must wait for the communion until the whites are served, and must occupy special seats. Such churches are color-line churches. Churches at the South composed of blacks, with a few white teachers and their friends, who would welcome with tears of gratitude any Southern white families who would show their love and sympathy by identifying themselves with them are not color-line churches. A church at the South, composed of whites, in the midst of a large colored population, or in close contiguity with a church of kindred organization and sources of support, and where the advent of the first colored member would be deprecated, not welcomed, is a church based practically, though it may not be professedly, upon the color-line. * * * * *

It is always wise to consider facts. The first fact is that this color distinction is the most potent factor, politically, socially and religiously, in Southern society. This should dominate every plan for Christian effort at the South as much as the existence of the rebel army dominated plans for the “On to Richmond” during the war.

In the ultimate solution of Southern problems, natural race lines of cleavage may largely prevail; but it lies within the realms of reasonable expectancy, and not fancy, to believe that the time will come when color will not be thought of in the admission of a person to any hotel, railway car, school, or church. We have no right yet to let go of this Christian and patriotic hope; but for the present at the South color places upon a man a more damning and ineffaceable stain than does murder or political treason, and the present establishment of white churches as above described would seem to be an obeisance to this most potent and evil influence.

The Independent.

THE TENDENCY IS TO RELAX.

EDITORIAL IN INDEPENDENT.

The natural bent of Southern whites is to separation from colored members, and white congregations willing to open their doors to all alike will not spring up in great numbers. The tendency, the temptation is to relax a little on the principle, under trying circumstances, for the sake of immediate results. We have pointed out how signally some of the Friends’ schools in the South have failed to keep their first principles intact. The same lowering influence has been at work among the Northern Methodists. It is worth a generation of endeavor, and perhaps it will require it, to establish an influential constituency on the solid basis of true Christian Brotherhood.

THE SOUTHEAST.

SEC. BARROWS’ REPORT AT SARATOGA.

How soon shall the Society have a superintendent in this region? It is for you to decide. The executive officers are convinced that the time has already come for[276] this forward movement. During the past winter we have had a general missionary at work in Florida, with encouraging results. At our next anniversary there will doubtless be present a representative from the Florida Association of Congregational Churches. The Society also has missionaries in Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia—and appeals are constantly received urging us to enlarge this work.

It is not the purpose of this society to foster the spirit of caste. It was to remove all suspicions on this score that a friendly conference was lately had with our brethren of the American Missionary Association, and with the results of that conference you are all familiar. It is our idea to form churches at the South, like Dr. Rankin’s in Washington, and Dr. Goodell’s in St. Louis, churches open to the colored people and to which they will be made welcome if they see fit to join. The only difficulty will be to find enough colored people willing to join to save the principle—the uniform experience hitherto having been that they prefer to be in churches of their own.

But we have too long ignored the fact that there are several millions of poor whites at the South who need our help, and must have it if they are to be fitted for citizenship on earth or in heaven. They have claims upon our Christian sympathy equal to those of the colored people, for they too are the victims of slavery, and are despised by the old slaveholding aristocracy—and even by the negroes. A Southern man said in our hearing a few days ago, “There are as many white people at the South who need your help as there are colored people, and they must be reached by similar means, viz.: the Christian school and the Christian church.”

Let us now ask the question—Have we been doing our duty by these people? We know we have not. God forgive us for having neglected them so long, and may we now show by our actions that our repentance is genuine! Do you wish the Home Missionary Society to organize an agency to do this work?

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON DR. BARROWS’ PAPER.

But why ask the Home Missionary Society to plant these churches and commission these missionaries? Simply because the endeavor is one which no present organized agency can successfully accomplish.

The work of the American Missionary Association is noble, and its field is wide. But broad as are its principles it cannot, as a practical matter of fact, cultivate the whole of that needy part of our Lord’s vineyard. That which has been the pride and the strength of the American Missionary Association, the thing it has printed on its publications and blazoned on its banners, that it was organized for the help of the despised races of America, to some extent honorably incapacitates it for some of the work which, nevertheless, needs to be done. Not in this generation, nor in the next, can men and women, between whom not history and habit only, but nature and providence, run lines so deep as between the races of the South, be made to any considerable extent to blend in comfortable and harmonious church relationship.

The ignoring of this fact will cost limitless labor and limitless disappointment. Why not take up the case as we find it, and in those places where the hand of invitation now so obviously beckons, respond to the call? What need of trespass, what occasion for misunderstanding, if the Home Missionary Society and the Association thus at some points work side by side?

The Home Missionary.

DR. WALKER’S ADDRESS.

There is no man in this house who has, to the limit of his ability, done more cordial and earnest work for the American Missionary Association than I have. There[277] is no man who maintains a more cordial relationship with the secretaries and officers of that society than I do. Personally, each one of them is my friend. But I do feel, Christian friends, that we have here a question that we must meet; and the best way to meet it is in the spirit of frankness and openness, giving it the deliberation which it requires. The American Missionary Association, as has been suggested in the paper which has been presented to you, is, in my view, handicapped for doing a part of the work which is necessary to be done. * * *

Now the question is: Is it not expedient for us to enter upon that work? I am met by the objection: “Why, you are doing the same work that the American Missionary Association is doing. Why have two societies, side by side, doing essentially the same work?” They are not doing the same work, in the fact that the subjects for which they labor are providentially made distinct. It is impossible in this generation, and in the generation to come, for the American Missionary Association to plant Congregational churches to any considerable extent through the South. Now, the plain and practical question is: Is it wise for us to neglect the present opportunity and, for the sake of what may be proved after all to be but sentiment, let the present moment pass, a moment so freighted with consequences to the future? Is it wise for us to insist upon the strength of ecclesiastical ties as sufficient to hold men together, whom we cannot counsel to come together by strength of natural ties? We cannot advise marriage among the races; why insist upon a kind of work that forces them together in ecclesiastical relationships to which they are equally unfamiliar and averse?

The Home Missionary.

NO CLASHING MUST BE ALLOWED.

EDITORIAL IN ADVANCE.

What the American Missionary Association has done, and is doing, is only the prophecy of what it is to do in the near future, if it is promptly sustained in its noble work. And while we are on this subject, we wish most emphatically to say:

There is not to be, there must not be, any clashing in the work between this society and the American Home Missionary Society.

The American Missionary Association was organized for a specific work, broadly and definitely understood to be for the uplifting of the colored races on this continent. To that work they are pledged, for that money is given to them, and they are very wisely administering the trust committed to their hands. To criticise that society because it does not organize what are known as white churches is the height of folly, and for it to attempt to force mixed churches on the South would be equally absurd. The American Home Missionary Society should not go down South with the idea of starting white churches. It should be allowed, and must be allowed, to go there and organize churches just as it does in Iowa, Dakota, Missouri and Kansas, saying nothing at all about the race question or in any way excluding colored people from its membership; giving them that freedom which is theirs, to come in, and the freedom also to stay out, and to have their own churches, and their own social circles, just as they please. Any one who undertakes to force such things out of their natural and proper course will only work confusion and loss.

NO TROUBLE NEED BE BORROWED.

EDITORIAL IN CONGREGATIONALIST

As for the matter of the entrance of the Home Missionary Society upon work in the South, that may be trusted to take care of itself. The two societies mutually[278] have agreed upon a policy of comity and consultation. Unless there be a real and imperative demand for its services at the South, the Home Missionary Society probably will find all that it can do in its present field. If such a demand arise, the Society will do its best to meet it, not in rivalry of, but in co-operation with, the Missionary Association. There may be localities where the former can work in the same line to better advantage than the latter. Nobody need borrow trouble on their account, for both are pledged, and honestly, we are sure, to keep out of each other’s way when necessary, and together to erase “the color line” as fast as possible.

CRITICISMS NOTED.

EDITORIAL IN ADVANCE.

We fear that many of those who are criticising the policy of the society (A. H. M. S.), in pushing its work in the South, know little or nothing either of the New West or of the South. We call the attention of Dr. Bacon, and the minority which he represents, to a few facts. In the first place, the American Missionary Association cannot reach the white people of the South. In proof of this we appeal to agents of that society, who are in the field—Dr. Roy and the missionaries down South. One of the missionaries has just been in this office and gave his testimony most freely, while we were reading the proof of Dr. Bacon’s article. He said: “I have been three years in Alabama. I am pastor of a colored church there. We are prosperous. We were never more so. The Southern people are coming more and more to labor with us, and to co-operate with us in every way for the education of the negro. But there must be a colored church for colored people, and a white church for white people, and this will be done without saying anything about it. Both races prefer it, and it is a natural method. Our society cannot reach the white people, we ought not to attempt to do so.” * * *

There is a call for the work of the American Home Missionary Society in the South. To refuse to go there would be wicked. That society has just as much right to build a church in Mississippi or Georgia, and to give it aid, as it has to aid a church in Iowa or Dakota. No other society has a right to bid it keep north of Mason and Dixon’s line.

WHO SHALL WORK AT THE SOUTH?

BY REV. J. E. ROY, D.D.

To the Editor of the Advance:

In your response to Dr. Bacon on this question, you said: We appeal to Dr. Roy. I did not understand you as committing me; but finding that some brethren took you as setting me down to the theory that the A. M. A. could not do the work among the white people there because of its relation to the colored, I wish to disavow it, for I never held that view, never expressed it. I think that the A. M. A. could do that work if the constituency shall so direct, though, as our experience among the mountain people of Kentucky proved, it would require patience, wisdom and fortitude, and would be a slow process.

The Advance.

RESOLUTION AT SARATOGA MEETING.

Voted, That a committee of five be appointed who shall consider our denominational work in the South and confer with the secretaries of the American Missionary Association, or any committees appointed by that society, in reference to the same, and report at our next meeting.

Committee to confer with the American Missionary Association—Rev. Drs. J. E. Twichell, G. L. Walker, Lyman Abbott, C. L. Goodell, and A. S. Barnes, Esq.

The Home Missionary.

BUREAU OF WOMAN’S WORK.

Miss D. E. Emerson, Secretary.

FROM OUR LADY MISSIONARY, WILMINGTON, N.C.

MISS A. E. FARRINGTON.

My work the past month has been very encouraging. Mrs. Steele has been with us and special meetings were held among the women and girls. At one of these about 90 were present, and many seemed deeply interested. At the close quite a number rose for prayers and remained for personal conversation. After the meeting that night, which was also quite full, the same girls remained, and several expressed the hope that they had given their hearts to Jesus. Some of them had been very thoughtful for weeks, and seemed to need just the help that these meetings gave to bring them to a decision. A meeting of the boys was also held. The girls begged me to keep on with meetings for them, which I have very gladly done every Monday after school, from twenty to thirty-five coming in. Nine or ten of them hope they have become Christians. Several of them wish to unite with the church at once. They were examined and their friends consulted, and three were propounded for admission, but will not be received until they have had a little time to test their sincerity. Influences have been brought to bear to draw them away from us. They have been told that there is no religion where everything is so quiet, and endeavors have been made to get them into revival meetings which are wild with excitement. Last week some of our teachers went into one of these meetings, where several girls were rolling on the floor, crying and moaning. One lady thought she saw one of her scholars among them, and going to her held out her hand and told her to get up. She obeyed at once, and her teacher led her to a seat, where she talked to her quietly a few moments, telling her that God did not require any such thing as that of her or any one else, that her good conduct in school and elsewhere lately was stronger evidence that she had given her heart to Jesus than anything she saw there. Afterwards she went to another part of the church, where others of her scholars were, quieting them, some going home as soon as they saw her. These lambs of the flock need to be very tenderly guarded, and others seem only waiting to be led along the right way.

A VALUED WORKER GONE.

Rev. Dr. Woodworth, of our Boston office, in a commemorative address on the death of Mrs. D. L. Furber, of Newton Centre, Mass., gives an account of her devotion to the cause of missions, in language fitted to arouse, in no common degree, the zeal of the Christian women of the country. He says:

She had the rare faculty, perhaps I should say double faculty, of comprehending a great cause, and at the same time of making individual cases all her own. I have heard her talk of the work in the South as a work for the African race, until her tongue thrilled with eloquence, her face shone with a strange light, and her whole person seemed to expand to the measure of her theme. To her it seemed so strange that people did not see what to her was so plain: that the churches were so slow to accept their opportunity; that the very conjuncture of the death of slavery and the opening of the African continent by exploration and commerce were a demonstration that they were part and parcel of the same plan and pattern, and meant the salvation of the African race. Why could not the churches see it?[280] Had blindness happened to the people of God? How hot and fast her words fell, as she pictured the possibilities which lay in the Southern work, and as she expressed her amazement at the failure of good people to discern the signs of the times!

To her these four millions coming out of the house of their bondage, in need of every thing, were Christ himself, hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless—a stranger. In them she saw her Lord; in them she heard His cry of distress; in them, as unto Him, she gave her sympathies, her time, her bounty. She walked under the light of that vision which so glorified her life. Each one of that suffering race whom she took into her family, to whom she sent clothing, or aided in his course of education, represented Him.

Another thing which struck me was what seemed a thorough mental honesty; and by this I mean that she took the widest survey of the field of which she was capable, and formed her judgments after full collation of the facts. Like the ideal scientist seeking light from every quarter, and open to its reception, come from where it might, she was ready to follow the truth wherever it might lead. She submitted her judgment to her intelligence, and was not afraid to obey her convictions. She loved the slave when it was not popular to do so. She was on the side of the weak when only a few stood with her. She counted the cost and took the stand for righteousness and truth. She saw in them clearly the humanity now represented on the throne, and for that would have gone down among them with perfect serenity and cheerfulness, bidding every offended sense and feeling be still. She had schooled herself to do right. She had said to her soul, “I will do for the poor as I would do for my Lord.”

CHILDREN’S PAGE.

CHUNG WAH.

BY SUSIE W. HASSELL.

He is a bright little ten-year-old who lives in a town away off West. You know by his name that he is Chinese, and I am afraid some of you have already turned up your noses in disgust, and have thought, “Bah! those dirty Chinamen! My mamma says it makes her sick to think of them, and papa’s glad they can’t come to our country any more.” But let me tell you about Chung Wah, and then you can decide the Chinese question for yourselves.

He is in the A class in Number Two, and in the schoolroom his yellow face is almost always bright with soap-suds and joy, for he is a wonderfully happy boy, and smiles all the time he is happy. His little black eyes look like apple-seeds, and snap whenever he winks. He wears great flapping brown pantaloons, which are covered to the knee by his pink calico aprons, but on Wednesday, when he speaks his piece, he has on a white apron, so stiffly starched that it rustles and cracks like paper. His low cloth shoes have no heels, but long, pointed, turned-up toes. Chung Wah is very quick at his lessons, and neat in his slate-work, so that when visitors come in his slate is one of the first the teacher shows them.

He has always loved to study, but last May, when the days commenced to be warm and bright, he must have grown a little tired of school, for, alas, a great many times he was seen on the street the whole day long. When questioned the next morning, he told the teacher: “My fadder send me to school an’ I no come.” I suppose he liked to pitch[281] horseshoes with the other boys down in Chinatown, none of them had to go to school; or to follow old Sam Lee round the town as he gathered up the clothes for the wash-house. At any rate he played truant many days, until his teacher sent him up-stairs for the school superintendent to talk with him. Still the truancy was repeated, and he gave no excuse only, “I no likee come dat day.” At last, one morning, the superintendent whipped him for truancy, and poor little Chung Wah went down-stairs with both fists in his eyes and a very sore heart.

A CHINESE GARDEN.

That very afternoon, just before the[282] tardy bell rang, who should walk into the superintendent’s room but Chung Wah, his face still downcast and troubled. He held a preserve jar, covered with Chinese characters, in one hand, and in the other a bright silk handkerchief, such as are sold in the Chinese shops. With an awkward little nod, just as if he were going to speak a piece in school, he said: “My fadder gib ’em to you. He say you heap good man. He likee you beat me ebly day I no go school.”

Brave little Mongolian! Do you think you clean, white boys and girls could have carried such a hard message as that so honestly?

Somehow, after he had said the words the lump in his throat seemed to grow easier, and, although the superintendent said some words not very comforting: “Well, Chung Wah, tell your father I will punish you when you are truant from school”—yet when the boy went down-stairs this time his face beamed as though it had never known a tear, and his little black cue bobbed merrily behind him.

A good many months have passed since then, and he has never deserved another whipping. I don’t believe he will. His teacher says he has a wise father, and that if there were more fathers like him there would be more good boys in school, but I say, brave little Chung Wah! The boy who can tell the truth when it is so hard to tell has a clean side to his heart, though his face may be very yellow.

What do you say, my white boys and girls? Would he be a bad playfellow for you?

If some fifteen or twenty years from now you should hear that the grown-up Chinaman, Chung Wah, fills well any position of honor and trust, don’t be surprised, but tell your boys and girls, “Oh, yes, when he was a little fellow he was brave enough to obey his father, and tell the whole truth.”

The Advance.

RECEIPTS FOR JULY, 1883.

PROPOSED CONSTITUTION OF THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

Art. I. This society to be called the American Missionary Association.

Art. II. The object of this Association shall be to conduct Christian missionary and educational operations and diffuse a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures in our own and other countries which are destitute of them, or which present open and urgent fields of effort.

Art. III. Members may be constituted for life by the payment of thirty dollars into the treasury of the Association, with the written declaration at the time or times of payment that the sum is to be applied to constitute a designated person a life member; and such membership shall begin sixty days after the payment shall have been completed.

Every church which has within a year contributed to the funds of the Association and every State Conference or Association of such churches may appoint two delegates to the Annual Meeting of the Association; such delegates, duly attested by credentials, shall be members of the Association for the year for which they were thus appointed.

Art. IV. The Annual Meeting of the Association shall be held in the month of October or November, at such time and place as may be designated by the Executive Committee, by notice printed in the official publication of the Association for the preceding month.

Art. V. The officers of the Association shall be a President, five Vice-Presidents, a Corresponding Secretary or Secretaries, a Recording Secretary, a Treasurer, Auditors, and an Executive Committee of fifteen members, all of whom shall be elected by ballot.

At the first Annual Meeting after the adoption of this Constitution, five members of the Executive Committee shall be elected for the term of one year, five for two years and five for three years, and at each subsequent Annual Meeting, five members shall be elected for the full term of three years, and such others as shall be required to fill vacancies.

Art. VI. To the Executive Committee shall belong the collecting and disbursing of funds, the appointing, counseling, sustaining and dismissing of missionaries and agents, and the selection of missionary fields. They shall have authority to fill all vacancies in office occurring between the Annual Meetings; to apply to any Legislature for acts of incorporation, or conferring corporate powers; to make provision when necessary for disabled missionaries and for the widows and children of deceased missionaries, and in general to transact all such business as usually appertains to the Executive Committees of missionary and other benevolent societies. The acts of the Committee shall be subject to the revision of the Annual Meeting.

Five members of the Committee constitute a quorum for transacting business.

Art. VII. No person shall be made an officer of this Association who is not a member of some evangelical church.

Art. VIII. Missionary bodies and churches or individuals may appoint and sustain missionaries of their own, through the agency of the Executive Committee, on terms mutually agreed upon.

Art. IX. No amendment shall be made to this Constitution except by the vote of two-thirds of the members present at an Annual Meeting, the amendment having been approved by the vote of a majority at the previous Annual Meeting.

[287]

Transcribers Notes

Obvious printer’s punctuation errors and omissions silently corrected. Inconsistent hyphenation retained, due to the multiplicity of authors.

Changed “beqeath” to “bequeath” on the inside front cover (I bequeath to my executor).

Opening quote on page 267 has been left unclosed as it is unclear where the appropriate close should be (must be abandoned decidedly).

Changed “pereferred” to “preferred” on page 270 (would have preferred to remain).

Changed “incase” to “in case” on page 273 (in case of proposals).

Changed “superindentency” to “superintendency” on page 274 (a common superintendency)

Added missing “e” to “Jamesport” in the Jamesport entry on page 284.

Changed “Fragance” to “Fragrance” on page 287 (Beauty and Fragrance).

Added missing “t” to “Waterbury” on page 288 (American Waterbury Stem-Winding Watch)

Added missing “a” to “Case” on page 288 (Solid Silver Hunting Case Watch)