influenced by Emerson Institute by the narrative which I have given,
although scattering.
I trust that you will pray for my success, and that I may be able to
stand the _test_. I have endeavored to give veracity in this matter,
with no exaggeration. Neither have I spoken in hyperbolical terms, to
make the wrong impression. Trusting that this is the question that you
asked me, properly answered, I am hopeful that your stay with us this
year has been crowned with success, and that you may return next year
with even greater determination, and that the results may be a
hundred-fold. Kind wishes to all the teachers. I am,
Yours sincerely,
W. L. Jones.
* * * * *
GRAND VIEW CHURCH.
REV. W. W. DORNAN.
The Grand View Congregational Church is situated on Waldon's Ridge,
overlooking the pleasant valley of Tennessee. The outlook on the
southern side reaches to the Unaka chain of mountains in North
Carolina, a distance of about seventy miles. Westward and northward
rise in the background of the forest the mountains of the Cumberland
plateau. On the east, the trees shut out everything but the sky.
We are about 800 feet above the sea-level, giving a most delightful
and salubrious atmosphere. The moral atmosphere is equally good. The
nearest place for liquors and their accompanying vices is in the
valley beneath.
The Congregational Church was organized at this place on October 15,
1885, under the superintendency of the American Missionary
Association. The congregation was composed wholly of people from the
Northern States, who had come to the mountains seeking health. These,
to the number of about twenty-five families, form the neighborhood of
Grand View. Outside of this place are to be found the people of the
mountains, scattered across the mountain-top, in a little clearing
here and another there. In the midst of the woods, during the summer,
it is a "discovery" to find the log house, the home of the
mountaineer. The occupation of all is farming. There is no other means
for a livelihood.
Many of the church members own their own homes; usually two-story
frame buildings.
During the present pastorate twenty-one have united with the church;
fourteen by letter, seven by confession. Out of this number we have
nine who are mountaineers, the first acquisition of the native element
to the church. We have a small but neat building, seating 150, in
which services are held every Sunday morning and evening. A Christian
Endeavor Society embraces a large number of the young people for whom
we labor.
This church is in connection with a large and flourishing school. The
students come to us from three States, and thus the influence of the
American Missionary Association is scattered far and wide. We are the
center of a large but poor class of people who have no means to help
themselves. If they are ever to help themselves, they must receive a
start from outside. When they do get a chance they usually go ahead.
We have among our students many teachers of the public schools lifting
the tone of the whole mountain. Last year about sixteen of the
students taught school during the vacation, covering a territory from
Red Belt, Georgia, to Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee. Several lawyers,
former students, are now practicing at the bar in Tennessee and other
States. To our honor one of our graduates is a missionary in China;
many have gone forth to usefulness. Many, if not all, of these would
have been unable to do anything for themselves but for the benevolence
of the churches and the planting of the school and church in this
place. The ideas with which the Association set out to work are no
longer theories, but established facts.
The success of the Association, I believe, lies, next to God's
blessing, in the fact that they realized that not only the school is
needed to make better men and women, but also the church to fit these
men and women for the struggles of life. Both together are needed to
do the work.
In this place, where "the work which this society is doing touches
every fiber of our national life," that which produced the sterling
manhood of New England in the past days, and made our national life a
possibility and then a fact, can, in a like manner in the future,
produce such men and women on the mountains and in the valleys of the
South.
Such a work should give hope and courage to every friend of this
Association, and I believe that in the last day it will be a great
surprise to many to know how many homes they have helped to brighten,
and how many lives they have helped to bless, and how many souls they
have helped to save.
* * * * *
The Chinese.
* * * * *
VISITS TO THREE MISSIONS.
BY REV. JEE GAM.
The missions visited were those at Marysville, Oroville, and
Watsonville. At each place an anniversary was held, at which Dr. Pond
wished me to make an address. But I felt that I had other duties to do
besides this:
1. To see that those brethren who had not been baptized should come to
baptism.
2. To urge those scholars who ought to join the Congregational
Association of Christian Chinese to do so at once.
3. To strengthen and stimulate the brethren, not only to stand firm in
their faith, but to press forward to save men through Christ.
4. To urge them to give generously to our work.
5. To preach on the street, that I might lead some one or more to
Jesus.
At Marysville I lost no time in getting the names of those who had not
been baptized, and who seemed ready for baptism; then the names of
pupils who ought to join the association. Then I enlisted the
co-operation of the baptized Christians. We just _surrounded_ four of
our brethren and urged them to give themselves publicly and wholly to
Christ. They objected that they would like just to know more, but they
had been under instruction between one and two years, and had
confessed themselves believers six or more months ago by joining the
association. We thought them well qualified to receive baptism.
Finally they consented, and then we all shook hands and rejoiced. They
were baptized by Dr. Pond the following Sunday evening, when after the
anniversary we received the Lord's Supper and listened to Dr. Pond's
sermon on our motto for the year, "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy
Ghost."
The method of winning the three pupils for the Association was the
same only with the added efforts of all present.
The contribution was generous. At my first mention of this matter they
all held up their pledge-cards, duly signed, and with the amounts they
were able to give written upon them.
On Sunday afternoon we held a street meeting, which all the brethren
who could attended, and all helped.
The next day (Monday) two Marysville brethren went with us to Oroville
at their own expense. The weather was intensely hot, but this did not
prevent a cordial welcome to us, both at the depot and at the Mission.
And here we settled down to work just as we did at Marysville. The
result was that three brethren were baptized and one scholar joined
the association. The new brother is an educated young man, but was a
great devotee of gambling, at which he has generally lost money. On my
first visit to Oroville, two years ago, I admonished him to quit this
bad habit and become a Christian. He frankly acknowledged the sin, but
was reluctant to cease from it till he could win back what he had
lost. So I could not persuade him. And when I reached Oroville this
time I was made sad at hearing that he was still a gambler, though
still a pupil in the school. He came to the Mission house that evening
at about 10 o'clock, and, after hand-shaking, sat down in a corner of
the room. Seeing in this a fine opportunity, I said to the brethren
present, "Let us gather about Jee Loy and win him to Christ to-night."
There were six of us, myself included. We asked him what objection he
had to becoming a Christian. He mentioned many, but we disposed of
them all, not, however, without talking for nearly two hours. During
the brethren's turns to speak I prayed in my heart many times,
invoking God's help on our words, and begging that his heart might be
opened to the truth and to Christ.
But he still refused. I then said to him, "Will you go home and think
the matter over very carefully and let us know to-morrow evening?" He
said that he would. A prayer was offered and he went home. We were
overjoyed when he came the next evening to tell us that he had decided
for Christ and would join the association, which he did at once. We
were all filled with thanksgiving.
Three other things made us glad: (1) The addition of three brethren to
our Bethany Church in Oroville; (2) the steadfastness and boldness of
our brethren as shown at the street preaching service; and (3) their
generosity. For when I spoke to them about Senator George C. Perkins
and his allowing them to occupy this building for twenty years without
charging a cent of rent, or even our paying the taxes upon it, and
suggested that they make him a life member of our California Chinese
Mission, as quick as lightning "Yes," "Yes!" was heard all over the
room. In a very short time the whole amount of $25 was subscribed; and
they intend, with God's help, to make Mrs. Perkins a life member next
year.
The anniversaries at Marysville and Oroville were the best we ever had
in either place. The Lord's Supper, in each case, was observed at the
mission after the anniversary service closed, and this was followed by
Dr. Pond's discourse, so that the services did not end till about
11.30 o'clock.
At Oroville, even after this, a pleasant social was held, and we tried
to bring another to Christ, but did not succeed; and finally, the
night being so nearly gone, and the morning train for San Francisco
starting at 4 o'clock, we did not go to bed at all, but strolled
through Chinatown and enjoyed the cool night air after a hot,
laborious day.
At Watsonville we had similar exercises, and the joy of extending our
fellowship to Dr. Quon Hun, a highly educated Chinese physician, who
had attended our school for several months, and who, after studying
the Lord's Prayer all alone, was led into the light of Christ, and
composed a beautiful Chinese poem upon it. He had charge of the
tablets of one of the Tongs, and had also his own private shrine in
his office. But he returned the tablets and destroyed his own idols.
He is a man greatly respected, and will be able to do a great work for
Christ, though doubtless he will encounter much odium and
persecution.
* * * * *
Bureau of Woman's Work.
* * * * *
THE ASSOCIATION JUBILEE.
BY SEC. D. E. EMERSON.
Not long after emancipation a freed-woman, about 50 years old, who was
learning to read, came to the word "unbound" in her lesson, and
exclaimed, rapturously, "How good, to feel unbound!"
If the American Missionary Association, its work, principles, and all
that it represents, could be expressed in one word, that word would be
_emancipation_--deliverance from bondage, deliverance from caste
prejudice, from ignorance, superstition, and darkness. Its mission is
to preach the gospel to the poor, to loose the chains of the bound, to
proclaim "The truth shall make you free."
It was a little company of earnest men and women that gathered in
Albany, N. Y., in September, 1846, to form this organization. Its
early history was not only of works, but of "witness," fearless and
undaunted. It had a God-given mission, and this conviction sustained
its brave adherents during those years of severe trial and testing.
Yet all was not discouragement. Every year brought added strength in
numbers and in funds. Every year showed more plainly that the hand of
the Lord was in this movement.
So it worked for fifteen years, gaining varied experience in
industrial, educational, evangelistic, and church work, in methods of
administration, in wise use of funds. At the close of this period it
was conducting prosperous missions at thirty-seven stations in its
foreign field, and in the home field it had under its care 120
churches. Then came the rebellion and war, and the unmistakable call
of Providence to the rapid development of missions southward.
Immediately the Association, now encouraged and supported by all the
churches, moved in the wake of the Union army, beginning in 1861 to
work for the contrabands at Fortress Monroe, where 1,800 colored
people had sought the protection of the American flag. All its
varieties of experience and resources were called into action. It
became a philanthropic society to feed and clothe the suffering, a
Bible society to distribute the word of God. It became an industrial
society to help people to homes and teach practical farming, trades,
and housewifery. It established social settlements, with groups of
missionary teachers living in one household among the degraded and
despised people, to whom they ministered; an educational society with
its system of schools; a church society, seeking always the salvation
of souls and gathering of converts into churches.
Now it was that the wisdom, the heroism, the unfaltering faith of this
Association, strengthened by fifteen years of valorous adherence to
the gospel principles of emancipation, prepared it to launch out upon
its great mission. The demands were almost overwhelming in extent and
variety.
First, Fortress Monroe, then Norfolk and all eastern Virginia, Newport
News, and Port Royal; then the Carolinas, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
So closely did the missions follow the victorious armies that by the
time the war-storm had fully cleared away, the American Missionary
Association had 320 missionaries preaching and teaching the gospel to
the freedmen, with 16,000 pupils in its schools. No wonder that it was
said, "Behold how God has fitted this Association for this vast and
mighty work."
The development of this marvelous work has many thrilling chapters
among the forty-nine that have been already written. They tell the
story briefly of the devoted men and women who have been carrying on
the blessed work of emancipation. They show how not less than 3,000
women have given of their best talent and strength to this Christ-like
service. They speak of the perils by shotgun and by fire; of
imprisonment, ostracism, and scorn; of persecution, that it was
believed the progress of the age had made impossible in these later
days, but which the State of Florida has been able to revive. But
these chapters tell also how the truth has been setting many free,
blacks and whites alike, bringing them into a truer conception of
God's fatherhood, man's brotherhood through sonship by Jesus Christ.
The American Missionary Association finds its highest testimonial in
the work itself, in its system of Christian schools, including graded
primaries, academies, normal and industrial schools, in its colleges
in each of five states, and in its advancing church work. Nay, its
best testimonial is in the product from these schools and churches,
the teachers and preachers, lawyers and doctors, the good farmers and
mechanics, the upright mothers and fathers, the sweet though humble
homes, the conscientious Christian citizens, in whose influence and
leadership lies the hope of the African race. It finds its testimonial
in the loyalty and devotion of its missionaries, their self-denial for
the cause they love. It has seen a gifted woman from a home of comfort
going year by year for twenty years to this work of emancipation for
the "bound" in Georgia and Tennessee, among a despised people, and,
when called from earth and earth's opportunities, leaving a liberal
sum to continue the work of Christian education. It has seen many
another consecrated missionary take from the savings of a lifetime, to
enable the Association to light one more lamp for the dark places of
the South, and not a few turn back three-fourths of their small
salaries to help in sustaining the work. The liberality of the
missionaries testifies not only to the genuineness of the work, but to
the importance of the field and its irresistible appeal.
With such a history the American Missionary Association stands before
the churches in this, its fiftieth, year. God has graciously widened
the fields before it. The 4,000,000 of freed slaves are a race of
8,000,000 in our midst. "Never since the apostolic age has there been
open to the church a field so vast, so urgent, so hopeful."
God has graciously widened the mission fields of the Association; the
mountain regions of the South have been opened, and the gospel,
carried with such personal risk fifty years ago, reaching only here
and there a few, may be carried freely to the 2,000,000 of our
mountain countrymen mentally and spiritually bound. God has graciously
widened the fields. The Indian missions present their claim, for
wherever a pagan Indian tribe remains there may the gospel be carried
quickly and without personal harm. The providential call has been
heard also, and answered by this Association, for the Chinese within
our borders and the Eskimo on the Alaskan coast. The work of this
Association may well be the glory of the churches. God has done His
part. He has opened the fields, He has richly blessed every effort
toward enlightenment and Christian civilization. The missionaries have
done their part in prayer, in labor, in gifts, in voicing the earnest
appeal of these poor, whose greatest need is Christian education and a
pure gospel.
Now, the Association has come to its fiftieth year, the fiftieth
chapter in its serial history. Standing always for emancipation, it is
itself enthralled in the toils of a terrible debt. It trusted the
churches; it believed that the action of the churches in separating
their Indian work from the government, relinquishing $22,000, would be
followed by $22,000 additional gifts from the people of God, that the
Indian missions should not suffer loss. It believed that the growing
claim of the Southern mountain work and the claim of this great
African race in our midst would not be disregarded. It still believes
in the churches. There has been only a temporary withholding. In the
sisterhood of missionary societies, two have been freed from debt. Now
by one grand concentration of gifts to the Jubilee Fund of the
American Missionary Association, shall it not be enabled to celebrate
a remarkable record, a marvelous work, a divine call to present
widening fields of usefulness and a jubilee of financial freedom that
by the grace of God shall last? May we not then confidently look for
the opening of the windows of heaven, and the outpouring of such a
blessing on home churches and mission fields as shall summon the
attention of an indifferent and unbelieving world to the certain and
rapid progress of the kingdom of God?
Jubilee Year Fund, Additional Shares.
EMELINE J. KELLOGG, Manchester, Vt.
ANDRUS MARCH, Charlton City, Mass.
CAROLINE CROWELL, Haverhill, Mass.
CHRISTIAN UNION CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Upper Montclair, N. J.
Mrs. S. M. COWLES, Kensington, Conn.
Mrs. M. A. BACHELOR, Whitinsville, Mass.
Mrs. C. A. RANSOM, Wellesley, Mass.
CENTRAL UNION SOUTH CHURCH, Concord, N. H.
TWO FRIENDS, Wellesley, Mass., two shares.
WOMAN'S MISSIONARY SOCIETY, River Falls, Wis.
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Great Barrington, Mass.
Rev. JAMES W. BIXLER, Trustee, New London, Conn.
FRANK L. ANDREWS, Fall River, Mass.
Mrs. R. S. CURTIS, Hampden, Me.
SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Manchester, Conn.
PLYMOUTH CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL, Worcester, Mass.
TABITHA L. CUSHMAN, East Los Angeles, Cal.
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL, Greenville, N. H.
"DEBTOR TO THE A. M. A.," Auburndale, Mass.
Mrs. ELLEN M. WELLMAN, Malden, Mass.
W. H. M. A., AUXILIARY OF CHURCH OF THE PILGRIMAGE, Plymouth, Mass.
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Yankton, S. D.
WALNUT HILLS WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY, Cincinnati, O.
JOHN M. WILLIAMS, Evanston, Ill.
PLYMOUTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Lawrence, Kan.
Mr. and Mrs. GAYLORD THOMSON, Medina, O.
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Granby, Mass.
Mrs. LOTA B. WHITE WALES, in memory of Rev. O. H. WHITE, D.D.,
Dorchester, Mass.
A FRIEND, New Britain, Conn.
FRIENDS, Milford, N. H., two shares.
LADIES IN SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, West Winsted, Conn.
Miss ANNA E. FARRINGTON, through WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY UNION
OF NORTH CAROLINA, Oaks, N. C.
WOMAN'S MISSIONARY SOCIETY, Hancock, Mich.
A FRIEND, Concord, N. H., two shares.
Mrs. S. A. PRATT, Worcester, Mass.
EVANGELICAL CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Westboro, Mass.
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Oakham, Mass.
TWO FRIENDS, Park Street Congregational Church, Boston, Mass.
INDIVIDUALS IN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Cumberland Centre, Me.
BELLE OLINGER, Williamsburg, Ky.
Mrs. W. H. CATLIN, Meriden, Conn.
WOMAN'S ASSOCIATION, First Church, Detroit, Mich.
RESIDENTS, Cumberland Gap, Tenn.
Previously reported, 238
Subscriptions reported above, 46
------
Total number of shares reported, 284
* * * * *
RECEIPTS FOR JULY, 1896.
* * * * *
_THE DANIEL HAND FUND_
_For the Education of Colored People._
Income for July $7,920.00
Previously acknowledged 47,663.09
-----------
$55,583.09
===========
CURRENT RECEIPTS
MAINE, $371.59
Albany. J. E. Bird $4.00
Auburn. Mission Band High St. Ch., _for Talladega C._ 2.50
Calais. First Cong. Soc. 20.00
Centre Lebanon. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 12.60
East Madison. "A Friend" 4.00
Gardiner. First Cong. Ch. 28.14
Hampden. Mrs. R. S. Curtis, _for Share Jubilee Fund_ 50.00
North Bridgton. Sab. Sch. Cong. Ch., _for Student Aid,
Talladega C._ 4.25
Rockland. Cong. Ch. 42.57
South Freeport. Miss Fannie E. Soule, _for Moorhead, Miss._ 10.00
Wells. B. Maxwell, _for Share Jubilee Fund_ 50.00
Maine Woman's Aid to A. M. A., by Mrs. Ida V. Woodbury, Treas.:
Biddeford. Second Ch. Ladies' Miss'y Aux. 45.25
Biddeford. Second Cong. Ch., Y. P. S. C. E. 6.28
Harpswell Center. 10.00
Minot Center. Bal. to const. MRS. OLIVE D.
SHAW L. M. 23.00
Pownal. 5.00
Skowhegan. 21.00
Somerset. Conference Coll. 3.00
Troy. 7.00
Turner. 17.00
Winthrop. 5.00
Woodfords. S. S. Primary Dept. 1.00
------ 143.53
NEW HAMPSHIRE, $857.10.
Alsted. Cong. Ch., _for Student Aid, Talladega C._ 5.70
Boscawen. Mr. and Mrs. S. N. Allen (1 of which _for debt_) 3.00
Candia. Cong. Ch. 15.79
Concord. South Cong. Ch. 63.18
Derry. First Cong. Ch. and Soc. 27.63
Dover. First Cong. Ch. 100.00
Greenville. Sab. Sch. Cong. Ch., _for Share Jubilee Fund_ 50.00
Hanover. Mary A. Fletcher, _for Hospital, Fort Yates, N. D._ 10.00
Haverhill. Ladies' Miss'y Soc., Box C. and Bedding, Val.
22.45, _for Savannah, Ga._
Laconia. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 20.00
Lyndeboro. Cong. Ch. 11.00
Manchester. Class of Young Girls, Sab. Sch. of Franklin
St. Cong. Ch., _for Share Jubilee Fund_ 50.00
Plainfield. Mrs. S. R. Baker 10.00
Rindge. Cong. Ch. 15.00
Swanzey. Y. P. S. C. E., 8 _for Fort Berthold, N. D._;
5 _for Fort Independence, N. D._ 13.00
Walpole. Cong. Ch. 28.63
----. "A Friend," for a Life Membership 30.00
New Hampshire Female Cent. Inst. and Home Missionary Union,
by Miss Annie A. McFarland, Treas.:
Boscawen. Cent. Union, _for Salary,
Pleasant Hill, Tenn._ 8.67
Concord. Cent. Union, First Ch.,
_for Share Jubilee Fund_ 50.00
Concord. "A Friend," First Ch.,
_for Share Jubilee Fund_ 50.00
Concord. Cent. Union, South Ch.,
_for Share Jubilee Fund_ 50.00
Derry. Cent. Union, First Cong. Ch.,
_for Salary_ 25.00
Epsom. Cent. Society 4.00
Hebron and Groton. Homeland Circle
(3.78 of which _for debt_) 7.57
Keene. Sab. Sch. Prim. Dept., Second Ch. 5.00
Manchester. L. H. M. Soc. of Franklin
St. Ch. 68.00
Tamworth. Mrs. Mary K. Gannet,
_for Two Shares Jubilee Fund_ 100.00
------- 368.24
-------
$821.17
ESTATE.
New Ipswich. Estate of Dea. Leavit Lincoln, by Trustees 35.93
-------
$857.10
VERMONT, $626.39.