THE
American Missionary.

American Missionary Association,

56 READE STREET, N.Y.

PRESIDENT.

Hon. WM. B. WASHBURN, Mass.

VICE-PRESIDENTS.

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

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

TREASURER.

H. W. HUBBARD, ESQ., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.

DISTRICT SECRETARIES.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

AUDITORS.

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.

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.[353]

THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

American Missionary Association.

We present our readers in this issue of the Missionary, which is a double number, an account of the proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of this Association. For want of space we have only given the important points of most of the papers and addresses, endeavoring to preserve their spirit.

The paper of Pres. E. H. Fairchild will appear in the “Weekly Witness” of Nov. 17, of which copies will be supplied gratuitously to persons applying by postal card to the author at Berea, Ky.

Rev. Lysander Dickerman’s address may be looked for in the “Congregationalist” at an early date.

The papers read by Miss Sawyer and Miss Emery will be reserved for mention in the January Missionary.

We send this number of the Missionary to some persons whose names are not among our subscribers, with the hope that they will read it, and that their interest in the work which it represents will be deepened. We believe that if any such will send us their subscription for the Magazine, they will find themselves amply rewarded for the outlay.

The inquiry is sometimes made as to the reasons for the steadily increasing support given to the A. M. A. In answer we suggest:—1. The increasing prosperity of the country. People have more to give and they give more. 2. The careful management of the affairs of the Association has probably given it a stronger hold upon the confidence of the public. 3. The great reason, we believe, is that the nation, after many fluctuating opinions in regard to the Freedmen, has settled down to the conviction, voiced repeatedly by Pres. Hayes and reiterated so emphatically in Pres. Garfield’s inaugural, that the only safety for the nation and the Freedmen is in their thorough education. The A. M. A. is now seen to have steadily pressed forward from the beginning in this only true method, and hence its work has come to be more fully appreciated. The rapid growth of the colored[354] population gives emphasis to the demand for their Christian education. 4. Another reason is the awakened conviction in Great Britain and America that the freed people are destined by Divine Providence to take an important part in the redemption of Africa. Our schools and churches, so well fitted to prepare them for this work, are felt to deserve not only support but enlargement.

FINANCIAL—APPEALING FACTS.

One year ago we asked our constituents to enlarge our receipts twenty-five per cent; the generous response was nearly thirty per cent. We increased the appropriations of the year, but kept safely within the income. At our recent Annual Meeting the appeal was made for $300,000 this year—an increase over last of $56,000, or 23 per cent. This appeal is based on no random figures. The appropriations for this fiscal year are carefully made on the basis of last year’s income, but in addition we most pressingly need the means:—1. To finish and furnish two buildings, not provided for by the Stone fund. They are nearly ready, but will be useless unless completed. 2. To provide additional teachers, boarding and student aid for the increased number of students in the new buildings in Atlanta, Talladega, Tougaloo, New Orleans, Austin, Athens. 3. To erect a boy’s dormitory at New Orleans, and a new building at Memphis. As to the latter, Prof. Steele writes: “All the desks in the lower rooms were filled at the end of the first week, and we have been refusing admission to pupils in these rooms every day since. Early last week the last seat in the Normal room was taken. We seat 102 there. Since then I have placed small tables and chairs in every foot of available space in the Normal room, raising the number enrolled to 118. I am every day receiving letters from young men and women in the country who wish to enter the school, but I can in no way take more than two students in addition to those now in the room. Of the 120 in the Normal department, 50 have taught school and all the rest expect to become teachers.” Must we refuse education to more of such students and teachers? The unexpended portion of the Stone fund is already appropriated and is not available here. 4. To meet the urgent demands for enlargement in the church work. 5. To increase our expenditures for the Indians. The nation is aroused in their behalf and Congress is ready to help. Now is the time for us to enlarge. 6. To double our appropriation for the Chinese work. No outlay yields better returns. 7. To build the John Brown steamer for the Mendi, and to complete the $50,000 fund for the Arthington Mission.

These facts are our appeal. We add no words. The day has gone by when our friends will be content with good speeches and resolutions at the Annual Meeting. The hour has come for steady and effective work. We are ready for it, and the tone of the meeting at Worcester shows that our friends are also.[355]

ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING.

The Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association was held in Plymouth Church, Worcester, Mass., on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, November 1st, 2d and 3d, 1881.

As the bells in the church-tower finished chiming the “Missionary Hymn,” at three o’clock Tuesday afternoon, Secretary Strieby called the meeting to order, and in the absence of the President and Vice-Presidents, Rev. S. R. Dennen, D.D., of New Haven, was chosen to preside. After devotional services, Rev. Marshall M. Cutter, of Medford, was chosen Secretary, and Rev. John L. Ewell and Rev. C. P. Osborne Assistant Secretaries.

A Nominating Committee was appointed consisting of Rev. E. H. Byington, Rev. E. P. Marvin and C. L. Mead, Esq.; also a Business Committee consisting of Rev. Geo. M. Boynton, Rev. G. R. M. Scott, and Geo. P. Davis, Esq.

The Treasurer, H. W. Hubbard, Esq., read his report, which was referred to a Committee on Finance. The Annual Report of the Executive Committee was made through Rev. G. D. Pike, D.D., District Secretary, and was referred seriatim to appropriate Committees. An hour was then spent in prayer and conference, with special reference to the work in the South.

Tuesday evening, after devotional services, led by Rev. E. G. Porter, of Lexington, Rev. C. D. Hartranft, D.D., of Hartford, Conn., preached for the Annual Sermon a discourse appropriate to the Communion, which followed it, from Matthew xxvi, 27, l.c., “Drink ye all of it.” The Lord’s Supper was administered by Rev. Geo. W. Phillips, pastor of Plymouth Church, and Rev. Geo. H. Gould, D.D.

Wednesday morning, a prayer meeting, conducted by Rev. A. P. Foster, of Jersey City, was held at eight o’clock. At nine o’clock the regular session began, the chair being occupied in turn by Rev. L. T. Chamberlain, D.D., of Norwich, Conn., and Gen. O. O. Howard, of West Point, Vice-Presidents. John H. Washburn, Esq., in behalf of the Executive Committee, to whom was referred the matter of amending the Constitution of the Association at the last Annual Meeting, reported certain recommendations, which were referred to a Special Committee, to report Thursday morning. Richard Wright, Esq., of Augusta, Ga., colored, read a paper on “The Colored Man: His Strength, Weakness and Needs.” President E. H. Fairchild, of Berea College, Kentucky, read a paper on “Review of the Anti-Slavery Contest, and estimate of its meaning and value with reference to the Civilization of Africa and the World.” Secretary Strieby made an address on “The duty of America in the Conversion of the World, and especially in the Conversion of Africa.” President E. A. Wane, of Atlanta University, Ga., read a paper on “Higher Education.”

Wednesday afternoon. Prayer was offered by Rev. H. A. Stimson, of Worcester. Gen. O. O. Howard made an address on “Our Social Needs and their Remedy.” Gen. S. C. Armstrong, of Hampton, Va., reported for the Committee on Indian work, and was followed by Capt. R. H. Pratt, of Carlisle, Penn. A report of the Committee on Church work was read by Rev. Cyrus Hamlin, D.D., who also made an address upon the subject. Rev. J. E. Roy, D.D., Field Superintendent of the Association, supported the report by interesting statements illustrating the influence of the work among the colored people. The report of the Committee on Educational work was read by Rev. Charles T. Collins, of Cleveland, Ohio, and supported by Rev. John R. Thurston, of Whitinsville.[356]

Wednesday evening. Hon. E. S. Tobey, of Boston, President of the Association, in the chair. Rev. William M. Gage, D.D., of Hartford, offered prayer. Addresses on “Christian Education at the South” were made by Rev. L. O. Brastow, D.D., of Burlington, Vermont; Prof. Cyrus Northrop, of Yale College, and Hon. Geo. F. Hoar, of the U.S. Senate.

Thursday morning. The prayer meeting at eight o’clock was led by Rev. O. H. White, D.D. The regular session at nine o’clock was opened with prayer by Rev. I. P. Langworthy, D.D., of Boston. Col. Franklin Fairbanks read the report of the Special Committee on the Constitution.

The following amendments were adopted: In Art. vi. the words, “Recording Secretary,” and “of which the Corresponding Secretaries shall be advisory, and the Treasurer ex-officio members,” are omitted; and after “Secretaries” the words, “who shall also keep the records of the Association,” are inserted. In Art. vii. after “dismissing,” the parenthesis is omitted. Article viii. is omitted, and Arts. ix. and x. are respectively numbered viii. and ix. The consideration of Arts. iii. and v. were referred to a special committee of thirteen, Col. Franklin Fairbanks, chairman, to report at next Annual Meeting.

A letter from Hon. E. S. Tobey, President, declining re-election on account of the pressure of other duties, was read, and resolutions of thanks for his faithful services were unanimously adopted by a rising vote. The Nominating Committee recommended Hon. Wm. B. Washburn, of Greenfield, Mass., for President, and presented a list of other officers, who were duly elected.

On motion of Rev. C. T. Collins, it was voted to memorialize Congress for immediate and increased appropriations for education at the South.

The report of the Committee on Chinese Missions was read by Rev. A. E. P. Perkins, D.D., of Ware. A paper on the subject was read by Miss Harriette Carter, of Mt. Vernon Church, Boston, where more than one hundred Chinamen have had Bible instruction, and addresses were made by Rev. Lysander Dickerman, of California, and by Rev. C. H. Pope, of Machias, Me.

Rev. G. W. Harding read the report of the Committee on African work, and addresses were made by himself, by Col. H. G. Prout, late in the service of the Khedive of Egypt, and by Rev. Geo. S. Dickerman, of Lewiston, Me.

Thursday afternoon. On “Woman’s Work for Woman,” papers were read by Miss M. L. Sawyer, of Boxford, and Miss E. B. Emery, of Gorham, Me., and addresses delivered by Mrs. A. K. Spence, of Nashville, Tennessee; by Rev. E. N. Packard, of Dorchester; Rev. A. H. Plumb, of Boston, and Rev. E. S. Atwood, of Salem.

The report of the Finance Committee, in the absence of Hon. J. J. H. Gregory, chairman, was read by Rev. E. S. Atwood, and asked for $300,000 for the ensuing year. Addresses were made by Rev. Geo. F. Stanton, of Weymouth, and Secretary Strieby. District Secretary Woodworth made a statement of Mr. Gregory’s recent gifts, amounting to $15,000. Rev. A. H. Plumb, in a happy little speech, announced $2,000 from an unknown donor, which he passed to the Treasurer in a sealed envelope. Of the amount, $500 was for Berea College and $500 for Hampton Institute.

Thursday evening, after prayer by Rev. Lewis Grout, Rev. O. H. White, D.D., for six years Secretary of the Freedmen’s Missions Aid Society in London, spoke of English co-operation and of the miseries of the slave trade in Africa.[357] Henry D. Hyde, Esq., of Boston, pressed the claims of the Association to more liberal support, and John B. Gough, Esq., in a series of incidents, told in his inimitable style, illustrated the capacity of the colored race to be educated and elevated.

After some parting words from President Tobey, resolutions of thanks to the churches, committees, pastors, choir and railroads, and to the hospitable people of Worcester, and addresses in response by pastors Lamson and Phillips, the meeting closed with the benediction by Dr. O. H. White, to meet next year in Cleveland, Ohio. Near the close of the session a beautiful white dove entered the church and suggestively perched in a high niche over the pulpit platform.

Notwithstanding the prevailing dullness of the weather during our Annual Meeting at Worcester, there was nothing like dullness in the meetings. Daily the capacious church was thronged with deeply interested listeners. The high character of the addresses, the absorbing interest of subjects discussed, the excellent music of the ample choir, the completeness of arrangements by the local committee, and their uniform courtesy and unremitting attentions, and last, but not least, the generous hospitality of the Christian people of the city, all conspired to make the occasion one to be long and delightfully remembered.

The American Missionary Association turns with fresh hope and new inspiration to the work of the coming year.

GENERAL SURVEY.

FREEDMEN.

The fortunes of the freed people during the current year indicate a marked degree of progress. A healthy growth in all the branches of our Southern work is quite discernible. It is strikingly evident that the Freedmen are discovering the extent of the horizon opening up before them through our educational institutions. At one time, many of their leaders were attracted by the allurements of political preferment, and counted nothing so good as position in office, and many such, doubtless, there will be to the end of time. There is, however, an increasing number among them who are coming to realize that intelligence and character developed by Christian education have a commanding worth and solid value that cannot be conveyed by an appointment or imbibed during the sessions of a legislature. This good result has been hastened by Teachers’ Institutes, conducted by Southern and Northern educators, among the black and also the white citizens, sometimes large numbers of both classes mingling in the same convention.

Possibly never have our missions been more richly blessed by the outpourings of the Holy Spirit than during the past year. Whole classes in a school have indulged the hopes of a new life, and the rich experiences gathered during revivals have been borne forth into the villages and the country during the summer months by our students. Sabbath-schools have everywhere received due attention, and temperance work has been well sustained and productive of much good. Missionary meetings and societies have been encouraged, and the gifts from the hard earnings of the poor to the cause of missions abroad, indicate what may be hoped for when the colored people become educated and prosperous.[358]

EDUCATIONAL WORK.

Our eight Chartered Institutions, including Berea College and Hampton Institute, which were founded by this Association, have experienced a year of unusual prosperity. The number pursuing a higher grade of study has been continually on the increase, and the quality of the work done, as testified to by many who have witnessed it, indicates that the grade of teachers has been improved, not only by self-culture on the part of those who have been long in service, but also by accessions from among the best educators in the country. Three of our teachers have received honorary degrees from important colleges at the North, and others have been encouraged by many tokens of appreciation and esteem.

During the year, the Tillotson Institute at Austin, Tex., took possession of its new building, a brick structure one hundred and four feet long, forty-two feet wide and five stories high. From the first this school has met with the hearty approval and sympathy of a large number of the best citizens of Austin. The new building was opened in January, and before the close of the spring term 107 students had availed themselves of its advantages.

The college at Berea has added $50,000 to its permanent endowment fund; the Fisk University has received $4,000 endowment for student aid. At Hampton, two new buildings, one for Indian and one for Negro girls, have been provided by the friends of the Institution, and a new Academic Hall, in place of one that was burned, has been dedicated. At Tougaloo, Miss., a boy’s dormitory of brick, with accommodations for about 75 students, has been completed. This building was made especially necessary by the ravages of fire, which destroyed the wooden structure that had served in a very inadequate way both for school rooms and boarding purposes.

Other buildings at Straight University, New Orleans; Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn.; Talladega College, and Atlanta University, provided by the gift of $150,000 by Mrs. Valeria G. Stone, have either been completed, or are in a good state of progress. At New Orleans, there was added to the half square of land on Canal street, before owned by the A. M. A., the remaining half. Upon this site has been erected a neat three-story building, ninety-two feet on Canal street and ninety-one feet on Roche Blave street, containing dining-room, kitchen and laundry for the whole school, parlor, bath-room, apartments for teachers and dormitories for about 60 girls.

At Talladega, Stone Hall, for boys, has been completed. It is three stories high, with a basement, and contains printing office, reading-room, bath-room and dormitories for 76 students. With a portion of Mrs. Stone’s gift, supplemented by $1,000 from Mr. Gregory, of Marblehead, $100 from Gen. Swayne and a few smaller sums from others, Swayne Hall has been remodeled and thoroughly repaired from pavement to bell-tower, including roofing, flooring, blackboarding, etc. A house for the accommodation of the President will soon be completed. With these improvements the college will be ready for a great work.

At Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., Livingstone Missionary Hall is nearly inclosed. It is two hundred and four feet long, sixty-two feet wide in the centre, and has four stories and a basement. The foundation is of stone and the walls are of pressed brick. A mansard roof with brick gables and ornamented chimneys crowns the edifice. It will contain chapel, lecture-rooms, recitation-rooms, teachers’ apartments and dormitories for 120 boys. Although planned with a strict regard for economy, it will be a grand and stately companion for Jubilee Hall. Several months will be required for its completion.[359]

At Atlanta, a new wing has been added to the girl’s dormitory, and plans for a school building between the two dormitories have been completed and some materials purchased. It is expected that the building will be finished and ready for occupancy in a year from this time. In planning these various buildings, it has been the aim to provide the best facilities possible, but the claims of architecture have not been wholly ignored. Some of the best architects in the country have been consulted, and all the plans have been examined carefully by your Executive Committee.

It will be seen by this review that each of our eight chartered institutions has received permanent and substantial aid either in funds or in buildings, and that never before were they so fully equipped for the great work thrown upon them. The prayer of the last half score of years for room has been wonderfully answered, and the blessing of Heaven is crowning the labors of workers with rich rewards.

Our other schools, 46 in all, normal and common, have met with favor on every hand, and have experienced uninterrupted progress throughout the year. At some of them the industrial work has been pushed forward with gratifying success. Attention has been given to household industries in two or three places. A class of girls at Memphis, Tenn., has been carefully instructed with actual practice in an experimental kitchen, on the nature, relative values, and healthful methods, of cooking food. Classes in needle work, knitting, and in the use of sewing machines, have had daily lessons and practice.

We have had in all 230 teachers in the field, a gain of 30 over last year. Of these, 14 have performed the duties of matrons and 15 have been engaged in the business departments.

The total number of students has been 9,108, a gain of 1,056 over the previous year. They were classed as follows: theological, 104; law, 20; collegiate, 91; collegiate preparatory, 131; normal, 2,342; grammar, 473; intermediate, 2,722; primary, 3,361; studying in two grades, 136.

Our normal and common schools, like our chartered institutions, are constantly sending up the call for more room. Permanent accommodations have been provided at some points and temporary ones at others. At Wilmington, N.C., by the gift of Hon. J. J. H. Gregory, the school building has been remodeled for the accommodation of a large number of students. A new mission home has also been built by the munificence of the same gentleman. At Athens, Ala., the colored people have done nobly toward furnishing material for the school-house now under process of construction. They have already made two hundred thousand bricks with their own hands, and are placing them in the walls to represent their interest in the property. It is hoped that the work will be completed by January 1st, and that Miss Wells, who has been Principal of the school for fifteen years, will be rewarded for her labor and patient waiting by ample accommodation for all the students who may seek the advantages of her excellent normal school.

During the year we have inaugurated work at Topeka, Kan., the chief rendezvous of the refugees, where a lot has been purchased and a building suitable for both church and school purposes erected. Divine services are held on the Sabbath. A Sabbath-school with an average attendance of 170 has been gathered, and a prosperous night-school sustained. Much good has been done by our missionary and others at this point in the distribution of supplies to the destitute, and by speeding them on their way to homes among the farmers and mechanics of the State. We have also resumed our church work at Lawrence, Kan., with good results.[360]

Commencement days, or the closing exercises at our different institutions, are becoming more and more eventful as the years go on. One feature of especial interest at Hampton was the delivery of orations and the reading of papers by the alumni of the school. These displayed an amount of character and culture on the part of those who had been several years in the field since their graduation which was very gratifying.

Commencement day at Berea College is unlike any other in the South or elsewhere in the country. Hours before the exercises begin, the streets are thronged with hundreds of people, black and white, old and young, properly dressed or dressed in rags, some riding on the finest steeds produced in Kentucky, some on plough horses, mules and ponies, riding single, riding double, with a child or two between. The exercises are held in a large open tabernacle seating about three thousand persons. The building is usually decorated with mottoes and banners, with plants and flowers and miniature fountains. The college band furnishes the music. Not the least interesting is the basket dinner on the college campus. The fame of these days spreads far and wide for hundreds of miles, awakening an enthusiasm on the part of the young for an education, and winning words of praise and tokens of cheer from the very best people throughout the State.

At the Emerson Institute, Mobile, Ala., eight hundred people crowded into the Third Baptist Church to see and to hear of the work for themselves; while, at Montgomery, on the theory that what is good for a part is good for all, every scholar, from the least to the greatest, was given a speech. As there were more than three hundred to take part, the authorities decided that all the exercises should not be crowded into a single day. Consequently, in order that a good thing might last a good while, it was arranged to devote three evenings to the speaking.

The growing interest in these anniversary occasions all along the line of our work, the attendance of leading white citizens, and their readiness to occupy seats on the platform with our teachers and workers, the enthusiasm of the colored folks to throng in and catch every word that is uttered, all combine to lift up the work from the low place it has occupied among those at the South who have looked unfavorably upon it, and to magnify in the minds of the colored people, who have struggled so hard to send their children to school, the dignity and importance of Christian education. With a few more years of progress like the past, our educational work will outrun and leave behind the obstacles and the enemies which have stood in its way during the past years, and God is speeding the day.

CHURCH WORK.

Our Church Work is attaining a steady and healthful growth. We do not seek to force the founding of churches where there is no urgent demand for them; while this might swell our rolls, it would only serve to weaken and discourage ultimately. Our purpose is to establish churches where there is sufficient intelligence and outlook to give reasonable hope that a Congregational church may do good service for the Master, not only by the benefit accruing to its own members, but also by its influence upon other and older churches that have not had the advantages of an educated ministry. Our whole number of churches is 78, being an addition of five over last year. These have been organized at Washington, D.C., Louisville, Ky., Little Rock, Ark., Thibadeaux, La., and Houma, La. The total number of church members is 5,472, a gain of 511 on last year. The number in Sabbath-school, 8,130, a gain of 1,806. New meeting houses have been constructed at[361] Peteance, La., Little Rock, Ark., Lassiter’s Mills, N.C., and Wilmington, N.C. At the latter place a tasteful structure, with accommodations for 400, was provided by the gift of Hon. Mr. Gregory, at a cost to him of $3,600, and dedicated with fitting ceremonies, which were heartily participated in by the leading white clergymen of the city. Church buildings are under process of erection at Caledonia, Miss., Luling, Tex., Frausse Point, La. Parsonages have also been built at Florence, Ala., Flatonia, Tex., and houses for the Presidents at Tougaloo, Miss., and Talladega, Ala.

The material prosperity of our churches indicated by these statements is very encouraging, but the spiritual activity and growth is far more so. More than one-third of our churches have reported revivals, with conversions numbering from seven to forty-four, resulting in a large number of accessions to the churches.

Our church work is gradually creating a demand for the services of the students graduating at theological departments under our supervision at Howard University, Talladega College, Fisk and Straight Universities, and these are taking the places of white clergymen from the North in many localities.

The growing interest in theological seminaries for Freedmen is happily illustrated by the gift of $25,000 to us, for endowment of the theological department at Howard University.

We have seven State Conferences, embracing the most of the territory occupied by our schools and churches. These hold annual conventions, at which large numbers assemble.

The Alabama Conference has associated with it a woman’s missionary society, which reports the operation of its auxiliaries in different parts of the State. It is an active, hard-working and successful society, that does great credit to the missionary workers connected with it. This Conference also has a Sabbath-school convention representing many county organizations, and the Sabbath-school interests of the State. The meetings of this Conference, as well as those of the others, exert a beneficent and wide-spread influence, which serves not only to cement, but to make active and strong, the Congregational church work at the South.

The movement made a few years since on the part of a few leading ladies at the North to send forth female missionaries to labor in the homes of the poor and destitute colored people, and to assist otherwise for their temporal and spiritual improvement, has met with marked approval and encouraging success. We have commissioned eleven in all during the past year, and their reports have been full of interest. We believe the work they have been doing is a vital necessity, and that it should be extended as rapidly as may be consistent with the other interests we have in charge.

It is fitting before bringing to a conclusion the report of our operations among the Freedmen, that proper recognition be made of the improved sentiment among the whites at the South relative to our work. We entered the South with right principles. We did not inquire especially what was good policy, but what was required by justice, and what was consistent with righteousness. To promote these ends our missionaries were ready to sacrifice, if need be, their lives. They never advanced to retreat, but to conquer. Amidst hardship, ostracism and poverty, they toiled on; the Southern people watched them; little by little they came to recognize their worth; they saw massive structures rear themselves in[362] choice locations in the great capital cities of the South. They were led to recognize the ability and integrity of the self-denying workers, who pursued their toilsome way in leading young Freedmen up to Christian manhood and womanhood; they saw church after church founded with a pure and educated ministry; some of the best of them ventured to visit the teachers and their schools. The work grew on. The children who had been under the care of leading white citizens in service or in household, exhibited the value of the work done so strikingly as to remove all doubt of the purpose and success of the teachers from the North. United States Senators, the Governors of States, Legislative bodies and companies of good men, out of interest, out of patriotism, out of curiosity sometimes, attended anniversary occasions, and lent their interest and gave their influence to promote the welfare of the institutions under our care. The result of it all has been to emphasize and establish the principles with which we started out, and to revolutionize the sentiment of many leading minds throughout the Southern country; and now halls of legislation and portions of the press of the South sparkle with sentiments that would do honor to Northern patriots, who battled early for the existence and success of this Association. Governor Brown of Georgia wins his election to the United States Senate after affirming before the Legislature, “We must educate the colored race. They are citizens, and we must do them justice.”

Governor Holliday, of Virginia, who lost an arm in the Confederate service, comes forward and makes good use of the other in expressive gestures while urging the claims of the colored people for education at the anniversary at Hampton.

General Humes, a Major-General in the Southern army, consents to give the oration at the anniversary of the Le Moyne Institute, and conveys assurances of the active sympathy of the best citizens of Memphis for the work carried on; while Dr. Atticus G. Haygood, the President of Emory College, bursts forth with the exclamation, “Suppose these Northern teachers had not come, that nobody had taught the negroes, set free and citizens, the South would have been uninhabitable by this time. Some may resent this; be it so, they resent the truth.”

The utterances of the press are not less significant. An editorial in the Memphis Appeal affirms: “The Southern States have too long stood aloof and allowed the stranger to do for the negro what they should have done themselves.” “There is but one thing for the people of the South to do, and this is, to throw themselves into the work of educating the negro. We must go forward, and must take the negro by the hand and make him feel that he is a part of the great column of the people.” The Nashville American, the most influential paper in the State, through its leading editor, in giving a report of the anniversary of Fisk University, goes on to say: “In the labor of regeneration of a race, no agency will have so high a place as this conservative school.” The Vicksburg Herald strikes another note on the gamut and illustrates a change of sentiment on this wise, in response to a narrow-minded, complaining correspondent: “We are heartily in favor of the South from the Potomac to the Rio Grande being thoroughly and permanently Yankeeized. Yankee energy, Yankee schools, Yankee cultivation, Yankee railroads and Yankee capital are badly needed in the South, and will be welcomed by every Southern progressive patriot.”

We believe there is nothing to hinder this tidal wave of better feeling from sweeping the entire South. For our part, we have only to hold on and press on.[363]

AFRICA.

The development of the work among the Freedmen, the interest taken in African civilization by the most thoughtful people in the country at large, and the enthusiasm awakened among the blacks for the land of their ancestors, constantly remind us of the call we have for mission work in Africa. We have paid much attention to the consideration of this call. In accordance with the suggestion of the last Annual Meeting, we have appointed a Superintendent of African Missions, not only to supervise the work we have carried on so long on the West Coast, but to lay the foundations of the Arthington Mission on the Upper Nile. Great care was taken in selecting a Superintendent, resulting in the choice of Rev. Henry M. Ladd, the son of a missionary, who spent the first sixteen years of his life in the East, after which he came to this country, pursued a course of study and entered the ministry at Walton, N.Y. Mr. Ladd left America for the Mendi Mission in February, reaching the West Coast the last of March. He made a careful examination of the methods of missionary work at Freetown, Sierra Leone, under the care of our British brethren, and afterward proceeded to Good Hope Station, where we have a church and school. Mr. Ladd was accompanied to Africa by Mr. Kelly M. Kemp and his wife, from Lincoln University. A council was called at Good Hope Station for the ordination of Mr. Kemp, and representatives of the Shengay and other missions were present. It was thought advisable that Mr. A. E. White, who had acted as teacher at this point, should return to America. He has since done so, and at present is pursuing his studies at Oberlin College, with a view of preparing himself for better service on the mission field. Mr. Nurse also retired from the mission, giving place to Bro. Kemp, whose experiences and education rendered himself a desirable person as pastor over the church at this point. After arranging details of affairs at Good Hope, Mr. Ladd visited the Avery Station, and was encouraged by the good work under the supervision of Mr. Jackson at this inland station.

Our saw-mill, being the only one on the coast, can be brought into service constantly. Logs are plentiful in the neighborhood, and the people are willing to work. The coffee farm at Avery shows signs of progress, and very soon we may hope for a yield that will test the value of the experiment. The church and school have been kept up, much attention being given in the church to rigorous discipline, where the members had inclined too strongly toward the barbarous customs of the heathen about them. We have long felt the need of a business superintendent to manage the affairs of the mill and farm at Avery, to take care of the property at Good Hope and Debia, and to keep the temporary home at Freetown in readiness for the missionaries on their way to and fro. Mr. I. J. St. John, a man of considerable experience in business affairs, has been appointed to fill this position. In common with other missionary societies, laboring for the redemption of Africa, we find that where there are no roads or domestic animals, but many rivers, a suitable steamer would be quite serviceable in promoting the interests of our civilizing operations, and in adding to the comfort of our missionaries. We believe we ought to provide such a steamer for the Mendi Mission as early as possible, and our appeals are already out for $10,000 as a special fund for this purpose.

We were saddened early in the summer by the unexpected death of Rev. Mr. Kemp, which was followed soon after by the death of his wife, just as they were settling down to the life work they had chosen. Both of these dear missionaries[364] were unavoidably exposed in open boats to the bad influences of the climate. By their death they illustrate our need of more speed and better shelter in transporting missionaries from station to station.

We have appointed Rev. J. M. Williams, a native of South America and an experienced worker in Africa, to carry on the work at Kaw Mendi, the first station occupied on the return of the Amistad captives.

Rev. J. M. Hall, a graduate of Maryville College and of the Theological Department of Howard University, has consented to fill the place vacated by the death of Mr. Kemp, and he, with Mr. St. John, left America in October for the mission.

Three lads from the Mendi country are at school in America, one at Fisk University, and the others at Hampton Institute.

Early in December, Mr. Robt. Arthington, of Leeds, Eng., signified his readiness to pay over the £3,000 he had pledged as a nucleus, provided we would plant a mission on the Upper Nile. Already Dr. O. H. White, Secretary of the Freedmen’s Missions Aid Society of London, had made good progress in securing £3,000 additional to Mr. Arthington’s pledge for the same purpose. It was evident to us that the $30,000 asked for from Great Britain toward the $50,000 fund for this mission would be speedily made up. As we had pledged ourselves to furnish $20,000 on condition that we received in all from Great Britain $30,000, the question of the establishment of the mission directly was thrown upon us. We felt that the call to us was to go forward, and Mr. Ladd’s services were secured at the earliest day possible with a view to this necessity. As the plan of sending forward two men to look over the mission field, select a site for the station, and to determine what supplies and facilities would be needful for the mission, fully met Mr. Arthington’s view, we determined to send forward Mr. Ladd early in the autumn for the purpose mentioned. We were happy, also, in securing the services of a former parishioner of Mr. Ladd, Dr. E. E. Snow, a physician of much experience, to accompany him on his journey. These two brethren left New York in September. They had provided themselves with a valuable letter from Secretary Blaine, instructing the Consul General of the United States at Cairo to further their object as much as he might be able. On their way they purposed to procure letters of introduction from the English Government, hoping thereby to be assisted in making favorable arrangements with the Khedive of Egypt for transportation to the field of their destination, and also for the privilege of using a steamboat on the waters of the Upper Nile. Their plan of route will be to visit Cairo, and proceed from thence to Souakim, on the Red Sea; from this point they will pursue a camel route a distance of 240 miles to Berber, where they hope to find steamboat facilities for the remainder of their journey. The point which they seek to reach is about 1,500 miles in a direct line south of the Mediterranean and near the mouth of the Sobat, where the people are in the depth of barbarism. It is the hope of your Committee that Brothers Ladd and Snow will be able to return in early summer, at which time Dr. Snow will devote himself to procuring a suitable steamer for mission purposes on the Nile, and other supplies and facilities needful for the comfort and success of the enterprise. Supt. Ladd will devote himself to organizing a suitable corps of missionaries for the Arthington mission, two of whom are already under appointment, with a view of proceeding up the Nile next autumn to their field of labor. Our African work is not without its hazards, its embarrassments and inevitable discouragements. We believe, however, that the good tidings of great joy must be preached to the millions of newly-discovered peoples in[365] Central Africa, and that the negro race with which we have so much to do has an urgent and imperative call in this direction. We accept, therefore, cheerfully and prayerfully, our part of the burden, trusting that the many friends of the long despised and forgotten Africans will sustain us by their prayers and by their contributions, while we go forward as the Lord opens the way, performing our tasks as best we are able until the day shall dawn.

THE INDIANS.

We believe that the Peace Policy of General Grant, which was continued by President Hayes, has been productive of great and lasting good to the Indians. Some infelicities have occurred between the Government representatives and those of the religious bodies having nominations intrusted to them, and these, together with other reasons, have served to diminish the interest once taken by the officials at Washington in the co-operation of the religious bodies. We have no wish to discuss the subject, nor to press upon the Administration the question of the continuance of the Peace Policy. We content ourselves, therefore, with giving a few statements relative to the Indian work under our care.

The general improvement of the Indians at the S’Kokomish Agency is indicated from the fact that the white employés, with the exception of the clerks, physicians, and those connected with the schools, have been discharged and their places filled by Indians. At this Agency, the long desired titles to their land have at last been granted to the Indians by the Government, and they have, therefore, additional inducements to become thrifty and make themselves homes. At Dunginess Station, where a few members of the S’Kokomish church reside, there is a church building, the only one in the county. This has been furnished recently with a bell and melodeon. An average attendance of forty on divine services at this point and of eighty at S’Kokomish is of much encouragement. Their gifts, also, to benevolent objects for the year, amounting to $614.67, indicate that the Indian may be counted upon to help on the world’s conversion. Good work has been done for Indians at Hampton and Carlisle, and we have the question under serious consideration of providing suitable accommodations for Indian youth in connection with other institutions.

THE CHINESE.

The work among the Chinese on the Pacific Coast has been carried on under the able and energetic superintendence of Rev. W. C. Pond with unabated interest and success. Here there has been enlargement. The excess of teachers for the past year over the previous year has been six, that of pupils 76, and of hopeful conversions 13. A comparison of the statistics and work shows an improvement at all points. The total enrollment last year was 1,556; this year, 1,632. The number last year who gave evidence of conversion was 127; this year, 140. All reports that have come to us are exceedingly encouraging, and not the least among them is the repeated expression of the need there is of some well chosen point in Southern China for a mission station from which converted Chinamen returning to their fatherland may go forth to preach to their countrymen. We do not purpose to act hastily upon suggestions of this kind. We seek, however, to learn clearly the will of the Master, and to expand His work whenever and wherever it is evident He is leading the way.[366]

FINANCES.

The financial success reported at our last Annual Meeting, while full of encouragement, cast upon us a shade of anxiety. It was not certain that the additional funds made necessary by the large gifts we had received for new buildings, and the plans we had adopted for enlargement at different points, would be forthcoming. Efforts were made throughout that meeting to impress upon all those present the urgent necessity we were under for at least 25 per cent. of increase in receipts over the previous year for current expenses. The same necessity was also set forth at the National Council at St. Louis, in our publications and in the pulpits, and at conferences and conventions wherever opportunity was afforded. We felt that God had called us to do an enlarged work, and that if we could convey the information to His people, and share with them the burden we felt ourselves, the responses would be sufficiently liberal to meet all demands. In this we were not disappointed. The receipts reported for the fiscal year closing Sept. 30, 1880, were, for current work, $187,480.02; this year, $243,795.23, a gain of $56,315.21. This shows an advance of 30 per cent. mainly in the ordinary subscriptions over last year, and indicates the people’s hearty appreciation and indorsement of our work. For this we return profound gratitude to Almighty God. The fiscal year was closed free from debt, and with a balance in our treasury of $518.80. We are sure that the liberality displayed augurs well for the future. We believe the money received was expended wisely. We do not see how we could have done justice to our work without it. But additional outlay for current expenses is sure to be needful. The Stone Hall just finished at Straight University will afford accommodations for the teachers and sixty girls. The cost, however, for student aid, for insurance and the care of the building, will require additional receipts. What is true at New Orleans is equally true at Talladega College, with its new dormitory for a hundred boarders, and at Tougaloo, Miss., with the facilities of its new Hall. When Livingstone Missionary Hall, at Nashville, is done, and Stone Hall, at Atlanta University, completed, two hundred additional boarding students will make new demands which must be met.

To all we have mentioned must be added the consideration that we are laying foundations for a mission in Africa on the Upper Nile, at a point further remote from the coast than any occupied by other societies, either home or foreign, and that the outlay for this, if carried forward, will be considerable in the near future. We believe, therefore, that it is our duty to ask the friends of this Association to give us during the coming year not less than $300,000 for the support and enlargement of the varied work we have in charge.

DEMANDS OF THE FUTURE.

Some of the demands indicated above may be summarized as follows:

1. The increase of students this year over last year is 1,056. A considerable number of these were boarding students, but with our additional accommodations we shall require the coming year from five to ten thousand dollars more than usual for student aid.

2. We have no boys’ dormitory at Straight University, the new Stone Hall being exclusively for the teachers and girls. We need immediately fifteen thousand dollars to supply this want.

3. Funds also are necessary for libraries in at least ten of our different institutions. An advanced school without a sufficient library labors under great[367] disadvantages, and especially so when located amid a people who have but very few books of their own. From ten to twenty thousand dollars for libraries could be used very profitably at once.

4. Our theological departments need better facilities and an increased corps of instructors. The number of students graduating from the different schools at the South is rapidly increasing. Many of these would enter the Christian ministry if sufficiently encouraged to do so. We need funds for the endowment of professors’ chairs at least at three different points south of the Ohio.

5. We need also endowment funds for all our chartered institutions. No colleges thrive for a great length of time without endowments. The work of a missionary society primarily is to plant churches and religious institutions, and to sustain them until they can care for themselves. Its business is, and must be, aggressive. As soon as may be, its churches and its educational institutions must become self-sustaining by their own endeavors, while the society goes forward to new fields. We need now, we surely ought to have in the near future, not less than five hundred thousand dollars for the endowment of our different institutions.

6. We need also ten thousand dollars at once for a suitable steamer for our Mendi Mission.

The negroes in the West Indies, the millions in South America, the two hundred millions in Africa, have their claims upon us. We are of them as a missionary society, and they are of us as our brethren in distress, awaiting such benefits as we have been blessed in bestowing on the few representatives in our own country.

Finally, this Association needs, most of all, the prayers of God’s people everywhere for the guidance of His Holy Spirit, and the sufficiency of His grace to direct its affairs in days to come, and for this your Committee puts forth its most urgent appeal.

SUMMARY OF THE TREASURER’S REPORT OF THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION, FOR THE YEAR ENDING SEPT. 30, 1881.

ADDRESS OF SENATOR GEO. F. HOAR.

Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen:

I suppose your Secretary was well warranted in announcing my name, for early in the summer I made an engagement to prepare a paper to be read here to-night on Christian education in the South; but the occupations of the last four weeks, as imperative as they were unexpected, have put it entirely out of my power to comply with my engagement, as I informed your Secretary yesterday. But with a persistence which certainly affords a very good illustration of the doctrine of the “perseverance of the saints,” he has compelled me to come here to make my excuse in person.

I have not come at this late hour of the evening to enter upon an argument in favor of what I am sure every person within the sound of my voice is now thoroughly convinced of, but rather to express my gratitude and honor at the great work which is now going on in this country for a Christian education in the West and South, in which the American Missionary Association is so nobly taking the lead. I do not think you yourselves are entirely conscious of the sublimity of what you are doing and what you are helping to do. Why, take the $321,000 which, including the expenditure from the Stone fund, your treasurer reports you have expended during the past year: at the present rates at which the Government can borrow money, that represents the income of a capital of $9,000,000—the income of a capital which, I suppose, is greater than the entire aggregate of all the productive funds of the American colleges forty years ago, and which I know is more than fifteen times the entire productive fund of Harvard College as it was estimated by President Quincy in 1840. Gen. Eaton made an imperfect estimate of the amount given for education by voluntary contribution in this country, and in 1872 it amounted to $8,000,000 and upwards; in 1873, the last year before the great depression in business, it amounted to more than $11,000,000; and I am informed on credible and high authority that in this year of grace 1881, it will amount to more than $18,000,000—the income of a capital, at present rates, of more than $500,000,000—a vast national school fund invested not where thieves break through and steal and where moth doth corrupt, but invested in the patriotism and sense of religious duty of a Christian people. There is nothing in statesmanship, there is nothing in the opportunities for political effort, which the highest honors of the State can hold out to any of her public servants, which surpasses in dignity the opportunity to help and to bid God-speed to a work like this.

My friends, it is not strange that the wealth and the conscience of New England should arouse itself to the opportunities which God has held out to you in the present age. There are persons within the sound of my voice within whose lifetime twenty new states will be admitted to this Union from territory which now is scarcely settled. That “ancient, primitive and heroical work,” as Lord Bacon calls it, which he ranks as the highest work which is vouchsafed to man to take part in, is being performed in your day and by your hands, if you choose, in a manner unparalleled in human history; and the sixteen states now reconstructed, within which, until lately, slavery had bolted the door against every form of popular education, now, thank God, have their doors unfolded and afford a field of scarcely less interest than the other. How can the manufacturer, how can the merchant of Massachusetts fail to respond to the appeal of these good men and these good women for help in the great work of educating these communities? Combined, they are very soon to be the majority, both in states and in population, they are[370] to determine every question of peace and war, every policy of finance or of tariff; they are to enact, they are to furnish the men who expound and the men who execute the laws under which you and I and our children are to live, and upon which depends the value of all property and the prosperity of all labor. Will the manufacturer or the merchant, who gladly taxes himself to insure his property against fire or against crime, hesitate a moment when you ask him to insure it against being governed by laws which are to be made by and rest upon ignorance?

But there is a better reason even than this. I think the opportunity to take part in such a great benefaction is enough to stimulate every ingenuous soul. I think there is no more beautiful memorial among men than to have your name remembered or your picture hang on the walls of an institution of learning as one of its founders or benefactors. What gratitude is there like that which men feel for the college or the founder of the college where they were bred and educated? Now you have an opportunity to attach to you the coming generations of the South by this tie, a tie which will be far stronger than all the hatreds or the passions engendered by civil war, or which have grown up under years of misunderstanding and hatred.

I have been gratified in what I have heard and read of the speeches of this Annual Meeting, and what I have read in the reports of your Association, in seeing what theory it is upon which all your efforts seem to rest. The foundation of this American Missionary Association’s work seems to me to be—if I were to state it in a single phrase—reverence for the individual soul; that doctrine which Christ preached, for which Christ died—the doctrine without which there can be neither education, freedom, republic or self-government in the world—that every human soul, whether contained in a casket of ivory or a casket of bronze, is a precious thing in the sight of God, entitled to its equal right, to its equal opportunity, to its equal share in government with every other.

Now, my friends, you have got a great deal still to do to teach the people of this commonwealth of Massachusetts to believe and act upon that doctrine, whether they profess it or not. We avowed it, and pledged our lives and fortunes and sacred honor to support it on the fourth of July, 1776, and under it we grew up from a weak to a strong and mighty people. The doctrine crossed the water. When Mr. Webster, in his speech in 1843, at the completion of the Bunker Hill monument, undertook to sum up what it was that America had done for mankind in the seventy years, nearly, that had then elapsed, he mentioned a few inventions and a few new plants and new animals which had been contributed by this continent, and then he said that the one thing which we had done for the world was the avowal and illustration of this doctrine, that however poor or however humble a man might be, or whatever was his occupation, he was the equal in rights, the equal in dignity, the equal in capacity for improvement, in the presumption of the law, to every other man. Well, Europe began to adopt the doctrine. France established a republic; England becomes nothing but a republic, “hooped,” as somebody has said of her. In Spain, Italy and Germany, the doctrine is spreading; and lo and behold, 75,000 Chinamen landed on our shores and the great republic has struck its flag! Men are not free and equal any longer! God has not made of one blood all the nations of the earth any more!

My friends, there is nothing in this world, if there is any lesson of history to be depended upon, which God visits with a surer and a severer punishment than the violation of this law. Just think how we have undertaken to violate it in[371] the case of the negro; and think of the terrible retribution in desolated homes, in debt and squandered treasure, and in the loss of precious human life, He exacted of us. Just think of our dealing with the Indians! Why, excluding the five civilized nations in this country, there are about 170,000 Indians, all told, including those in the states and including those on the plains. There are 34,000 Indian children, according to the estimate of the Indian Bureau, which I think is a little underestimated—certainly not more than 40,000 Indian children of school age in this country. I suppose Gen. Armstrong could tell you he could take the whole of them and educate them at one hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars apiece. Why, that number of Indians is less than one-two-hundred-and-fiftieth part of the population of this country to-day. If you should gather them all into a city they would not form a city the tenth in population among the cities of America; they would not make two average Congressional districts out of our 293. And yet, in the mode in which this country has dealt with them, considering that good faith, honor, honesty, respect for property, respect for its own word, was out of place, from the time when Washington said that was our policy, almost in the words I have uttered, down to the time when the Ponca Indians were driven from their homes, and half Boston rushed to make itself an accomplice to the crime, our history has been marked by a disregard of this law, and has been marked by the terrible retribution which God has exacted of us. The Indian wars and the cost of supporting the Indians, of transportation and of military police, are estimated by a very thorough and careful estimate which I received from the statistician in the Treasury department the other day, at between five hundred and six hundred millions of dollars. I think it amounts to a thousand millions. The interest on the interest of what we have paid for Indian wars would take every Indian child of school age and give him a competent education.

Now, my friends, we have gained one thing in the history of our treatment of the Indian, and we have gained one thing in the history of our treatment of the negro. It has been demonstrated by a sufficient number of individual instances that both these races, having their own peculiarities and their own defects, as the white man has his own peculiarities and his own defects, are fit for civilization, for law, for education, for the family, for the home, for the arts and the industries which belong to civilization and peace. Take the case of the negro, whom we have not all learned to respect as we should. I sat in the House of Representatives with seven members of the negro race, and you could not find seven men in that House, chosen on any principle of selection, who were the equals of those seven men, or who certainly were their superiors, in everything that indicated the conduct of an honorable, sensible and capable representative of the people. I should like to have you take the Congressional Record, and read the speeches of the old slave-masters, and then put by their side the speeches of the slaves! Why, the great orator and statesman of the Southern Confederacy, Alexander H. Stephens, when he came back to the public service, announced weeks beforehand a speech that he proposed to make upon a political question of the day. The House and the country were in expectation. Mr. Stephens gave months of his best thought and his best care to the preparation of that speech; and when he finished delivering it, a full-blooded negro got up, and, on the moment, answered the argument which had been made by the great champion of the slave-holding race and overthrew it. When our illustrious senator died, his eulogy was pronounced throughout the land from the lips of orator and poet[372] and friend. Massachusetts called to her service, perhaps, the two most brilliant and accomplished orators in the country, Mr. Curtis and Mr. Schurz; and still the one eulogy of Charles Sumner which more than any other deserves to go down into literature and to be found in the school-books of coming generations, is that pronounced by Robert B. Elliot, of South Carolina. It is too late. If you do not educate these black people, it is not because they are your inferiors; it is because, in your selfishness and greed, you prefer to do something else with your money than to expend it for the benefit of these American citizens.

But, my friends, as I have said, I did not come here to enter upon an argument in behalf of a cause in which this audience, at least, is already enlisted. I come to express to you nothing but gratitude, nothing but hope. It is no time for despair. I notice that our friends, especially the clergymen who spoke to us, reexamined, somewhat, the foundations of our religious faith in their speeches, as if they thought that science or unbelief had shaken a little the strength of the old faith in the minds of men. I don’t believe it. Undoubtedly, modern science has stripped our religious faith of some of the frame-work, of some of the imagery, of some of the associations with which the vision and the imagination of our early childhood had surrounded it; but it seems to me that, judging as we should judge of the progress of mankind, by the state and depth of its religious faith, and by the perfectness of its obedience to the moral law, humanity reached its high-water mark on the day of President Garfield’s funeral. Three thousand millions of mankind, at the same hour, in this country and across the sea, bowed their heads in a common grief and rose up to do a common honor to the simple qualities of love, courage, religious faith, obedience to the will of God, exhibited by one man and by one woman whom freedom had called to her high places.

Why, my friends, you know how it is. Every speaker and every auditor knows how an emotion is multiplied by the size of the audience that feels it. You utter a jest to your neighbor which will hardly create a smile, or you make a remark with pathos in it, which will hardly move him; but say the same thing to a great audience of three or four thousand people, and in every man’s heart that feeling is multiplied and intensified by the knowledge that the same feeling is experienced by every other person. You all know how that is. Now, science, the telegraph and the press enabled the emotion of human sorrow, at the time of Garfield’s funeral, to be felt over the entire civilized world. Do you think, speaking of science having injured the cause of religion or Christianity, that the telegraph and the printing-press are the products of cold, hard science—that there is no religion or morality in them? Yet, of what evil passion would they have rendered the service of conveying it to the whole of mankind at once? Could any base man, could any mere intellectual power, could any man of wealth, could any Napoleon, could any conqueror, have swayed mankind as this simple President of ours and his wife did on that day? The power in this universe that makes for evil, and the power in this universe that makes for righteousness, measured their forces. A poor, feeble fiend shot off his feeble bolt; a single human life was stricken down; and, lo, a throb of Divine love thrills a planet!

But, my friends, those of us, young or old, who are enlisted in the service of God’s moral law, who pour out their wealth or do their work in life in obedience to the doctrine, “He that hath done it unto the least of one of these, hath done it unto Me,” works in the service of the Master, who never will be shaken on His throne, and whose rewards are sure.

[373]

EXTRACTS OF ADDRESSES RELATING TO GENERAL WORK.

Value of Consecration.—Christ honors alabaster boxes that are broken, and in a moment their costly ointment is shed forth and lost forever. He honors a service not according to its commercial value, not according to the results that appear in the reports of societies, but he honors a sacrifice for the purity of the principle in which it is made and the completeness of soul with which it is rendered. I believe that the church is a unit; I believe that the church is one—the body of Christ, and that Christ calls upon his body to be a living sacrifice to himself. As any blemish on the lamb that was brought to the temple for offering neutralized its value, so any blemish in our hearts, in the withholding of a complete self-sacrifice, is a blemish on that “living sacrifice” which the Lord Jesus Christ calls upon us and prompts us to make. Nay, more, I believe that the very offering of one has its effect upon all, and that there is this vicarious suffering and this vicarious holiness, and that God Almighty looks down into the dark places of the world, and He regards those places a little less dark and a little less dreadful when He sees the light of one poor flame burning upon one solitary altar.

Let this, then, be the principle on which you go. You can do very little; we individually do very little in this world; but you can put yourself into it, you can give yourself to it, and then you have made the grandest possible consecration and offering.—Rev. E. N. Packard.

The Reward of Work for the Lowly.—I remember to have read of a traveler who was shipwrecked. He seemed to have been a dissolute, young Englishman, though of culture enough to read and write. He was held captive on one of the South Sea islands for several years, the natives keeping him out of sight whenever a vessel was near-by. They saw that he was of a superior culture to themselves, and they had built him a hut and given him everything to make him happy. They waited on his instructions and he taught them many things, and for years he had blessed them as much as a dissolute, immoral man could. Finally, however, he managed to escape. One day he saw a ship approaching the island, and he got behind some rocks and put off in a canoe. The natives saw him and made after him. It was a race for life. He finally succeeded in getting so near the vessel that they threw him a rope and pulled him on board—a strange looking creature, all his clothes in tatters and his hair unshorn. He was in great agitation, but as soon as he could speak he told them his story, and there was this fleet of canoes crowding around the vessel to corroborate his account. And the natives took up a wail, that he was going away from them, he, their only link to the civilized world, was going to leave them, and their hearts were full of sorrow. They wanted him to come back and give them one farewell embrace; but he would not trust himself in their midst. But they did this: the sailors tied a rope around him and lowered him over the side of the ship, and then the natives rowed by in their canoes and kissed the poor scoundrel’s feet in token of gratitude.

Oh, what a blessing it is to be permitted to lift others! How thankful those colored people at the South are for their teachers and helpers! It is a success,[374] thank God! See the gratitude that swells up in their hearts; see their eagerness to follow their instructions; see the endeavors they make to copy the examples that are set before them.

* * * We are enabled to be personal sharers in this work; and we can, by prayer and alms, thus express to Him who is over all, God, blessed forever, our thanksgiving.—Rev. A. H. Plumb.

Hope for the Future.—[This veteran friend of the Freedman, after enlarging upon the evils to which the country is exposed by prevailing ignorance and vice, continued as follows:]

Is there any light? When Judge Tourgee wrote his first book, “The Fool’s Errand,” there appeared to be a sort of hopelessness in all the air; but the next book, “Bricks without Straw,” let the light through the crevices. He discovered and unfolded the remedy. It is educate! Educate the masses by educating the children! It is the fear of God and the love of man in active operation which make the individual his brother’s keeper, his brother’s helper. It is by expanding the individual conscience to take in fully and largely his individual responsibility, and re-awakening it among those who are more or less enlightened already.

The American Missionary Association is the mother of a big household. She is pure, sweet-tempered, patient and persevering. She entered the field of contest early and is proud of her scars. She has stood at the doors of church pews which would not open, and endured the contempt and derision of the unthinking in her school-house receptions; her sons have lost arms and legs and lives in her service; but she looks ever forward for her final reward, when vast multitudes shall rise up to call her blessed. My friends, give help to this Association, and you help in the most direct way the cause of Universal Education.

But let me say a word for Howard University. It has received pronounced commendation from both the friends and the enemies of colored men. A representative friend says of it: “It recognizes the complete manhood of a man and the complete womanhood of a woman.” An enemy says: “It makes gentlemen and ladies of niggers!”

It duly claims for itself equality of rights for all men, and limits knowledge not to color but to capacity. May the Lord bless and prosper it till its students and graduates shall be honored in all the world!

The Fisk University will ever be memorable for the wonderful struggle, perseverance and final success of the Jubilee Singers. Theirs is the history, in a brief compass, of their race. It is a prophecy to which we of this generation should take heed. Here were slavery, emancipation, want; then journeyings almost without hope—none except in God; then the dawn, broadening and widening till the full day came! Turned out of hotels in hate; pushed from railways in disgust and blasphemy; then received with delight and honor by kings and princes, queens and princesses everywhere; men, women and children crying with joy at the plaint of their song, and clapping their hands by the thousands in their praise!

May we not take this bright history as a harbinger of good—as a spur to more and more activity to the pupils’ foster-mother, the American Missionary Association—as a call to individual duty on the part of us who make up its membership—yea,[375] as in some degree an offset to the grievous evils that afflict our land? Ah, may we not, resolving to be better and do better ourselves, look steadily forward, and, like your own poet, say:

—Gen. O. O. Howard.

Elevation of the Degraded.—When I received an invitation to speak at this meeting, I had arranged my business engagements for the week, and I sent word back that I could not come; but I was asked to reconsider it, and so I have canceled two of my engagements for the purpose of being here, not that I am to interest you with a speech, but to show my earnest love for the great movement carried on by this society.

When a man steps out from his own specialty, he generally makes a failure of it; and I don’t know but I shall make a failure in attempting to speak to you on this theme to-night.

But this meeting and all these meetings are a grand contradiction to the infidel utterance, that those who love God the best love their fellow-men the least. We give such a sentence as that the flat contradiction as an abominable and outrageous falsehood. What is it that prompts men to endeavor to ameliorate the condition of their fellow-men? There is no benevolence worth anything that does not come from the New Testament Christianity. Love for Christ, it is that which induces us to bring those who are straying away into the fold. And this is the idea of this society, if I understand it.

Now you know as well as I do that a reformed drunkard can operate upon a drunkard better than a man who never was an intemperate man; and a converted thief will do more good among thieves than a man who has always been honest; and one who has been converted from the lowest grade of sin can go down into the very depths to lift up those who are as debased as he or she was.

With regard to educating the colored people, I have heard people say: “O, there is no use trying to educate them.” I have heard the remark that they are “a stupid lot.” No, they are not! If you know anything about them, you know they are not stupid. They will say wonderful things. I grant you a good many of them are ignorant; but I tell you, although they may be ignorant, utterly ignorant, yet you will hear brighter, smarter things from them than you will hear from the ignorant in the North, as a general thing. Why, what do you think of the negro who, when asked why he didn’t fight in the time of the war, said, “Because I don’t want to fight.” “Well, but they are fighting for the negro.” “I know they are; but did you ever see two dogs fighting for a bone?” “Yes.” “Well, did you ever see the bone fight?”

There is something, I say, in the education of the colored man—though why they call him “colored,” I don’t know. A man was once asked if he was colored; he said no, he was “born so”—something to build on in themselves. And then there is their desire for education. We here in the North can hardly conceive the earnest desire of those people to learn. When Straight University was burned, I received a letter asking me for some books; and I had the privilege of sending some two or three hundred volumes to them. I was told in the letter that on the very morning after the fire the scholars assembled, and, standing among the ruins,[376] they sang, “Hold the Fort,” and then formed themselves into classes all around about the ruins that they might not lose their lessons.

I have an idea—I shall get bewildered here a little, because I am talking about education, and I never was educated myself—that education may not make a man a better Christian, but it will make him a more useful Christian. One poor woman, living in a smoky cabin, when asked how she could endure to live in such a smoke, said: “Why, honey, I’se thankful to de good Lord to get anything to make a smoke of.” There was a good deal of ignorance, but there was true thanksgiving. Another one said: “God whips you and leaves you alone sometimes, to see if you won’t work; but la, it’s just like a baby—as soon as you cry He hears ye!” Some of the most beautiful sentiments have been uttered by those who are the most ignorant; but when we are appointing men to preach the Gospel, my opinion is that education is needed, and we must so arrange the machinery of the American Missionary Association that hundreds of thousands of men who are now waiting the opportunity to preach the everlasting Gospel intelligently shall be brought into the field of labor.

O, it is a glorious work, this lifting, lifting up of the low, this ministering to those who are poor, this helping those who have no helper! It is a grand work, and I thank God that there is such an Association as this, stretching out its hands and its arms in every direction to lay hold on those for whom the world has cared so little.—John B. Gough, Esq.

The Negro Worth Saving.—It may be put down as a sure thing that our estimate of men, in the long run, determines what we do for them. Our theories of human nature are the measure of our philanthropies. I am not going to sacrifice much for any man whom I reckon as utterly and hopelessly insignificant. Christian philanthropy is not a sentiment, nor an emotion, but a practical principle; and principles are ideas vitalized and set in movement by convictions. Suppose, for instance, that you assume that men are incapable and cannot be made capable of self-government. I think your political philanthropy will not take a very democratic type. If a colored man—black, red, or whatever—is not fit, and cannot be made fit, for the political suffrage, then we shall have white men’s suffrage, and the question of fitness will inevitably determine the whole matter. If negro suffrage had any rational ground, and was not a wild and desperate venture, it was grounded in the theory that the negro could be made capable for the exercise of the political suffrage, and the men who had faith enough in him to give him the suffrage, assumed that there would be found men who would have faith enough in him to fit him for the exercise thereof.

Again, suppose you assume that the Christian churches are incompetent to manage their own ecclesiastical affairs within the limits of a true Christian and ecclesiastical fellowship. I think your ecclesiastical fellowship will not take a very Congregational type. Of course, we must have a strong central government that will manage the affairs of such incompetence. It has been assumed that the colored people of the South are unfit for the superior intelligence of our Congregationalism, or that Congregationalism is not sufficiently spectacular and sensational to fit the primitive wants of the colored people. I will not characterize such heresy as that as it seems to me it ought to be characterized. At any rate, I think it a most beggarly begging of the whole question; and if it be true, then the occupation, ecclesiastically at least, of this society is gone.

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The truth is, friends, our ecclesiastical, like our political philanthropy, is grounded on faith in men—intelligent, Christian faith in the manhood, capacities and possibilities of men; and when that faith is gone, the bottom is out and we must have new foundations.

Or suppose we assume that the children in our homes are only animals, or are fit only for the mechanical drudgery of life. I think our domestic and educational philanthropy will not take, to say the least of it, a very civilized type. Yung Pow says that it is of far more importance whether an angel or a devil educate the child than whether a learned doctor or a simpleton teach him; that is, the virtue that educates is of far more importance than the intelligence that instructs—which, in a certain way, of course, is true. But what is the use of debating the relative importance of virtue and intelligence where they are co-ordinate? The highest virtue demands intelligence, and the highest intelligence demands virtue. But suppose it to be true that the child is very likely to find the doctor or the simpleton, as well as the angel or the evil demon, what then? Of course, we want the angel in our homes and in our schools; but I submit that we want the doctor, too, or his equivalent. We have got to look out for the devil in our homes and in our schools; but I submit that we have got to look out for the simpleton, too. It is not virtue, it is not goodness alone that educates; it is intelligence as well; and what we want is a broad, noble, manly and Christian intelligence that estimates aright the manhood possibilities of every man—that will assume the Christian standard of estimate, which is not, I submit, the materialist’s estimate, nor the secularist’s estimate, nor the politician’s estimate, nor the Pharisee’s estimate. We want a faith in men that will not prejudge either case against them, and undertake to determine on à priori grounds just the precise measure of men’s capacity, and just what they are able to accomplish. We want a faith that understands that we are not dealing with material substances nor merely mechanical aptitudes, but with a higher range of powers that are to fit the coming man or woman for a worthy service in the social and political world, and in the kingdom of our God.—Rev. L. O. Brastow, D.D.

A Glance at the South.—There is something interesting, as you go through the South at the present time, in watching the progress of events. It is a region, speaking of it as a whole, that strikes the Northern man with many peculiarities. One is, where is the population that made that stern resistance to the Northern arms? The cities are all small; there are no villages; whence came that force that withstood us so many years, and withstood us with such might? And then again, you are struck with many things so different from what we find at the North. You may ride whole days and find very few Southern people with whom you can have any opportunity of conversing. There is usually a car on the train which the colored people devote to themselves, but they only ride from station to station. You find but few of the white people traveling, and yet since the close of the war there has been a visible growth; and I am a firm believer in a new South that is dawning. There is coming to be a gradually renewed intercourse between the people of the North and the people of the South, and step by step we shall find new interests awakening and a closer linking than there has been for many a year.

But one of the most interesting phases of the South, from whatever stand-point, is the colored population. They are a remarkable people. They number six and a[378] half millions by the last census. You know that it used to be said that when slavery should take away its fostering care, we should find large inroads made upon their numbers, and like the Indians, they would gradually waste and disappear. But what is the story of the two censuses of 1870 and 1880? The increase of the whole population of this country for the past ten years has been a little over 30 per cent. Of this, the white population has increased 28 per cent. and a fraction over, and the colored population 34 per cent. and a fraction over. So that, although the white population has been benefited by the enormous immigration, of which we so often speak and boast, yet by almost six per cent. the colored population has won in the race.

I met the president of a railroad within a month, who has recently constructed a long road in the South against time. I asked him, “With what help did you construct this road?” He said, “With colored men entirely.” “Were they satisfactory?” “Entirely so.” “Would they do as much work per man as the railroad laborers of the North?” “Not quite as much per man, but there was no danger of a strike. They were cheerful, hearty and willing, and I was entirely satisfied with them. I completed my road many days before the time given me, with every man in the South prophesying it was impossible to accomplish that result.”

I said to a policeman not long since in the city of Savannah, “Have you any colored men on your force?” “Not one; and if a colored man were placed here, every one of us would resign.” I then asked him about the colored people in the South and in that city. He said, “They are orderly and well-behaved; we have no fault to find with them.” “How are they getting on in the schools?” “They are beating our white children in the public schools.” “How is that?” “Well, our people do not altogether patronize the public schools, and the colored mothers take much more pains to have their children prompt and constant in attendance than the white mothers; and when the children of this generation come to stand up face to face ten years hence, we are going to be put to shame by the intelligence of many a black boy that to-day walks our streets barefooted and ragged.” That is the statement of a man who said he would resign if a colored man was put upon the police force of which he was a member.

There are many things about the colored people we must be patient with. They are ignorant, and ignorant beyond what we realize. It is an ignorance which we must not be surprised at; it is an ignorance which we must be patient with. It is our duty to give them education—and not merely the duty of us who are here to-night, not merely of this generation, but of generations to come. It is a duty that is patriotic beyond what we are apt to consider. At the close of the war we gave to the colored population the ballot; but it has been the proud claim of New England always that back of the ballot must be intelligence, and that it is not safe in a republic that he who casts the vote that decides the fate of the nation shall cast a vote that he cannot read. Yet to-day there is that enormous vote of the South, a vote which the man casting it cannot read. We sometimes wonder that, in a state like South Carolina, where the colored population is almost double the white, it is possible that they should be deprived of the franchise; but you can judge how timid a man is as to his rights when he cannot read his ballot nor count it after it is cast. Therefore, as I say, that question must be a slow one as it works itself out; but it is as citizens of this nation, as patriots, that we must see to it that intelligence is furnished to that people at the earliest possible day, to enable them to both read and count the ballots which they cast.

—Henry D. Hyde, Esq.

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You cannot imagine how much it rejoices me to stand before those who helped to shape the events whose tremendous logic forced the great patriot and philanthropist, Abraham Lincoln, to sign that necessary war measure which resulted in striking the shackles from the four million unfortunate human beings whom I have the honor to represent at this meeting.

I come to tell you that your labors have not been in vain. The colored man, whose cause you have espoused, is worthy of your efforts. Numerically, the colored people form about one-seventh of this great nation. Their natural increase is greater, probably, than that of any other branch of the American family. In the South they constitute nearly one-half of the population, and in the cotton states even more. Nine-tenths of the manual or menial labor of the South is done by colored men. Freedom has not made them lazy, as has been stated by their enemies. Besides making ten million more bales of cotton than during any fifteen years of slavery, they have, during the last fifteen years of freedom, acquired in the South over one hundred million dollars worth of property. That eagerness for an education which characterized them when your first missionaries were put in the field has not left them. In 1878, Gen. Eaton reported as being in the public schools of the South 675,150 colored children, and about 100 schools devoted to secondary, normal, collegiate and professional training among the six and a-half million colored citizens. Such, in brief, is the strength of a people who are to help shape the destiny of this republic.

Ignorance, intellectual and moral, is our main weakness, a curse for which our forefathers were not responsible, but for which we, of the rising generation, are compelled to atone under the manacles of political proscription and religious and social ostracism.

It could hardly be expected that the slaveholders of the South would in their straitened circumstances undertake the education of those whom they had looked upon as their property taken violently from them. So the North, as it has abolished slavery, must also abolish ignorance.

The first need of the colored man is Christian training. The old preachers, fettered by slave habits and filled with superstition and sectarianism, will hardly be able to make their flocks much better than themselves. The colored people need spiritual advisers whose lips and lives express the holy gospel they profess. There are in the South thousands of colored preachers, controlling large congregations, too, who are unable to read correctly a single text from the book which they undertake to expound to their followers. The colored people are naturally religious and nominally Christian. They are ready to be led by the Christian teacher or the scheming Romanist, by the true patriot or the plotting demagogue. As clay in the hand of the potter, they can be made vessels fit for the Master’s kingdom, or they can be left to grow more vicious and more corrupt, and thus be lost to Christianity.

The colored man needs the facilities for becoming educated. He has the inclination, but not the means, to make a good and useful citizen. The A. M. A. has done much, and will, I hope, do more to arouse this whole nation to see the threatening[380] danger that lurks in the ignorant masses of the South, and to feel the necessity of removing the danger by educating this element. The black man is not to blame for his hard lot, nor is he of his own accord an American; but 250 years of toil and hardship have wedded him to this soil, and here he means to stay. Docile and tractable, his industry has made the Southern wilderness productive and beautiful. He has produced the cotton, tobacco and cane of this country. Any attempt to supply his place as a laborer in the South will prove utterly futile. He is there a laborer, citizen and voter, part and parcel of the American nation, and I trust the American nation will recognize him as such. The full, complete recognition of the right and privilege of the colored man to be and do whatever any other citizen is and does, is what the republic must settle down to. The question whether the colored man shall live in this republic, on terms of perfect equality, protected in the enjoyment of every privilege and immunity accorded to any other American, is a question which has postponed the progress of the South, and will continue to until the nation shall have solved this problem. Sooner or later the republic must see its solution. Like Banquo’s ghost, down at your beck or wane it will not. It will present itself at your churches, your theatres, your legislative councils and your court rooms. It is the one question that will not and cannot be settled until it is settled rightly. It is a question embracing the development of an irrepressible race, one that cannot be starved out, driven out or killed out. When the people of the South, together with the people of the North, shall approach this subject, under the guidance of intelligent reason and an enlightened conscience, they will see that the true way to solve this vexing question is to educate the colored man and treat him as a citizen. But, aided or unaided, helped or hindered, the negro will have an influence in the government of this country, and there is now no power in the arm of the American people to keep him down. He will rise to help make this republic the grandest and noblest that has ever dotted the face of this globe, or he will sleep on a common burying-ground with his white oppressors, amid the ruins and ashes of this republic. Inseparably united with the fate and fortune of America, the words of the Hebrew maiden to Naomi express his adhesion to the white man. “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried.”—Richard Wright, Esq.

Africa and the Africans.—Mr. President: Africa and the Africans is the subject assigned me. But before entering upon it directly, it is fitting, perhaps, that I should say that for the last six and a half years I have been in Great Britain as the Secretary of the Freedmen’s Missions Aid Society, of which the Earl of Shaftesbury is President and Lord Kinnaird is Treasurer. The British people have been largely interested in aiding the American Missionary Association in preparing and sending out to Africa colored teachers, missionaries and general helpers for that great work so wonderfully opened up in that dark land. And it is well known that the Jubilee Singers, who went through Great Britain under the patronage of the Freedmen’s Aid Society, or we may say its President, the noble Earl of Shaftesbury, received very generous aid for Fisk University from our British friends. They have also aided liberally in the support of colored missionaries at the Mendi Mission on the West Coast of Africa. But latterly they have become greatly interested in the Arthington Mission, projected for the[381] Upper Nile valley, toward which field two white missionaries have gone forth, Rev. H. M. Ladd, and Dr. Snow, of Western New York. For this mission, Robert Arthington, Esq., of Leeds, England, has given $15,000; others in Great Britain have given $15,000 more; so we have $30,000 of the $50,000 needed for the mission from our British friends. One London gentleman, after hearing a statement of the case in Scotland, sent for the speaker and gave him $5,000, as he said, instead of a legacy. Note that. A young man, who is a butler in a gentleman’s family, sent at another time $50. When asked if that was not too much for him he said, “I gave £10 a little ago, to help a friend out of a difficulty, and I can give £10 for the good of a vast continent.” A good woman, who had been a governess for some years, also handed to the Secretary £10 for herself, and her sister gave £10 more; and they agreed to give together £15 ($75) a year right on for colored missionaries for Africa. These were deeds of self-sacrifice. Are there not generous young men, and older men, and noble women in America, who will do as well for that dark continent, which our ancestors so cruelly plundered? We need, we must have $20,000 more, very soon, for that Arthington Mission. We want a steamer on the Upper Nile waters also. We must besides have a steamer, the John Brown memorial steamer, for the Mendi Mission on the West Coast at once. In that country there are no roads, there are no beasts of burden. Human beings have to be the carriers of all burdens for hundreds of miles. And our dear missionaries have fallen, many of them, in early death, in those perilous journeys through swamp and jungle, on their errands of love to the poor suffering millions of Africa. We cannot believe that their friends and our friends will hesitate and delay their giving for this steamer for the increase of good and the saving of precious lives.

If we recall the abuse and the needs of Africa, we can but see and feel our duty and privilege in this connection. Africa has been for five hundred years the hunting-ground for the bondmen of the whole world, and to this day the slave trade covers an area nearly equal to all Europe, in Northern, Central and Southern Africa. This accursed trade is to the East, and mainly to the Mohammedan countries; and it is said that from some of the Eastern ports a traveler may wend his way, without a guide, into the very heart of Africa, by following the line of human bones and the skin-covered skeletons of the poor slave victims who have fallen in that terrible march to the sea. And that this crime should have been permitted by the Christian nations down to the closing part of this 19th century is an astounding fact! And it ought not to need an argument to show any man that a people who still demand slaves, and buy human beings therefor, ought to be hounded out of the very pale of the civilized nations; for it is generally known that for every slave delivered in any country, four and often six human beings have fallen in death in the attempts to capture them, or in the cruel journey to their doom. And this trade will never be stopped till the better nations learn to treat the demand for slaves as a huge crime, as well as the act of supply. To meet and combat this crime boldly and persistently in both demand and supply is the call of God to the Christian nations out on the morning and the midnight air.

Now we may do both. Africa is open to us, and travelers are penetrating her vast territories; the steamer’s screw and paddle-wheels of reform are stirring her waters and also the thought of her people; commerce is tapping her mines of wealth; geographers are correcting her maps; scientists are studying her various climates and testing her remedial agents. Christianity, of which it was[382] said in a meeting of the International Society for Africa, made up of distinguished travelers, learned and scientific men, “History shows that Christianity has special virtue for rescuing savage races from barbarism, causing them rapidly to over-step the first barriers in the way of civilization”—Christianity, we say, is now challenging Paganism, the Moslem curse, and the accursed slave trade, on that long plundered continent of Africa. And now we have a potent factor for the work not available a little ago. We have more than six millions of Africa’s sable children, from which people we may select educated Christian young men and women for the great work given us to do. And these are the people for Africa. They can live in hot climates; they are by blood relations and common sufferings in sympathy with the people to be reached and saved; they can touch the heart, stir the thought and lift up their own race as no other people can ever do it.

For this they are developing a peculiar type of piety on a grander scale than we have yet seen among the Anglo-Saxon race. The Pauline we have had—the intellect and conscience carried by an intense conviction of duty, so that the man would go to the stake for his principles. But the loving, trustful type of piety belongs to these sable children of the sunnier and more genial climes. Shall we, then, know our day and dare to take our opportunity with these ex-slaves for the redemption of Africa from ignorance, superstition, slavery, war and woe? We want the John Brown mission steamer. We want, we must have, in addition to all the generous and noble gifts for our Southern work, the sum of $20,000, already pledged by the committee of the A. M. A., for the Arthington Mission in the Upper Nile valley, frightfully ravaged by the villainous slave trade to this very day!

Who, then, of all God’s dear people, will rally to this standard, and come at the call of the Divine King to this momentous work, with hand and heart and money, to take possession of that vast continent of Africa, with its 200,000,000 of people, for Christ, and for the good of all nations?—Rev. O. H. White, D.D., Sec. F. M. A. Soc., London, Eng.

THE FREEDMEN.

REV. JOSEPH E. ROY, D.D., Field Superintendent, Atlanta, Ga.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON EDUCATIONAL WORK.

Your Committee upon the educational work of this Association would congratulate its friends upon the great prosperity which has marked the past year, and which gives such rich promise for the years to come.

We find as causes for thankfulness:

1st. The permanent improvements to our various educational institutions in new and better buildings and increased endowments.

2d. The growing appreciation by the colored people of these educational privileges.

3d. The increasing confidence and sympathy of the Southern whites in the education of the Freedmen, and in the schools founded for them by the North, as shown by the words and deeds of prominent individuals and the articles in leading journals.

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4th. And lastly, we are devoutly thankful that the Holy Spirit has been so manifestly present in the labors of the year, and that revivals of religion have given evidence of God’s favor on the work, and promise of men and women for the great missionary work lying before the American Freedmen.

Your Committee feel constrained to urge the importance of the following measure:

1st. This Association should concentrate its efforts upon its work in the States, among the negro, the Indian and the Chinese, as offering its distinctive missionary field.

2d. The friends of the Association should redouble their efforts to put its schools upon a permanent endowed basis, and thoroughly equip them for giving a high Christian education to the Freedmen.

3d. In view of the vast educational structure to be built from the very foundations, the pressing importance of immediate education for millions of illiterate children, the poverty of the South, and the insufficiency of benevolent contributions from the North, the National Government should be urged to immediately inaugurate some additional and more adequate system of national aid.

C. T. Collins, Chairman.

ADDRESS OF REV. C. T. COLLINS.

On the staircase of the Berlin Museum, the great artist Kaulbach has represented the intensity of the battle of the Huns by picturing the spirits of the dead warriors rising up in a cloud above that battle-field and prolonging the contest in a spiritual war. It seems to me a type of all great moral strifes. After the roar of the cannon has died away, and the dead have been laid in their graves, the spirits and the principles involved in the battle grapple with one another for victory.

For four long years North and South met in the crash of material strife, and now, for sixteen years, Northern principles and Southern principles have been meeting in a death grapple, and the victory will not be won until Northern principles conquer. For four years North and South met in the crash of battle, setting four million slaves free from chattel bondage, and for sixteen years North and South have met in the silent strife of spiritual warfare, to set what are now over six millions free from the grosser bondage of ignorance. When, in 1865, four and a half million Freedmen knocked at the school-house of the South for admittance, you are most of you aware of the prejudice and opposition that met them; but are you aware what the school-house was at which they knocked? The South never had provided an education for the masses. Its theory was to educate the higher classes and leave the masses alone, even those of the whites. It never had an adequate school system before the war. North Carolina was the only state in the Confederacy that kept up anything like public schools during the war, and at its close her permanent school fund of nearly $3,000,000 was lost.

After sixteen years’ replenishment, the entire school property of the eight Southern States, reported by the Commissioner of Education in his last report in 1879—the value of the sites, buildings and all other school property—does not amount to much over seven millions, or, leaving Kentucky out, much over five millions. Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas and Georgia, which do not report, are poor in school property. Leaving Kentucky and West Virginia out, with their four millions, in all the States south of them there are probably not[384] to-day $7,000,000 of school property. New York, with her $30,000,000, has four times as much as all this South. Your Massachusetts, although it does not fully report, has doubtless the same multiple; and eight states of the North have each more school property to-day than all the school property of this South.

Moreover, these poorly equipped states, indifferent to the education of the poor whites, and prejudiced against the education of the poor blacks, were awfully, bitterly poor. In 1870, after recovering from the worst shock of the war, there was nearly $1,500 in Massachusetts for every man, but there was in Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina only a little over $200 for every man. Do you realize that $2,000,000,000 had been put into Confederate bonds to support that war, and that it was all gone? What would have been the state of the North if our public debt had been repudiated? And besides that, everything was in ruin, industries prostrated, society convulsed, and this poor stricken country had to lift up the debt of the Union as well as the North itself. We said bitterly, “They do not educate.” We said angrily, “They won’t educate;” and, brethren, we ought to have said charitably, “Alas, O God, they can’t educate!” Such, briefly, was the condition sixteen years ago. Now what has been done? Northern aid leaped to the rescue, as you well know. Millions have been given. That black form, lying blinded by ignorance at our feet, was bent over by patient, tender Christian sympathy, and the cataract lifted from his eyes with a golden, jeweled knife. Why, I look at the car of educational progress in the South, and under it I see 50,000 glittering wheels, on which it is rolling on, and those wheels are each one of them a ten dollar gold piece given last year by the North. There was, in the last report of the Commissioner of Education, 129 schools of higher education for colored youth and over 14,000 scholars in them; and almost without exception each of these schools has against it a name indicative that it sprung up out of Northern Christian benevolence. This is only a part of what the North has done.

But, friends, we hear a great deal about this and we hear very little of what the South has done. Twenty years ago it was the law of the land that the negro should not be educated; and now in every state in the South it is the constitutional law that he shall be educated; and furthermore, the commissioners of these states say they will devote every energy within them to carry out this law.

Kentucky (shame on her!) and Delaware (shame on her!) give to the negro what he pays in taxes, and they are pretty far North; all the rest of the South give of the school fund per capita to the negro and to the white; and the constitutions of the states which enjoin this have been endorsed since the war by conventions in which the majority were white and originally secessionists. Oh yes! we Northerners gave, I know, $500,000 last year to educate the negro; Southern tax payers gave over $4,000,000 to educate him. I am comparing not the spirit in giving, but the amounts actually given. In our 129 schools we have 14,000 scholars. In the 14,000 colored public schools of the South there are nearly 700,000 scholars.

But that is not all. In sixteen years, Northern principle has conquered this and it has conquered Southern approval as well. I know the great bulk do not feel as Orr feels, the Commissioner of Georgia; as Brown feels, Senator and ex-Governor of Georgia; as Curry feels, administrator of the Peabody fund and ex-Senator of the Confederate Congress; as, above all, Haygood feels. I wish every man in this house would read “Our Brother in Black,” by President Haygood, of Emory College, Oxford, Ga., and so learn the true situation. I have been told, since that book was written, that that man went into a colored school[385] in his native place, and leaning on his cane, wept tears during all the examinations, and, rising up, in a trembling voice begged pardon of the colored teacher and the colored scholars because he had misunderstood and opposed a movement so Christian. Ah, friends, let us recognize it to-day. The South is waking up. These are exceptions; they are leaders. But the great masses follow on. There are hundreds of thousands of white Christians in the South who love Christ as you and I do. They have the Bible; they have the Holy Spirit; they have missionary societies. President Haygood says it is absurd, and I say it is impossible, that a man who believes in sending missionaries to Africa should prolong opposition to missionaries for the Freedmen. He says truly that the battle never will be won until Southern white women sit before dusky faces and teach such scholars how to read. A school surrounded by a hostile community is a fortress and not a school, and crippled in all its usefulness.

Under the crape-hung flag of the Union, mourning the loss of a Northern President who set slaves free before the Emancipation Proclamation declared them free, and with his sword helped cut down the Southern cause, ex-Confederate generals have cried out of the South to the North, “He is our President!” O, let us cease the old war cry of ’65; let us wipe out of all our reports and papers, as an Association, everything calculated to excite the old animosities, and cry back in a spirit of full fraternal charity, “Our brethren, by that sign of sorrow.”

Now in view of this work and spirit of the South, what must be done? We, as an Association, must redouble our efforts. There is every reason to help the South trying to help itself. There is only one scholar, in every colored school, supported by the North, and suppose every single one graduates, to supply one teacher for every public colored school in the South. Think of it! And that leaves out of calculation one and one half million of church members pleading for preachers. According to the last report of the Commissioner of Education, the North gave to the higher schools of education at the South in 1879 less than $500,000. It gave to the same schools in the North, benevolently, charitably, about $5,000,000. We hear much about $50,000 given to Berea College. We hear little about $500,000 to the college in Cleveland. One-fortieth of all negroes in the world are in the United States; one-fifteenth are in North and South America.

But I will leave others to speak of that, and pass in closing to speak of what our National Government must do now. Millions of dollars are needed to do it. No agency but the central Government can or should meet this need. It cannot be done by Northern benevolence; that is inadequate, utterly inadequate. The North would only pauperize the South, if it could and did do it. It cannot be done by the Southern states. These Southern states (leaving out Maryland, Missouri, Delaware and District of Columbia) contributed in 1879 to public school education only eight and a half millions. Of the North, Illinois gave eight, Ohio seven, Pennsylvania eight, New York ten millions to their public schools. This contribution of the South seems and is very niggardly, but it is a question how much increase we can expect. The South is loaded down with poverty, debts and heavy taxes. The other day a prominent platform speaker made a comparison between Arkansas and Kansas in order to illustrate the inferiority of Southern education. He said that in 1877 Kansas sent 87 per cent of her children to the schools, and Arkansas 8 per cent. Kansas raised $5.65 for each scholar, and Arkansas raised 50 cents. Then he went on to say that Kansas and Arkansas were in about the same financial condition. I looked that up this morning, and I found that Arkansas had a debt of[386] five millions, and Kansas had a debt of one million; that Arkansas had $87,000,000 taxable property with which to pay her debt of five millions, while Kansas had $160,000,000 to pay her debt of one million; and that Arkansas was paying a state tax of 65 cents on every hundred, and Kansas was paying 55 cents.

Now we must remember that the South is bitterly taxed, awfully in debt, and very poor. I will read one more statistic and stop. Louisiana has 330,930 school children (those who ought to be); Massachusetts, 303,836. The school income in Louisiana is $613,453; in Massachusetts, $4,399,801. The value of school property in Louisiana is $700,000; in Massachusetts you cannot estimate it; it is not estimated. You say Louisiana is not doing anything for her children as compared with Massachusetts. True; but carry the comparison farther. The whole taxable property of Louisiana is not $150,000,000; and the whole taxable property of Massachusetts is $1,500,000,000. The debt of Louisiana is about $16,000,000; your debt, deducting the sinking fund, is $21,000,000. The amount raised by taxes in Louisiana is half that raised in Massachusetts. You pay 3½ cents state tax on every $100, and Louisiana pays 60 cents. Have you, paying 3½ cents, the face to ask her to increase her 60 cents, when this evil at the South springs out of a national sin and involves a national peril? Not one million of the Southern population are in cities. The problem is one of educational facilities in poor sparsely settled agricultural districts. The South unquestionably needs a different spirit in educational matters; but even with the best spirit, it needs national aid.

ADDRESS OF REV. J. R. THURSTON.

Mr. President and Friends: We have six and a quarter millions of Freedmen at the South and three-quarters of a million at the North. They belong to a strong and prolific race that does not waste at the contact of civilization, neither does it waste under oppression. They numbered but four millions in 1860, and have increased 55 per cent. in the past twenty years. Since 1870, if the statistics are correct, they have increased 33 per cent. If this rate of increase goes on at 55 per cent. for twenty years, in 1900, which many of us expect to see, they will be nearly ten millions; and if the increase of the last ten years continues, they will be more than eleven millions.

It becomes, then, a matter of exceeding moment for us, as a nation, to consider their condition and their future. Several things are at least now clear: that for a long series of generations they are to remain a distinct people. They will not amalgamate so much at the South, Dr. Haygood and others say, as they did before the war. The other elements that come to us from abroad—the German, the Celtic and all—we expect soon to be lost, and they will not retain their individuality; but this race will for generations remain a distinct colored race; so that it becomes a problem of peculiar difficulty to deal with them. We may think we are strong enough to throw them off. We cannot. God Almighty is on their side, and with the welfare of these growing millions our welfare is interlocked.

Again, they will remain, too, doubtless, at the South. We thought that they might scatter over the North. The failure of the migration to the North last year does not favor that theory. What is to bring them up to a Christian civilization? We all say at once a Christian education.

There are 700,000 in their common schools. I will simply give the outlines as to the higher schools. Of higher schools there are 45, scattered in different parts of the South; 42 normal schools, four of them state institutions, the rest under[387] the auspices of religious organizations like this. There are 21 colleges, 21 schools of theology, four of medicine and three of law. That sounds well; but it would be wise to ask what these colleges are, scattered over the South. I asked an officer of one of these institutions this afternoon, “Is Talladega a college? It was referred to as such, but was not reported by the Commissioner of Education in 1879 as a college.” “O yes, it is a chartered institution, and soon they expect to have a college curriculum.” Many of these 21 colleges at the South are much in the same condition. They are high and normal schools, with possibly a theological school, which, however, is not as high as a college class.

Now the question is, what are we to do with them?—what are we expecting to accomplish by them? Several things are manifest. First, that this higher education at the South is to be dependent upon benevolence for its continuance and success. Nor is this any exception to the case of higher education at the North. We little realize that all our colleges have been founded by benevolent men, and have been continued in their endowments by benevolent men. We little realize that our young men who attend our colleges do not pay for their education, in many cases not one-half of the expense of it. Secondly, it is manifest that this work must be very largely a denominational work. Now this morning we had a presentation of what it would be well for us to have at the South—denominational unity. That cannot be. Men will not work upon any principle of that kind. If ever there was a time when we might say we had a clean slate, we had that time when we began our work. All united in support of this Association; but very soon we found our Baptist friends, our Methodist friends, our Presbyterian friends and our Episcopal friends withdrawing. Nor could we complain. The Baptists had thousands of colored people in their churches there and the Methodists had hundreds. To-day the Baptists report 800,000 in their colored churches, and the Methodists report 412,000. These colored churches said to them, “You must educate ministers for us;” and hence they have established their schools and higher schools. The Presbyterians had churches among the whites, and those churches, waking up, said, “You must help us in our work for the colored people;” and so they went into the work.

Again, the question is asked, why so many of these higher educational institutions?—why so many colleges?—why need of anything higher than the normal and high school? And this question is asked by people who have given largely for this work and who love it. Now what is the object—to educate all the colored people in colleges? No; but to educate those who have a desire for it and a profound capacity for it. We have graduated probably less than five hundred from all the colleges at the South so far, so there isn’t much danger of an over-supply at present of teachers and preachers. But isn’t there need of a revision of our idea of this whole matter of what the negro is to be? Let us not make at present an ideal, but ask rather what we can do for and with the negro; and as we do this, let us remember what material we have to work with, and how he has been educated by two hundred years of slavery.

In the first place, where did he come from? Not from Northern Africa; not from Southern Africa; but from the negro belt of Africa where is found the most degraded condition of the human race on the face of the globe.

He has been educated two hundred years in slavery, and not without influence upon his mental make-up. The day that the first colored regiment went from Boston in the war to the front, there was a convention of anti-slavery friends in Music Hall. There had been very severe criticism upon our Gov. Andrews because[388] he had not put more black officers in that regiment. As Frederick Douglass was about leaving the hall, they called him back. He stood with his crumpled hat and leaned upon a chair, and talked more sense in five minutes than his white brethren had in all those hours. He said: “Gentlemen, I have as much interest in that regiment as any one here, for I have two sons in it; but I am glad that Gov. Andrews has not put more black officers into it. Here you have educated us for two hundred years for the position of servants. You have taught us that we could not guide our own steps, much less rule our fellow-men. You have wrought into the very fibre of our being a servile spirit, so that we are not fit for rule. All I ask is that when a man proves his capacity to rule, then he shall have an opportunity.”

Now, I say, in reference to the negro, let us see what we can do with him without reference to an ideal. Let us not only remove his restrictions, so that he can rise all that his upward force will impel him to rise, but put into him the mighty forces of a Christian education for forty or fifty years—several generations, in fact—and then see what we can make of the negro.

Especially do we need this higher education in order that we may train preachers. We do not want to send a man with an imperfect education as a missionary to Africa. Why should we send to their black brethren in this country men imperfectly educated as preachers to them? They, surrounded as they are by all the stimulating influences of our modern civilization, need all of this higher education which we can possibly induce them to take on. Doing this for a series of years, we may at last realize the triumph of Christianity among them. The greatest problem of Christianity which our generation sees is the question how these two races, so linked together, shall treat each other; but I believe that the time is to come when we shall see them living together in perfect harmony; when we shall see the blacks supplying their peculiar elements to a higher civilization, and we, the white race, shall have risen to a position exercising a true Christian spirit, which, without the negro linked with us, we never shall find; and then shall we see the triumph of Christianity dealing with this now dark problem, but then showing the glory of a grand success.

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION.

PROF. CYRUS NORTHROP.

Great battles sometimes settle the fate of a country, and transfer in a day whole provinces from one dominion to another. There are no such decisive battles in the struggle for the intellectual and moral elevation of man. By no stroke of policy and by no combination of forces can you revolutionize the individual character of a whole people at once. It happens occasionally, however, in the contest between good and evil, that some convulsion occurs which in its influence on the mental and moral condition of a whole people is hardly less decisive than those political contests by which provinces are transferred from the control of one nation to that of another. Such a convulsion was our late civil war. It left the States where it found them, parts of the Union. It left all races morally and intellectually where it found them. But for the colored people of the South it had swept away in every direction, from zenith to horizon, the impenetrable clouds of more than Egyptian darkness which had brooded over them, and it had made it possible for the light of the sun to reach even these slaves. Then, indeed, the people which sat in darkness saw a great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, to them did light spring up.

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The civil war made it possible for us to educate and Christianize the colored race at the South. It remained for us to take up the burden which the providence of God had laid upon us, and to do what we could to lift up these people to our level of civilization.

But need this education be Christian education? I answer emphatically, yes. The world undoubtedly is making great progress in thought, in discovery, in invention. More and more the dominion of nature is being conquered and her methods understood. Education is not the same as it was a century ago. Even religion is not to us quite the same that it was to our fathers. But whatever discoveries may be made or whatever progress attained, there are some things which the world can never advance so far as to be able to do without, and I but voice the sentiment of this audience when I say that one of these is Christianity.

And now who are these that in our Southern States are stretching forth their hands and begging us to come over and help them? They are those whose minds and hearts are not pre-occupied, but like those of children, receptive, ready for the seed which may be sown, and promising, if good seed is sown, a bountiful harvest at no distant day. They are placed, in the providence of God, at our very door, and are made a part of the governing force of this great republic. For them Christian education cannot be secured through the family, for there is little Christian family life; the father and the mother are as ignorant as the child; all are children. It cannot be secured through the State, for the State has no business to teach religion as these millions need to have it taught. It can be secured only through organized charity—by the help of such agencies as the American Missionary Association. What the fathers and mothers of New England have done for the Christian education of their children, the American Missionary Association must do for the South.

I have emphasized the word Christian as I have spoken of Christian education. Let me not in any less degree emphasize education. Matthew Arnold is not far wrong when he says that the object of religion is conduct, and that conduct is three-fourths of life. It is simply doing what we ought. But one of the things which a man ought to do is to make the most of himself as a power for good in the world, and that he cannot do without education. Man, without education, is a clumsy machine. The educated man is force which drives machines. This force, if uncontrolled, becomes destructive. The educated man, without principles, is more dangerous than the uneducated. The latter may become at the worst a brute; it takes the former to be a demon. But we do not on this account think less of education; we only insist that the force it generates shall be controlled by Christian principle. Thus controlled it is always beneficent, like fire and water and air, which, nevertheless, when uncontrolled, may become agents of the most fearful destruction.

The necessity for Christian education at the South may be looked at and clearly seen from two different points of view. To the Christian, these millions of the South are human beings, for whom Christ died and to whom He has commanded us to carry the Gospel. Properly developed, intellectually, morally and spiritually, they will be a part of the Kingdom of God, and will become powerfully influential in establishing that kingdom throughout the world. They are accessible, eager for knowledge, ready to accept the truths of Christianity, peculiarly impressible, lacking stability only because undeveloped, and they offer to us an assured hope of a more complete, immediate and glorious harvest than seems likely[390] to be gathered in any other part of the world. Nowhere else on the round globe will your money or your efforts bring such returns as they will at the South. You have not to contend with an impregnable hostile faith, as among the Mohammedans or Buddhists. You have only to lift the clouds of ignorance, and to overcome the natural depravity of man—a depravity greater, perhaps, than in some other places, but on that very account more easily recognized, felt and repented of.

Nor can the necessity for Christian education at the South appear less imperative to the patriot. There is no element so dangerous to the stability of the republic as ignorance and its associated lack of principle. It is by votes that rulers are elected, laws made and the country governed. Just so long as we have a large element of ignorance in the republic, whose votes can be bought at the caucus or at the polls, will the most unscrupulous men rise to prominence in our politics, for they are the only men who will utilize this ignorance.

And now what of the future? We have tried all sorts of reconstruction measures with the South and all kinds of policies with the South, and all have proved in a greater or less degree failures. They stand as monuments of our lack of the keenest foresight. The best reconstruction measure which we can now adopt is to fill the treasury of the American Missionary Association full to overflowing, that it may carry forward at once and triumphantly this work of Christian education in the South. What it has done is sufficient assurance of what it will do, if the means are placed in its hands. It cannot establish throughout the South a common school system like that which blesses the North; it cannot carry education to every cabin in the South, nor open college halls, free of expense, to all who may desire a liberal education; but it can and will qualify large numbers of these people to carry education and Christianity to the rest; and that, after all, is the best thing possible, for no lesson is more needed by these people than that of self-reliance. Teach them to take care of themselves in the best way, and we shall have done for them the best that is possible. The day will not be far distant, then, when the common schools of the South will provide education for the white and the black alike as at the North, and when the church of God in the South shall hear the voice of God saying, “All souls are mine. Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones.”

HIGHER EDUCATION.

PRES. E. A. WARE.

This paper, recognizing the importance of normal and industrial education, claims for higher education simply the place accorded to it in other sections in the educational system for the South. Its right to that place is widely questioned. The Journal of Education recently had the following: “In spite of the youthfulness of colored education, some of their schools are graced with a reprint of a Northern College curriculum. What nine-tenths of the pupils in these classes want of Latin and Greek, fails of our comprehension.” We are constantly hearing about “educating them out of their place.” It will hardly be claimed that the colored man cannot be educated, when several have graduated with honor from Northern colleges; when one has passed the fiery ordeal of West Point; when one, below the middle of a class of six in a Southern school, graduated above the middle of a class of thirty at Andover Seminary; and when a Southern examining board say: “We were impressed with the fact that the colored people, whether of pure or mixed blood, can receive the education usually given in such schools.”[391]

Perhaps the frequent remark about “their place” means that they ought not to be educated. Now and then we see what might have been a good barber spoiled by the attempt to make him a minister, and a hasty generalization leads many to say: “They, instead of he, ought not to be educated.” Allowing for this folly, this talk about “their place” raises several questions. Who determines and assigns the place for six millions of American citizens? Who will keep them in their assigned places? Are our Declaration of Independence and Constitution “glittering generalities?” Are the life and teachings of Christ a vain thing? Pres. Woolsey thanked God for the war to rid us of slavery before it had so sapped the virtue of the whole people that we should not be worth saving. Surely He sent it none too soon. How few are color-blind; how many are color-blinded!

Higher education is needed because time is required for the mental, and especially the moral, development and furnishing of pupils, who neither inherit nor receive from home and church such furnishing. It is needed to continue the work to which it has already contributed so much, of the adjustment of the former owner and property to their new relations of brother and man, of fellow-citizens. The owner could not see the citizen till the man was developed. He needs higher education that he may take some part, other than with pick and shovel in, and may have his share of, the rich benefits of the development of the vast resources of the South. Again, it is often asked, “Would it not be well for the negro to keep out of politics?” Would it not be well for Niagara to run up-hill? He has the ballot, and the duty presses not simply to fit him to read it, but to furnish leaders who will teach him the sacredness of that ballot; who will teach him that the interests of labor and capital are one; the duty of debt paying, personal, state and national; the sacredness of law and the duty to obey it; that the United States is a nation and not a confederacy. The law and medicine should be open to him. The need of thoroughly educated physicians for these people can hardly be overestimated, and is second only, if indeed it be second, to the need of ministers. Higher education should be open to him, that here, if nowhere else, he may feel that he is like other people; that there may be one door that is not forever shut in his face with the words, “This is for white folks.”

Finally, an educated ministry is needed. Pres. Gillman says: “There is no greater curse to a community than an ignorant ministry.” Dr. Haygood, in “Our Brother in Black,” says: “The hope of their race in this country is largely in its pulpit. How urgent the need, how sacred the duty, of preparing those whom God has called to preach to this people!” The few ministers who have received partial training, and others who are making heroic efforts at self-culture that they may aid their people, are worthy of all praise; but their number is pitifully small, serving by their light to make the surrounding darkness visible and to show the need of the best training. This is needed to remove the mass of crude notions and superstitions that almost hide the truth. It is often harder to bring a benighted Christian than a heathen to the light. It is needed to remove the bitter sectarianism which usurps the place of the Gospel. This feeding upon ignorance can only be removed by those whose minds and hearts, broadened by generous culture, hold the great common truths of Christianity superior to the petty differences of sects. It is needed to ward off skepticism, which is to be feared from two sources: the memory of the injuries of centuries, and the continued experience of many evils, even at the hands of professed Christians; and, second, the revelation, as they grow in knowledge, of the emptiness of what is preached as religion[392] and the ignorance and ofttimes wickedness of their ministers leading them to loss of respect, to ridicule and to unbelief. There is abundant testimony to the growth of these evils.

What machinery is needed? In the towns, the three months’ free school should be so supplemented as to continue nine months. In the larger towns and cities there should be high and preparatory schools, with normal classes. At convenient points should be boarding schools, with preparatory, normal and industrial instruction. Then, supported and fed by, and inspiring all below, should be the college, the school of higher education. Justice to a race long oppressed, obligation to meet more than half way those states that make generous appropriations to this end, and safety to the nation, demand that these should be liberally furnished with such buildings and grounds as health and comfort require, with libraries and apparatus equal to the best, and an efficient corps of teachers, so paid that their best energies may be given to instruction.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON CHURCH WORK.

Your Committee on that part of the General Survey referring to Church work, report that they consider it most encouraging and inspiring. Seventy-eight churches formed; 5,472 members admitted; 8,130 scholars in Sabbath-schools! But the great question is, have we a spirit of power and development in all these organizations? for if they are dead they are worthless. Significant facts give us the answer. Five churches were added the past year; five hundred and eleven members were added to the churches; one thousand eight hundred scholars to the Sabbath-school; seven church buildings erected, or in the process of erection—one the gift of Mr. Gregory (upon whom be peace)—two parsonages and two President’s houses. One-third of these churches have had revivals indicating future enlargement. There are seven State Conferences; Woman’s Home Missionary Societies in active work; Sabbath-school Conventions; female missionaries sent forth into the houses of the poor, eleven commissioned the past year, and a revolutionized public sentiment set in so that Southern governors, generals, editors, have generously recognized the value of the work.

Now it has sometimes been questioned whether a Congregational organization, working on thoroughly Congregational principles, could so well plant the Christian church among an ignorant, degraded people, needing guidance, oversight, care, government. But how did the primitive churches in apostolic days succeed? They were all Congregational, and for the most part composed of ignorant people. Did they have apostles to guide them? So have we. Dr. Strieby and his associates and helpers are successors to the apostles in this work. They have the oversight, and the churches have freedom of expansion and growth.

What is the path, let us inquire, through which a feeble church or churches may safely become strong? It is, it must be, through self-government, self-development and self-support. As to the first, churches composed of illiterate Freedmen are, doubtless, unfit to govern themselves. But how shall they ever become fit? How shall they learn, except by trial, failure and correction under kind but faithful leadership? We have given our colored citizens the largest civil and political freedom, with no guidance but that of unscrupulous politicians. Shall we now say that they cannot be trusted in the church?—that they can be[393] free citizens in the republic, with all the duties, trusts and responsibilities of citizenship, but that they cannot be Freedmen in the republic of God? Our church organization is in perfect harmony with the genius of our Government, and is the best possible school of good citizenship. It teaches liberty, regulated by law and love.

But the second essential principle of Congregationalism, self-development, is no less eminent. This necessitates organization and co-operation. Each church cultivates its own field, but its field expands into all the world. It looks over into the Dark Continent, and sends forth some of its young men and women to win, perchance, the martyr’s crown. Every such effort is development, strength. It brings in health and power. The working church alone grows and thrives. This is the nature of the Congregational church. Without this element of self-development into active Christian graces, the church, of whatever material formed, will remain in the weak and callow state of permanent and persistent chickenhood, and in cold nights it must be wrapped in cotton wool to keep it from dying. Now these churches of our Association have gone vigorously to work. They have done well. The facts enumerated in the Report, and to which we have briefly referred, prove this. Let us cheer them and urge them on to greater effort. The whole race will rise just so far as it shall put forth what strength it has.

The third great requisite of the Congregational church is self-support. From the way in which missionary churches come into existence, this is apt to be the most difficult principle to apply. They are weak at the beginning and must be aided. Their real wants are pressing—a pastor, church building, school-house, school. But all these are so precious to them, to their children and their posterity, that great exertion and self-denial on their part should be called forth. No one should be admitted to church membership who will not do something for these great objects. It is safe to follow the teachings of Paul to the poor Corinthians.

Let it be well understood that church membership in a Congregational church means the true Christian manhood of self-support. Let them be taught systematic giving. This will consecrate all duties and all true enterprise. This will bind the church and the pastor together, and will help them to have the spirit of Him who pronounced it more blessed to give than to receive. This will purify the church. Give alms of such things as ye have, and behold all things shall be clean unto you. As in the foreign field, so in the home, with all due safeguards, let us raise the banner, self-government, self-development, self-support. This is true Congregationalism and true Christianity.—Cyrus Hamlin, Chairman.

ADDRESS OF PRES. CYRUS HAMLIN.

In the few remarks, Mr. Chairman, which I have to make on this most important subject, I shall draw chiefly from my missionary experience of thirty-five years in the Turkish empire, with those feeble churches formed among a people oppressed, persecuted, despised and ignorant, and yet churches that have come up in many cases from great weakness and great doubt into noble strength and manhood. This may be received as a general fact of the result of church organization. Gather from these poor materials churches enough to be trusted to their own self-government and care: organize the church; give to that church a native pastor, and place upon it all the responsibilities of Christian growth and Christian work.[394] You give it, of course, the Bible, and “the entrance of His word giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.” With the Bible always comes, and must come, the common school; and from the common school the high school; and from the high school the college; and from the college the professional school; and thus you have that necessary provision for preparing the native pastorate, and every church must have its pastor from its own race. I believe, in the entire field of the American Board, among all nations and races, there never has been a single instance of real success and growth of a church except under its native pastor, a pastor of its own race. And so you have in this Association the most sacred and solemn duty—duty to the church of Christ, duty to the great Head of the church, to educate for these churches competent pastors; and just so far as this great duty is neglected, our whole work will grow weak and be a failure.

I do not think it is possible to emphasize too strongly the necessity of having an educated pastorate from the people of the churches to which the pastors themselves belong—of the same race. The church and the college go together; you cannot separate them. Separate them, and they will both perish; unite them, and they will both succeed; for wherever you introduce a true evangelic work, there will be a demand for the very highest education. What a tremendous and almost tragic demonstration of this was the grand effort of the great Secretary of the American Board, to confine missionary churches to education in their own tongue—to lay aside all science, to lay aside all study of languages, and to confine education to the vernacular of each people! If anybody on this earth could, by any possibility, have carried that demonstration to successful result, it would have been our revered and beloved Dr. Anderson; but the failure was absolute and terrible. I do not believe there is a missionary now under the American Board, or under any other Board, that will contend for a thus limited education, a vernacular education, as sufficient for the pastorate or the ministry of any people, and especially of an ignorant and degraded people, where the elevating and educating force must come so largely from the pastor himself.

Now in these churches in the East, by necessity, the first pastors were not thus educated. The missionaries were compelled to get themselves such pastors as they could find, just as the apostles ordained elders in every place. They had to ordain just such elders as they could find, and the missionaries did the same. But these pastors have all been growing men; they have all been put into a way of study; they have all been kept under exciting influences; and pastors and churches have gone on together. And I think, from my personal knowledge of the pastors of those churches in the Turkish empire, that they are a noble, faithful and progressive company of laborers in the vineyard of our Lord. It must also be remembered that, in forming these churches and bringing them forward, they will commit great errors; there will be great immoralities breaking out among these church members. I have known such sins committed by church members in whom I had had confidence, that I would at the first impulse have immediately expelled them from the churches, and denied to them all possibility of knowing or having known anything of a true and pure Christianity; and yet those same men, when faithfully and patiently dealt with, have come to repentance, have returned to faithful Christian life in the church, and I have been at the bedside of some of them when they died in faith and joy, and in hope of a glorious and blessed immortality.

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Now, I have great confidence in these churches which this Association has formed; I have great confidence in their progress, in their purification, in the elevation and competency and energy of the native pastorate; and it seems to me that this is the very centre, the fountain source, of the safe and onward progress of your great work.

AFRICA.

REPORT ON FOREIGN WORK.

Your Committee, to whom is referred that portion of the Executive Committee’s Report relating to the Foreign work of the Association, beg leave to report as follows:

The experience of the past and Providential indications of the future seem clearly to call upon this Association to concentrate their foreign work upon two fields—the Mendi mission on the West coast, and the proposed Arthington mission in East Central Africa, in the region of the Sobat River.

The experience of the Mendi mission has been a sad history of the sacrifice of many lives, and of meagre results when measured by that sacrifice, in any narrow view of the past or present. But when we stretch our gaze into the future, and think of the “must needs be,” which is the law of suffering that accomplishes great results, and lays the foundations of many generations, the Mendi mission already justifies its past. It is the key of a future that seems full of promise. It opens the door to a wider and more salubrious region, reaching back from the malarious coast towards the highlands of the head waters of the Niger, and inviting the extension of mission outposts with better conditions of success. Meanwhile, Good Hope station, on Sherbro island, is favorably situated as a base of supplies and easy communication with Sierra Leone and the civilized world.

The past experience of the Mendi mission has taught some valuable lessons. 1. That the white missionary cannot be depended on for permanent work, by reason of the deadly climate. 2. That the pure black, of good constitution, although born in America, can endure the climate, and is to be the future African missionary. 3. That a competent superintendence is desirable for this African work. 4. That extreme and deliberate care is demanded in the selection of missionaries to Africa, in respect both to physical health and thorough character. 5. That when such selections have been made, our missionaries should be better equipped and provided for than they have been in the past, for efficient and progressive work. A false economy has involved too much loss. The supporters of the Association have only need of intelligent and exact information to see and remedy this defect. A mission steamer for the Mendi work is greatly needed to save time, health, labor, and in the end, money. So are other industrial equipments that might be named, fairly essential to the highest and speediest spiritual results. Your Committee recommend that the Mendi mission be put in good repair, that, any dropped stitches be taken up, that the things which remain be strengthened, particularly in respect to its sanitary and industrial[396] basis, and better conditions for pushing its stations further into the interior.

As to the Arthington mission, in its connection with the other generous and thoughtful projects of this enthusiastic friend of Africa, and in connection also with other Christian missions, and particularly that of the United Presbyterians on the Lower Nile, already dotting that Eastern coast, we approve of the measures under progress by Superintendent Rev. Henry M. Ladd and Dr. E. E. Snow for exploring the Sobat region, and getting all possible light on a desirable location and all other matters involved in a wise prosecution of the work proposed. Should it prove feasible, we advise, as in the case of the Mendi mission, a generous equipment, the providing of a good physical basis, particularly in the procurement of a steamer of light draft, adapted to such rivers as the Sobat and the Jub.

Also at no distant day, the establishment somewhere on African soil, in a salubrious quarter and with favorable contacts with civilization, of an educational institution for young native Africans, combining the best features of the Lovedale School in South Africa, and the Hampton School in Virginia. We believe that such a school will be essential to the best development of our future work in Africa, not only for the training of native missionaries, but for the fundamental lessons of industry and self-help that should be woven from the start into a Christian civilization.

It would also prove a stimulus and an outlet for the various gifts of our educated Freedmen in this country, and furnish a wise direction to their growing enthusiasm for that African work sooner or later to demand them, when princes shall come out of Egypt, and “Ethiopia,” as Dr. Edward Blyden renders it, “shall suddenly stretch out her hands unto God.”

It is also incumbent upon this Association, as the peculiar helper of these Freedmen, to bend its utmost and untiring efforts to develop in them that prime, indispensable, and, by reason of their past limitations, sadly deficient prerequisite for missionary success—a thorough character—builded on the only sure foundations—that “fear of the Lord” which is “the beginning of wisdom,” and the love which fulfills His law.

As it appears that the foothold of future success for the Arthington mission will largely depend upon the good-will of the Egyptian Government, it is evident that vigilant care should be taken in all possible ways to secure that good-will, and the alliance of all moral and diplomatic aids from our own and European governments which are interested in projects like that of the “International Association” for the civilization of Africa.

In making the above suggestions we would not be understood to reflect upon the Executive Committee as lacking proper care or enterprise in the pursuance of the African work. We are aware of their past limitations, the sudden exigencies of the civil war, the vast responsibilities thrown upon them by the emancipation of the slaves, and that the immediate sympathies of the Christian public on which the Association relies for its support have demanded prime attention to the home work; but now that the logic of events more clearly defines the important relations of the home work to the foreign, the appeal should be strongly made for such an increase of contributions as shall warrant the Association to push its work abroad with fresh vigor.

J. W. Harding, Chairman.

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ADDRESS OF REV. J. W. HARDING.

The romance of African exploration is rapidly passing by. We must, in this missionary work, take into account fully the great and peculiar difficulties in the way—difficulties beginning with the physical geography of that continent, its lack of bays and harbors, its generally unnavigable rivers, choked by sand-bars, impeded by rapids and cataracts and masses of floating soil; and then the deadly climate, the rank and putrescent vegetation, the fetid odors poisoning the air. Will you plunge with me for a few minutes into the African forest, starting with the latest travelers, Keith Johnston, son of the great geographer, and Joseph Thompson, a young man of twenty, a graduate of Edinburgh University and a good botanist and geologist? They plunge into that African forest opposite Zanzibar, following a path only eighteen inches wide, for all means of conveyance by beasts of burden—horses, mules, camels, elephants—have failed in that country, and travelers are forced back upon the narrow foot-paths. The grass, cane-like, interwoven with thorny creepers, is from ten to twenty feet high. They have to cut their way with hatchets and cutlasses, it is so soon choked by the rank growth. They are drenched with the dew for the first two hours through and through; then they are scorched by the sun. By and by comes a pouring shower and they are drenched again. At night they lie down in their little shelter tents, breathing the steamy, stuffy, poisoned air; and before they get 200 miles, Joseph Thompson, the young man of twenty, buries under a mangrove tree his friend Keith Johnston. He was only thirty-four, an athletic fellow, proud of his English training, of a splendid constitution. But that is a deadly climate. Young Thompson staggers along, often falling in his tracks. His men have to lift him up and he has to hold on to their belts; but, after fourteen months and fifteen hundred miles of travel, only losing one man, no plundering, no desertions, not a shot fired offensive or defensive, not a drop of blood shed, though under the most intense provocations, he brings all his men back to Zanzibar—a hearty, merry, jovial set.

This gives you a little idea of the inevitable difficulties of African exploration. As to the encouragements, the first one I think of (and it is a great one) is that our Lord, who leads us to victory, has made Africa and told us to go there. The next is the testimony of our latest travelers to the grand success of mission work. Thompson says that while the Belgian expeditions have failed, while the stations of the International Association have failed because of the lack of character in the men who have led them, the Livingstonian mission, the Free Church of Scotland mission, the London Missionary Society’s mission, and various other missions have all proved solid civilizing centres. Desolating wars have ceased; the slave trade in their region is ended; the moral tone of the natives has been evidently already lifted up.

But we must have in this missionary work more regard to a physical basis. It is wrong, brethren, to send such men as Henry M. Ladd and Edward P. Smith, and let them travel in open boats, exposed with their native boatmen to almost certain death. The fact is that the sentinel of death stands five miles out from the coast of Africa to warn almost every traveler not to sleep on its shores in such a region as that. If we send out these noble men who hazard their lives for this work, we must give them these steamers—the “John Brown” steamer at the Mendi mission, and the “Charles Sumner” steamer at the Nile Basin station.

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FROM ADDRESS OF REV. GEO. S. DICKERMAN.

As we review the past, we delight to see how the various movements, which, at the time, seem to be wholly disconnected, move on in converging lines, and how, finally, those movements come together to produce some sublime result. During this centennial period we have been looking back over the past history of our nation, and at the same time over the past history of Europe, and we have found these two histories blended all the way through. From the time of the Crusades, and the awakening of the spirit of enterprise, and the creating of that great restlessness throughout Europe which led to the spirit of exploration and discovery, down through the subsequent periods, during which our country was colonized, we see everywhere how movements on this side of the water and movements on the other side were playing together. * * * * * * * * * And now we stand at another period, and we see two continents, lying side by side across the same ocean. We have heard God’s voice saying, “Let my people go,” and this has been followed by God’s providence breaking off the fetters of an oppressed race and bidding them go forth into a land of freedom. And we have seen, in connection with this, God calling His people to labor and lift up these brethren to a higher intelligence, to a purer, faith, to a nobler aspiration, and to a grander enterprise; and we have seen these efforts fruiting most wonderfully. And all the time that this has been going on, away off there across the ocean, in that new continent hitherto unexplored, Baker, Livingstone and Stanley, with untiring industry, have been prosecuting their work; and “the great dark continent” is being made a light continent in one respect—light to our knowledge, only that something greater and grander may follow. Are these lines parallel—the lines of God’s movements in America and the lines of God’s movements in Africa? They converge; and, in the distance, these lines on which God is moving will come to their focus, and we shall see there on African soil sublime results, of which these here on American soil give to us but the prophecy.

THE UPPER NILE BASIN.

COL. H. G. PROUT, LATE OF THE KEHDIVE’S STAFF, EGYPT.

In what I have to say I shall not try to give any large picture of African travel or life; I shall try only to give some accurate notions of a limited area.

The Soudan is not a definite geographical term. Bellad es Soudan is the country of the blacks, and is merely a general term like Central Africa. An Egyptian Governor-General of the Soudan rules a vast territory, extending in Gordon’s time from the Tropic of Cancer on the north to near the equator on the south, about 1,640 miles; and from the Red Sea on the east to the western boundary of Darfour, averaging about 660 miles in width. This territory includes Upper and Lower Nubia, the fertile and little known Sennaar, the wastes north of Abyssinia, the provinces of Darfour and Kordofan, and the mysterious regions of the White Nile and its affluents.

Nowhere else in the explored world is there an equal area so uniform in climate and surface. The sad result of this uniformity you see in the condition of the people. In your effort to help the people, you must fight against these facts of nature. A monotony of savage tribes live in a bad climate, uniform in its badness; they inhabit a land which throughout great regions gives no variety of surface. From these conditions they have no escape. I do not say that no[399] great improvement of people so situated is possible; but I do say that man has seldom found himself in a worse position.

In the northern zone of the Soudan, down to about the twelfth degree of latitude, the climate has admitted of a feeble development of Mohammedan civilization; further south the conditions are desperate.

The Arab officers of the Khedive, the Nubian slave hunters, the few European traders and travelers who have gone as far as Gondokoro, the handful of American and English officers who, in late years, have tried to carry law and light into that unhappy country—every man of them would tell you the same story of more or less rapid failure of his own vital powers, and of the terrible mortality among his comrades. We, at this distance, only hear of those who go up the Nile and come back. One has but to spend a few weeks in Khartoum to learn a long list of names of men who have gone as far as Khartoum or Fashoda, or the Sobat or Lado, only to come back, broken in health, often to die before getting to the sea.

Let us now glance briefly at the physical geography of the Nile basin south of Khartoum. Below the tenth degree of latitude, the steppe country is no longer seen. Vast marshes stretch away on either hand, broken by peninsulas and islands of dry land. For 790 miles this is the character of the immediate valley of the White Nile. Between latitudes 5 and 6 the swamps end and the face of the country becomes more like our own land. From this latitude to the equator is a charmingly diversified country, with mountains, valleys, creeks, meadows, and not an extraordinary proportion of swamps. Of course, this region is more healthy than the marshes of the White Nile, but even it has a trying climate.

Here the Nile is a rapid stream, with numerous wooded and rocky islands and long stretches of rapids and cataracts. The forests are neither so vast nor so dense as we imagine tropical forests to be; nor do we find here the majestic trees and the luxuriant vegetation of the Central American forests. The herbage grows with wonderful rapidity, and during the summer months much of the country is covered with grass of amazing height and strength.

On the west and south the great swamp basin seems to end at a crest of high land running northwesterly from the Nile at about latitude 5, crossing the eighth degree of latitude at 150 or 200 miles west of the Nile, and keeping something the same general direction to the steppes of Darfour and Wadai.

The eastern limit of the swamp region is even more conjectural than the western, but we may expect that it will be found within 100 miles of the Nile, and that it is a line running south by west from near the mouth of the Sobat. The total area of the swamp basin may be 25,000 square miles.

Khartoum is the point of rendezvous and departure for all routes into the Soudan. It may be reached from Cairo by two principal routes; one up the Nile valley, the other by the Red Sea and by caravan to Berber on the Nile, 250 miles north of Khartoum. The quicker and probably the cheaper route is by the Red Sea, Suakim and Berber. The journey by this route, allowing three days each at Suakim and Berber, may be made in 32 days. By this route there are but two days of hard marching necessary. The rest of the journey can be made at a comfortable pace. Both of these routes into the Soudan are much frequented. Special difficulties in getting transportation may operate against one or the other of them at different times. This is something to be decided at Cairo.

Khartoum, the capital of the Soudan, is a town of about 30,000 people, with many and fairly good shops, at which the traveler can procure anything really[400] necessary, except arms, ammunition and medicines. At this great African city all lines of traffic converge. Here boats can be procured, manned, provisioned and stored to go up the White or Blue Nile, the Sobat or the Bahr el Ghazalle. Here camels may be hired and caravans fitted out to go to the East or the West.

From Khartoum to Fashoda, in the tenth degree of latitude, about 450 miles, the White Nile is practically Mohammedan. Though the Shillooks rove considerably north of that point, they are continually harassed by their enemies, the Bagarra Arabs from Kordofan and the government tax-gatherers from the Nile, and lead a very unsettled life. On the eastern bank of the Nile, also, the Mohammedan tribes have driven the negroes south of the tenth parallel.

South of Fashoda, however, for more than 100 miles along the west bank of the Nile, past the mouth of the Sobat, and extending back many miles into the interior, is the country held by the great tribe of the Shillooks. Their huts in this region are like one vast village. They are a powerful and spirited tribe, numbering over a million souls, it is estimated. They have resisted the Egyptian Government with tenacity and considerable success. Indeed, I cannot say how much of their territory is actually subjugated to-day; but it is probable the Egyptian power is not acknowledged far from Fashoda.

The Shillooks are one of the finest negro tribes of which we know anything. They are prosperous cultivators of the soil and great hunters. Although they are greatly exasperated by the wars of the government and the plundering of the passing slave-traders, it is likely that they could soon be led to feel confidence in men whom they found to be neither officials nor slavers. With their light canoes they cross the river constantly, hunting, fishing and raiding on the neighboring Dinkas and Nouers. Although they have been so badly treated by the government and the traders, yet they have learned to discriminate among white men, and it is quite possible that they might be found more open to the influence of Christian missionaries than the tribes farther away from the route of travel.

On the west bank of the Nile, north of the Sobat, is a branch of the great Dinka tribe. These people have fared even worse than the Shillooks at the hands of the slavers, and have almost abandoned the banks of the streams. They will probably return with the decline of slave-hunting, if indeed they are not already occupying again their old lands. These are docile and intelligent negroes, and are favorite slaves. The black regiments of the Soudan were mostly recruited from the Dinkas. Like the Shillooks, the Dinkas are pure heathen and great cattle-breeders. The immediate southern bank of the Sobat is now occupied by the Nouer tribe, who have also pushed over to the north of that stream and are found far up its course. They go to the west as far as the Gazelle River and their southern limit is ill-defined. They are a very numerous tribe, but perhaps inferior in intelligence to either the Shillooks or the Dinkas, although Poncet speaks of them as clean, well-housed, and valiant warriors and hunters.

The little that we know of the country and people up the Sobat is not encouraging. The land is flat, and in the rainy season marshy. On the banks of the streams are forests of the talch acacia. The people have been hostile, and Col. Gordon withdrew his station from that region before I went to the provinces of the Equator.

The mouth of the Sobat, and the great east and west reach of the Nile which flows here east by south for about 100 miles, mark the southern limit of the steppe country. South of this one should not rest till he reaches the high lands of the Bahr el Gebel, below latitude 5. The characteristic features of that[401] region are truly charming to one who has crossed the deserts, steppes and marshes on his way from the Mediterranean.

Here are found various tribes of negroes, the Bohr, the Shir, the Madi, and finally, to the south, the great Wanyoro and Waganda tribes, who are thought by Speke not to be negroes. On the east are the Latookas and the Lungo; on the west the Niambara. For our purposes it is not necessary to discriminate very closely between them. They are all naked heathen, given to warfare and pillage, detesting work, and certainly not spiritually minded.

All of these people had been greatly exasperated by the slave-traders and by the garrison left at Gondokoro by Baker. The policy of the slave-traders had been to keep one tribe at war with another, and by allying themselves with one and the other to get much of the fighting done for them and to carry off the spoils in slaves, cattle and ivory. The Egyptian garrison had imitated the traders, and when Gordon went up it was practically besieged at Gondokoro. In two years and a half Gordon had reduced the garrison at Gondokoro to a sergeant and ten men, and his strongest garrison, that at Moogi, was but 90 men. He had established stations for 300 miles at a day’s march, or less, apart, and over much of this distance one courier could pass unharmed. The chiefs about the stations paid tribute of corn and furnished porters readily. On the Albert Lake he put a steamer and two large iron life-boats, which traversed without danger or difficulty the 125 miles of river south of Dufli. The Moogi family, for some distance on the east bank of the river, was still hostile, but all the other river people had great confidence in the wonderful white man who had been just and truthful with them. How much of this condition still exists I do not know, but the fact that it did exist in 1877 shows what missionaries might hope to do there.

The negroes of the far Nile country, like the Shillooks, the Dinkas, and the Nouers below, breed cattle, raise their poor breadstuffs and a few vegetables, and hunt but little. Were it not for the tribal wars, they would seldom suffer for food, although local famines from drought do occur. Like the negroes farther down the Nile, they are, too, a simple and happy people, only asking to be let alone. They want nothing that our civilization can give them except bright beads and wire. Therefore, to establish relations of trade with them is not easy.

I began by promising to give you somewhat accurate notions of certain limited regions. I find that I have been able to skim but hastily over even the area to which I have confined myself.

I will conclude with a few words about that area as a missionary field. I need not tell you that the poor people are densely ignorant of Christianity, as they are of all religion. I need not tell you again that like all savages they make each other as miserable as they can with their poor knowledge of the art and means of war; or that the slave-traders and the Khedive’s troops are adding daily to their capacity in that way. I hardly need tell you that I believe them to be human beings whose happiness might be increased by teaching them peaceful industries and by inducing them to give up idleness and fighting. In short, there is no doubt that the condition of the people of Central Africa and the Soudan is deplorable, and there is a possibility that Christian missionaries might make it better. The question is how and where you can do the most with the means at your command. Probably the most can be done by working steadily up the Nile, and to moderate distances east[402] and west of the water-way, with a base in the more healthful regions of the north, and a steamer to carry people back and forth. I believe it would be a mistake to plant an isolated mission anywhere south of the swamp region. The essential thing is to be able to take a man away as soon as you find that he can no longer resist the fevers, recruit him in the desert air, and then hurry him back before he and his people have forgotten each other. If you plant a colony in the heart of Africa and leave it for three years, at the end of that time there will probably not be a man of it living—almost certainly he will not be living and working there. But it will take an ordinary man at least three years to fit himself for really good work amongst a people whose language and ways are so new to him.

A valuable lesson may be drawn from the experiences of Gordon and Baker in the same country. Baker isolated himself in Unyoro, with no base and no line of communications. He was obliged to burn his baggage and retreat, with great courage and skill it is true, but with the absolute waste of his expedition. Gordon kept up fortnightly steamers to Khartoum, established his little garrisons step by step, and when he left the Provinces the power of the government was firmly fixed there.

The idea of the Roman Catholic mission is excellent so far as it goes. They have built comfortable houses at Khartoum and El Obeid; have established schools, gardens and hospitals; have a corps of people trained in Arabic and some of the negro dialects, and somewhat acclimated, and—there they stop and sit in their gardens. They are capital financiers, and their mission will not be apt to break up for want of money or recruits; but as a means of practical good in Africa, it is nearly worthless without a chief of heroic fibre.

The scheme that I should strongly advise is a sanitarium and school in the north, with your own steamer on the Nile; a mission near the Sobat; and if the White Nile is found to keep open, another at the head of navigation. In the course of years such a scheme would probably make a mark in the countries it reached; but to succeed it must have at its head a man of courage and brains, a man of sleepless energy, a man hungry and thirsty for work, and he must be a diplomat as well, for he will be terribly worried on all sides. I have suggested a point near the Sobat for a mission, because at that point relations could be established with some of the largest tribes—the Shillooks, Dinkas and Nouers—and because it is the last point at which a colony could be planted north of the great swamp basin. A colony south of that is liable to be cut off for months and even years, by the formation of the “sud” or grass barrier in the Nile. Undoubtedly the Sobat region is inferior in land and climate to the high lands south of Gondokoro; but, as I have pointed out, to isolate your mission so that it cannot be rapidly recruited and supplied will be fatal. Of this I am positive. When you find that the Soudan authorities are sure or even likely to keep communications open up the Nile, then a mission should be sent up to Gondokoro or farther south. All the dangers in and obstacles to this noble work should be measured and faced, and the work so organized that a real retreat need never be made. True progress must be very slow, and you must not look for quick results. When you have done your best you must not be disappointed if you seem to have done very little. To plant a mission on a solid foundation, with the right chief at its head and the right material at his hand, will be a great work.

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THE INDIANS.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.

Your Committee on work for the Indians recognize with gratitude the greatly increased general interest in the welfare of the red race, a change to more encouraging ideas in respect to its future, and a disposition to make increased efforts for its redemption.

They point to the fact that to Christianize the aborigines was a deep-seated purpose of the Pilgrim Fathers, and that the duty is greater now than ever from the wrongs they have suffered at our hands; and to the fact that the destruction of buffalo and other game has compelled a large class of Indians to seek white men’s means of support, thus bringing thousands of their children within reach, and creating conditions of successful evangelizing work among them far more favorable than they have ever been in the past three centuries.

They urge action because civilization is rapidly surrounding them; many tribes are increasing in numbers, and the alternative is either Christian education or a terrible, bloody, costly struggle with a powerful race. Education or extermination is the issue. They point to the success already achieved in Indian education at Fort Berthold, Lake Superior and S’kokomish Agencies, by the American Missionary Association; to the grand results of missionary effort during the past forty years at the West; and to the hopeful work at Carlisle and at Hampton, as affording every encouragement.

They recognize the great need of legislation that shall encourage citizenship among the Indians and afford means of attaining the conditions of citizenship.

Your Committee would therefore recommend for adoption the following resolutions:

Res. I. That the Association shall do all in its power for the education of Indian youth at their own homes, and in its colored schools at the South.

Res. II. That the Executive Committee of this Association be charged with the duty of pressing upon the general public and the Government their responsibility for the Indian race, and by co-operation with other societies, and by direct effort, exert its influence at the seat of government in behalf of legislation that shall secure citizenship to the Indian; to that end a legal status and education to fit him for it.

S. C. Armstrong, Chairman.

ADDRESS OF GEN. S. C. ARMSTRONG

The Indian question is this: education in its broadest sense or extermination. But at least one white man must fall for every Indian who is shot, and it takes as much money to kill one red man as it would to train a hundred of their children in civilized ways. To educate is economy.

Fifty thousand Indians receive every day from the Government a pound and a half of fresh beef, with flour and coffee and sugar and tobacco to match, and a fair outfit for all purposes of decent living and good farming, and the number will increase. An agency warehouse is a huge store filled with utensils of every kind, from which the ex-warrior draws gratuitously at the agent’s discretion. There is no treatment like this in any other country on the globe—a stupendous wholesale charity to a people, of whom a large portion are thus hired to keep the peace.

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When first fed they are modest and satisfied, gradually they get importunate, and finally become most grievous beggars. There is an unevenness of treatment in this matter, based chiefly on the varying difficulties of settlement; the strong and wicked Sioux getting the maximum in return for their good behavior. The quiet and thrifty Fort Berthold Indians, who are doing as much, if not more per capita than any others, complain; for Indians visit much and discuss things; they have not yet discovered that virtue is its own reward.

Yet I have seen and heard of agencies where, notwithstanding gratuities, there has been steady improvement in houses, crops and herds. Good management on the one hand and the good sense of the better class of Indians on the other hand, at certain points led to remarkable results; but a forward move along the whole line of the Indian population is not to be looked for till they shall have the same motives to industry that other men have and that all men need. Agencies, reservations and rationing are and long will be a necessity, lessening only as by wise use of public bounty, and by proper legislation and care, the Indians shall approach self-support and citizenship. The persistently indolent should not remain as they are now, unless the nation has pledged itself, by solemn treaty, to feed forever the savage who squats on his haunches and refuses to work.

First-class men, and no others, can settle the Indian question. The want of them is the bottom fact in our Indian troubles. Government pays the market price for good beef and sugar and tobacco, but will not pay for good men. There is only one answer to the question, “Can a superior man afford to be an Indian agent?” No! There are excellent Indian agents, thanks to their noble impulses, but Government should buy and not beg what it is bound to get. Salaries are from $900 to $2,200, depending principally upon the number of Indians under the agent’s care. Hence, the more liberally he feeds, the more the roving bands of the plains seek his care and swell his income. Pressing self-support upon them may scatter them and lessen his salary.

Congress will appropriate hundreds of thousands of dollars to feed Indians, millions to fight them, but will not give the nominal additional sum necessary to induce men who can make a living in any other way to become Indian agents. We tell the Indians to take the white man’s road and refuse to open it. He needs ideas; he is capable of citizenship, but is unfit to hold lands or manage property till he can read and write, and knows something of our language.

Of the forty thousand wild children of the plains who are looking to the nation for education, not over eight thousand are enrolled at school. The average is far less. We are rich and paying all our debts but those to the illiterate of the land, whose ignorance is not their fault. The little children will one day lead. Honor and interest demand a care for their welfare. The point of sending children to Carlisle and Hampton should not be that they may learn trades so much as to acquire our language and habits, and see and comprehend civilization—a temporary sojourn away from their people, that all interested in them declare to be most desirable. Settling Indians on homesteads, encouraging mechanic arts, agriculture, and especially cattle-raising, for which this race is peculiarly adapted, and has, at the beginning, in its fitness for it, an advantage over white men, turns more than anything else on the wisdom, skill and perseverance of the agent.

It should be said that there has been for the past ten years a steady improvement in the morals of the agencies, the ideas and habits of Indians, and in the character and efficiency of Government employees. The chief who once said, “We can’t eat schools and teachers, and don’t want them,” and afterward sent[405] his son to Hampton, illustrates the change in Indian thought that is steadily going on. Progressive Indians have suffered persecutions. To abandon the dance, put away wild costumes, and rub the paint off his face, has cost many an Indian suffering and loss. The “white man way” is not even more fashionable or comfortable, ridicule being one penalty, which, to an Indian is hard to bear.

The quiet missionary work done for the red race during the past forty years is the seed sowing, of which it and the nation will reap a harvest of good results. The Indian is a worshiper; “the blue sky and high bluffs are their church edifice, the medicine man being their minister.” With selfishness and vindictiveness running through their religion, it contains a recognition of one God, a Spirit which may be readily expounded by Christian teaching into an adequate conception of the true God. No heathen in the world offer so little to obstruct and so much to encourage the work of the missionary. Four years’ experience at Hampton has shown them to be remarkably open to truth, and not to be in any marked degree revengeful. They are like other people, their special weakness being physical. Christians of America have a duty to the Indian that they have not done. Their work in the West should be doubled at once. United effort by the great religious societies would do much for the welfare of this race, through persistent pressure upon Congress for a proper legal status.

In citizenship is the salvation of the Indian; wardship tends to emasculate him. The effect of the ballot would be to make a man of him as it did of the negro. To be brought out of his present condition into fitness to vote is a work of the utmost delicacy and difficulty, but it can be done. They are not dying out—at any rate, the 50,000 Sioux are not. Twenty-eight Sioux Indian youth, who had spent three years at Hampton, have just been returned to their Dakota home. Of these young men six are farmers and assist in general work, getting from fifteen to twenty dollars per month; two are employed in offices at the same wages; six are teachers, getting twenty dollars a month; two are blacksmiths, two are shoemakers, and seven are carpenters, getting a dollar a day apiece; all have rations besides. All refused to go to camp life, and have been provided by the Government agents with separate buildings, which they have cleaned and fitted up as best they could. The Indian Department has seconded their efforts very heartily. The next twelve months will decide their success. Their course will be watched with interest, as a test of the methods at Carlisle and Hampton schools, and indeed of the Indian’s ability to make good use of our education.

The “General Survey” for the year suggests suitable accommodations for Indians in some other of our institutions. This would be wise. The 370 negro youth at Hampton are a wonderful help to their 90 Indian schoolmates both directly and indirectly. The mingling of the races has proved a success, reacting happily on both. Increase the good work of your institutions and they will grow in favor with God and man.

FROM ADDRESS OF CAPT. R. H. PRATT.

Last summer, at Carlisle, during the vacation period, we put out in good families among the farmers, 109 of our children. They all came back (except 29 who are to stay during the winter) immensely advantaged by it, speaking better English, with the Indian diffidence rooted out to a degree that it would[406] have been impossible for us to have accomplished in the same time even at Carlisle, which, from its advantages of contact with civilization, is immensely superior to any agency school. But we went farther. We found that the boys and girls had made such good impressions among the citizens that many desired them to stay, and so the Department was asked to allow a few to remain out for the winter, and go to the public schools with the white children and live in families. The Department gave its consent provided it would cost nothing. So arrangements were made, and we have out for this winter six girls and twenty-three boys.

To make the completest success of Eastern education for the Indians, I would use Carlisle as a sort of cleanser, a bath-tub or something of that kind, where we could wash them, clean them up, get a little understanding of our ways into them, and some understanding of English, and then scatter them out over the country to come in contact with our life. In that way they would learn best how to become citizens of the United States.

But we can rest it here. Whenever Congress gets ready to educate the Indian children as a whole, it will be no difficult matter to determine upon the best methods. Three to five thousand scattered around through the East would still leave forty-five to forty-seven thousand for the agency schools to work upon. That number in schools through the East, just as your Association proposes, sending them into your mission schools, where they may learn right from our life by comparison with theirs, by daily contact, will be found to be the most rapid plan. Make them work, and do not forget to make them fill their places, which they will gladly do when they find they must.

THE CHINESE.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.

Although in the Report of your Committee very brief mention is made of the work among the Chinese of this country, it is not therefore to be inferred that that work is being neglected, nor that it is failing in the ends for which it was undertaken. Rather is there a deepened conviction of its importance and increased encouragement in the prosecution of it; but in estimating the importance of the work we are not to consider alone the Chinese in this country, though they are a body of men of sufficient number to call for all, and more than all, that has been done for them. But we look beyond the 75,000 Chinese in California to the 400,000,000 in their own land. The Christian world through their missionaries, and by personal intercourse, are coming to understand this people better than they once did. Instead of the race of barbarians, stupid and immovable, which they were once thought to be, those who are well-informed accept the assertion of the Rev. John Ross, who says, “They are beyond comparison the most intelligent of non-Christian peoples; if any race surpasses them in industry, it is only the Anglo-Saxon.” * * * * *

But how is the Christian church to have a part in remodeling the institutions and customs of that vast nation? Not by any one method alone, but one of those which Providence has opened, is doubtless to be through the agency of Chinamen converted here and returning to their homes to preach the Gospel to their[407] countrymen. It cannot be questioned that there will be a place and need for those trained under the institutions of the Gospel to go to China and plant the same institutions there; yet the converted Chinamen can do some things and exert an influence in some directions not open to others.

The career of Yung Wing furnishes a striking illustration of this. Of humble parentage, converted while at school in this country, he conceived the plan of bringing Chinese youth of promise to this country to be educated. He returned to China in 1855, without money, without influential friends, having almost forgotten his own language. For sixteen years he studied, taught, served the government, worked his way upward, and won to his views officers high in authority. In 1871 his plan was adopted by the government, $1,500,000 placed at his disposal, and more than 100 selected Chinese youth were brought to this country. Though his experiment has now received a check, and perhaps will not be carried on further, even its success so far is a standing proof of influence exerted by a Christianized native such as no other could hope to exert. And not only so, it has by no means been a failure even in itself considered. The young men who have gone back to China from our colleges and schools and Christian families have gone back far other than they came.

It is even a question whether they may not be more to be feared by the Chinese government as revolutionists than as though they had returned thoroughly converted Christians. But all will have received new ideas. Even those who have been chased through the streets by the hoodlums of San Francisco have learned some new ideas. They can distinguish between a Christian and a politician and know who are their friends and what makes them so.

If in a generation we could send back to China a score of Yung Wings we should do more for the conversion of China than by any other method open to us.

The Report speaks of a plan for establishing a new mission in Southern China as being under consideration. To your Committee it would seem the part of wisdom to move slowly in this matter so long as the present facilities are offered for labor in this country, especially as it is uncertain how long these facilities may continue to be enjoyed.

Thirty different Mission Boards are already occupying points in China, and though their 1200 laborers are wholly inadequate for the work of evangelizing China, yet they furnish in their various stations, points from which laborers may go out, so that the call would seem to be for men to recruit the missions already established, rather than for forming new ones. Especially will a separate movement of this kind be unnecessary if the converted Chinese of this country are able to carry out their purpose of establishing a mission of their own in the country back of Canton. The very fact that they are entertaining such an idea, and earnestly pressing it, speaks volumes for the work which this Society has already accomplished, and opens a glorious vista for its ever expanding career in the future.

Your Committee would propose the following resolution:

Resolved, That in view of the small demands made upon the treasury of the A. M. A. by the work among the Chinese, and the great returns which that work promises, the constituency of this Society are under the most solemn obligations to furnish for this branch of its work all the means that can be employed consistently with a wise economy and with due regard for the encouragement of self-help by the converted Chinese themselves.—Rev. A. E. P. Perkins, Chairman.

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THE CHINESE TO EVANGELIZE CHINA.

BY REV. C. H. POPE

Great good has been done in China by missionaries, but against what odds! Now in the free United States, the country whose government has been his nation’s most generous friend, and whose people have shown him most personal attention, the Chinaman can examine Christians with a criticism no less keen, but far surer to be correct. He has had no difficulty in seeing the difference between a “hoodlum” and a Sunday-school teacher. He has even been able to distinguish one reverend from another, and neither trusted “brother” Kalloch nor distrusted “brother” Pond. The international lesson he here learns as he could not at his home—that a line between the children of light and the children of darkness runs through many families, through all communities.

Now let him go back to China, if he must—that is, if he will! He goes tenfold more potent than any of us to find the way to his countrymen’s hearts. I once doubted Chinese interpreters of our teaching and preaching. On examination I came to believe that the English language is the best medium for us to tell the Gospel in—a language born of Christian civilization, enlarged by Christian teaching, ornamented by Christian poetry, matured by the translation of the Bible, developed in Christian education, carrying in its common phrases less of grossness or corruption, and more of plain goodness, than any other tongue. In the day and evening schools, and in the Sunday-schools and prayer meetings which this Association maintains, the Chinese interpreter plays a prominent part only for a short time. Soon he becomes little needed; the pupils rapidly gain knowledge of our words: from step to step they catch gleams of new ideas and find new words not numerous in comparison with their language, but wonderfully clear and helpful. Daily observation is their best interpreter; the winning tones of ladies and children gain their ear and reach their perception easily; they get broad, practical ideas of Christianity; and they can be trusted to preach the Gospel in Chinese to Chinese. No process has ever gone so healthfully and hopefully into the Mongolian heart.

We are not concerned to explain the presence of any race in our land, nor can we parley over the motives which brought them to it. Enough for us to see that these Sauls of Tarsus come into the “straight” way before they leave Damascus; and that when their eyes have been opened, and our forgiving Saviour has accepted them, we call them “brethren,” and kindly protect them from enemies. Enough for us to train them in all Christian truth and service, until they and we together get an adequate notion of the part they are fitted to take in their nation’s conversion. Then, unless our sister society, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, shall take them into the far-off field for that grand work, we must formally equip and send them; for the Holy Ghost has said, “Separate me Paul and Barnabas for the work whereunto I have called them.”

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON FINANCE.

Your Committee on Finance beg leave to report that they have examined the accounts and have found them duly audited. Attached to the auditor’s report there is a statement that all the funds which represent permanent property of the Society have also been examined, and everything is found in order. There is a balance in the treasury, Sept. 30th, 1881, of $518.80. The management asked[409] last year for an increase of 25 per cent. in the contributions; the churches gave them an increase of 30 per cent. During the year there have been large improvements made, and some enlargements of the different educational institutions, so that they are now able to accommodate a much greater number of students than before; and if that opportunity is to be embraced, and these students who are clamoring for an education are to be instructed, it will require a larger outlay of money than that of the preceding year.

On the basis of the heartiness with which the churches complied with the request of last year, your Committee recommend that the management ask of the churches this year a little more still; and that, as against the $246,000 last year, the endeavor shall be made to raise $300,000 the present year.

The Committee desire reference to be made to some departments of the work where the need is special, notably the Chinese work, where there is ample room for a hundred-fold more of service. The Indian work also claims a special contribution, and the work among the Africans is always enlarging more and more.

I am requested to call attention also, in this informal way, to two provisions of the by-laws, that you may understand how financially secure this Society is, and how well-nigh impossible it is that there should, in any event, be any loss of its funds, or that they should be diverted from the use to which they are devoted.

On the sixth page of the report, concerning the Committee on Finance, it says:

The Committee desire to say on this point that they doubt whether any other benevolent organization can show a more careful guarding of the munificence of the churches; and on the basis of increased want and of larger opportunities and perfect safety, they ask that the churches this year put into the hands of the management the sum of $300,000.—E. S. Atwood, Chairman.

FROM THE ADDRESS OF REV. GEO. F. STANTON.

* * * It seems to me, sir, that, looking back over the days that we have been gathered here, we have been lifted up, and I seem to see to-day the prophecy of a grand increase and acquisition of interest and helpfulness for this work. We have been inspired by these grand addresses; we have been thrilled by them; we have been, as it were, lifted above our ordinary thought and feeling; and the work stretches before us in grand and inspiring invitations. But what, sir, shall be the return we are to make for all we have here enjoyed? What is to be the result of all this inspiration and uplifting? What is to be the outcome of this anniversary? If we are to go away simply rejoicing that we have been so richly blessed in this fellowship and instruction, if we are to go away feeling simply glad and grateful, have we met the claims of the hour?

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I remember the story of a brother in the African Methodist church, who, whenever the contribution box was passed, was accustomed to shut his eyes and throw his head back and join in with all his zeal and all his lungs in singing the song which was usually sung on that occasion, “Fly abroad, thou mighty Gospel.” This went on for several contributions, and then the deacon who passed the box thought he detected an error in all that praising and singing, and so he punched the brother quite pointedly with the box and said, “Just you give something to make it fly!” If we merely have the inspiration of this hour and it does not culminate in enlarged gifts for the work, if there is not a vast enlargement of the work upon the hands of this Association, this meeting will have been a failure. It is to redeem it from that failure that this report and these calls are now made.

You remember how it was when the war closed—you remember what an inspiration swept over the land, and what enthusiasm there was at the very mention of the freed slave. You remember how many associations and philanthropic societies, and even the Government itself, were enlisted in the work, and how their appeals thrilled the multitudes. The picture held before us then was that of a slave, from whose cramped limbs the broken manacles were falling. We were enthusiastic then. But to-day the same picture of the freed and suffering slave, and the same appeals, though with all the worth they had in them then, are to us only the embellishments of rhetoric. They have lost their force, and I am surprised at this when I look upon the vastness of the work; for, with all these years of our labor, the work has outgrown and overmatched our efforts, and the demands upon us to-day are greater than at the first. Every appeal made to justice then is as strong to-day; every appeal made to philanthropy then is of equal force to-day; every appeal to our enthusiasm then has in it just as much of power, even if it is not felt, to-day.

VOTE OF THANKS.

Resolved, that the hearty thanks of this Association be extended to the pastors and members of the Congregational churches, and to the people of Worcester, for their cordial welcome and generous hospitality to the many attendants on this the thirty-fifth annual meeting; in particular to the Plymouth Church and Society for the use of this elegant house of worship and the convenient rooms connected with it, and to the pastor, Rev. George W. Phillips, for his many courteous attentions. This Association also desires to express its sincere thanks to the large choir, for its aid in the service of song; to the press, for its full reports of the exercises, and for the liberality of the railroads which have reduced the rates of fare over their lines. While deeply grateful to the various Committees for their great work in making and executing wise plans for this large gathering, it wishes to recognize specially the efficient services of the Rev. Chas. W. Lamson and Samuel R. Heywood, Esq., whose wisdom and executive ability have greatly contributed to the success of this meeting.

Rev. Geo. W. Phillips, pastor of the church in which the meetings were held, responded to this resolution in a very felicitous speech. Among other things he said:

It is evident from the numbers which have been entertained here, it is evident from the interest which has prevailed in all these assemblies, that this cause, represented by the American Missionary Association, has taken its place already fairly side by side with all the other great missionary organizations and operations that are under the patronage and direction of our churches. The Worcester which you visit at this present time is not the Worcester that was here when this Society was organized. It is not the city that it was when this Association held its meeting[411] here something like a score of years ago. From scarcely more than thirty thousand it has grown to be a city of more than sixty thousand people; and side by side with its growth in population we are happy to assure you—and I think you have seen some visible evidence of it—that we have kept pace with our Christianity, with our church extension.

The best meetings on earth, all meetings on earth, must have their end; and we are come to the last hour of the last great day of this American Missionary Association feast. We say our good-byes; we go hence, each to his church, his community, his home. We shall not all of us meet on earth again; but it is grateful to think that by and by there is to be another meeting—a meeting in which we shall no more plan for the salvation and for the moral purification of this lost world, in which we shall no more seek to bring men to acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, because those great words shall have been realized, “Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

ECHOES OF THE ANNUAL MEETING.

Dr. Hartranft’s Sermon.—“Christ stood not for any one race, but for every race and every nationality, and whenever we take this cup we pledge ourselves to put aside all barriers of race, all barriers of nationality.”

Capt. Pratt.—“If you wish Indians to live like citizens, you must let them see how citizens live, must put them for a time in well-bred communities. The kind of citizens that make free use of the revolver, they know too much of.”

“I have seen a Western village with eighty-four graves in the grave-yard, and only one man died a natural death.”

Dr. Brastow.—“Diogenes with his lantern has been 250 years hunting among the blacks for a man. Let this Association do its work in one-fifth of that time, and Diogenes will put out his lantern and find his man without it.”

Prof. Cyrus Northrop.—“Your uneducated bad man can be no worse than a brute. Your educated bad man is a demon. Hence, the education we give the colored man must be Christian.”

“Votes are the impulses that every man gives to the ship of state in the direction of safety or of danger.”

Secretary Strieby.—“When diamonds were found in Africa they might, in their native condition, have been carried away by cart-loads without suspecting their value. It was only when they were cut and polished that men knew their true value. The worth of the colored people, these black diamonds, cannot be known until they are educated.”

Gen. Howard alluded to the Exposition at Atlanta where all kinds of wares illustrating the progress of the South are now on exhibition, and then felicitously introduced the President of Atlanta University as a Ware that was having a wonderful effect upon Southern progress.

When Mr. Wright, the colored man from Georgia, was reading his address, a venerable white man, more than eighty years of age, came forward, and resting his elbows upon the platform at the foot of the desk, with bowed head listened with rapt attention. The scene was most suggestive, and in the hands of artist Rogers would make an admirable companion group for “Uncle Tom’s School.”

Rev. L. Dickerman, referring to the treatment received by the Chinese on our Western coast, exclaimed in a tone of indignation: “I don’t blame them for wanting their bones sent home when they die.”

In reply to the complaint that the Chinese don’t assimilate with our people, he says: “Don’t assimilate? It takes two to assimilate. We stone them, beat them, shoot them, kill them, and then wonder they don’t send straight to China for their wives and children to come and enjoy this higher civilization.”

Prest. E. H. Fairchild said that he knew of no people who contribute for religious purposes so much in proportion to their means as the colored people South. “They almost universally take collections every Sunday, and often twice or three times a Sunday. There is no danger of their relapsing into heathenism.”[412]

“This blessed Association, ... and the dear old American Board, and the Home Missionary Society, thank God, are one to-day, and all past bitterness is forgotten.”

Prest. E. H. Fairchild said that the anti-slavery revolution, despite the indifference of some churches, was essentially a religious movement, aided heartily by many right-minded men outside the church, but that the few noisy infidels who denounced the Bible and the church “had little more to do with the emancipation of the slaves than they now have with the education of the Freedmen.”

The Evening Gazette, of Worcester, says: The meeting of the American Missionary Association in this city, just ended, has been singularly practical and business-like. We have the authority of an old reporter for saying that he has rarely heard, where there was so much speaking, so little uttered that it was irrelevant or commonplace. It is a good gauge of the character and intelligence of the six or eight hundred strangers who have been called to the city during the week by this occasion.

RECEIPTS FOR OCTOBER, 1881.

Constitution of the American Missionary Association.

INCORPORATED JANUARY 30, 1849.

Art. I. This Society shall 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. Any person of evangelical sentiments,[A] who professes faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is not a slaveholder, or in the practice of other immoralities, and who contributes to the funds, may become a member of the Society; and by the payment of thirty dollars, a life member; provided that children and others who have not professed their faith may be constituted life members without the privilege of voting.

Art. IV. This Society shall meet annually, in the month of September, October or November, for the election of officers and the transaction of other business, at such time and place as shall be designated by the Executive Committee.

Art. V. The annual meeting shall be constituted of the regular officers and members of the Society at the time of such meeting, and of delegates from churches, local missionary societies, and other co-operating bodies, each body being entitled to one representative.

Art. VI. The officers of the Association shall be a President, Vice-Presidents, Corresponding Secretaries, (who shall also keep the records of the Association,) Treasurer, Auditors, and an Executive Committee of not less than twelve members.

Art. VII. To the Executive Committee shall belong the collecting and disbursing of funds; the appointing, counseling, sustaining and dismissing missionaries and agents; the selection of missionary fields; and, in general, the transaction of all such business as usually appertains to the executive committees of missionary and other benevolent societies; the Committee to exercise no ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the missionaries; and its doings to be subject always to the revision of the annual meeting, which shall, by a reference mutually chosen, always entertain the complaints of any aggrieved agent or missionary; and the decision of such reference shall be final.

The Executive Committee shall have authority to fill all vacancies occurring among the officers between the regular annual meetings; to apply, if they see fit, to any State Legislature for acts of incorporation; to fix the compensation, where any is given, of all officers, agents, missionaries, or others in the employment of the Society; to make provision, if any, for disabled missionaries, and for the widows and children of such as are deceased; and to call, in all parts of the country, at their discretion, special and general conventions of the friends of missions, with a view to the diffusion of the missionary spirit, and the general and vigorous promotion of the missionary work.

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

Art. VIII. Missionary bodies, churches or individuals agreeing to the principles of this society, and wishing to appoint and sustain missionaries of their own, shall be entitled to do so through the agency of the Executive Committee, on terms mutually agreed upon.

Art. IX. No amendment shall be made to this Constitution without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present at a regular annual meeting; nor unless the proposed amendment has been submitted to a previous meeting, or to the Executive Committee in season to be published by them (as it shall be their duty to do, if so submitted) in the regular official notifications of the meeting.

FOOTNOTE: