wisely-directed study? Aspiration must mature into purpose and
purpose ripen and harden into character. Intellectual labor must be
encouraged and even exacted until it becomes comparatively easy
and pleasurable. Habits of study and investigation must be formed
and the judgment must be matured. Where shall the young men of the
South get these advantages except in schools for higher education?
But there is one more consideration which I wish to urge. These
six millions are the representatives of a race 200,000,000 strong
and of a continent. No equal body of Africans was ever before
placed in a condition so favorable for the development of whatever
possibilities there are in the race. Under slavery they have been
disciplined to toil and have learned the lessons of work; they
have come to like the ways of civilized life and have acquired
a desire and taste for its comforts and luxuries. Pagan worship
and heathen superstitions have been largely destroyed, and the
people have accepted the Christian religion. They are widely
scattered among their fellow citizens of other races, and they have
intrusted to them the full duties, and have resting upon them all
the responsibilities of citizenship. Whatever possibilities are
in the race can here be developed in a shorter time and by a more
direct way than in the case of any section of Africa. So the race
is on trial, and every aid should be given in order that the best
possible result may be reached. Who can properly estimate the power
for good which colleges and universities, founded in the right
spirit, strongly administered and wisely adapted to the wants and
necessities of the people, can exert in determining the future of
the negro in this country and the future of the great African race?
* * * * *
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON CHURCH WORK.
The church work of the Association during the year has been steady,
growthful, and encouraging. Quite the average of progress has
been attained. This will readily appear by reference to a few
statistics. Six new churches have been added to the list, making in
all eighty-three. Ten houses of worship have been erected. It is a
remarkable fact that every one of the eighty-three churches, except
one whose minister died a short time ago, has a pastor. And equally
remarkable that fifty-one of these pastors are native preachers.
As showing the value of theological seminaries established by the
Association, and the ability and usefulness of trained colored men,
the average membership of sixty-eight in each church exceeds the
average of all the Congregational churches west of Pennsylvania.
The addition of 709 on profession, and the conversion of about an
equal number who have found other church homes, make an average of
seventeen conversions to each church, an increase of 20 per cent.
Where else can an equally good exhibition be made? Only about one
to a church throughout the country. There are seven churches which
have added from twenty-five to forty-five to their membership.
There are only six that report no additions. So far as reported
all but eleven churches contribute money for church purposes.
Thirty-seven report benevolent contributions. One church reports
$350, another church reports $158, another church reports $86,
another church reports $83, another church reports $60, another
church reports $50. Seventy-four Sunday-schools are reported.
One Sunday-school has over 500 members, another 400 members, ten
schools 200 members, and seven schools 100 members. These figures
indicate vitality in the churches, for Sunday-schools do not thrive
very well, excepting where there is activity in the churches with
which they are associated. In nine localities precious revivals
have been enjoyed. The local associations indicate growth in
fellowship and power. When we remember that these results have been
reached amid manifold hindrances and discouragements arising from
ignorance, prejudice, superstition and vice, we may well exclaim,
“What hath God wrought?” “Thank the Lord and take courage.” But
the best results of the year do not admit of tabulation. The
unwritten history of these churches are the tears, the struggles,
the sacrifices, the prayers, the burdens silently, uncomplainingly
borne. This is their real history. God knows it all, and those who
have been the patient workers in its making will be remembered
in that day when he counts up his jewels. Then it must not be
forgotten that these churches represent almost infinitely more in
the South than their small number would indicate. They are tonic
in their influence upon all the other churches around them. Their
simple New Testament polity, which encourages self-government
and self-development, their high standard of ethics, which is a
constant rebuke to an emotional religion apart from morality, make
them peculiarly lights shining in dark places, and invest them with
that quiet, but inscrutable transforming power that belongs to good
leaven.
In this has been vindicated the wisdom of the policy which has
preferred quality to quantity, good character to great numbers,
intelligent piety to ignorant devotion, a pure life to a noisy
profession. Without doubt the Association might have doubled its
present number of churches during these seventeen years. It has
cost something to move slowly in this matter.
We have said that the past year has witnessed the average growth.
The rate of progress during the last seventeen years has been
uniformly very constant, about five churches a year. Ten years
ago six new churches and ten houses of worship were reported. The
question now comes whether it is not quite time to change the rate
by doubling it, at least to quicken the pace. The church work is
initial and fundamental. It underlies all else. The Association is
in the South for no other purpose than to make Christian manhood
and womanhood. For this glorious work the church of God is the
divinely appointed agency. Others are auxiliary. There is but one
opinion as to the sore need of more churches. The Macedonian cry is
heard in many directions.
It has been demonstrated that Congregational churches can exist and
thrive west of the Hudson and south of Mason and Dixon’s line.
The polity and faith of the Pilgrim Fathers is not for the elect
few but the unsaved many. And if the methods, influence, and
example of our churches in the South are greatly stimulating to the
churches round about them, that is an additional argument for their
multiplication.
It can hardly be doubted that the schools and universities, by
their direct and indirect influence, have prepared sufficient
material for more churches. What are eighty-three among the
millions who sit in darkness? It must be kept distinctly in mind
that educational facilities are multiplying in the South, and that
to educate without Christianizing is possibly to augment the perils
instead of the defenses of the Republic.
The sanctifying and consecrating forces must be held in close
contact with the secular, so that education may be hallowed, or it
will end in defeat. We must hold steadfastly to our fundamental
principle that nothing but the gospel of Christ will uplift
and save the South. And while our educational institutions are
thoroughly Christian, yet the church must be the energizing and
radiating centre of Christian influence and power. Brethren, does
not the church work need and deserve a fresh impulse? Ought not
the momentum gathered during the seventeen years to accelerate its
progress very greatly now? Would not all hearts be gladdened, if
the next annual report should bring tidings of twelve instead of
six churches organized under the favoring auspices of this society?
Opportunities are (I was about to say waiting, but they don’t
wait) passing. Much has been irrevocably lost. Much yet remains.
Ideas are changing rapidly. We had feared that crystallization
would occur earlier than this, and society become so incrusted
with prejudice and hardened by vice that the helpful activities of
this and kindred societies would be hindered or defeated. But God
is mercifully holding the elements still in solution that churches
and schools, like ours, may become the dominating centres of the
new civilization. Let these blessed centres of light, healing,
influence, be multiplied, surcharged with transforming energy, with
assimilating power. The multiplicand already exists; men and money
must furnish, under God, the multiplier.
ARTHUR LITTLE, _Chairman_.
* * * * *
REMARKS OF REV. C. O. BROWN.
Within the past two years it has been my privilege to look in upon
three or four of the churches contemplated in this report. One
year ago last August I found myself on the Sabbath day in the city
of Chattanooga, and I started out at an early hour to find the
Congregational church. I made several inquiries of the white people
whom I met, but none of them seemed to know. I sauntered along
until I was in front of the white Baptist church of the place, and
found an aged colored gentleman ringing the bell preparatory to
service. I asked him if he knew where the Congregational church
was. “Oh yes,” he said, “I’se a member of dat church myself.”
Then, having an opportunity, I chatted with him a few minutes, and
asked him why they wanted to sustain a Congregational church in
Chattanooga. “Oh,” he said among many other things, “we doesn’t
believe in dese yer incitements dat de old churches has.” And then
I asked him what they proposed to do in the future. “Look a heah,
brudder,” he said, “we’s come heah to stay.” Presently I found
myself in that Congregational church. I found an ordinarily good
little structure, comfortably furnished for church purposes. When
the congregation came in I saw decently clad people with hymn
books and Bibles in their hands. Presently from the study door
came the pastor, and with all dignity and order, took his place in
the pulpit, and he preached a sermon in which, if my eyes had been
closed, I should have found no evidence that he was a colored man.
He was a graduate of Atlanta University. There was every evidence
of order and system, of calm and deliberative religion, which we
should find in this church on the next Sabbath day.
In the evening of that same day I had an opportunity for
comparisons and contrasts. I went over to one of the old colored
churches which stands diagonally across an open square or common.
The scene was that of one billowy sea of emotion and excitement,
of hallooing and amen-ing. Now, I said to myself, here is this
pure church established in this community as a standing testimony
against that sort of thing. I said, as I sat beneath the spell of
emotions which found vent in tears, here in this Congregational
church and on this ground are both prophecy and fulfillment. The
Congregational church stands not more than six rods from where
my tent was at one time pitched when I was a soldier; where the
shells from Lookout mountain used to drop in the days of Thomas and
Hood. Here, I said, in this scarred ground, is a prophecy which
was uttered eighteen years ago, in the thunder of artillery and
the clash of battle. It was a prophecy of liberty; and this church
for colored people, for _free_ colored people, our brothers and
sisters, is the fulfillment of that prophecy. It was my privilege,
only a few days later, to be present in the Storrs Congregational
church of Atlanta. And it was a pleasure to be permitted to speak
to those people. I saw there the same evidence of Christian order
and propriety; everything which bore testimony to a high type of
Christian life. I attended two of its prayer meetings. There was
the calm, subdued temper which bore witness to the suppression of
the animal nature and the development of the spiritual. And I want
to say here, brethren, that if God in his providence should send me
to Atlanta, I should cast in my lot with the Storrs Congregational
church.
I wish to second what was said by Doctor Little with regard to
the enlargement of our church work in the South. We feel that the
time has come for broadening the boundaries of this distinctively
religious work. Our churches are, and are to be, the conservators
of the other work done in our educational institutions. None of our
young people should be allowed, for want of a church home of our
own polity, to escape from holy and pure influences. Nor should
they be allowed to expend in other directions power and influence
acquired in our schools which might be conserved in our churches.
Let us not make the mistake south of the Ohio River which, thirty
or forty years ago, was made west of the Hudson; but let us rather
from this annual meeting look to the enlargement of this blessed
part of our work, concerning which such glad harbingers are before
us in the general survey presented by the Secretary.
* * * * *
AFRICA.
* * * * *
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.
The Committee to whom was referred the general report on Africa
would submit the following:
Little that is new or very noteworthy has occurred during the
year past. The Mendi Mission, which has been so long, and at such
sacrificial cost, maintained by the Association, was reinforced
by a graduate of the theological department of Howard University,
Rev. Mr. Hall, who took charge of the church at Good Hope station,
and has brought to his work such qualifications as promise to
make him a valuable worker in this growingly hopeful field. Mr.
St. John, who went out to become the business manager of the
missionary steamer John Brown, though obliged temporarily to
return to this country, has accomplished some useful exploration,
and demonstrated that the proposed steamer will become a most
timely and invaluable assistant to the missionaries in the way
of facilitating transportation and intercommunication. There are
encouraging signs that the influence of the workers at this mission
is extending to the interior, and that the representatives of its
schools and churches who are engaged in secular callings are a
credit to the same, and are advertising the value of Christian
training and character to those who are as yet strangers to both.
One faithful laborer has, during the last twelvemonth, fallen at
his post, after a service of fifteen years, Rev. J. M. Williams.
His name will go to swell that ever-increasing list of heroic
workers, who sacrificed their lives for Africa’s redemption. A
native preacher has taken the vacated place, and so the holy work
goes on, though the brave workers here and there are summoned to
leave their toil and go up to their exceeding great reward. It is
a token at once significant and prophetic, that this successor
of Mr. Williams, at the Kaw Mendi station, has a son now in Fisk
University who will keep up the succession of workers in Africa,
by in due time returning to the land of his fathers as a herald
of the gospel of Christ. Three other youthful representatives of
the Mendi Mission are at school at Hampton and Atlanta, their very
presence here being fraught with good to fellow students from the
colored people of this country and to the land from which they came
as the first fruits in the way of missionary consecration. At the
last Annual Meeting, great interest was excited by the expedition
of Superintendent Ladd and Dr. Snow, which had just been entered
upon, to find on the upper Nile a suitable place for the proposed
Arthington Mission. Much was hoped for from this resolute attempt
to locate a new station in the region of the Sobat. These pioneers
have safely returned, and bring their mature recommendations
as to what is expedient to be done in the district, where that
generous patron of African missions, Mr. Arthington, was so urgent
something should be done. On the whole, this Association has made
a noble record, in concert with other missionary societies in the
dark continent. The chapter of what has been endured and achieved
by its representatives will be one of imperishable glory in the
annals of this body. Whatever changes the future may bring, for
the good brave work of the past, we and all lovers of Africa will
praise God. Never was its mission work in the far-away land more
promiseful, and we can but believe that days of large ingathering
and of immediate advance are before it, so that past sacrifices
and toils will not have been in vain, and the speedier successes
of coming days will justify a missionary policy of the boldest and
broadest character.
M. MCG. DANA, _Chairman_.
* * * * *
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON THE PROPOSED EXCHANGE OF MISSIONS.
The Committee to whom was referred Secretary Strieby’s report,
on recommending the simplification of the work of the American
Missionary Association, by withdrawing from the foreign field,
and assuming more fully the work among the Indians to which it is
now providentially invited, approve in general of its proposals,
but beg to recommend to the Executive Committee of the American
Missionary Association, in considering and settling the questions
involved, the following points which they suggest as conditions in
effecting the changes contemplated:
1. That the entire Mendi Mission, with its long and checkered
history, representing such heroic sufferings and achievements, and
in the sustenance of which our British friends have so generously
aided us, be continued by transferring it to the A. B. C. F. M.
or to the United Brethren, who have a mission near by and who
will entertain overtures for the same, and that to this end the
churches, schools, and other property be made over to either party,
with the interest of the Avery fund, in the one case at once and
in the other for a limited time, as the Committee may arrange.
That the steamer John Brown, to which the Sabbath-schools of our
churches have contributed some $7,000, be built, and be given
over to such parties as will use it for the purposes originally
contemplated.
2. That the interest in, and funds for, the Arthington Mission
be, so far as may be, transferred to the A. B. C. F. M., and that
failing, to the United Presbyterians who are doing such excellent
work in the Nile Valley.
3. That this Association will assume the Indian Mission in Dakota
offered it by the A. B. C. F. M., and will withdraw from the
foreign fields, and arrange ultimately for the transference of the
interest of the Avery fund to the American Board.
And your Committee propose for your adoption the following
resolution, covering the adjudication of this question.
Resolved, That the matter of accepting the Dakota Mission from the
American Board, and of transferring our African Mission to that
Board or some other organization, be referred to the Executive
Committee with power, provided that it be made certain that the
Mendi Mission, so dear to the hearts of many of the Association, be
in some way sustained hereafter.
M. MCG. DANA, _Chairman_.
* * * * *
THE INDIANS.
* * * * *
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.
The Committee on Indian Missions would report:
First. That the work of this Association among the Indians—a work
so small that the expenditure for it is only about one-fifth that
for the Chinese in America—has been prospered during the last year.
The blessing of the Master rests upon it, and our thanksgiving and
prayers should be stimulated thereby.
Second. We heartily approve of its plan to combine an industrial
with a literary education, that the boys and girls may take the
lead in Christian arts as in Christian culture. Yet the experiment
of training them in schools far from home should be carefully
watched, lest there be formed a gulf of separation between the
tribe and its educated youth, a gulf so deep that those returning
from Hampton shall, through social longings, lapse into the customs
of their fathers, or else shall stand aloof from their people in
cultured isolation. We should subordinate individual advancement to
tribal advantage; the benefit of the few to that of the many; and
for this purpose schools are being established nearer home. Hence
we recommend the careful study of the results of the experiment.
Third. We would earnestly press the evangelistic work among the
Indians. They are to stay with us. They are soon to be of us,
citizens with us of this Republic. So much is written in the
providence of God. To educate them is not enough. The federal
government is increasingly engaged in this. But its Commissioner
of Indian Affairs, the Hon. H. Price, in his forthcoming report
says: “Civilization is a plant of exceeding slow growth unless
supplemented by Christian teaching and influence.” “In no other
manner and by no other means, in my judgment, can our Indian
population be so speedily and permanently reclaimed from barbarism,
idolatry, and savage life as by the educational and missionary
operations of the Christian people of our country.” Christianized
education is the watchword, the vitalizing of all the truth of God
with the love and spirit of God. This means more than schools; it
means Christian schools and Christian churches. For this very work
this Association has been ordained of God, and it should enlarge
its work to the demands of the hour. The proposed exchange with
the American Board means, for this society, enlargement. The rapid
progress of the Indian towards citizenship demands enlargement. God
calls this Association to enlarge its Indian missions that it may
prepare both the negro and the Indian for citizenship and God.
Fourth. We believe that the welfare of the Indian demands the
abolition of both tribal and reservation relations, the allotment
of their lands in severalty, their amenability to State and federal
laws and courts. And while we recognize with gratitude the past
attempts of our national government in these directions, we need
to press upon Congress the duty of renewing its endeavors and
enlarging its appropriations for schools, that it may speedily
turn these wards into industrious citizens. And for this end we
would recommend that a committee of nine be appointed by this
Association to memorialize Congress to place the Indian by the side
of the negro and other citizens in the right to buy, own, and sell
property, real and personal, to work at what he pleases, and live
where he pleases, to have the same standing before the law, to vote
and hold office, in short to possess all the rights and obligations
of citizens of the Republic.
A. H. ROSS, _Chairman_.
* * * * *
WORK AND DUTY IN THE EAST.
BY GEN. S. C. ARMSTRONG.
At Hampton there are ninety, and at Carlisle there are nearly three
hundred Indians—boys and girls—who are learning civilization as an
object lesson, and are themselves an object lesson to the centres
of intelligence and wealth, where is the sentiment that inspires
and the means that provide for the combined practical and spiritual
teaching of the red man. They suffice, perhaps, for a tangible
proof of the Indian’s capacity, of which the need was great; their
effect upon public sentiment has been marked. The result with
these Indians has, so far, proved satisfactory. Scattering these
pupils among the farmers of Massachusetts and of Pennsylvania for a
portion of the year, has had such a good effect mutually, that five
hundred more might well be so placed in various States, under the
care of special agents, with proper rendezvous where the sick or
unsatisfactory might be kept with a view to returning home, say ten
per cent, of the entire number.
The Negro institutions at Nashville, Tenn., at Talladega, Alabama,
and elsewhere, could do excellent work for them. The aims and
methods of most white schools render them unfit for Indians.
We have found the weak point of the race to be physical, not mental
or moral. They can endure the hardships peculiar to the plains, but
not steady work from day to day. They are tainted with inherited
disease; the lungs are their weak point. They are sinewy but not
muscular; however, as a race they hold their own with favorable
surroundings, are not decreasing seriously, if at all, and will not
settle the problem by dying out.
Mechanically they have proved apt to learn, but slow to execute.
Our Hampton Indian work-shops have this year supplied the Indian
Department with two thousand pairs of men’s brogan shoes, five
hundred dozen articles of tinware, and seventy-five sets of double
plow harness, which were pronounced by the inspectors well-made and
satisfactory. Carlisle has done more.
Both girls and boys take quickly and kindly to neatness and to
industrial pursuits, as well as to books. They are as eager as the
Negroes for knowledge, and become more and more so as they advance.
Want of ambition is the least of their troubles. Teaching them is
hard work, but interesting and stimulating in the highest degree.
They resent injury, but are not revengeful; not a sign of treachery
in nearly five years. Religiously, they are, I believe, the most
hopeful of the heathen races. The vastness and the grandeur of
the West has affected them as desert life has the Arabs; they are
remarkably Oriental in customs and ideas. They worship no fetish,
there are no idols to break, but they have a crude faith to be
cleared, dim eyes to be opened.
Christian efforts, under the care of Archdeacon Kirby of the
Episcopal Church, have evangelized ten thousand Indians of British
America, in their simple natural life. The mixed, harassed
condition of our own, makes the work far more difficult.