face with our debts cancelled, owing no man anything but love;
with no gloomy shadows over us, happy in the glorious experience
of knowing that we possessed money enough in our treasury to carry
on our work two whole days. We have met with the characteristic
greeting of a people “given to hospitality.” We have come to a
land of steady habits, and when some of you have taken us by the
hand in the closeness of your grip we have sometimes been led
to think that this is the greatest vice (_vise_) you have. And
now, with our gratitude to God for His smiles in these beautiful
clear days and bright skies, as if in harmony with the delightful
Christian atmosphere of these meetings—symbolizing the spirit of
our gatherings—it is not in accordance with a custom of form merely
that we desire to express to these churches and pastors, and to
all our kind friends here, our high appreciation of their service
to this cause of missions, and to us so far as we represent this
cause. You have given us strength and courage for our work another
year.
It is not a small thing to arrange for a series of services like
this. It means forethought and much care, many steps and much
fatigue. It is not a small thing for people to open their homes
freely to strangers and to so receive them that they are no more
strangers.
Permit us then to thank the pastor, the officers and members of
this church and society within whose walls we have studied and
reviewed our work together. This is an ancient church, historic
over the land. You have done no injustice to its history in your
interest for the kingdom of God. Let us also thank the churches and
pastors who have kindly shared in this abundant hospitality.
We should do that to which our hearts are foreign should we fail to
remember those who have led us in Christian praise and those who
in their labor of love have in many ways of service assisted the
objects of this Missionary Association.
We recognize the courtesy of those railway and steamboat lines
which have facilitated our travel here. Nor do we forget the
enterprise of your public press and the kindness which has been
extended to us in their full and accurate reports.
If any of you in this free-hearted welcome have entertained angels
awares or unawares, we are glad of it. Most of us have left our
particular angels at our homes. Some of us have not failed to
discover that there are angels here in yours.
Therefore, brethren, in the name of our great Mission, of the
schools and institutes which we have brought before you, of the
churches which have prayed for us while we have been assembled, and
in the name of the people to whom we are sent in Christ’s stead and
in your stead, accept our sincere thanks.
As we take up our farewell to go, we can appreciate your hearty
services not only, but also your ability to successfully conceal
any gratification which you may have that these three long days are
over.
Voted that after singing, and a benediction by Rev. Dr. Walker, of
Connecticut, this meeting stands adjourned _sine die_.
HENRY A. HAZEN, Secretary.
EDGAR M. COUSINS, Assistant Secretary.
* * * * *
SUMMARY OF TREASURER’S REPORT.
RECEIPTS.
From Churches, Sabbath-schools,
Missionary Societies and Individuals $189,483.39
From Estates and Legacies 52,266.73
From Income, Sundry Funds 10,561.07
From Tuition and Public Funds 28,964.81
From Rents 478.10
From United States Government, for
Education of Indians 17,357.21
From Slater Fund, paid to Institutions 7,650.00
—————————— $306,761.31
===========
EXPENDITURES.
THE SOUTH.
For Church and Educational Work, Land,
Buildings, etc. $197,768.68
THE CHINESE.
For Superintendent, Teachers, Rent, etc. 7,564.95
THE INDIANS.
For Church and Educational Work, Buildings,
etc. 47,920.71
FOREIGN MISSIONS.
For Superintendent, Missionaries, etc.,
for Mendi Mission, Income paid to the
Society of the United Brethren in Christ 4,870.10
For Support of Aged Missionary, Jamaica, W.I. 250.00
PUBLICATIONS.
For “American Missionary,” (22,600 monthly,
including cost of copies sent gratuitously
to pastors, S. S. superintendents, life
members, donors, etc.) Annual Reports,
Clerk Hire, Postage, etc. 7,080.00
AGENCIES.
NEW YORK.—Associate Corresponding Secretary,
Traveling Expenses, Circulars, etc. 4,159.93
NEW YORK.—Woman’s Bureau, Secretary,
Traveling Expenses, Circulars, etc. 1,434.33
FOR EASTERN DISTRICT.—District Secretary,
Clerk Hire, Traveling Expenses, Printing,
Rent, Postage, Stationery, etc. 4,389.77
FOR WESTERN DISTRICT.—District Secretary,
Clerk Hire, Traveling Expenses, etc. 4,603.67
ADMINISTRATION.
For Corresponding Secretary, Associate
Corresponding Secretary, Treasurer and
Clerk Hire 11,931.81
MISCELLANEOUS.
For Rent, Care of Rooms, Furniture, Repairs,
Fuel and Light, Books and Stationery, Rent
of Safe Deposit Box, Clerk Hire, Postage,
Traveling Expenses, Expressage, Telegrams,
etc. 5,073.40
Annual Meeting 379.35
Wills and Estates 271.32
Annuity Account 899.77
Amounts refunded, sent to Treasurer by
mistake 186.01
———————— $298,783.80
Debt, September 30th, 1886 5,783.71
——————————
$304,567.51
Balance on hand September 30th, 1887 2,193.80
——————————
$306,761.31
==========
THEOLOGICAL ENDOWMENT FUND.
North Bloomfield, Ohio, “A Friend,” for Talladega
College $709.25
ARTHINGTON MISSION FUND.
Hillsdale, Mich., Estate of Mrs. T. F. Douglass $100.00
The receipts of Berea College, Hampton N. and A. Institute,
and Atlanta University, are added below, as presenting
at one view the contributions for the general work in
which the Association is engaged:
American Missionary Association General
Fund $306,761.31
American Missionary Association Theolog’l
Endowment Fund, Talladega College 709.25
American Missionary Association Arthington
Fund 100.00
—————————— $307,570.56
Berea College, Donations 11,131.51
Berea College, for New Building 15,000.00
—————————— 26,131.51
Hampton N. and A. Institute 82,715.26
Atlanta University (add’l to A. M. A.) 10,171.69
——————————
$426,589.02
==========
H. W. HUBBARD, Treasurer,
56 Reade Street, New York.
* * * * *
REPORTS OF COMMITTEES.
* * * * *
REPORT ON EDUCATIONAL WORK, SOUTH.
BY REV. W. F. SLOCUM, CHAIRMAN.
Your committee, to which the report of the executive committee on
educational work in the South was referred, would express at the
outset their profound gratitude for the success that has followed
the efforts that have been put forth in this large and important
department of the work of the American Missionary Association.
While they deplore with all those who have the interests of this
work at heart, the political attempts to limit the usefulness
of the Association, that has grown out of unworthy partisan
prejudices, yet they perceive with thankfulness that there is an
element growing stronger every year at the South that appreciates
the place, the importance and the value of these schools. Notably
is this shown in Mississippi, where the State appropriation for the
Tougaloo University was the only one not reduced. They would speak
with appreciation of the Christian spirit that infuses all these
schools, and the deeply religious character that is given to the
work, and of the strong personal influences which are brought to
bear upon the students.
Your committee feel that the time has come to push with greatest
vigor a work that shall meet the demand for teachers in the public
schools of the South, and to avail ourselves of the opportunity to
reach the children and the homes of colored people through these;
that every effort needs to be put forth to send out these teachers
established in Christian ethics and feeling that the moralities of
life are the basis of all true education.
Great pleasure is taken in the advance that is made each year in
the matter of industrial and agricultural training; and every
effort which tends to transform this people into an intelligent,
upright Christian yeomanry, will be a profound blessing. Our
constant aim should be to establish the true dignity of labor and
the healthful desire to possess property and an intelligence that
secures the best condition as property holders. Your committee are
of the opinion that the opportunity for good through these schools
was never larger than at present, and that the need of enlargement
in many is imperative, and also that the time has come to push the
work of special endowment for the larger institutions, that they
may become independent of any financial pressure and may be put
upon a permanent basis. And therefore of the three alternatives
suggested by the claims of the work at present which they suggest
in their report, can endorse one only, and do therefore most
heartily recommend that instead of sacrificing the character of the
work, instead of reducing the amount of work done, the Association
shall have more money.
* * * * *
REPORT ON CHURCH WORK, SOUTH.
BY REV. CYRUS RICHARDSON, CHAIRMAN.
Your committee into whose hands has been placed the report of the
church work in the South desire to state their impressions by
calling attention to three or four important points.
First, to the marked increase in the membership of the
Sunday-schools—an increase during the year of 2,000 pupils, or 15
per cent., bringing the present membership up to 15,109.
Comparing this with the entire enrollment in 1882, we find that
during the five years there has been a growth of 100 per cent.
This is specially gratifying because it is understood that
Sunday-schools or missions started at new stations look to
the speedy establishment of churches at those stations; while
well-organized schools in churches already established result in
the careful study of God’s word, with a constant application of
inspired doctrine to practical life, looking both to the permanence
of the churches and the personal purity of their members.
Another important item noticed in the report appears in the
statement touching the amount of money which these churches have
given.
Beside the $16,000 contributed for their own religious work, $2,300
have been devoted to pure benevolence. If this should seem a small
sum as a contribution of 127 churches, it must be remembered
that it is the gift of poverty, and not of wealth. The free-will
offerings of almost any one of these congregations, when compared
with the contributions of not a few New England churches, suggest
the words of the Master: “She hath cast in more than they all.”
Their spirit of sacrifice has often won for the colored people
hearty commendation. To those of us who live amid multiplied
temporal and spiritual privileges, and who easily lose sight of the
goodly heritage for which we are to give an account, it is a spur,
if not an inspiration, to read the story of the sacrifices which
some of these brethren make in the giving of their scant substance
for the more destitute members of the human family.
Their offerings for pure benevolence were above $600 more than the
previous year, and are double what they were four years ago.
Your committee are glad to find that this feature of denominational
work is strongly emphasized by the Executive Board, and that these
churches, poor though they be, are taught that _giving_ as well as
_receiving_ is a necessary factor in their growth, and that in true
worship alms as well as prayers rise before God as a memorial.
Another noticeable item in the report is the building of
meeting-houses. Indeed, the report characterizes the past year
in its Southern work as one of “building activity.” Every church
that is to become permanent must have its house dedicated to God.
The sanctuary helps to hold the people together and attach them
to forms of worship that demand a reverential attitude. Perhaps
no people have greater need than our colored brethren of those
religious forms and ceremonies which secure quiet and order in the
public devotions of the assembled multitudes.
We therefore rejoice in every new meeting-house that this society
helps the struggling churches of the South to build.
Another item in the report to which we call attention is the
organization of seven new churches during the year, about the
average number, if you take a series of a dozen or more years, but
not the average if you take simply the last five years.
Since 1882 the average rate of increase has been eleven per year.
It would undoubtedly be a joy to us all if the rate of increase
could be more rapid. We must not, however, forget that we are at
work “among a people who have no congregational trend or training.”
It is undoubtedly wise to proceed with care, planting churches
at the right centres and only where they will give promise of
permanence.
After all the caution that has been exercised it has been necessary
recently to drop four or five from the list. The aim should be at
stability and worth rather than numbers. A single church organized
on the right basis, watched over with painstaking care, so that her
members shall adorn the doctrines they profess, will do more for
the prosperity of Congregationalism in this part of the country
than would a score of churches hastily organized and unsuitably
located. We think the officers of this society have been wise in
their movements thus far; nearly all the churches organized having
made a history that deserves the admiration of Christian people
everywhere.
But when we think of the constantly increasing number of graduates
from the Christian schools and colleges under the patronage of this
society; and the greater familiarity of the Secretaries with the
localities suited to become strategic points for Congregationalism
in the South; and the marked success of those churches whose
permanence is beyond question, are we not warranted in expressing
the hope that in the near future we shall see a radical advance all
along this important line of denominational work? We know that this
is what our Secretaries long for as well as pray for, and what with
our contributions cheerfully made, they will hope to accomplish.
They heartily agree with us in believing that the uplifting
influences of schools and colleges would be readily dissipated
or turned into channels for evil if they are not gathered up and
multiplied in rightly constituted bodies which shall prove the
germs around which the forces of the community shall organize for
good. Working together, therefore, as contributors and directors,
we may expect to be cheered from year to year with the rapid growth
in the numbers of these organized Christian forces which have
in themselves vitalizing and transforming power which works for
righteousness both in character and conduct.
* * * * *
REPORT ON MOUNTAIN WORK.
BY REV. A. H. QUINT, D.D., CHAIRMAN.
The committee on so much of the Annual Report as relates to
mountain work, particularly in Tennessee and Kentucky, respectfully
reports as follows:
The few details given in the report are of such an interesting
character as to suggest the earnest wish that far more extended
accounts of facts and incidents had been spread before the
Association.
Want of space in the narration of the vast work of this body was
of course the constraining reason for brevity in the report. But
the comprehensive statement which is made exhibits conclusively the
opportunity for a new and peculiar work, namely, that of giving the
Gospel, its character and its schools, to a class hitherto scarcely
touched by beneficent Christian agencies.
This is a class of white population, a class which felt of
course in some degree the blighting influence of slavery, which
contaminated everything within the reach of its malaria; but this
class, from its circumstances, was not a slave-holding class. It
is a class of sturdy blood and mountain habits, and is capable
of great development. Two considerations urge the necessity of
covering this field.
One is, the ordinary obligation to preach the gospel to those who
do not have the gospel.
The other is, the evident capacity of this peculiar people to
become a power in the development of that section of our land.
While the field and the number of persons are both limited in
comparison with the great work among the freedmen, their importance
appeals to this Association with steadily increasing force.
The opportunity is at hand, and it is in a line which old friends
of our regenerating work could scarcely have hoped for. Devout
praise is due to Almighty God for this open door to a vast success.
It is worthy of notice in this respect how, in the history of this
Association, God has steadily placed before it successive duties
and successive privileges. From the first dawning of its Foreign
and Home work, freed from complicity with the great sin of our
country, new specialties have been added as fast as older ones were
ripened into practical efficacy. This comparatively new work seems
to be in a direct line of Divine development. Your Committee feels
that the sanction of this Association should be emphatically given
to the work of its administration in this department, a work in
which no spirit of caste shall be in any way tolerated, and that
the call for a large increase of laborers to be located at all
suitable points, should be met as rapidly as possible.
The Committee has no doubt of the wisdom and judicious care which
characterizes your Executive Committee, and believes that that
committee needs only the hearty approval of this body to encourage
it to go on in this direction.
* * * * *
REPORT ON INDIAN WORK.
BY MR. FRANK WOOD, CHAIRMAN.
The first great work of this Association was due to a crisis in
the history of one oppressed race on this continent, who after
more than one hundred years of slavery and oppression, had, in the
providence of God, freedom and citizenship suddenly thrust upon
them. Four millions of souls—a large majority poor, ignorant and
degraded—to these came the A. M. A. as God’s own messenger to lead
the way to education, usefulness and Christianity.
A similar emergency has now arisen in the history of another
oppressed and wronged race for whom this Association has always
done good work—the North American Indian.
Since the last annual meeting of this Association, the Dawes Bill,
which has been called the emancipation proclamation of the Indian,
has passed both houses of Congress, and is now the law of the land.
Public attention, as never before, has been turned to the wrongs
and the needs of the Indian. The new conditions have developed
new necessities, new opportunities, and new dangers. Numerous
societies, in thirty-two different States, have been organized to
assist them. All this gives new importance to the work of the A.
M. A. among the Indians. The summary for the year is encouraging.
The conversions and additions to church membership tell a story
of faithful, unselfish work for the Master, in one of the hardest
possible fields of missionary labor, with little of the romance
or pleasure of travel sometimes afforded by missions in foreign
lands; among a people whom a Judge of the Supreme Court called “a
despised and rejected class of persons;” handicapped and hindered
in all their efforts by the suspicions and hatreds developed by
centuries of injustice, robbery and cruelty from a Government that
claimed to be civilized and Christian, and also by the Reservation
System, which puts the missionary and the teacher under the
absolute control of the Indian Agent, who may be a mere political
tool and a man of no character, yet has despotic authority on the
reservation, with power to expel or imprison the missionary, or
break up his school or congregation. Yet in spite of all obstacles,
through love of Him who was also “despised and rejected of men,”
they remained faithful amid dangers and difficulties, till, through
their labor and that of their companions and predecessors, there
are now nearly 29,000 Indian church members.
None have done better or more faithful work than the missionaries
of the A. M. A. None are doing better work than Mr. Riggs and his
associates. Yet, when compared with the extent of the field and
the number and spiritual needs of those not yet reached by the
influences of the gospel, and the opportunities and perils incident
to their new and changing conditions of life, how very small is
the work that the Christian Church is doing in this great field.
Think of it—two hundred and forty-eight thousand Indians in the
midst of a Christian land, and after the labor of 200 years only
29,000 professed Christians among them, and only 143 missionaries,
of all denominations, to carry the gospel to this great multitude;
and these few are hampered and hindered in their work by the
intercourse laws, the opposition of agents and the orders of the
Commissioner. When for the first time legislation, based on justice
and humanity, is opening up vistas of usefulness and progress to
the Indian; when the need of Christian teaching, guidance and care
is greater than ever before, the Indian Bureau has issued orders
that paralyzes missionary operations, by prohibiting the use of the
vernacular in teaching English or the truths of the gospel. The
Indians all know the vernacular. They have been carefully shut away
from any other language by the Government restraints that surround
all reservations, shutting out everything that would educate or
civilize. The vernacular is used in the mission schools to teach
English and the truths of the gospel to those who understand no
other language. With this use we should submit to no interference.
In a contest for religious liberty against the official tyranny
that has for the last hundred years tried to usurp the place of
Divine Providence to the Indian, we may be sure of the support of
the freedom-loving American people. The intercourse laws should
be repealed, so far as they relate to the operation of missionary
societies. We should insist that all obstructions to the preaching
of the gospel should be swept away. Then bring before all the
churches the pressing and immediate needs of these neighbors who
have fallen among thieves, who are pagans in a Christian land.
While we are waiting they are passing into eternity. Shall we
remain in selfish indifference till we are aroused by the dreadful
sentence, “If thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way,
that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I
require at thy hand.” This Association is only the servant of the
churches. The means and the men must come from the churches. If
the churches were awake to their duty in this matter, and realized
their responsibility for the Christianizing of the Indian, they
could send missionaries to every part of this field within a year.
There are 348,000 Indians in the country, excluding Alaska. From
this number we should deduct 65,000 in the five civilized tribes.
This leaves 183,000. Of this number 28,600 are already church
members. This leaves a population not greatly more than three times
the size of this city of Portland. Would we dare to say to our
Master that we cannot occupy this field?
There never has been a time so propitious as the present; there
never has been a time when the wrongs and the needs of the Indian
have received so much attention from the Christian, the legislator
and the philanthropist.
Therefore your committee would recommend that a committee of five
be chosen to co-operate with the Financial Secretary for Indian
Missions in devising and carrying out measures to bring the needs
and opportunities of the Indian field before the churches, other
missionary societies doing Indian work, and the numerous Indian Aid
societies now organized throughout the country.
This committee should make an effort to secure the co-operation of
all Christians and friends of the Indian in a greatly enlarged,
thorough, systematic mission work. They should also labor to create
a public sentiment that should demand the repeal of the intercourse
laws, so far as they hinder mission work; the order in relation to
the use of the vernacular in the mission schools, and the removal
of every other obstruction of the Indian Bureau to the civil and
religious liberty of the missionary and teacher on the one hand,
and the Indian on the other.
The gospel of Christ offers the only solution to the Indian
problem. It must precede and prepare the way for civilization.
Through it alone can we save the Indian, and atone for the century
of dishonor in which our Government’s system of dealing with the
red men has made them paupers and kept them barbarians and pagans.
This is the work of the Christian church, and if we shrink from or
avoid the duty of the hour, God will not hold us guiltless.
* * * * *
REPORT ON CHINESE WORK.
BY REV. S. L. B. SPEARE, CHAIRMAN.