(_a_) Not long since a white merchant of this state remarked to me:
“No people have ever improved so much in so short a time as your
people have.” I replied: “I think no people ever had a more faithful,
self-sacrificing leadership.” I think it may be said of us that we have
done what we could. The work began when we owned neither land for home
nor land for church house--when there was no church, no association,
no mission board to offer any pay for labor. I speak of course of
the rule. True, there were a few colored churches in “slavery time,”
three missionary and one primitive; but what were three churches in
the midst of such a vast population, scattered over so much territory?
What could they do in their poverty and want of training to support 400
or 500 pioneer organizers? We went to the battle at our own charges.
With homeless mothers and fathers, with homeless wives and children,
and with oppression on every side--with all these burdens and much
more which cannot be told, upon us--we bravely undertook the work of
building the walls of Zion. The writer knows a minister who, (between
1866 and 1875, especially between ’66-’77, during the reign of the “K.
K. Klan,” when the people could not in many places be induced to open
their doors after dark for fear of being shot), has endured some of
the severest privations and performed some of the hardest toils known
to the ministry, at his own charges. This case is only one in hundreds.
Our ministry, whatever the faults and imperfections which have attended
them, have wrought nobly and wrought to good results.
The following will serve to show why the writer is inclined to
believe these early pioneers were often especially favored of God in
controlling the people for good: On one occasion two preachers met for
the first time. The younger man spoke, and the elder was one of the
hearers. The sermon was ended. The two preachers, approaching each
other and grasping hands, spoke to each other thus: The younger man:
“I feel the Lord wants me to preach, but I am not able to preach.” The
elder man: “God has called you to preach the gospel, but you are not
now in the spirit of the ministry. You are proud and ’pend too much
upon yourself. You get self out so God can fill you up with his spirit.
Go and pray to God for the spirit of the gospel ministry.” This advice
was heeded and the end revealed the correctness of the elder man’s
views. Another case:
A young man of some attainment in letters, who taught school under the
“Freedmen’s Bureau,” being anxious to rid himself of a sense of duty
to preach the gospel, decided to go off to another state where his
church connections were unknown. He did so. After he had quit the train
and put down his baggage at the home of a family who had consented to
entertain him, and as evening drew on, he was requested by his hostess
to attend the preaching which was to come off at a neighbor’s house
that evening (there was no church house). The young man went. A pen
picture of the preacher is given after this fashion: Lean, brown skin
man, whose shirt showed much of his breast; whose feet were sockless
and in shoes which left the toes uncovered; whose stiff locks held a
comb. He told us of a wicked city that was laying beneath the pending
judgments of God.
It needed a message of warning--only this, and it would face about
and clothe itself in humble penitence. God had the message, and He
imparted it to the messenger and ordered him to go. Here the preacher
drew a picture of Jonah: He is shrinking from his glorious charge--has
his back toward Nineveh, and is fleeing in an opposite direction; is
boarding a ship that he may go to regions over the sea; is going down
into the hold of the ship; is fast asleep. Here the storm and the
raging deep receive notice: A cloud rises and quickly covers the skies;
winds attend it with a fury hitherto unknown to the shipmen, who seem
at once to discern in the storm the tokens of judgment; the sea is
wild; the sailors, as a last resort, awake Jonah and cast lots; the lot
falls upon Jonah, and he is cast into the maddened sea, where a sea
monster swallows him. At this point, changing his voice more into the
imperative tone, the preacher said: “I ’spect there is a Jonah here
to-night, and I warn him to take the message of his God and carry it to
poor, lost sinners who do not know their right hands from their left;
I warn him to go before he shall be in the belly of hell.” The reader
is left to imagine how this affected the young school teacher who was
fleeing from his duty. In some parts of Limestone county the people use
an improvised lamp, the oil vessel of which is a snuff bottle. This
is a rough vessel, but it holds the oil which feeds the flame. This
reminds us of Mr. Spurgeon’s beer-bottle candlestick. Well, I want to
say that God used these men, whatever were their imperfections--they
had power. But we have had help from without.
(_a_) Our white neighbors--some of them, at least--have aided us. They
have helped us build our church houses and, in some cases, contributed
to our schools. They have taught in our Sunday schools, preached in
our pulpits, helped us in the work of organizing associations, etc.
They have taught ministers’ classes and held ministers’ institutes
among us. The writer once held the position of teacher of institutes
under the appointment and support of the white Baptist Convention of
Alabama, and Dr. McAlpine now serves under the appointment of the
Southern Board. Several of our best men were enabled to attend the Home
Mission schools on money given by their white brethren.
(_b_) We have been improved by our public schools. It is a strange
providence which, in our public school system, now returns upon the
black man something of the interest due him in consideration of
unrewarded labors. These schools have given us some choice men and
women, who are strong in the work of the church. However, it is in
place to say that we have not derived from our public school system all
the good which it is capable of bestowing, first, because poor teachers
have far too often been put upon the people. But, on the other hand,
there has been loss because we have not properly appreciated our needs
and opportunities, as considered from an educational point of view. The
sessions of the public schools could be supplemented and extended in
most cases so as to cover six or eight months of each year.
(_c_) The Publication Society has rendered substantial aid in the gift
of books to our ministers and Sunday Schools as well as by the personal
touch and teaching of their Sunday School Missionaries.
(_d_) The Missionary Societies of the Baptist women of Chicago and
Boston have done a great work among us. Their good missionaries, such
as Misses Moore, Knapp, Voss and others whose names will ever be
precious to our people, have given themselves to work among our women
and girls. They have breathed into our home life their beautiful piety,
and they have acquainted our mission bands and church workers with
the latest and best methods of labor. We have seen with their eyes and
felt with their hearts.
[Illustration: First Baptist Church, Selma, Ala. C. J. Hardy, Pastor.]
(_e_) The Selma University, with one exception, is the source of our
greatest blessing. It is simply impossible to estimate the good that
has come to Alabama Baptists out of this institution. What it has done
is beyond the power of calculation. Only Omniscience can reckon up the
good effects of its power upon the people. God be praised for Selma
University! When we began the school in 1878, we hadn’t one single
graduate in our midst. Since that time graduates have gone forth as
follows:
1884.
R. T. Pollard, S. A. Stone, W. W. Posey, T. H. Posey, R. B. Hudson, L.
J. Green, C. R. Rodgers, A. A. Bowie, D. T. Gully, A. W. Hines, and
Miss Washington, now Mrs. R. T. Pollard.
1885.
J. A. Anthony, W. E Large, J. H. Eason and Mrs. Thompson.
1886.
W. S. Matthews, H. L. Thomas, Dr. L. L. Burwell and Mrs. H. M. Baker.
1887.
M. M. Archer, S. H. Campbell, J. C. Copeland, W. T. Bibb, W. A. Watson,
F. P. Tyler, J. H. Culver, P. A. Kigh, C. H. Patterson, Mrs. R. B.
Hudson, Mrs. A. W. Hines, Vannie Brooks.
1888.
S. H. Abrams, D. A. Bible, R. D. Taylor, Mrs. M. F. Wilson, E. J.
Nelson and Mary F. Williams.
1889.
R. M. Williams, E. L. Blackman, Mrs. P. F. Clark, Mrs. W. T. Bibb, P.
E. Gresham, D. L. Prentice, J. R. Willis and Dr. W. R. Pettiford.
1890.
W. J. Bryson, R. T. Payne, J. F. Payne, Dr. R. Tyler, Dr. L. Roberts,
E. W. Knight, J. C. Leftwich, L. A. Sinkler, Mrs. W. B. Johnson, Mrs.
G. A. Brown, Wm. Cooper, Emma Garrett, M. Turner, Mary L. Smith, P. S.
L. Hutchins.
1891.
P. B. Taylor, C. E. Clayton, Mary Osborne, Lula Gray, Ida M. Wilhite,
Viola Hudson, Mamie C. Welch, A. M. Jackson, J. McConico, J. H.
Hutchinson, M. M. Porter, E. T. Taylor.
1892.
R. L. Hill, G. P. Adams, E. M. Carter, W. T. Coleman, I. B. Kigh, B. R.
Smith, Chas. White Jr., M. J. Brown, A. E. Gilliam, Pattie Richardson,
Amelia Tyler and Maggie Johnson.
1893.
J. A. Graham, W. M. Montgomery, H. E. Grogan, Eva Green.
1894.
I. T. Simpson, C. J. Davis, W. H. Wilhite, Annie Stone, T. W. Calvary
and Eliza Fuller (Mrs. Knight).
1895.
Lula E. Ware, Annie L. Jones, Comer E. Carter, Benjamin F. Sanders,
Lila L. Jones, Julia L. Sanders, Mary F. McCord, Emma P. Jones, Earnest
W. Brown and Donnie E. Hillson.
We see very little that these names mean except we associate them
with the masses of the people in the various walks of social and
business life. But, associating them thus, we see them as so many stars
lighting up the dark places around them. However, to do this is by
no means to place ourselves where we can see the _whole_ truth. What
has been wrought upon the thousands of students who failed to finish
the prescribed course? They are elevated and they have borne their
elevation to their neighbors. From their teachers and from the refining
atmosphere of the school, they have drunken purer thoughts, loftier
aims and a stronger manhood. This they have carried to others less
favored than themselves, and now it works as the leaven in the dough.
Again, the school has strengthened us by its weight upon our hearts and
hands. Labor, well directed, develops strength in the laborer. We are
greater because we have been compelled to care for that institution,
and it has caused us to have faith in ourselves. We now know that it
is possible for us to maintain an educational work. It is needless to
say that by means of it, we have looked larger in the eyes of others.
Somehow, he who can _do something good_ and _great_ commands our
respect.
(_f_) The Home Mission Society.--This society has served us to greater
results than any other agency. To this society the university owes
above half the money which has given it support all these years. They
have given us missionary aid which has served to produce higher life
and better order in our churches and associations. And from their
schools beyond our state we have received many of our most capable
persons, among whom we may mention Drs. Dinkins, Purce, Stokes, Owens,
our eloquent Fisher, and Jones, our scholarly Peterson, the urbane
Jackson of Eufaula, the industrious Bradford, and others whose names I
cannot at this moment recall. Mrs. C. S. Dinkins, as well as Mrs. C. O.
Boothe, came to us from the Roger Williams University, a Home Mission
Society School. But what has been said will suffice to show us how we
have come to be a wiser and a better people than we were thirty years
ago. And if we see what has blessed us in the years gone by, no doubt
we shall be able to see that the same things may, if we will permit
them to do so, bless us in the years to come. May our steps not be
forgotten by our children.