[Illustration: SEPTEMBER, 1883.
VOL. XXXVII.
NO. 9.
The American Missionary]
CONTENTS
PAGE.
EDITORIAL.
ANNUAL MEETING—THIS NUMBER—FINANCIAL 257
THE NERVE OF MISSIONS 258
THE JOHN BROWN STEAMER (drawing) 259
SECOND NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSEMBLY 260
HON. FREEMAN WALKER 261
SIXTY YEARS IN THE HARVEST FIELD—GIFT BY A
BOHEMIAN BOY 262
BENEFACTIONS 263
GENERAL NOTES 264
VICTORIA FALLS, ZAMBESE RIVER (cut) 266
THE COLOR-LINE.
OPINIONS FROM THE PRESS 267
BUREAU OF WOMAN’S WORK.
FROM OUR LADY MISSIONARY, WILMINGTON, N.C. 279
A VALUED WORKER GONE 279
CHILDREN’S PAGE.
CHUNG WAH 280
A CHINESE GARDEN (cut) 281
RECEIPTS 282
PROPOSED CONSTITUTION 286
* * * * *
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION,
Rooms, 56 Reade Street.
* * * * *
Price 50 Cents a Year, in Advance.
Entered at the Post-Office at New York, N.Y.,
as second-class matter.
* * * * *
THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.
* * * * *
PRESIDENT.
Hon. WM. B. WASHBURN, LL.D., Mass.
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.
Rev. M. E. STRIEBY, D.D., _56 Reade Street, N.Y._
TREASURER.
H. W. HUBBARD, Esq., _56 Reade Street, N.Y._
AUDITORS.
M. F. READING.
WM. A. NASH.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
JOHN H. WASHBURN, Chairman; A. P. FOSTER, Secretary; LYMAN
ABBOTT, ALONZO S. BALL, A. S. BARNES, C. T. CHRISTENSEN, FRANKLIN
FAIRBANKS, CLINTON B. FISK, S. B. HALLIDAY, SAMUEL HOLMES, CHARLES
A. HULL, SAMUEL S. MARPLES, CHARLES L. MEAD, WM. H. WARD, A. L.
WILLISTON
DISTRICT SECRETARIES.
Rev. C. L. WOODWORTH, D.D., _Boston_.
Rev. G. D. PIKE, D.D., _New York_.
Rev. JAMES POWELL, _Chicago_.
COMMUNICATIONS
relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to
the Corresponding Secretary; those relating to the collecting
fields, to the District Secretaries; letters for the Editor of
the “American Missionary,” to Rev. G. D. Pike, D.D., at the New
York Office; letters for the Bureau of Woman’s Work, to Miss D. E.
Emerson, at the New York Office.
DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS
may be sent to H. W. Hubbard, Treasurer, 56 Reade Street, New York,
or, when more convenient, to either of the Branch Offices, 21
Congregational House, Boston, Mass., or 112 West Washington Street,
Chicago, Ill. A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a
Life Member.
FORM OF A BEQUEST.
“I BEQUEATH to my executor (or executors) the sum of —— dollars, in
trust, to pay the same in —— days after my decease to the person
who, when the same is payable, shall act as Treasurer of the
‘American Missionary Association’ of New York City, to be applied,
under the direction of the Executive Committee of the Association,
to its charitable uses and purposes.” The Will should be attested
by three witnesses.
* * * * *
AIM AND WORK.
To preach the Gospel to the poor. It originated in a sympathy with
the almost friendless slaves. Since Emancipation it has devoted its
main efforts to preparing the FREEDMEN for their duties as citizens
and Christians in America, and as missionaries in Africa. As
closely related to this, it seeks to benefit the caste-persecuted
CHINESE in America, and to co-operate with the Government in its
humane and Christian policy toward the INDIANS.
* * * * *
How to Build a House with little or no Money.
[Illustration: A $900 COTTAGE
BUILT FROM ASSOCIATION PLANS.]
=HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE=, contains most approved designs for Villas,
Farm Houses, Cottages, and Suburban Residences, ranging in cost
from $350 to $20,000. 1 Vol., large quarto, 178 illustrations.
Price =50= cts.
=BARNS AND OUTHOUSES=, (=Just Published=) contains most practical
designs for Farm Barns, Stock Barns, Carriage Houses, Stables,
Dairies, Hog Houses, Chicken Houses, Artificial Rearing Apparatus,
Corn Cribs, Granaries, Smoke Hot Beds, Green Houses, Graperies, How
to lay out Farms and Gardens, designs for Lawn and Hanging Baskets,
Garden Vases, Fountains, and valuable illustrated articles on Cheap
Homes, Concrete Buildings. How to improve old Barns, etc. 1 Vol.,
large quarto, 200 illustrations. Price =50= cents.
“The wonder is that publications of this kind have not been
issued before.”—_N.Y. Weekly Witness._ “Precisely meets a want
which thousands have felt.”—_N.Y. Observer._ “The most practical
book we have ever seen.”—_Episcopal Methodist._ “A responsible
Association.”—_Christian at Work._—
These books must be seen to be appreciated—a mere circular or
catalogue can give no idea of their value. On receipt of =$1.00=
we send both books, post-paid, _for examination_. Both or either
can be returned, if not entirely satisfactory and the money will be
immediately refunded. Address,
Co-operative Building Plan Association
(_Mention this Paper._) 24 Beekman St., (Box 2702,) New York.
* * * * *
THE
AMERICAN MISSIONARY.
* * * * *
VOL. XXXVII. SEPTEMBER, 1883. NO. 9.
* * * * *
American Missionary Association.
* * * * *
The Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association will
convene in the Central Congregational Church, Brooklyn (Dr.
Behrends’), Oct. 30. For further information, see 4th page cover.
* * * * *
WE present to our readers in this number of the _Missionary_ a
résumé, or broadside, on the Color-line. The interest of the public
on the question at issue is manifest from the constant series of
articles on the subject in the religious papers.
As to caste prejudice itself, we hold and wish to propagate
pronounced opinions. We believe it to be a sin and a curse; a
hindrance to Christian missions abroad, and a root of bitterness
that will trouble us in this country till it be eradicated. It
is a stone of stumbling to whites and blacks in the South, and
an element of discord in the nation. We, therefore, give these
extracts with the hope that they may promote the discussion and
aid in its final and right settlement. There are some good men and
true who have written on this subject in a tone other than we would
adopt, but we give extracts representing their views.
On the far less important question as to which missionary societies
shall do the work among the whites and blacks in the South, we
do not now express an opinion, and have no wish to influence the
opinions of anybody, believing, as we do, that no difficulties
on this score are likely to arise. On this point, therefore,
our extracts are made with the utmost endeavor at impartiality,
presenting them simply as showing fairly the drift of public
sentiment on the subject.
* * * * *
OUR receipts from collections and donations during the ten months
closing July 31, 1882, were $188,677.02; the collections and
donations for the same months this year have been $164,652.04, a
decrease of $24,024.98. The legacies for these months last year
were $74,152.29, while for this year they have been $64,594.65,
a decrease of $9,557.64. The total receipts for these months last
year in collections, donations and legacies were $262,829.31, while
for this year they have amounted to only $229,246.69, a decrease of
$33,582.62.
* * * * *
THE John Brown Steamer, a drawing of which is given herewith, will
be ready for use at the Mendi Mission during the next dry season,
which commences about November 1.
* * * * *
THE NERVE OF MISSIONS.
The first effort on record, so far as we know, to cut the nerve of
missions, was made by Satan himself in the Garden of Eden when he
affirmed to our first parents, “Thou shalt not surely die.” The
reason for missions comes out in the great truth of Scripture,
that men are lost without the Gospel, and are saved only by the
Gospel. The advocacy of any view that relieves the mind of a
sense of the lost condition of unbelievers cuts at the nerve of
missions. The purpose of God the Father in sending his Son was
that “Whosoever believeth in him might not perish.” The fact
that Christ came to seek and save the lost makes it clear that
whatever serves to convince the world that men are not already,
and will not continue eternally to be, lost without the obedience
involved in the exercise of faith in Christ, runs counter to the
whole drift of missionary endeavor. The gospel of repentance was
foremost in the preaching of John the Baptist, of Christ and the
Apostles—repentance because “He will thoroughly purge his floor and
gather his wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff
with unquenchable fire.”
However much good may come from missions to civilization,
howsoever much they may add to the comfort, the intelligence,
the personal enjoyment of those who may receive the benefit of
them, nevertheless the grand inspiring motive of missions is to
save lost souls. Those in the closest sympathy with Christ, those
who have consecrated themselves to work for him, feel this most
deeply. There are many who appreciate the excellent example given
us by our Saviour when on earth, many who are actuated by kindly
impulses, who wish well for the happiness of their fellow men here
and hereafter; but if these men fail to realize that Christ’s
mission was to save the lost, and that the lost can be saved only
through the preaching of His cross, they are not, as a rule, deeply
interested in the work of promoting missionary efforts at home or
abroad. They do not manifest in any good degree the actuating power
of any nerve of missions. Help must come, progress must be made,
indeed, the world must be brought to Christ, so far as we can see
from history, or from observation in the present generation, by
those who believe and are ready like Christ himself to do all in
their power to bring a lost world into the fullness and blessedness
of the Redeemer’s kingdom.
[Illustration: THE JOHN BROWN STEAMER.]
* * * * *
SECOND NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSEMBLY.
This Assembly, to which reference was made in our July
_Missionary_, was held at Ocean Grove, Aug. 9, 10, 11 and 12, for
the purpose of bringing together prominent persons to awaken public
sentiment in favor of aid for the education of the illiterate
masses in our country.
The meetings were conducted by Rev. J. C. Hartzell, D.D., and the
topics discussed embraced nearly every phase of educational work,
relating more especially, however, to the negroes, the poor whites
and the Indians. In our limited space, we can give simply two or
three leading features of the discussion.
The subject of National Aid to Education deservedly received
large attention and found its way into addresses other than those
on that particular topic. Secretary Strieby presided during the
session when it was considered, and the time was occupied by Prof.
Painter, Hon. J. P. Wickersham, Senator H. W. Blair and others.
Mr. Wickersham gave a comprehensive résumé of the aid provided by
foreign nations for schools, pointing out its benefits and also its
evils. He argued that, although it generally was the wisest and
the only successful way for the people to provide education for
themselves, yet under conditions like those in a portion of our
country, help should be given by the government. True patriotism,
he said, requires us to keep an army of schoolmasters in the South
now as much as it did to maintain an army of soldiers to put down
the rebellion. The urgency of national aid to education at once
was emphasized by Judge Tourgee in the expression that ten million
dollars for this purpose to-day would be worth more than ten
thousand millions twenty years hence. Senator Blair, who recognizes
fully the value of aggressive and thorough methods of reform,
declared, and we think truly, that if every leading newspaper
would give one strong editorial urging the importance of national
aid, if every popular lecturer would devote one hour to public
discussion of the subject, and if every minister would preach one
sermon in its advocacy, the next Congress would pass a bill for
an appropriation for the purpose among its earliest acts, and the
people of the nation would applaud with hearty commendations.
The Negro in America came up for a full share of attention at a
morning session. A goodly number of colored bishops, doctors of
divinity and professors in educational institutions were present.
Their zeal for bringing about reform had been heightened by the
fact, that in so good and moral a community as Ocean Grove,
they were requested to occupy a dining-room by themselves, near
the kitchen, in the house where they were entertained. There
was no color-line drawn, however, at the meeting. Dr. Rust, who
presided, claimed that as the Africans came to this country as
invited guests, that as we even sent our ships for them, they were
entitled to more respect than ordinary foreigners. That respect
was certainly accorded them on this occasion. Dr. Ward, of the
_Independent_, led off with a clear-cut address on the Danger-Line
in Negro Education, setting forth the folly of those who hold that
education unfits men for useful labor. The gist of this topic he
gave in a sentence: “We must educate or we perish.” Rev. J. C.
Price (colored) of North Carolina, urged that the Negro must solve
his problem by his own impressibility. So fitting and eloquent were
his words, that when his limited time had expired, the audience,
with prolonged applause, refused to allow the next speaker to be
called, and it was only when the Chairman assured them that Mr.
Price was but one colored orator among the many he had to bring
forward and announced Bishop Campbell that the speakers were
allowed to proceed. Dr. Tanner, also colored, read a paper on “The
Color-Line,” taking the ground that in this country there must be
no class distinction, but that we must be one people. A new code
of ethics, he said, was proposed, a code not known in any other
nation. It was that equals may associate with equals, if they are
of the same color. The session, which had been participated in by
two white speakers, was brought to a close by Bishop Campbell,
whose good-natured appearance brought freshly to mind the anecdote
that had just been told by Rev. J. W. Hamilton, of Boston, the pith
of which was the reply of the black man, that if the negro had no
soul, religion made his body feel mighty happy.
An evening was given for a public reception of missionaries,
teachers and preachers who have labored in the South from the North
since the war, about 150 of whom were present. Gen. John Eaton
presided over the immense gathering assembled to welcome them.
Pres. Braden, of Nashville, Tenn., Sup’t Salisbury, of the A. M. A.,
Gen. S. C. Armstrong, and others, made addresses.
All the meetings were full of interest, and the managers will
publish a report of the proceedings in pamphlet form.
* * * * *
THE little company which met in Albany Sept. 3, 1846, to found
the American Missionary Association, is rapidly passing away.
Another of those original founders, Hon. Freeman Walker, of North
Brookfield, Mass., at the ripe age of seventy-nine entered into
rest July 11, 1883. If less conspicuous than some others, he was
not less clear in his convictions nor less staunch in his defense
of the liberties and rights of his fellow men. He had large
official trusts in town, and State and nation, extending over many
years, and was always the incorruptible citizen, as he was the
humble Christian.
He inherited all the mental keenness, as well as the moral
toughness and tenacity of the Puritan ancestry, in the eighth
generation of which he stood in regular descent. He had hardly
reached his majority before he placed himself in the ranks of the
few who then stood on the side of the slave. His heart and his
hand, his purse and his home were at the service of the fugitive
in the days of slavery, and since the emancipation as fully at the
service of the freedmen.
The Association has had no firmer friend than Mr. Walker, and few,
in the measure of their means, have more liberally contributed to
its treasury. He belonged to a generation of heroes and martyrs—men
of daring courage and of mighty faith. They were honored of God,
and are now coming to receive the homage of mankind.
* * * * *
_Sixty Years in the Harvest Field_ is the title of a biographical
sketch of Havilah Mowry, Jr., published by A. S. Barnes & Co. The
book contains 360 pages, and is valuable by way of suggestion as
to how laymen may employ their leisure even in the humble walks of
life in bringing sinners to Christ. Mr. Mowry, after working as
a blacksmith for a series of years in Connecticut, entered upon
service as city missionary at Brooklyn, N.Y., where he labored for
many years with marked success. The book is worthy of a place in
Sunday-school libraries, and fitted to promote evangelistic work.
* * * * *
A GIFT BY A BOHEMIAN BOY.
We publish below a letter from Dr. Alden, Secretary of the American
Board, to District Secretary Woodworth, of Boston.
It is a touching fact that a boy in that far-off land should
remember the black children of our own country. It shows how
strangely the impulse of Christian sympathy strikes from land to
land, and suggests the propriety of making this humble gift of
the utmost value to him that gives and those who receive. We,
therefore, propose, as a simple method of reaching that object,
that any person or Sunday-school sending us $10 for the purpose
shall receive one of these pieces of money. The donors to this
object will receive the pieces in the order of application. If more
gifts than the ten are forwarded, we will return them to the donors
or appropriate them by permission to the colored children of the
South.
“REV. C. L. WOODWORTH, D.D.—_My dear brother_: I take great
pleasure in committing to your trust the inclosed pieces of money,
ten pieces in all, each of them the value of ten kreutzers, making
100 kreutzers in all, or probably about half a dollar of our
currency. It is the gift of a boy in Prague, Austria, whose name
is Bohumil Burda. The name ‘Bohumil’ is the same in signification
as the ordinary name Theophilus, that is to say, ‘a friend of
God.’ This boy placed the money in my hands when Dr. Clark and I
were at Prague, saying that he wished it to be given to the ‘black
children of America.’ I give you the exact coins which he had laid
up after the self-sacrifices of several months, in his warm spirit
of Christian benevolence, and I commit them to you as a sacred
trust, assured that you will know how to multiply them, and how to
use them in such a way as will be not only for the interest of the
black children of America, but for the awakening of their interest
in the needy and the promising children of Bohemia.
“With best wishes for the success of the Society which you now
represent, I remain yours most fraternally,
“E. K. ALDEN, Sec. A. B. C. F. M.”
* * * * *
BENEFACTIONS.
Henry L. Kendall, of Providence, has bequeathed $1,500 to the
Hampton Institute.
Dr. Eliphalet Clark has left a bequest of $50,000 to the Kent’s
Hill Methodist Seminary in Maine.
An unknown contributor, of Massachusetts, has given $5,000 to
Williams College to establish a physical gymnasium.
Charles L. Colby has given $1,000,000 to establish a new university
in Wisconsin. It was his father, Gardner Colby, who endowed the
college which bears his name in Waterville, Me.
The large liberality of Dr. Lucien C. Warner, of New York, will
provide a building three stories high, and 150 feet by 120, for
the Conservatory of Music at Oberlin. It is expected to cost from
$30,000 to $50,000.
Mr. and Mrs. Mills have just added $20,000 to their gifts to Mills
Seminary, Oakland, Cal., and fifteen acres of land. Another gift of
$5,000 has also been received, and one of $2,000 from Mrs. Wm. E.
Dodge.
The trustees of the estate of the late Frederick Marquand have
given a subscription to the Elmira Female College of $25,000, on
condition that an equal sum be raised by the friends of the college.
The Canadian government has appropriated $44,000 for the
establishment of Indian schools in the Northwest. Two schools are
to be built with this money—one Protestant and one Catholic.
Mr. Moody has recently received from a gentleman in Boston a gift
of $50,000 for his school at Northfield, on condition that an
additional $50,000 be raised. Several scholarships of $3,000 each
have also been received lately.
_The demand for a new building at the Tillotson Institute, Austin,
Texas, of which mention was made in our December_ MISSIONARY, _is
very urgent. Last year the number of students turned away for lack
of room was greater than the number admitted. Twenty thousand
dollars, in addition to the amount already pledged for the purpose,
are needed at once._
* * * * *
GENERAL NOTES.
THE INDIANS.
—W. H. McKinney, a Choctaw from the Indian Territory, graduated
this year from Roanoke College, receiving the degree of B.A.
—Thirty Nez Perces women, widows of the men who fled from Idaho in
1876, have been permitted to leave the Indian Territory and return
to their old homes.
—The Department at Washington has entered into an agreement with
the managers of the Lincoln Institute, Philadelphia, whereby that
institution is to undertake the education of fifty Indian girls.
—Bishop Whipple, when on a recent visit to the Indian department of
the missionary diocese, administered the communion to 247 Chippewa
Indians. There are eight churches in the Chippewa mission. One just
building will cost $10,000.
—Three hundred acres of land have been purchased, south of
Lawrence, Kansas, for the site of an Indian Industrial School,
located by the last session of Congress. Suitable buildings will be
erected for the accommodation of 500 pupils. Ten thousand dollars
have been raised for the object by private subscription, and it
will probably be completed by November 1.
—Information is published in Nebraska to the effect that the
tradition that Indians will not work is untrue. On the line of the
Minneapolis & Omaha Railroad they hang around the section houses
and insist on being hired whenever any extra work is to be done,
and every regular gang has both Winnebagoes and Omahas in it. They
make efficient laborers, often giving better satisfaction than
foreigners in the employ of the company.
THE CHINESE.
—The revival power is being manifested to a greater extent in Japan
than elsewhere.
—A union for Christian work among the Chinese of Brooklyn, N.Y.,
has been formed, with Andrew A. Smith, Secretary of the Park
Commission, at its head. A reading-room and headquarters will be
established at 991 and 993 Fulton street.
—There are now more than 300 Chinese Christians on the Hawaiian
Islands, and stated religious services for them are maintained
at four different points. One of these Celestials, a member and
a deacon of the Church in Honolulu, has built a school-house in
his native village in China, and now supports a Christian teacher
there, thus showing the importance of evangelistic work among the
Chinese of these Islands.
—European statisticians are gradually reducing their estimates of
the population of China. It used to be put at over 400,000,000.
Behm and Wagner reduce their estimate for China and Corea from
434,500,000 to 379,500,000. Peterson reduces his estimate by
75,000,000, making the present total 350,000,000. Dr. Happer,
missionary, believes this can safely be reduced another 50,000,000.
Mr. Hippisley, Acting Commissioner of Customs, thinks 250,000,000
more nearly correct than 350,000,000. The losses by the Taeping and
Mohammedan rebellions, and by the famine and pestilence which swept
the provinces of Chili, Shantung, Shansi, Shensi and Houan, are
variously estimated at from 61,000,000 to 81,000,000.
AFRICA.
—King Mtesa, of Uganda, is dead. He welcomed and co-operated with
Capt. Speke, the discoverer of Victoria Nyanza, and has played a
prominent part in all the events that have occurred in his kingdom,
whether they were in the interest of exploration or mission work.
—The German Reichstag is said to have voted 1,000,000 marks, about
£50,000, for the expense of a German exploring expedition into
Central Africa.
—Mr. H. M. Stanley is said to have used more than a million yards
of Manchester goods in paying the workmen employed in constructing
the road to Stanley Pool.
—Drs. Bachmann and Wilms, of Munster, set out in May for a journey
of several years in Africa, especially in the Transvaal, which they
contemplate exploring with reference to botany and zoölogy. They
hope also to develop commercial relations between Southern Africa
and Germany.
—Since the overthrow of Arabi Pasha, the missions of the United
Presbyterians of America have been more prosperous than ever.
Their work, which is largely among the Copts, is approved by the
Coptic Bishop, and one of the young men recently licensed by the
mission has been engaged to expound the Scriptures. So great was
the interest in his first sermon that he was obliged to repeat it
three times. Women disguised themselves in male attire in order to
get into the streets to hear the preaching. An effort will be made
to establish a regular national evangelical church in Egypt.
—From reliable statistics it appears that the progress of Islamism
in Africa, during the last hundred years, has been appalling. At
the Mohammedan Missionary University, at Cairo, in Egypt, there
are at this day 10,000 students under training, ready to go to any
part of the world to teach the doctrines of Islam. Missionaries
meet these Moslem priests not in Turkey alone, which is the centre
of their power, but also in Persia, India and China, and in the
heart of Africa. Very few have been led to renounce their faith for
Christianity. This is owing to the fear of persecution, for the
Moslem holds that it is not only proper, but a duty to kill any one
who abjures his faith in their prophet.
[Illustration: VICTORIA FALLS, ZAMBESE RIVER, AFRICA.]
* * * * *
THE COLOR-LINE.
* * * * *
_Opinions Gathered from the Press._
CASTE PREJUDICE.
REV. W. H. WARD, D.D.—ADDRESS AT CLEVELAND.
Christianity in India has utterly succumbed to caste once. The
missionaries of the last century, after beginning nobly, yielded
and allowed caste to rule in the Christian church. “I have
carefully avoided all coercive measures,” said Schwarz, in 1787.
Bishop Heber allowed caste. Not till 1833 did the English Church
missionaries decide, through the voice of the noble Bishop Wilson,
in a peremptory pastorate letter of July 5, 1833, that no mercy
should be shown to the accursed thing. “The distinctions of caste,”
said he, “must be abandoned decidedly, immediately, finally.
Birth condemns no class of men, from generation to generation, to
inevitable contempt, debasement and servitude. The enforcement of
this order broke up churches. A Sudra would sooner give up his
Christianity than take the communion with a pariah. The war has
been long, and is not yet fully concluded. An American Lutheran
missionary lately felicitated himself that now the two castes have
been prevailed upon to take the Lord’s Supper together. In a London
missionary station some ten years ago a few pariahs were converted,
whereupon the Shanars, at their own cost, built a chapel for their
low caste brethren, lest they should have to worship with them. A
few years ago a missionary led several low caste Christians into a
chapel door, whereupon the high caste occupants hastily scrambled
out of the window. * * *
Do I say that caste is broken down? Not quite. Even yet it lingers:
and where it lingers chiefest is, it shames me to say, in education
and Christianity. To the infinite disgrace of the church, the chief
denominations of the South divide on the caste line. The white
Christians and churches are put purposely into one denomination,
and the colored into another. We have white Methodists and
black Methodists; white Baptist associations and black Baptist
associations. What denomination is there but the Roman Catholic,
the Episcopalian and the Congregational, in which whites and blacks
can stand equally before God? In the South both whites and blacks
accept this condition, for the most part, as right. It does not
occur to them to protest against it. Even the negroes accept the
humiliation to which they have become accustomed. No voice of
protest is raised. Whites and blacks alike seem satisfied that
God’s church united above should be divided below. Why lingers
Jerubbaal amid the wheat-threshings of Manasseh? Why comes no
Gideon forth, inspired with the zeal of the Lord, to cut down this
horrible idol of his father’s house? * * * *
When the colored race were slaves, the color marked the social
distinction of service. That is all past now. They may be servants
still. Then the social distinction still holds. We cannot break up
these right social distinctions. We cannot prevent the existence
of classes in society. We choose those of our own sort, with whom
we are intimate. But in the name of God, in the name of the hopes
and rights of the poor, in the memory of the accursed experience
of the ages of serfdom, in the East and in the West, we demand
that neither law nor recognized custom shall impose on social
conditions the Satanic burdens, the hopeless, crushing weight
of impassable caste. It is accursed in the hall of legislation,
accursed at the ballot-box, accursed in the court-room, accursed in
the church-pews, accursed at the Lord’s table—most accursed when it
sets an impassable gulf between high and low, white and black in
the school-room.
* * * * *
A QUESTION OF CASTE.
BY REV. HORACE BUMSTEAD, D.D.
It should be remembered that this prejudice in the South is more
one of caste than it is one of race. It is in the former relation
of master and slave that the distinction between the races has its
strongest roots. The personal antipathy on the ground of feature
and color—the race prejudice pure and simple—is not so great in the
South as at the North, where fewer colored people are met with. I
have heard a Congregational pastor, in one of the most enlightened
communities of Massachusetts, declare that he did not think he
could endure the presence of a colored cook in his kitchen. One
of the best Northern teachers in the South confesses that when
he first met with colored people in the horse-cars of Washington
he would sit as far from them as possible. But Southern men and
women who were nursed at the breasts of slave mammies in infancy,
have played familiarly with colored children in childhood, and
have been served all their lives by the darker-skinned race in a
multitude of ways and in the closest personal proximity, can feel
little, if any, of this personal antipathy. It is the distinction
between a serving class and a ruling class which chiefly causes the
separation here. But as the colored people acquire intelligence and
property, and the white people learn more of the dignity of labor,
this distinction will cease to coincide with the color line.
But it is said that white students will not _now_ attend school
with the colored, and that we must take the facts as they are.
But the facts are not all on one side. For years the students of
Berea College, in Kentucky, have been about equally divided between
the two races, and have studied harmoniously together. And why?
Simply because, for a large surrounding region, Berea College has
offered the best and cheapest opportunity for an education. Let
all the institutions of the American Missionary Association be
amply endowed and equipped, so that they can offer to the poor
whites more and better than can be obtained anywhere else, and the
wasteful and needless expedient of missionary color-line schools
and colleges will no longer be thought of.
_The Congregationalist._
NOT ON ACCOUNT OF COLOR.
EDITORIAL IN INDEPENDENT.
Professor James M. Gregory, of the Howard University, made some
capital remarks on the “color line” at the recent banquet in
Washington, in honor of Frederick Douglass. “The color line,” as
he justly said, “was drawn when the Negro was made a slave in this
country,” and the prejudice existing against him is “not on account
of color, but by reason of previous condition, his color serving
to indicate his identity with a race held as bondmen.” “This
prejudice,” he added, “is purely American. Colored men traveling in
other countries have not found _color_ a mark of degradation. If
they are reminded of their color at all, it is by Americans they
meet, who are not magnanimous enough to treat the negro courteously
even on foreign soil, where race prejudice is not tolerated.” * * *
Let the practice of the American people be as impartially just as
is their Constitution; and our colored fellow-citizens will have no
grievances of which to complain. We congratulate them upon the fact
that the Constitution has taken them under its charge, and upon the
further fact that the day-star of a bright and promising future is
gradually shedding its light upon their horizon. The doctrine of
equal privileges and equal responsibilities will in the end lift
them to the level of an unquestioned and developed manhood; and
then the “color line” will wholly disappear.
ONLY HALF TRUE.
A friend, who is familiar with the blacks at the South, writes
us that the statement that “the colored people prefer to be in
churches by themselves” is only half true. He adds that, so far as
it is true, it is because they either shrink from the restraints
of a pure and intelligent religion, such as that of the whites,
or from the scorn or ill-concealed toleration of their white
fellow-worshipers; and that, if sure of a cordial welcome by the
whites, they do not prefer to worship by themselves. We are glad to
give publicity to this statement, although it is contradicted by
that of every one else whom we remember to have heard speak of the
matter. Is there not another reason which tends to separate white
and black Christians into distinct churches? Do not the latter,
even when assured of a cordial welcome by the whites, usually
prefer an emotional, hortatory style of preaching which is very
dear to them, but which disturbs, if it do not even amuse, the
whites? Certainly it is so here at the North.
_The Congregationalist._
ONE DESTINY.
BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
There is but one destiny, it seems to me, left for us, and that
is to make ourselves and be made by others a part of the American
people in every sense of the word. Assimilation, not isolation, is
our true policy and natural destiny. Unification for us is life.
Separation is death. We cannot afford to set up for ourselves a
separate political party or adopt for ourselves a political creed
apart from the rest of our fellow-citizens.
_The Independent._
CHRIST OR CASTE.
BY H. K. CARROLL.
Shall we go into the South to exalt Christ or to surrender to
caste? Shall we go to the Negro as to a being made a little lower
than man, and reach down to him, not to lift him up to our plane,
but to help him live better and be content on his own lower
plane? Or, shall we go to him as to a brother of our own blood,
unfortunate, degraded, despised, and strive thus to save him and
improve him on Christ’s plan? If we go for Christ, we go inevitably
to bear reproach, to submit to ostracism; we go to contend against
untold difficulties, to meet with discouragements, to fail, it may
be, for many years, of at least great numerical success. * * * The
secret of much wrong thinking and wrong practice concerning mixed
churches is the idea which both Dr. Curry and Dr. Wheeler seem to
regard as universal, that the Church is a social institution. If
this be once admitted, Dr. Wheeler is right in contending that the
lines of social distinction which are drawn in the drawing-room
will inevitably be drawn in the Church. Here is a basis quite
sufficient to build white and colored churches upon; but it is
just as certainly broad enough for other social distinctions,
which Methodism, of all branches of the Church Catholic, has been
the least willing to admit. Seeing, as Dr. Wheeler sees, that the
employer and the laborer, the rich and the poor, the learned and
the unlearned form different and more or less distinct classes
in society, we cannot only justify churches organized on the
color line, but we must be prepared to justify churches organized
exclusively for the rich; churches for the poor; churches for the
educated and churches for the uneducated; churches for merchants
and distinct churches for clerks. The idea that the Church is a
social institution, if rigidly adhered to, would give us a system
of class distinctions as intricate as that of India. There are
two great facts which make the whole human race absolutely equal,
absolutely without distinctive claims or advantages, before the
altar. The first is the fact of universal sin; the second is the
fact of universal need of salvation. Men of all degrees, from the
prince to the peasant, from the millionaire to the pauper, from
the most profound scholar to the most unlettered backwoodsman,
from the whitest European to the blackest African, meet in church
on a common platform. They leave their social distinctions, their
rank, and their peculiar privileges outside the church door. Here
is the one place where all the sons of God may meet and work
together as one family. The Duke of Wellington knelt at the altar
with a plain farmer and received the sacrament. “Here,” said he,
“we are brothers.” The Church is associational rather than social.
It exists in society, is formed from society, and exercises the
most powerful influence on society; but its province is neither to
break down nor build up distinctions in society. It may inculcate
principles, which men and women will carry into their social
relations, for the cure of such evils as may exist in society; but
it is not its province as an organization to form and regulate
society. Its distinct work is to draw all men to Christ and help
them to live a righteous and useful life.
_The Independent._
THE CHRISTIAN LEAGUE.
BY REV. WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D.
“This company must be a clean one, and there is no lack of sound
and reputable men in our churches.”
“How about the colored brethren?” queried Mr. Strong.
“The colored brethren must be left out,” was the answer, “not for
social, but for ecclesiastical reasons. One of the first duties
of this league of ours, if it ever gets into operation, will be
the suppression of these colored churches. When the colored people
abandon their own organizations, and join the other churches,
they may come in as representatives from them. We will have no
color-line in the Christianity for which this club stands. I’ll go
as far as any other man in fraternizing with colored men; but with
colored churches, never. The sectarianism whose only basis is the
color of the skin is the meanest kind of sectarianism.”
_The Century._
IT DECIDES NOTHING.
BY REV. D. M. WILSON.
We are told that the colored prefer to be by themselves. Were
this true, it would decide nothing as to the proper method of
church work. The several castes of India would have preferred to
remain separate even after nominally embracing Christianity; but
this could not be. Among Christians there is but one fold and one
Shepherd. The very object of religion is to make men one in Christ
and one in Christian fellowship. If this be not done, nothing
is done to any good purpose. Our separate schools and separate
churches have during the last eighteen years done more to separate
and alienate the two races than two hundred and forty years of
slavery had done. In the times of slavery both races were in the
same churches. Why not now? One thing is too plain for an honest
man to deny, and that is the fact that, had the whites treated
the colored during these last years with the same courtesy that
they extend to a Roman Catholic Irishman and his children, we
would never have heard of a colored school or that ecclesiastical
monstrosity, a _colored church_. The results are disastrous to both
parties. The colored are left to themselves and the blind lead the
blind. Nine-tenths of their preachers have no more fitness for
preaching than they have for lecturing upon fluxions. Were one of
their churches of average capacity for senseless noise and uproar
within earshot of my residence, I would regard it a number one
nuisance. But it is _not_ their fault that they are by themselves.
A brute only moderately domesticated soon understands when he is
not welcome, and acts accordingly. When slavery had disappeared,
the colored saw but too plainly that they were _not_ welcome any
longer in their old churches, and they went forth into a darkness
deeper than they had before know.
_The Independent._
MORE AT HOME BY THEMSELVES.
REV. JAS. H. FAIRCHILD, D.D.
The colored church came into existence not because the colored
people were not welcomed to all the other churches, nor because
a separate organization was desired by those who had been most
favored with education and culture, but because considerable
numbers of them felt more at home with a style of service and
instruction more like that with which they had been familiar.
_Oberlin, the Colony and the College._
WHITE AND COLORED CHURCHES.
BY C. L. GOODELL, D.D.
Having lived over ten years in a Southern State and been an
interested observer of colored people and a sympathetic helper
wherever I could be, I feel a deep interest in the settlement of
this question concerning the mixing of the races in the churches.
Whenever there is a call for a church of Christ, let the brethren
come together and organize it, and start it off with all the
wisdom given them, as to location and other practical matters. It
is a little republic ordering its own affairs, with whatever fact
and counsel it may seek from sister churches. If it be a colored
church, let it take in whatever white Christians may come to its
door, in case it would take in a colored Christian applying under
similar circumstances and of the same Christian character and
fitness. Not many white Christians will come; some might, owing to
their peculiar relations to the church, or to the neighborhood, and
so on.
If a white church be organized, let it receive whatever colored
Christians may knock at its door, in case it would receive white
Christians applying under similar circumstances and of the same
Christian character and fitness. Let that be the rule. There are
always individual cases which must be settled each by itself. Not
many colored people will come; some might, owing to their special
relations to the church or some member of it, and so on. This law
is fundamental in God’s order of society. It applies to Chinamen
and Indians and all races in our communities. Take them as they
come. Not many will come. They prefer to be together; and it is
better they should be as a general thing. * * * Colored Christians
ought to have free access and welcome to white churches. As soon as
they find out that they are really loved and esteemed, and can come
into white churches as brethren, they cease to desire it. They are
happy and helped by this knowledge; but they would rather worship
together, just as every other race would. They love to exchange
fraternal salutations and have many interests in common; but in the
regular work and worship of church life they choose to be one of
the distinct branches of the great body of whom Christ is the head.
I know this from years of practical experience.
_The Independent._
THE COLOR LINE IN CHURCHES.
There is no place in the country where the question of the color
line can be so easily and so fairly tried as in Washington. Here
is a population of 60,000 colored people, with sixty-five colored
churches. There are also in the District 124 white churches,
nearly or quite all of them having one or two colored members,
generally the sexton and his wife. But every colored adult in
Washington knows that the Congregational Church is the only one in
which he stands on an equal footing with his white brethren and
sisters, as their great leader, Frederick Douglass, told them,
“only one church in the national capital over whose doors is the
beautiful inscription, ‘Freedom to worship God without distinction
of color.’” And the pastor of that church, Dr. Rankin, is as much
beloved and as much trusted by the colored population of this city
as a man can be. And the leaders of the colored people all come
here. Hon. J. M. Langston, United States Minister to Hayti, Hon.
B. K. Bruce, ex-senator and now Registrar of the Treasury, the
professors of Howard University and a few others come; and yet I
doubt if there are two dozen colored members in this church. There
are two colored Congregational churches in Washington without a
white man in them, and to them all the colored Congregationalists
go. Nor is it to be wondered at. To the great majority of them the
preaching would be over their heads. Their education and position
in life deprive them of meeting their white brethren on an equality
in parish or prayer meeting. They naturally go by themselves, not
that they are forced to, but because they prefer it. The emotional
demands of their nature are not met in the cooler atmosphere of the
white man’s religion. And so it must be throughout the South. Each
race will for the present prefer churches of its own color. If two
churches are formed in one place at the same time the whites would
not care to sit under the imperfect education and narrow compass of
thought of the colored preacher, nor would the darker portion of
the audience enjoy the more cultivated sermons or prayers of the
whites. Until the average education of the black is more advanced
let them keep separate. The mixing of the races is sure to come,
but it will require generations to do it. All the present can do is
to offer them open doors. If they decline to enter it is their own
action. But with growing wealth, with education equal to that of
their white neighbors, will come social intercourse, and not till
then.
_W. R. H. in Congregationalist._
RESOLUTIONS OF A. M. A. AND A. H. M. S.
At the recent annual meeting of the American Missionary
Association, held in Cleveland, O., a petition was presented
requesting the appointment of a committee to report on the policy
of the Association in regard to race or color prejudice in the
support of schools and churches. As the Executive Committee, to
whom that petition was referred, are entering upon enlarged church
work in the South, they feel called upon to take early action on
this petition, and make the following announcement:
1. That in accordance with the New Testament doctrine upon which
the Association was founded, and by which it has from the beginning
been governed, that God has made of one blood all the nations of
men, we reiterate the rule, which we believe that fidelity to
Christ requires, that all our churches and schools shall open their
doors impartially to persons of every class, race and color.
2. That in obedience to the same New Testament doctrine, we shall
require that all churches aided by us shall unite with neighboring
churches of the same faith and order in Christian fellowship in
the same conferences or associations, and in church councils,
and in other usual means of fraternity and fellowship, making no
distinctions on account of race or color.
3. That this Association will not enter upon any new church work
in any city or town where the American Home Missionary Society has
already established a church work, without previous conference with
the officers of its sister society.
* * * * *