call for enlargement is wider still; it is from the four quarters
of the globe. For the work is all one; and you will find, if you
think of it, that the solidarity of the race, the oneness of the
kingdom of Christ, is in the appeal that is made through this
Association. The considerations of an illimitable future join with
those of the present. The new heavens and the new earth await our
preparation for their advent. Christ, in His kingly glory, is
summoning us to the conflict and the conquest. Let us advance in
His name. With unlimited devotion let us give, let us pray, let us
work. For once hath God spoken, yea, twice have I heard it, to God
belongs the power, even as to Him shall be the glory forever.
* * * * *
SACRIFICIAL LIVING AND GIVING.
REV. AUGUSTUS F. BEARD, D.D., SYRACUSE, N. Y.
The kingdom of Heaven, in its ways, has many similitudes in the
kingdom of nature. The law of the universe is, the giving of the
lower for the sake of the higher. The worlds are built on the
principle of sacrifice. At the bottom of the scale, we have, for
example, lifeless matter. But this is put under contribution to
force, and simple matter is organized into systems. And this giving
comes under a law; we call it gravitation. Then this in turn comes
under contribution to what is called a law of chemical affinity,
and matter is diversified, and enters into many combinations
in advance of what was. The forces, of which light and heat,
electricity and magnetism, are different forms, also expend
themselves. Then there is a step up by the contribution of what
was, to this end, and we have the first organic process, vegetable
life and its forces. The soil under these influences gives
vegetable life, giving up a part of itself for a higher end. The
vegetable, in turn, gives itself for the animal, and the human soul
finds these all in sacrificial contribution to itself, every one
giving for that which is higher, to lead up to the highest. Nature
is packed through and through with illustrations of this. Thus
the worlds are built upon this law. By the law of sacrifice, the
lower rises into that which is higher. So Christ taught us it is,
and is to be, in the realm of the soul. He taught us by word, by
deed, by example, that sacrifice is not only the highest, the most
satisfying, the most exhaustive expression of love, but is God’s
way for man to reach up to God. It was the climax of this law that
found expression in the gift of Christ, and we but follow God’s
law in Christ’s way, when we are ready to sacrifice lower good for
higher good, to bring into contribution lesser things for greater
things. And life rises to its highest when it is sacrificial in its
self-abnegations; in its renunciations, when souls are uplifted
into heroic sufferings and self denials. In wives for husbands, in
husbands for wives, in parents for children, in patriotic soldiers,
in Christian philanthropists. Men who incarnate their love in
sacrifice rise by their giving. They reach to nobleness upon the
“stepping-stone of their dead selves.” They put off earthiness and
put on heavenliness. It is God’s law from lowest to highest. That
which thou sowest is not quickened except it _die_. To give is to
live.
So we come to the Christian’s highest doctrine. It is that of the
cross. We sing “In the cross of Christ we glory.” We accept it as
the chief doctrine of our religion. We see the grandest exhibition
of it when Christ gave himself for the sake of a greater good than
could be if he did not give himself; and we teach that it is the
personal reception of this which is _the_ mark of one who has a
right to wear the name of Christ. To this doctrine the churches
hold. Christians subscribe to it. We stoutly contend for it.
But now for our interpretations of this doctrine. When the
exigencies of the world and the demands of a spreading Gospel
call for willing hearts, to what degree do we find the principle
in cordial and worthy practice? How many are the reasons for self
indulgence! How ready to hide out of sight the great central
doctrine when appeals come for its practical application! How
arrangements are made in churches to cajole out of Christians
what they will not give on principle! Who does not know many a
church that squeezes out its charities,—if not a good part of
its miserable support,—by fairs and festivals, by some wretched
subterfuge in which one shall seem to get value received and make
no sacrifice, to replenish its exchequer by tricks which appeal
to no Christian principle. And how often churches come before the
world, which they should be dying to save, as objects themselves of
the world’s charities, dying to be saved. That which is ordained to
be a dispenser of Christ-like benevolence and to develop the spirit
of sacrifice, cannot rise into anything higher if it ignores the
_only law by which it can rise_. The call for enlargement is the
call for sacrifice. It is a call that religion shall not alone be a
theory to be preached, but a life to be manifested.
* * * * * The call for enlargement of Christian work from every
portion of the world, is a call to _all_. There appears to be
no great lack of Christian men and women to go anywhere, to do
anything for Christ. But how shall they go except they be sent? And
here comes with emphatic intensiveness the appeal of Providence
(and I hope with it may be heard the appeal of the Holy Spirit),
that those who are engaged in other departments of life shall not
forget _their_ service. Let me say it plainly, what is needed
now more than men, is _money_, the consecration of property, the
sacrificial life in men who accumulate property. I do not think
that there is a more universally unpopular theme to discourse about
than money. If we preach about the giving of men, the church weeps
and prays, and says “Amen.” But when we preach about the giving
of money, how many meet this at least with a mental shrug, and do
not love to have the Lord’s days made common and unclean with the
money question? That which they have been seeking for all the week
should not be dragged in too often on the day set apart for _rest_.
But if we pause a moment, we shall remember how full the Bible is
of directions about giving, and how much of the Lord’s teaching
had reference to a right use of money. The unprofitable servant
“dug in the earth and hid his Lord’s money.” Ruskin, I think,
somewhere says that we, in the spiritual application of this, say
that, of course, this doesn’t mean _money_. It means wit, it means
intellect, it means influence in high quarters, it means everything
in the world except itself. And a very pleasant come-off there is
for the most of us in this spiritual application. Of course, if we
had wit, we would use it for the benefit of our fellow creatures.
But we haven’t wit. If we had influence, we would use _that_. But
we are without political power. It is true we have a little money;
but the parable can’t possibly mean anything so vulgar as money.
And yet it does mean what it says, plain money, good, hard, honest
money. We are not to “hide the Lord’s money.” So also the parable
of the talents means money, and we are to accept the meaning on its
own terms, and not to dodge away under a metaphor.
If one man is richer than others, he has more “talents” to
account for; and to use another’s words, “what he has acquired
is the measure of what he owes.” Why is one man richer than
another; that he may higher arch his own gates, pave better his
own threshold, enrich more gorgeously his own chambers with all
manner of costliness? No doubt, as a steward he may rejoice in his
stewardship, but do we remember in just what catalogue inspiration
places covetousness? Has any Christian a right to live for self, to
cling to riches for self-aggrandizement, to consume riches upon his
own lusts or set at naught the infinite urgency _of the world’s_
wants? No, friends. There is a kind of justice in a certain
thought of communism. God’s law of life is a law of service. No
man has a right under Christ’s law of life to heap up riches in
order to lord it over men, only to serve them. Ye have heard, said
Christ, how, among the Gentiles, they that will be great exercise
authority; they use their strength to exact from others, but it
shall not be so among you. He that will be great among you, let him
serve others, and be ye ministers even as Christ came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister. And no one has a right to hoard
for self-aggrandizement, or to use wealth to exact from others,
and communism with all its wrongs has a truth here, but when those
who have, use to bless those who have not, then that is the way
of Christ. When causes like this before us call for enlargement,
there is money enough which should be in the Lord’s treasury. It is
there. It is the Lord’s. He gave the quickness of apprehension, the
clearness of judgment, the strength of will which secures it.
* * * * *
WORKING OUT THE EQUATION.
DISTRICT SECRETARY POWELL.
It is the dictate of economy that we push the Southern work of
this Association. It is cheaper to fight ignorance and crime with
Christian education, than to fight their certain outcome with
military and police force. It is vastly cheaper to settle the
bills for the services of the Christian teacher now, than to meet
the settlement of accumulated wrongs in the outbreak of a war or
rebellion by and by. And this is a kind of settlement that must
be met. There is in the universe a law of recompense; God in the
government of the world is always working out equations. He may
require centuries to bring about the result; if so, he takes them.
Men are not far-sighted enough to see the outcome. The wicked grow
bold and defiant and boastful because of punishment delayed, while
the righteous for the same reason are led to cry out, “How long, oh
Lord! how long shall wickedness be allowed to go unrebuked?” but
all the while the law of recompense is filling out the equation.
The eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth principle is rolling up
the answer. Only give it time, and right shall have triumphant,
though it may be terrible, vindication. In the case of individuals,
the working of this law is not so evident, because retribution
follows them beyond the grave, but in the case of nations, since
they have no other life than in this world, settlement must take
place here; and it never fails. The sins of the fathers are visited
upon the children even to the third and fourth generations, and
there is no escaping the visitations.
I might appeal to the history of nations, the record of whose
career has been completed, in illustration of this, but a pertinent
illustration can be found nearer home, even in our own country.
This nation cherished and protected by law the institution
of slavery. With an open Bible in the land, with Protestant
Christianity in the ascendancy, with the light of a free Gospel
shining upon all questions of morals, with the sentiment of
enlightened Christendom smiting heavily the iniquity of the sin;
nay, with a constitution for its government, a preamble which
declared that all men were created free and equal; right in the
face of all this, and despite all this, the giant iniquity and
monstrous contradiction was fostered and protected by the law of
the land. But the equation was working out. The day of reckoning at
length came, and, in the settlement, justice exacted full payment.
In his second inaugural address, President Lincoln expressed the
sentiment, that, if it were God’s will for the war to continue
“till the wealth piled up by two hundred and fifty years of
unrequited toil of the bondmen be sunk, and every drop of blood
drawn by the lash be repaid by another drawn by the sword, as it
was said three thousand years ago, so must it still be said, ‘The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’” This
sentiment was prophetic, and ere the war ended the prophecy had
been more than realized by literal fulfillment. Just see how it
was fulfilled. Henry Clay once said that taking the slaves as they
were—old and young, sick and disabled—the average value was about
five hundred dollars per slave. The money value, at this estimate,
of the four and a half million emancipated, would be two billion,
two hundred and fifty million dollars. This amount, at ten per
cent. interest for thirty years, or one generation, would yield,
as value created by slave labor, six billion seven hundred and
fifty million dollars, which amount, added to the market value of
the slaves, makes the enormous sum of nine billion dollars, as
representing the wealth “piled up by the unrequited toil of the
bondmen,” and held by the oppressors in utter defiance of justice
and right.
Nine billion dollars! Can it be that amount was sunk in the war?
The answer is yes, and at least six hundred and fifty million
dollars more! I take the figures from a responsible source, and
they are these: To put down the rebellion it cost the North four
billion seven hundred million dollars. To sustain the rebellion it
cost the South two billion seven hundred million dollars; add now
to this the market value of the slaves emancipated, two billion two
hundred and fifty million dollars, and we have, as the total, nine
billion six hundred and fifty million dollars, which this nation
spent in order to rid itself of the curse of slavery. That was the
equation in dollars. As to the equation in blood, justice was even
more severe in the exaction. Every drop of blood drawn by the lash,
it is no exaggeration to say, exacted for its canceling, not a drop
merely, but a stream. A million graves moistened by the blood of
those who fell on the field of battle, to say nothing of the blood
that ran from the bodies of the wounded millions who survived, gave
fearful emphasis to the divine equation. The wealth piled up by the
bondmen’s unrequited toil was sunk, and much more in addition; the
blood drawn by the lash was more than canceled by the blood drawn
by the sword, and still, even in the presence of these awful facts,
we are compelled to say, “The judgments of the Lord are true and
righteous altogether.”
It would have been vastly cheaper, we can now see, for this nation
to have paid every dollar of the money valuation of the slaves,
and set them free before the war; it would have been better still
had the iniquity been stamped out at the very formation of the
Government, and this because right demanded it. But unfortunately,
the standard of our national legislation has been expediency, not
right, and under this cover slavery unwisely admitted within the
defenses of our constitution, has proved to be the Trojan horse
whence has issued so large a part of our national woes. And now,
shall we heed the lesson this dearly bought experience teaches?
The negro problem is by no means yet solved. There are questions
pertaining to his social and political rights not yet answered.
Let this nation try to answer them on any other ground than a full
recognition of the negro’s rights as a man, and it will again come
into controversy with Jehovah, and again be called sooner or later
to pay the penalty of disobedience, dollar for dollar, blood for
blood, over and over and over again. It pays for the nation to
do right every time, and it does not pay for it to do anything
else. Having made these people free, justice and self-interest say
“educate them,” and it will prove as a matter of mere economy, far
cheaper to do this now than to meet the bills that by and by must
be paid in blood and money when God shall take the matter in hand
to fill out the equation.
* * * * *
THE FREEDMEN.
REV. JOS. E. ROY, D.D.,
FIELD SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA, GA.
* * * * *
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON EDUCATIONAL WORK.
* * * * We note with pleasure the growing interest in our schools,
and approval of them, by the best people of the South and the
public men of the North; the recent erection of a fine building
for Tillotson Institute, at Austin, Texas; the munificent gift of
$150,000 by Mrs. Valeria G. Stone, to be expended in putting up
additional buildings, greatly needed for institutions which have
outgrown their present accommodations; the recent acceptance by
Christian workers of high standing and rare fitness, of positions
in our Southern field; the successful development of industrial
methods in many of our best schools, notably at Hampton, Tougaloo,
and Memphis; the influence of our institutions on the colored
people, as seen in their interest in education, their willingness
to endure self-denial as teachers, their hopeful, dispassionate
and sensible utterances on their prospects and duties, and their
courageous self-support; and once again, and most of all, do we
note rejoicingly the prevailing religious sentiment that fills our
schools and the colored communities which they reach, with its
deep, quiet, but melodious undertone. Surely there is reason, in
all these considerations, for profound thankfulness to God.
We are impressed with the call in the Secretary’s Annual Report for
enlargement. With the added facilities now providentially given and
soon to be enjoyed, in the shape of new buildings at Austin, New
Orleans, Nashville, Tougaloo, and Atlanta, there is a necessity for
larger contributions for the education of the increased numbers
to be accommodated. Similar facilities are loudly called for by
the growth of schools at other points, and the Report suggests
the need of new schools in Kansas and Arkansas. We cannot forget
that the second grade of education will not be complete till these
institutions are properly endowed, and the students, coming out of
poverty-stricken homes, receive annually, either from scholarships
or personal gifts, the small sums necessary to supplement their own
earnings, and so to make their education possible.
Especially do we recognize the need at this juncture, of more
efficient theological training. Our church work cannot prosper
unless educated colored men are raised up to act as missionaries
and pastors. The theological training now given, is, from the want
of proper facilities,—with the exception, perhaps, of the work at
Howard University, where the Presbyterians share in the support of
the department,—of the most meagre and unsatisfactory character. We
greatly wish that some large-hearted Christian givers might find it
their privilege suitably to endow the theological schools already
existing, that they might become, in all respects, for the colored
students of the South, what Andover, Chicago and other similar
schools are for the white students of the North.
Respectfully submitted by your Committee.
ADDISON P. FOSTER, _Chairman_.
* * * * *
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION.
REV. ADDISON P. FOSTER, JERSEY CITY, N. J.
We have all noticed that of late public attention has been much
drawn to the need of universal education in this land as a means of
national safety. That book to which reference has been made several
times in this meeting, and which every thoughtful man must read if
he would inform himself in regard to the trend of popular thought
to-day, “A Fool’s Errand,” by Judge Tourgee, concludes with an
argument for the need of national education in these words:
“The remedy for darkness is light; for ignorance, knowledge; for
wrong, righteousness. * * * Make the spelling-book the sceptre of
national power. Let the nation educate the colored man and the
poor white man, because the nation held them in bondage and is
responsible for their education. Educate the voter because the
nation cannot afford that he should be ignorant. * * * Honest
ignorance in the masses is more to be dreaded than malevolent
intelligence in the few.”
To the same effect are the words of our honored President Hayes, in
his speech at Canton, Ohio, on the 1st of September last: “Ignorant
voters are powder and balls for the demagogues. In the present
condition of our country, universal education requires the aid of
the General Government.” * * * * * *
Education, then, is called for. But the danger that specially
attacks us is in the South. * * * There is more than twenty per
cent. of illiteracy all through the Southern portion of our land.
* * * But this illiteracy is largest, unquestionably, among those
who are black. It has been stated that in one of our Southern
States ninety per cent. of the colored people are illiterate; in
another, ninety-one per cent.; in another, ninety-three per cent.;
in another, ninety-five per cent.; and in Mississippi and Texas
ninety-six per cent. Eighty-eight per cent. of the entire colored
people in the South are illiterate—or were in 1870; undoubtedly it
has changed somewhat since.
We are to labor, then, in our desire to secure popular education,
especially among the blacks, and through the blacks we are to reach
the whites. * * * But, as we educate the blacks, we ask ourselves,
What sort of education shall it be? And I would say, it must be a
Christian education. It can be nothing else if it is to accomplish
its work. Public men, speaking on political subjects, refer only
to a secular education. It is well that they should enforce that
and insist upon it; but were we to content ourselves with secular
education alone, we should make the most grievous mistake of the
century. It is impossible to rely upon secular education for the
saving of the nation; we must make it a Christian education as well.
Look at the influences of a merely secular education as seen in
biography and history. What has the highest secular education done
for men? It has made them simply one-sided, imperfect specimens
of manhood, deformed and dwarfed in some of those most essential
characteristics that give a man influence here, and happiness
hereafter. A man like Hume could defend suicide. Highly-trained
intellects like those of Voltaire and Rousseau could advocate
licentiousness, both by word and by life. Men and women like J.
S. Mill, George H. Lewes, George Eliot, and that gifted but vile
woman, Sara Bernhardt, have traduced the idea of marriage, and
put a stigma upon the purest relationship that God has given to
earth. Education, mere intellectual training, has done nothing
for the morals of these people. There was a prisoner executed
a few years since in the State of New York, whose great grief
before his execution for the terrible crime of murder, was that he
could not live long enough to complete a very learned work which
he was preparing on some science. And even the honored State of
Massachusetts has on its criminal record the name of a professor in
one of its highest institutions of learning who committed murder in
a moment of passion.
Look at history, if you will, and is not the record the same? Take
such nations as Greece, for example,—that wonderful land that
reached the highest perfection in culture, in history, in song and
in eloquence. Yet that land was sunk in the depths of impurity,
and some of the crimes that were prevalent in those days I would
not dare to mention in your presence. Take Rome,—that wonderful
city, that ennobled the idea of law, that produced such marvelous
intellects in the Augustan age. Yet in the very triumph of its
intellect, as the capstone of intellectual pride went on to that
magnificent temple of literature, the foundations of national
virtue were rotten to the core and began to tremble, and presently
the whole structure fell in ruins.
I tell you, my friends, there is no safety in mere secular
education; it must be Christian as well. We need to put education
into the control of principle; otherwise our education may simply
give us a certain evil power over other men, and eventually bring
ruin upon us. We need to put principle in control in order that
whatever we may know shall be turned in the direction of purity, of
uprightness and of helpfulness to our fellow-men. And so here, if
we are to have an education for the blacks, or an education for the
land, we must not content ourselves with what has been called for
by these public men.