have ever seen so early in the term. With the sympathy and prayers
of friends, and honest persistent effort on our part, we hope to be
signally blessed in the work of the year.
* * * * *
NEW BUILDING AT ATHENS, ALA.
[Illustration: TRINITY SCHOOL BUILDING, ATHENS, ALA.]
Trinity school building at Athens, Ala., a cut of which is given
herewith, has accommodations for 200 day scholars, and the family
of missionaries who have charge of A. M. A. work at Athens. Its
history is somewhat unique and altogether encouraging. The old
building, where Miss Wells, the principal, had managed the school
since 1866, was insufficient and scarcely tenable. The debt of
the Association and the claims of larger institutions were such
that for a time it seemed almost inevitable that the school must
be given up. Miss Wells, however, and the brave people whom she
had been serving, determined to rally their forces and save the
enterprise at all reasonable hazards.
Preparations were made for furnishing bricks; volunteers offered
themselves for all sorts of needful work; some labored in clay
pits, some in kiln, some went to the woods for the fuel required to
burn the brick, while the women and girls contributed their dimes,
nickels and half-dollars to raise a fund to have the wood hauled.
In this way the colored people made two hundred thousand bricks,
“mixing the clay by the tramp of their one small steer.” Meanwhile,
Miss Wells spared no effort in interesting friends at the north to
come to her relief. As a result the building was completed last
spring at a cost of only $8,000 to the Association, in addition
to what was furnished by the colored people. From the time the
corner-stone was laid till the opening of the building, a good
number of prominent towns’ people manifested their interest in and
approval of the work.
* * * * *
THE GEORGIA ASSOCIATION.
We drop down from Savannah, thirty-one miles on the Florida
railroad, to McIntosh, in Liberty County. Then it is four miles
east over the old Yankee high-way to Midway and its “Lost Church
Found,” and the brethren are on hand with their buggies to take us
out. Pastor Snelson’s house and the teacher’s home are filled up,
and the two rooms of the Academy furnish space for beds and cots
for the lodging of eight persons.
Quite a village it is that has grown up there; the large church,
the Dorchester Academy, and half a dozen houses and two or three
small stores. Heretofore, the two teachers, Misses Kinney and
Gibson, have been quartered in a cabin. Now, a new house is under
process of construction for them.
All but one of the fifteen churches are represented. Pastor
Kent, of Atlanta, preaches the opening sermon upon the Growth of
Christian Character, a discourse which proved its fitness to the
occasion by the fact that its truths were constantly bubbling up
through the course of the meeting. The body changed its name from
that of “Conference” to that of “Association,” elected Revs. A. J.
Headen and J. E. Roy, with Revs. E. Kent and J. H. H. Sengstacke as
alternates to the next National Council, made deliverance against
putting churches on the color line, and had the full measure of
essays, discussions, sermons, etc. During the Lansing temperance
meeting, Rev. George V. Clark, of Athens, thrilled us all as he
told of his being a saloon tumbler boy, of his going, full of
liquor, to the Storrs School temperance meeting, and of his signing
the temperance pledge at the solicitation of Miss Rose M. Kinney,
who was at that time a teacher there, and who was then before
him. Such a result was a reward of her fifteen years of service.
The talks upon the converting power of the Sunday-school were
stimulating indeed. The Association received the new Church at
Athens, also Revs. George V. Clark and N. B. James.
On the Sabbath the fine large church, 50×60, which had been used
several years as simply inclosed, and which had been brought to
completion, was re-dedicated. The sermon by Superintendent Roy was
upon the Glory of the Sanctuary as the place of Spiritual Nativity:
“This and that man was born there.” The prayer of dedication
was offered by Rev. E. T. Hooker, of Charleston, S.C. In the
afternoon a grand missionary meeting was held in behalf of the
American Board, the A. H. M. S., the Congregational Union, and the
A. M. A., with addresses made by Revs. E. Kent, S. E. Lathrop, E.
T. Hooker, and J. E. Roy, all of them using Mr. Kent’s two big
maps, one of the world, and one of our country. Miss Kinney read
a paper written by Miss Hardy upon that whole missionary scheme.
The ladies appointed the wives of Revs. E. Kent, S. E. Lathrop and
Dana Sherrill as a Provisional Committee to prepare the way for
organizing a State Woman’s Missionary Society at the next meeting
of the Association, to be held at Athens. Meantime the ladies
propose to organize in each of several of the churches an auxiliary
society, and these will unite in the State Society. Between the two
services of Lord’s Day I went out and counted the vehicles and the
animals that had brought the great assembly to church; I counted 68
vehicles, of which 38 were buggies, 95 horses and 30 ox teams, 40
oxen in all, as some of the carts were drawn by a single ox. There
were two other important gatherings in that region on that day, or,
as some of the brethren said, you could not have seen the ground,
for the animals and the carryalls that would have been there. As
it was, we had, by fair estimate, six hundred people present, and
their’s was truly, as they call it, “A Big Meeting.”
J. E. R.
* * * * *
THE CENTRAL SOUTH ASSOCIATION.
That is now the name, changed from that of Central South
Conference, at the meeting held in Rev. William H. Ash’s church at
Florence, Ala., Nov. 2 to 5. This change is in order to uniformity
of title in the state ecclesiastical bodies. Georgia, Alabama and
North Carolina yet retain the name “Conference.” The Central South,
which was the original Congregational body at the South, having
sent off two daughters, the Alabama and the Georgia, still holds
good her title to the name, as she yet represents the central
States of Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and a part of Alabama.
The older members said that this last was the best meeting ever
held by the Association. Papers were read by B. F. Foster on
pastoral work; by William A. Sinclair on the need of cultivating
the missionary spirit; by B. A. Imes on Congregationalism; by Mr.
Singleton on school work; and the reading was followed in each case
by full and animated discussion. President Pope led in a discussion
upon the subject of revivals, and also reported the industrial
departments of Tougaloo University. Superintendent Roy reported the
recent annual meeting of the A. M. A., at Cleveland. One evening
was given to a rousing temperance meeting. The preachings were
frequent. Revivals were reported at Fisk and Tougaloo Universities,
at Memphis and Chattanooga. Two churches were received, one at
Meridian, Miss., Rev. J. L. Grice, pastor, and the Welsh church at
Soddy, East Tennessee, Rev. W. H. Thomas, where the Welsh are the
colliers. Rev. H. S. Bennett, B. A. Imes and William A. Sinclair
were elected to the next National Council. Pastor W. H. Ash, who
had made ample provision for the entertainment of the Conference,
was laid aside through all of the sessions by a severe illness; but
the results of his work were manifest to all. A neat gothic church,
a pleasant parsonage, and the whole within a tasteful white fence,
were the other signs of the work, while the growing membership and
Sunday-school, and the day-school of seventy, taught by Mr. Ash
and his estimable wife, were the symbol of the intellectual and
moral process going on. At the dedication, two years ago, more than
fifty of the prominent white citizens were present, among them
Ex-Gov. Patton, three or four pastors and as many lawyers. On the
Sabbath the pulpits of the colored churches were supplied, and
Messrs. Bennett and Roy preached at the Presbyterian church, where
Gov. Patton is the S. S. Superintendent, an office which he has
magnified for many years. The week before, the Memphis Synod had
met in this church, when the appeal of Mr. Long from the Memphis
Presbytery came up. By a technicality the appeal did not stand,
and Mr. Long was permitted to withdraw from the denomination, to
continue his service as pastor of the First Congregational Church
of Memphis. The next meeting of the Association is to be with Rev.
Joseph E. Smith, at Chattanooga.
J. E. R.
[Illustration: WYTHEVILLE, VA.]
Wytheville, Va., is a representative mountain town, situated amidst
a rich farming and mining region. Already Northern capital and
enterprise have found their way to like portions of the South,
where the climate is salubrious, the winters mild, and the rewards
of labor immediate and sufficient for the wants of an industrious
population. Very much, however, remains to be done for the vast
areas of the mountain districts of the South. The school privileges
of blacks and whites are as yet quite limited. The people, however,
have been distinguished for their loyalty to the Government, and in
some portions of the mountain country for their readiness to accept
missionary endeavors, regardless of the color line. Prof. C. C.
Painter, of Fisk University, and Rev. I. P. Dickerson, one of the
original Jubilee Singers, now a missionary in the south of France,
were born at Wytheville.
* * * * *
The Rev. W. H. Ash, pastor of our church, and teacher of our school
at Florence, Alabama, died on the 13th of November. A protegé
of Hon. A. C. Barstow, and a graduate of the Boston University,
he began work for us at Mobile, Ala. He was then transferred
to Florence, which was in need of such a man as he. Mr. Ash was
married to Miss Sarah Hale, of Montgomery, an accomplished lady,
who was his helpmeet, not only as a wife, but as a teacher in the
school, which they had developed to the great delight of their
people, and to the approbation of all the citizens. Mr. Ash, on
behalf of the church and of the A. M. A., had built a tasteful
church edifice which was also used for the school, and a parsonage.
He had commanded the high appreciation of all the best people in
the community. During his sickness, the Central South Association
had its annual session in his church. His wife took his remains to
Montgomery for burial. As writes the stricken companion: “It was
only going home to receive the reward of the faithful servant.”
* * * * *
THE INDIANS.
* * * * *
STATEMENTS RESPECTING INDIANS AND THEIR NECESSITIES.
BY GEN. S. C. ARMSTRONG.
Besides the 59,000 Indians in the Indian Territory, there are about
200,000, of whom 55,000 are wholly supported by the government;
45,000 are partially maintained, and 100,000 receive little or no
aid. They occupy 250,000 square miles of land, nine-tenths of it
grazing land, the rest suitable for agriculture. The constantly
increasing value of this domain from its mineral wealth and the
building of railroads presses hard upon its thriftless occupants,
who stand right in the line of progress, and must either change
or perish. Meanwhile their source of subsistence, game, is
disappearing, and, more and more, they will depend either on public
charity or on stealing their food unless taught to take care of
themselves.
The Indian question is upon us as never before. Those in the Indian
Territory and the few thousands in Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York,
North Carolina and other States, say 75,000 in all, are remnants
of tribes who formerly lived east of the Mississippi River, are
inclined to agriculture and domestic life, and have been considered
superior to the nomadic tribes of the West. They long since ceased
to trouble us, and are, at some places making commendable progress
in education, stock raising and crops, besides generally holding
their own in numbers. Still, to a large extent, they seem fixed in
a half civilized, half pagan state, lacking their earlier manliness
for the want of hardship and discipline in their lives, keeping
up their heathen rites and dances, living in poverty, without
law, demoralized more or less by annuities and destitute of the
conditions that create character and self reliance.
They need practical education. A few are already at Hampton and
Carlisle; five hundred should have such an opportunity.
More than this, their tribal relations should be broken up,
homesteads inalienable for at least twenty-five years should be
assigned, and they should be left as citizens of the several states
in which they are, to vote and be voted on.
Reservations are merely places for herding Indians; temporary,
necessary experiments, that, after a given time, may become growing
evils. Herding negroes in like manner would have been a curse to
both white and black races. There has been more sentiment than
sense in treating the Indian as a separate people. It was kindly
meant but a cruel plan in its results. This part of the red race
has suffered most from the whites; their comfortable eastern homes
have been broken up, their thrifty farms and fruitful orchards
abandoned for a western wilderness where thousands have died from
exposure. Their record has been the saddest part of the “Century of
Dishonor.”
THE WILD TRIBES.
The destruction of the buffalo has been more trying to the Indian
than sudden emancipation was to the Negro. The latter changed
the relations rather than the realities of life; the former the
realities rather than their relations. The one remained on its
old foundation of land and of labor—any shifting was voluntary.
Game, the support of the other, has gradually failed and they have
been roughly pushed from place to place till pauperism seems the
only fixed fact of their life. The human machine after running
for centuries does not readily reverse itself; the strain on the
Indian is tremendous. Was greater ever put upon men?—force to
control them, charity to weaken them. Justice demanded help, but
wisdom demanded self-help as its condition. Exigency is man’s best
teacher. “Necessity is the mother of invention;” it makes men
creative. The facts of human nature, and of experience, have been
ignored in our treaties with the Indians, probably because we never
really conquered them, but purchased peace on the best terms we
could make.
Carrying the Indian from helplessness to self support is the most
difficult administrative problem of our country. The Negro has
taken care of himself. “The forty acres and a mule” method would
have ruined the race. He was thrown on himself and given a vote;
dangerous as it once seemed, who would now have it otherwise? He
struggled, suffered and succeeded.
The Indian is fed “till he shall become self-supporting,” which
gives him a motive for not becoming so. He alone of all men on the
earth, finds in industry not reward but a penalty. The Shoshone
farmers, when a reduction of rations was suggested, threatened to
stop cultivating their fields. A few may go to work, but the whole
line will not move forward while rations and other gratuities are
issued, as now, to lines of ragged, wretched-looking mendicants who
are helped for the asking.
Treaties must be kept, but the treaties contemplate ultimate
self-support and the necessity of education to that end. It is, I
believe, quite within their spirit to withhold supplies from the
lazy and intractable.
At Yankton, Devil’s Lake, Cheyenne River and at other points,
efficient agents kept the schools full, and the Indians busy by
the argument to the stomach, which is their weak point. It is, I
believe, the starting point of Indian civilization. The plan is as
excellent as it is unusual.
On the Fort Hall reservation, in Idaho, I recently saw fields
of wheat, oats and potatoes; two-thirds of the tribe had become
farmers, besides owning herds of cattle, because a former agent
had issued the coffee and sugar rations, which the red man dearly
loves, only as each one successively staked out, plowed and planted
his allotted little farm. The nation’s gratuities may do the Indian
as much good as they are doing him harm, if wisely administered,
especially the luxuries, which afford the best leverage. He is
managed now by a class of men whose title, in spite of shining
exceptions among them, is a byword and a reproach. Decayed
clergymen, hungry politicians, and the broken of every profession,
are not the ones to make citizens of the red man. Fifteen hundred
or two thousand dollars a year will not secure first-class men, who
must travel far with their families, at their own expense, and be
liable at any day to discharge and disgrace. By refusing adequate
salaries, Congress (and Congress means the people) decides that the
Indian’s greatest need shall be unsupplied, for lack of a trifling
comparative cost. Millions for fuel and dry goods, but not one
or two hundred thousand dollars more that men of repute and of
capacity may go to the Agencies. Good beef and flour and shoes,
but second-rate men, whose average official life is less than two
years, is the present provision for them.
The tender mercies of the Government to the Indian are cruel;
the much-talked-of treatment of the slave owner was tender by
comparison. The self-interest of the Southern barons was humanity
itself, in contrast with the course of men sent in the name of a
high duty, many of whom have been tempted, if not forced, into
corruption. I would throw no slur on the better class among them,
of whom the country is not worthy.
The Indian is a child and needs a Father; physically mature, he
is mentally an infant. He stands proud but helpless on the track
of a locomotive. He will not heed the advice of whites inferior
in natural force to himself, and such, as a rule, he has to deal
with. No wonder the young prefer their own leaders. In the school
of civilization only object lessons are good for anything. What
lessons we have given the Indians!
Recent agitation has chiefly concerned the education, lands and
rights of the race, and progress has been made in the way of
opportunities offered, but the Indian has not moved. He must be
touched; the high and low must come together. Virtue will go out of
the one into the other as it entered into her who touched the hem
of a sacred garment. There is no salvation in acts of Congress; it
is from the springs of action within. To awake these in the bosom
of the Indian and consummate it in Christian character is the work
of individual men by their contact and by their personal influence.
The Indian question is, first, one of organization, second, one
of executive duty; of conditions and of action. In the former, of
late years, there has been much progress. Respecting the latter
there has been little. Crops and herds have somewhat increased and
education has advanced, especially in the East; but the executive
work drags, because there is nobody to do it. Men are the need of
the hour, and money to provide for their wants.
At the northern frontier outposts, this summer, for the first time,
the soldiers remained in their barracks. At the forts in Montana
and Dakota which I visited, there was general respect for Indian
prowess, and belief in his capacity and in his wrongs. “Were I an
Indian I would fight” seemed the feeling of all.
So far as army officers are gentlemen of character, force and
experience, and of humane ideas (for there are opposing views),
I believe they are better fitted than any others to settle the
Indian question. Their destructive work is nearly over: it has
fitted them for the constructive work to be done. As officers they
have peculiar advantages over civilians of the same capacity and
worth, far less temptation and far stronger standing ground for the
control of Indians. One-half of the sixty agencies might well be
put at once under selected officers; not that it is strict military
duty, but it is not an “old woman’s work,” as one of high rank said
of Capt. Pratt’s effort. The latter is doing, indirectly, more than
any two regiments for the pacification of the Indians—the army’s
special business.
Railroads are doing the work of pioneers and of soldiers, peace is
not far off. There will soon be need of the army only as a national
police, and half of the 15,000 troops at the West may be dispensed
with. What better service can a few of its accomplished officers
undertake than building up a civilization at its weakest point?
The Indian can be rescued from a sad fate only by personal
devotion; that has, under God, created the great results of
missionary work throughout the world in recent years. The labors of
the Riggses, Williamsons and of Bishop Whipple and others during
the past half century, in the western wilderness, has been a
seed-sowing of which the results are now appearing. The men they
have touched and taught are those who are now breaking from the
old superstitions and asking for light, while official dealings
have scarcely a moral result to show for armies of agents and vast
annuities. Only the light of Christian truth and example steadily
shining can lift men up. Mission work among the Cherokees and
others, and for the Sioux at Sisseton and Fort Sully and Santee
agencies in Dakota, where wild Indians are settled on so peaceful
prosperous homes that “a stranger traveling through the country
would not believe that he was on an Indian Reservation,” attest
the complete success of the Congregational, Episcopalian, and
Presbyterian societies. Peoria Bottom, which I visited in 1881,
is a charming village of twenty Christian families, on thrifty
homes, the result of the efforts of the Rev. Thos. L. Riggs. “In
proportion to the aid and means employed no missions since the
apostolic age have been more successful than those to the American
Aborigines,” declares one of these bodies. There have been,
however, weak and disappointing missions.
Such work cannot be inspired from Washington, though it may supply
many of the conditions of it. A purified civil service would do
more for the Indian than for any class in the country. Good agents
would create a _morale_, like a favoring tide, for the Christian
teacher.
The “gist” of the Indian question I believe to be honesty and
capacity in dealing with them. Given these and the rest will work
itself out.
* * * * *
THE CHINESE.
REV. W. C. POND, SUPERINTENDENT.
* * * * *
HUMBLINGS.
BY REV. W. C. POND.
I had finished the preparation of the last annual report of our
Mission. I had read it at the annual meeting. It was ready for the
printer, and had even been placed in his hands. It was a report
instinct throughout with good cheer. It could not be otherwise. It
recorded the work of a prosperous year. No previous year of our
whole history had approached this one, as to the numbers gathered
into our schools and brought within reach of the invitations of the
Gospel. Perhaps I was in danger of being “exalted above measure.”
And, so, humblings were prepared for me.
It may be the dictate of expediency, but certainly it is not that
of frankness and honesty, to speak to our benefactors only smooth
things. There _are_ shades as well as lights in missionary work.
The tide is not always rising. The sun is not always at noon. And
if possible, those who sustain the work ought to be made able to
see the shadows and to understand the disappointments; ought to be
admitted to acquaintanceship with even the mistakes which we, the
workers, make. Daylight throughout our operations is essential.
Without this, there are bred “bureau distempers,” petty falsities,
self-seekings and the whole brood of faults into which even renewed
natures get sometimes betrayed. One of the chief beauties and
glories of the statements presented this year, both at Portland
and at Cleveland, was their manifest frankness—the pains evidently
taken to set before the people _all_ the facts so far as the
opportunity allowed.