The following letter comes from a member of the "Andover Band," three of
whom entered the work among the American Highlanders last year. It is the
first band of theological students organized in any of our seminaries for
work in the field of the American Missionary Association. It was a very
interesting movement and worthy the seminary that has sent out bands into
other parts of the country which have accomplished great results.
The testimony is set forth by Prof. John C. Campbell, a cultured young
man, who looks on this interesting work with a fresh vision and gives
opinions well balanced respecting this field and others.
It should be said that the letter was not written for publication.
The year has been trying and wearing, but I take great satisfaction in
knowing that much has been accomplished. We have established ourselves in
the hearts of the people, I believe, and have the respect and co-operative
interest of the best men in this and adjoining counties, so I hope for
great things in the future if our friends in the North will only help us.
Suspicion has given way to confidence, and I may even fire broadsides at
the tobacco habit now, even if it hits home. They are a trying, promising,
and loveable people. I admire those of my classmates who have heard the
voice of God (not the prompting of inclination) calling them to remain in
dear old hair-splitting New England; but, while I admire their bravery, I
am sorry for them, for it must seem as if they were striking in the air.
Here we see the enemy, and can strike directly at him, and one has some
satisfaction in getting weary and sick at heart in fighting at great odds
against a visible power instead of the more subtle powers "of the air."
But I digress! It is such a temptation to let myself out when
communicating with one who understands this discouraging, fascinating, and
encouraging work. This year’s work has given me experience, as well as
gray hair, and even if my labors in the South should terminate this year,
I should feel that I had gained a great deal. I wish that all Northerners
could come to know the best element of the South, and show their
magnanimity as victors by helping the American Missionary Association do
the work which alone will make a new South. To me the South presents a
touching but heroic picture as she struggles nobly, but somewhat
uncertainly, toward the light, still the victim of her cavalier training,
still held back by the poor black and the poor white, the products of her
accursed institution. Now that is all abolished, she needs help from the
North. I doubt if we in the North would be any better had we been placed
in the same environment, and our superiority may be due as much to soil,
climate, and the consequent unprofitableness of slave labor, as to our
Puritan ancestry.
The tide of immigration is beginning to turn toward this State from
Georgia, and many coming from the Dakotas. The mass of ignorance is
appalling. I realize in part, I think, the difficulty of getting the needs
of the whites before a sympathizing audience. When it comes to a white
man’s needs and his condition, too many church members and others
substitute the scientific theory of the survival of the fittest for
Christ’s law of love. They forget too, I fear, that many of these people
in the mountains are victims of slavery as innocent as the Negro; and they
do not see that their indifference is letting them lie in the hard bed
which circumstances, largely beyond their control, have made for them. If
they will only give us money, "greenbacks," if need be, and enable us to
get the young out of bed on their intellectual and spiritual feet, I shall
be satisfied. And if our Congressmen and politicians would bury the
"Bloody Shirt," and stop throwing stones over Mason and Dixon’s fence, and
out of their personal means give, what is too often given uselessly, to
the Association and other similar Boards, the questions which spring from
sectional prejudice would soon be solved. I do believe that what the
American Missionary Association stands for is the panacea for all
political and social ills.