REV. ALFRED CONNET, M’LEANSVILLE.
On the 23d of January the church licensed John M. Brooks to preach
Gospel, the license to extend till the time of the meeting of the
State Conference at this place next May. It is expected that the
Conference will be asked to examine him and renew his license. He
is industrious, economical, has good talent, is a good student,
one of our most advanced pupils, a zealous Christian, a member of
this church, and anxious to gain a thorough education, that he may
preach Christ to his fellow-men.
He has no resources but his own labor. He earned nearly but not
quite enough during vacation to carry him through this school year.
He asked my advice whether he should stay at school or go and teach
a school that is offered him. I advised him to stay while his money
lasted, believing that when that is gone the Lord will send more.
Ten dollars will meet his wants.
This has been an unusually severe winter. The colored people have
been poorly prepared for it, both in regard to comfortable houses
and clothing.
Our January communion was postponed, on account of the severe
weather, till the first Sunday in February. We are expecting some
additions to the church.
Our pupils have never made better progress. The deep snow which lay
about four weeks kept some, chiefly primary scholars, away. Those
who did come have done good work. We have among our pupils nine
teachers, several others preparing to teach, and two preparing for
the ministry.
A young lady, three miles distant, is sick with consumption. Mrs.
Connet and I called upon her Saturday. She spent a year at Hampton,
as student, and some years laboring at Waterbury, Ct., the last
sixteen months as chief cook at the St. John’s School. Her health
failed and she came home. She said she did not want to be buried
so far away from her people. She and her sister were working and
saving their wages to buy a farm for their parents, near the church
and school. Her greatest trial now is that she will have to give up
this cherished object of her life. We read and prayed with her, and
commended her to him who healeth all our diseases.
It is sad to see the sick and dying in such uncomfortable hovels.
This young lady is an invalid in a log house. In many places the
daubing is out. The floor is of rough plank, with cracks between.
The joists are partly covered with loose plank, while large spaces
are not covered at all. There is no window, and the door is left
open most of the time for light. The room is about eighteen by
twenty feet. At one end is a fire-place, which answers the double
purpose of cooking the simple fare and heating the small apartment.
The bed of the sick is at the other end.
The above, with slight variation, is a description of the houses in
which all the colored people live.
* * * * *
GEORGIA.
Thanksgiving Letter—Sequel to Begging Letter.
MRS. T. N. CHASE, ATLANTA.
I confess that it is with some regret I must inform you the 26
rooms are all furnished, for this very morning the post brought
me these words from dear old Massachusetts: “My Willing Workers,
a society of nearly 70 young people, earnestly desire to send
$25 to furnish a room in response to your letter in the October
AMERICAN MISSIONARY, but fear it is too late. * * With kindest
wishes for abundant answers to all your begging letters, I am
yours, sincerely,
Mrs. W.”
During the past three months so many such cheering, cordial
messages have come in response to that October call, that I’m sure
they have a mission to other hearts as well as mine.
Before ever the October MISSIONARY reached my eyes, came this
message from a tried veteran in the field who frequents the New
York office: “I think myself fortunate in seeing the advance sheets
of the MISSIONARY, and in getting the first taste of your appeal; I
think it my privilege to be the first to respond. Save me a light
and cheery room, to be named my daughter.”
A few days later came the following from one who has made thousands
of hearts glad during the past two years.
“I have just finished reading your letter in the October
MISSIONARY, and as I closed, proposed to my wife that we each
respond with $25. She, good, dear wife that she is, at once
assented, and enclosed I send you my check for $50.”
Next came an inquiry from one who had “just read” the appeal. He
had furnished a room ten years before in memory of a brother, and
now begged the privilege of naming another for a sainted sister.
His consideration for others that made him fear the furnishing of
_two_ rooms was too great a privilege to be granted to _one_, made
us question whether the millennium had not really begun.
Later comes a check, and “The money is the gift of the
Sunday-school, and they desire to have the room named for our old
pastor,——-, who was one of the early abolitionists, and lived to
see the slave made free. We feel it would give him pleasure could
he know that we remembered him in this way.”
Again from the Ladies’ Department of a Classical School “way down
in Maine.” “We number fifteen girls in our home, and are—some of
us, at least—trying to work for the same Master as you in your
Southern home. We bring our money regularly to our meetings, and
soon expect to send you the money to fit up a room for some girl
who shall in the future do good work.”
Still later, “Another of my dear Sunday-school scholars, a young
lady of twenty, for whom I’ve labored, prayed and trembled for many
long months, has been ‘born again.’ She is radiant with the new
love in her soul, and when I think how long she was indifferent
to all His entreaties, and know what an unsatisfactory life she
was leading. I cannot thank and praise Him enough who has so
transformed her. And so with the ‘song of thanksgiving’ on my lips
I offer to Him through you this memorial of love and gratitude.
Appropriate it, if you please, to the furnishing of a room in the
new wing. Name it for me, if you choose, but know assuredly it will
henceforth be to me a ‘Peniel.’”
But I must not weary you with extracts. The unwritten history of
other gifts will doubtless touch our hearts even more deeply when
revealed in the light of the Bright Hereafter.
Over 80 girls have already filled the new rooms. Next year it is
hoped still another addition will be made. If so, writing another
begging letter will be no burden while the memory of such prompt
and delightful responses remains.
* * * * *
ALABAMA.
Emerson Institute.
MISS EMMA R. CAUGHEY, MOBILE.
Emerson Institute, formerly occupying Blue College, which was
burned in 1876, is now in the third year of its progress and
growth, the present school building being dedicated in May, 1878.
During the years 1876-1878 the work never ceased; the workers
having put their hands to the plow did not look back nor abandon
the labor to which they had consecrated themselves. Under many
difficulties and discouragements the school did not wholly lose
its organization. For a time after the fire a small church opened
its doors for its accommodation. It was afterward removed to a
little corner grocery, which was secured and made as inviting as
possible. The third removal was to rooms in the present “Mission
Home.” Now we rejoice in a comfortable and convenient brick
building, in a very pleasant part of the city, in the midst of a
grove of pine and live-oak trees. This present year our work has
been assuming new proportions, which, although a cause for great
encouragement, involved us in new difficulties. Early in the year,
for lack of room, we were obliged to refuse forty or fifty pupils
admission to the intermediate and primary grades. In the course
of a few weeks the A. M. A. sent us another teacher, and a new
department was at once formed. But where should it find a home?
Our walls would not expand. Again the basement room of a church
near by furnished a haven, and the primary department, numbering
between seventy and eighty, has been receiving instruction there.
In the meantime, arrangements have been made for the removal of
our own Congregational church from its old site to a place by the
side of our school building, where it will be fitted up to answer
the double purpose of chapel and schoolroom; and the primary
department will find more commodious and convenient quarters, and
hope, in the course of a few weeks. Up to this time we have had
enrolled 300 pupils, under the instruction of six teachers, two of
whom are teachers in the Normal room, so that the pupils must all
be seated in four different rooms.
Many friends from the North have been generous to us this year, and
we wish to acknowledge their kind donations and express our hearty
appreciation of their gifts through the columns of the MISSIONARY.
The cow purchased with money received by Miss Boynton from various
friends at the North, has been a great luxury and comfort to us at
the Home.
One five-dollar bill given to Miss Boynton, designed especially for
table use, provided us with various essential articles: jelly cups
being exchanged for drinking glasses, a needed coffee-pot, tea-pot,
cups, saucers, etc. A set of silver teaspoons helped to supply
a deficiency. Sheets, pillowslips and towels replaced worn out
articles of prime necessity. Thus, while our personal wants have
been so thoughtfully provided for, other friends have generously
remembered the poor and needy Freedmen among whom we labor, very
many of whom are suffering for the necessities of life. Within a
week two well-filled boxes of good second-hand clothing came to
Rev. O. D. Crawford, forwarded to him by friends in Dubuque and
Waterloo, Iowa, the distribution of which has called forth tears
of gratitude, and invoked blessings on the heads of the donors
from many a poverty-stricken soul. I would that space permitted
me to depict some of the distressing needs of the poor right at
our own door, that the generous heart of the North might be opened
to relieve. I shall hope to avail myself of a future opportunity
to give a more minute account of our work, its growing needs and
opportunities.
* * * * *
MISSISSIPPI.
A Changed Home.
Miss Koons, of Tougaloo, Miss., relates the following interesting
narrative:
Two of our young men, brothers, were converted last fall term.
Their step-father was a hard drinker; their mother not a Christian.
When they returned from their Christmas vacation, one of them,
greatly troubled, told me what an unpleasant vacation they had had,
so much so, that he felt as if he could not stay, but must come
back to us. The step-father was drunk continually, and kept about
him other drunken associates, abused the mother, and by his conduct
so grieved the boys that they felt they could not endure it.
They went home in June and took charge of the farm. They held a
little prayer-meeting every Wednesday evening and Sunday morning
with the mother and step-father. They also went together to
the house of a near neighbor—a terribly wicked man—and held a
prayer-meeting with the family every Sunday afternoon. The story
of the Prodigal Son was the means of the conversion of one of the
brothers, and some weeks after his conversion he came in to ask
where it might be found in the Bible, saying, “I have been hunting
for it for two weeks, and can’t find it.” He says now, “I often
read the Bible to my mother, and explained to her that story of
the Prodigal Son, to the best of my knowledge.” During the summer
the mother was converted, afterward the step-father, and then the
neighbor for whom and with whom the boys had been praying. His face
was of joy as he told of the conversion of his mother, who “could
not bear the thought of her boys going one way and she another,”
and he exclaimed, “Oh, Miss Koons, our home is a different place
now!”
Both the boys were at work in the Sabbath-school—one at home and
the other some miles from home, and neither one missed a Sabbath
from June to the time of their return to us in November.
I hardly need tell you that they are not among the silent members
of our weekly prayer-meetings.
* * * * *
TENNESSEE.
Cabin, “Frame House,” and “Little Brick.”
MISS ALICE E. CARTER, NASHVILLE.
My method of work probably does not bear the merit of originality,
yet the work itself holds for me all the charm and freshness of
novelty. Day by day draws me closer to the hearts of the people;
day by day draws us together closer to that universal Heart, nearer
to the Christ whom we try to serve.
To make a beginning of visiting seemed at first a puzzling and
almost perilous matter. To attempt the mazes of the city—alleys
where one cabin differed from another cabin only in its greater or
less dilapidation without, and squalor within; to hazard a walk
across the common and bottoms through the almost impassable mud,
were equally difficult beginnings, and yet it is in these city
alleys and in the bottoms and commons outside the city limits that
the work is waiting—a harvest too great for the few laborers.
There were many ways, I soon learned, to make entrance to the homes
of the people. The halloo at the gate would immediately bring the
loud “come in,” and a simple excuse, as a wish to warm or rest, or
to inquire where such a cabin might be, would gain for me a ready
welcome. Then, with a few minutes’ chatting and close observation,
it would be an easy matter to detect the special need there.
At first I chose for my visits only the cabins, or, in the parlance
of the people, the _shanties_, but, as my work has widened, I have
often learned of need and suffering in many a “frame house,” or
“little brick.” Indeed, it seems as if the difference between those
in the cabin and those in the frame house and the little brick lies
here: the former have never _tried_ to get above their wretched
poverty; the latter _have tried_, and, with a measure of success,
still remain poor. Those in the cabins need everything—food and
clothing primarily, no doubt; but of paramount importance are their
other needs, viz., to be elevated from their sloth and indolence
and licentiousness by the forces of education and religion. Those
in the frame house and little brick need encouragement in the path
already chosen.
I was asked to visit one day in a neat brick cottage which I
should have passed many times with no suspicion of need within. On
entering, the first thing that attracted my attention was that the
walls and ceiling were entirely unfinished; the walls were the bare
bricks, and overhead were the flooring beams, and, where the walls
and ceiling met, were wide open spaces for the wind to sift up from
under the eaves. The inmates were a colored woman, unfitted for
work by age and rheumatism, and her daughter; the daughter was her
widowed mother’s only dependence, yet the poor girl was lying sick
with pneumonia, and had been two weeks without medical treatment.
They had no money, but pride kept them reticent of their affairs.
To provide medicines, and later, little delicacies; to visit the
sick girl every day and sometimes twice a day was my care for three
weeks. She is now well again, and they are independent.
I have made, up to December 31, one hundred and twenty-five calls,
and have succeeded in relieving some suffering with gifts of fuel
and food, although the little accomplished in that direction is as
one drop in the sea.
From barrels of clothing received from the North I have sold and
given a great many garments; have oftener sold, because it seems
always wiser, although the prices may be ridiculously small. This
money helps me to purchase medicine for the many sick persons.
Let me add here, that with homeopathic remedies I have had most
flattering success, always preparing the medicines myself, and
carefully renewing them until the patients, without exception so
far, are cured.
In addition to my visits, I have tried to reach the women by means
of cabin prayer-meetings, and to help the girls and young women
by the medium of sewing-schools. I have two schools in successful
operation in different parts of the city. One numbers twenty
pupils, the other nearly forty. We begin with prayer and short
Scripture reading, and then with great eagerness the girls set
about their sewing, or lesson in cutting, as the case may be. When
a garment is finished, each girl purchases her own work for a dime
or fifteen cents.
While they sew I read to them, if occasion permits, and sometimes
they sing. They have begged to meet twice a week—a fact which
proves their enthusiasm. My kind friends in Boston and Providence
have done much toward supplying me with print, gingham and cotton
cloth for my sewing-schools.
In Sunday-school work I have succeeded in drawing some strangers
into my own class at Howard Chapel, and in forming some other
classes for volunteer teachers from Jubilee Hall.
* * * * *
TEXAS.
“The African Congregational Church” of Paris.
The origin of this church, back in the dark days of terror, in
1868, was so unique, so spontaneous, so much after the spirit and
form of the New Testament Churches, that we think it worth while to
make some record of the same. At that time the colored people were
indeed “scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd.” Separated
from the old church edifices of the white people, they had not yet
gathered themselves into their own churches. A Mr. Smith, from
Illinois, who had gone through the war as a soldier, and who had
settled in mercantile business in Jefferson, Texas, and whose life
was soon after sacrificed in the turbulence of those times, came up
through Paris lecturing to the colored people. He proposed a church
that would accommodate all the Christians, and the result was the
organization above named, with a regular constitution and covenant.
Its preamble reads thus:
“We, the ministers and members of different Christian churches,
feeling greatly embarrassed in our former church relations, and
regarding those matters of difference which divided the churches to
which we have belonged as being unimportant, mischievous in their
tendency, and in discordance with the spirit of Christianity, do
now, on this 15th day of March, 1868, unite in a new organization,
the African Congregational Church. Thankful to God, our gracious
and mighty _Redeemer_, for this right and privilege of choosing
and adopting our own church forms, ceremonies, and government, and
of worshiping God as our conscience dictates, we hereby solemnly
pledge ourselves to God and to one another that we will maintain
a Scriptural Christian character, and support such laws and
regulations founded on the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments
as shall be adopted from time to time by two-thirds of the members
of this church.”
The Constitution provides in the five articles for the election of
“discreet and faithful members” as trustees, deacons, a clerk and
treasurer, who shall pay out money only by vote of the church upon
an order from the clerk; for the use of either one of the three
modes of baptism; and for the choosing of ministers, “who shall
preside over all the deliberations of the church;” a Scriptural
plurality of preaching elders, a “presbytery” _in_, and not over
the church.
Not being acquainted with the technical term of “covenant,” they
bind themselves by five articles of “Church Fellowship.” The first
requires evidence of a Christian experience; not stopping with the
fact, of which they were not aware, that Congregationalism was, at
first, a protest against receiving unregenerate members into the
church, they go back to Acts xx., 20, 21. The third reads: “That,
trusting in the promised grace of God, we will not indulge in our
hearts, nor practice, any of these manifest works of the flesh”
(see Gal. v., 20, 21); example: adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
etc. The fourth binds them to cultivate the fruits of the Spirit
(Gal. v., 22, 23). In the fifth they bind themselves to obey the
Scriptures (1 Thess. v., 11, 12), “by studying to be quiet in doing
our own business, working with our own hands, walking honestly
toward them that are without;” and also to discharge faithfully
their Christian duties as subjects of civil law and authority in
obedience to God (Rom. xii., 1, 2).
Here is the way by which, for lack of a council (of which they
knew nothing), and for lack of authority this side of the Lord
Jesus Christ, whom they had taken as the Head of their Church, they
ordained their first presiding pastor:
“_Resolved_, That we, the members of this church, in conference
assembled, do call, set apart, and ordain our well-beloved
brother, John McAdams, as the pastor of the church, to minister
to us in spiritual things as the minister of the Gospel; that we
hereby authorize our said well-beloved brother to administer the
ordinances of baptism and the holy sacrament of the Lord’s Supper,
and to solemnize the rite of matrimony in accordance with the laws
of this State; and that our well-beloved brother be furnished with
a certified copy of this resolution.”
Four years later the church called to its aid Rev. Warren Norton,
a Congregational minister then at Brenham, Texas, in ordaining
brothers Albert Gray and Wm. Hamilton as their ministers in the
Lord. And this last fall I was permitted to participate in a
regular council for the ordination of Mr. J. W. Roberts as pastor
in that same church, and of Mr. J. W. Strong as a pastor for the
church in Corpus Christi. We had a sermon and all the other parts,
including the solemn laying on of hands in prayer; but still we
were only helping the church in a function which, in the first
place, it exercised alone with a beautiful simplicity and all
legitimate _authority_.
How has the church gotten along? Why, it ran up to a large
membership. It paid $115 in gold for a lot, and built a church. It
branched out into the Shiloh, the New Hope, and the Pattonville
African Congregational churches, in neighborhoods about, and these
four became associated in a quarterly conference. But, as the
propagandists came along, they found in the walls of the mother
church stones with old inscriptions. Baptists, African M. E.,
Campbellite, Northern M. E., and each pulled out his own and set up
churches of those several sorts, so that now the original church
building is the shabbiest of the lot, and the membership is only
an average. But still, with a high standing for character, with an
educated minister, and an educated teacher, Prof. S. W. White, with
a new and more respectable site, purchased, with the old acre and
a half to be sold, and with some members of property (two of them
large farmers) and of influence in the community, they give promise
of great usefulness, promise of realizing the expectations of the
martyr founder.
* * * * *
THE INDIANS.
* * * * *
COMMUNION SUNDAY AT HAMPTON.
MISS ISABEL D. EUSTIS.
Many warm friends of Hampton have come to see her on her gala days;
have crowded into the hall decorated with flags and flowers, while
the band played a welcome, and her graduates waited to give to the
audience the fruit of their three years’ study and experience.
Perhaps some of these would like to go with the quiet company who
are walking to the little church in the Soldiers’ Cemetery, near
the close of a bright day that has fallen in the midst of weeks of
rain and storm, and join in the simple communion service of the
first Sunday in the New Year.
The afternoon sunlight slants in through the windows upon the
plain walls and benches, and lights up the dusky faces of the
colored and Indian students who fill the seats. The simple service
upon the communion table is the gift of the strong and loving
woman, who gave the best of her heart and brain to Hampton at its
start, and who kept her connection with the church she helped to
organize until she was called to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
In the seats nearest the table are six colored and eight Indian
students who begin the New Year by confessing Christ as their
Saviour. We ask ourselves, as we notice their quiet and decorous
manner, if these can be some of the strange and uncouth people
who came knocking at our doors two years ago, and as we watch the
sweet, softening expressions stealing over their faces, telling of
reverent and gentle thoughts within, we wonder still more if these
are the very faces from which once it seemed impossible to win an
answering smile.