The American Missionary. Volume 43, No. 05, May, 1889

It is very essential for them, therefore, to know whether there are in fact any colored saints in heaven; and, if there are, whether the divisions of the Father's house into "many mansions" admits of an arrangement whereby the angelic brunettes may occupy one set of quarters and the Charleston blondes another. Until these problems are solved to their satisfaction, we do not see how our Christian friends of the chief city of South Carolina can contemplate a future life with any degree of equanimity. Their faith may be equal to the removal of mountains and their virtues may entitle them to all the felicity of the spirits of just men made perfect, but if it is the rule of the "happy land, far, far away" that a black saint is just as good as a white one, how much more rational it would be for them to prefer annihilation to immortality.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

PARAGRAPHS

We would continue to remind pastors and churches of our Leaflets, which we will be happy to furnish, on application, to those taking collections for our Association.

The Daily Standard-Union, of Brooklyn, is a good judge. It says:

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY for April, published by the American Missionary Association, New York, is full of information useful and edifying to all interested in domestic missions.

The "Student's Letter" found on another page is worth attention. The writer, Rev. Spencer Snell, gives a modest and yet vivid picture of his struggles for an education, and he is now—we say it for him, as he does not—the able and acceptable pastor of our growing church in Birmingham, Alabama. We wish in a quiet way to suggest to our friends in the North that "it pays" to spend money to educate such men.

Rev. James Wharton, the evangelist, who has been efficiently preaching to the American Missionary churches in the South this winter, has left this country for England, where he will remain until the first of October, when he will return again to his specific work in which the churches have been greatly blessed. The churches which he has visited, and which have added to their numbers through his ministration, are Louisville, Ky., Sherwood, Nashville and Memphis, Tenn., Athens, Florence, Mobile and Montgomery, Ala., Jackson and Tougaloo, Miss., and New Orleans, La.

Many prayers will go with him across the sea, and many welcomes will greet him on his return.

SOUTHERN ECHOES

PRAYERS OF WOMEN AT THE MEETING OF FAREWELL TO A MISSIONARY

"O! Lord, thou knowest how I love her. Thou knowest how I have run to her in every trouble, as a chicken does to its mother."

"O! Lord, you know what she has been to me in the greatest trouble I ever had. You know I think more of her than of any being in the whole world, except my husband. Will you please to be with her when she gets ready for the train, and when she goes from the house to the train, and on the train, and when she goes to the house from the train, and bless her all the time."

Mrs. W–, an old lady, said: "My old man ax me every night when he come from work if there be a meeting up yonder. He do like to go to meeting. He think a heap of that young preacher up yonder. Last Wednesday night after meeting, he say to me, 'Mary, I'll be good to you after this,' and I say the same to him. It do me a heap of good to go up yonder. I learn more than I ever knowed before. I knows what the texts means now."

SATISFACTORILY EXPLAINED.—A few days since, during a recitation in geography, a teacher was endeavoring to explain the subject of electricity in the lesson on "Thunder and lightning." It had been stated that when a flash of lightning darts to the earth it is said to strike. A precocious lad of twelve summers (winters included), raised his hand and upon recognition said: "Do people have any electricity?" Upon being informed that every one possessed the subtle force in a greater or less degree, his dusky, good-natured face lighted up, and he added, "Then is that the reason why some people always want to strike?"

BOOK NOTICE

Pleas for Progress. By ATTICUS G. HAYGOOD, D.D. Publishing House of M.E. Church South, Nashville, Tenn. Price, $1.00.

Dr. Haygood is a Southern man who stands with his face toward sunrise and not sunset. As a writer, he is interesting and vigorous. He sometimes forgets to take off his "Titbottom spectacles" when he looks southward, but he puts in tremendous blows against the wrong which he sees. This volume before us contains papers and addresses delivered at various times and places, both North and South. It is a very valuable book for those who desire to learn what the really Christian people of the South think on these great National problems that the American Missionary Association is helping to solve.

The lecture on "The Education of the Negro," delivered at Monteagle, Tenn., and published in this volume, is a sample. Dr. Haygood states "four root objections" to negro education: 1—Ignorance; 2—Stinginess; 3—Prejudice; 4—Fear that education will "spoil the negro as a laborer" and bring him into "social equality" with the whites. The author shows the absurdity of all these objections.

The volume is full of statistics and will prove a valuable mine of facts. The discussions are clear and generally convincing. We commend the book highly.

THE SOUTH

THE GEORGIA CONGREGATIONAL ASSOCIATION

Rev. S.C. McDaniel and others, Committee of the United Congregational Conference of Georgia.

DEAR BRETHREN.—Having been appointed by the Georgia Congregational Association as a committee to confer with you in reference to a union of the two bodies represented by you and us, we desire to express to you our gratification at the receipt of your request for such a conference, and our earnest desire that such a union should be consummated. With this end in view, we would respectfully submit for your consideration the following propositions:

1. We cordially invite the churches composing the United Congregational Conference to become members of the Georgia Congregational Association. Upon the acceptance of this invitation by the United Conference, we agree to recommend to the Association the passage of a vote immediately placing upon the roll of the Association the names of all the churches of the United Conference.

2. In case the foregoing proposition should not be acceptable to you, we propose that each of the bodies represented by us should pass a vote disbanding its organization, with the understanding that all the churches of both bodies should then come together and form a new organization. Upon the agreement of your committee to recommend to the United Conference the adoption of this proposition, we agree to make a similar recommendation to the Association.

3. If neither of the foregoing propositions should be acceptable to you, we propose that the United Conference place upon its roll the names of all the churches and ministers of the Georgia Association. Upon the agreement of your committee to recommend such action to the United Conference, we agree to recommend to the Association the adoption of a vote declaring its organization disbanded as soon as the churches composing the same are received by the United Conference.

With reference to the foregoing propositions we would say further:

It is our conviction that any union between the organizations represented by our respective committees should be as comprehensive and thorough as possible, and that to this end the churches of the Georgia Association should be enrolled as members of the District Conferences, in fellowship with the United Conference within whose respective boundaries the Association churches may be located. And the foregoing propositions are made with the understanding that a vote shall be passed by the United Conference recommending the District Conferences to receive the Association churches as hereby suggested.

Of these three proposed methods of union, our own preference is for the first. As the Georgia Congregational Association is the older body and represents the historic Congregationalism of the State, going back not only to the early years succeeding the Civil War, but even, in the record of one of its churches, to the colonial period preceding the Revolution, we feel that a respect for the traditional usages of our polity would suggest the absorption of the newer churches by the Association as being the older State organization. But as in our opinion the result to be achieved is of more importance than the method by which it shall be achieved, we would not insist upon the method of our choice. If more acceptable to you, we should gladly form a union on the basis of either the second or the third proposition already stated. Our chief desire is for a complete and hearty union, in which, acknowledging the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, we may live and work together in the love of Christ, the Elder Brother of us all. That our Heavenly Father may graciously help us all in perfecting and maintaining such a union, is our earnest prayer.

Your brethren in Christ,GEO. V. CLARK, HORACE BUMSTEAD, GEO. C. ROWE, L.B. MAXWELL, EVARTS KENT, FLOYD SNELSON, C.F. SARGENT.

EVANGELISTIC LABORS

REV. JAMES WHARTON

You last heard of my work, I believe, from Memphis, Tenn., where God revealed his gracious power among the students of LeMoyne, and also at the Congregational church. Altogether, some one hundred and thirty-four professed a hope in Christ during my visit there. I then went to Jackson, Miss., to hold services in the new church there; a pretty little building, situated in a very central and prominent part of the city. For eleven nights, I preached to not a very large, but to an interesting congregation. Twelve professed conversion, their conversion proving a source of great joy, not only to themselves, but to their friends and acquaintances.

I also visited Tougaloo University and spoke to the students. Between fifty and sixty at the close of the address arose for prayer. I feel sure if I could have spent a few days with them, that most of them would have decided for Christ, but they remain under the good and wise instruction of the President, Rev. F.G. Woodworth. I hope to visit them again.

I then went to New Orleans, to find the Central Congregational Church recovering itself under the leading of the pastor, Rev. Geo. W. Henderson. We believe that it will steadily grow, and be a great influence for good in that large and wicked city. At Straight University, I found the religious interest going on quietly and steadily under the care of Professor Hitchcock and Rev. W.L. Tenney, some cases of conversion taking place during the week of prayer.

I came to Montgomery three weeks ago, and a revival there has surpassed any I have seen for the last thirteen years among the colored folks of the South. In fact, many of the old-time people say they never saw such a deep interest manifested in this city. The third night the church was filled to overflowing, and hundreds were outside the door who could not get in. The power of God came down upon the people in such a way that at the close of the preaching the seekers fairly ran to the front benches, taking them by storm. All around the front they sat or knelt. We placed chairs in rows on the platform, and the crowd was so thick I could scarcely get a place to stand. The pastor, Rev. R.C. Bedford, and the Christians, worked hard among the unconverted, and now at the close of the three weeks' services, more than two hundred are rejoicing in a new found hope.

One case was that of a young man, the son of a Methodist preacher, both deaf and dumb, who gave reasonable evidence of conversion as the love of God filled his heart, and another was a young man who had been a wild young fellow, who had at the time of his conversion a five barrel loaded revolver in his pocket, and which I now have. One whole family is now rejoicing that God has brought salvation to that house; father, mother, son and four daughters are among the converts. Another father rejoices over four of his sons and daughters converted. Husbands and wives have started together on the road to Zion. On the streets and wherever you go, the people are talking about, and rejoicing over, the conversion of some of their friends or relations.

This finishes another winter's work among the dear colored people, which has been one of the happiest and most successful I have known for many years.

THOMASVILLE, GEORGIA

The Connecticut Normal and Industrial School, Thomasville. Ga., closed its winter term, for a few days' vacation, on March 26th, with appropriate exercises. The Thomasville Daily Times says, "The growth and management of the school is very gratifying to our people, and everyone wishes it continued success and prosperity." The Thomasville Enterprise speaks of "the results of the seven sweet-faced patient lady teachers," and adds, "If yesterday's exhibition was a fair sample of what the pupils can do, the American Missionary Association, and the corps of teachers it has employed, have not labored in vain; that a great deal of hard, honest work has been done, was fully exemplified."

Again we are reminded that Thomasville is not Quitman, and also of the fact that Southern people are generally quite generous in their appreciation of the work and the methods of our Association.

MRS. LYDIA HERRICK BENNETT

On Saturday, March 16, the great household at Fisk University was suddenly saddened by the announcement of the death of Mrs. Bennett, who, after an illness of four weeks, was called to her rest.

In 1867, Mr. and Mrs. Bennett gave up their work in a pleasant Northern parish, and came to Fisk University, where they have labored together for almost twenty-two years. During these years, Mrs. Bennett has been not only an efficient helper to her husband and a wise and tender mother to her children, but has contributed much to the work of the school. Her strong mind and fine intellectual tastes especially fitted her for life in an institution of learning. During the last few years, she gave much time and labor to the preparation of a botanical collection for the Scientific Department of the University.

Mrs. Bennett was also the warm personal friend of the young people. Since her death, many tender expressions from present and former students bear witness to appreciation of her quiet, earnest, Christian character, as manifested both in her own life, and in her ministry to others. Why such a life, apparently so indispensable to her husband and children, and so helpful to a large body of young people, should be thus suddenly terminated we cannot understand. We can only accept the dispensation of Him "Who doeth all things well."

H.C.M.

STUDENT'S LETTER

HOW I WAS EDUCATED, LED TO CHRIST AND INTO THE MINISTRYBY REV. SPENCER SNELL

My first lessons from books I received in night school. At this time I was employed as dining-room servant by a family in Mobile. I did my work during the day, taking a little time here and there for study as best I could, and went to school at night. I was first employed at $3.50 per month. Fifty cents of this I took each month to pay tuition. The tuition in this school was one dollar per month, but I was receiving such small wages that a woman who was employed in the same yard, and who went to the same school, persuaded the teacher to let me go for fifty cents. I remained with this family about four years, and went to night school much of the time. I suppose they considered my services more and more valuable as I became more enlightened, for, during the four years, my wages were increased from $3.50 to $10 per month. As my wages increased, I had more tuition to pay also, for during my study in the night school I had several teachers and paid some of them as much as two dollars per month, and so anxious was I to acquire an education that I would have paid five dollars had it been required, even at a time when it would have taken all my wages to do so. While I was a student in one of these night schools, I chanced one day to see a newspaper which a colored man who knew me had thrown into the yard for me. In this paper I read an article telling about Emerson Institute, a school of the American Missionary Association, and the commencement exercises soon to occur there. The school had been in Mobile for several years, but I had heard nothing of it till now. As soon as I read of these exercises, I determined to see them, for I had never heard of such exercises before. When the time came, I went one night, accompanied by a few of my fellow night-school students. We were well pleased with what we saw, and I said to them that I meant to enter that school when it opened the next fall, and that I meant to be an educated man if I could. I soon began to carry out my purpose, for in a few weeks I left my employment in that family and went back into the country, from whence I had gone to Mobile, and took the examination and began teaching public school. By this means, I earned money enough to go back to Mobile and become a pupil of Emerson Institute, not in the fall of 1873, as I had hoped to do, but in the spring of 1874. I shall ever feel grateful to the man who threw over the fence for me the article from which I learned about that good school, for I am sure I am quite a different man to-day from what I would have been but for reading that article. Precious to me is the memory of those days during which I took tuition in the night-school, where the key was put into my hand and the door of knowledge was opened to me.

Next to God I am grateful to the American Missionary Association for having received training in a Christian school, where I was led to Christ and felt called to the Christian ministry. When I lived on the plantation, before I went to Mobile and received instruction in the Christian school, I had heard the uneducated colored ministers preach and they had endeavored to lead me to Christ, but I could not accept Christ in the way they had presented Him to me. I remember well how they told us that in order to find Christ we must fast and pray for a number of days. I remember, too, the unsuccessful attempt which I made to give myself to Jesus in this way. I was a farm boy and was plowing hard every day, and it was hard work for a boy of my age to follow the mule all day in the tough grass, and I always felt like eating when meal time came, but still I tried to become a Christian by doing as the minister said I must, and so for a few days I ate no breakfast, no dinner, and no supper, though I worked on. They told us, also, that we must not go to bed at night, for if we did the wicked one would make us sleep all night and we would fail to pray through the night, and they said we must pray all night. For several nights I did not go to bed at all, but would lie down upon the doorstep that I might get up often through the night and go down the hill to pray, for we were instructed to "go down in the valley." Of course after a few days I became tired, sleepy and discouraged, and gave up. I did not make another attempt till I became a student in Emerson Institute. One of the lady teachers in that school became interested in my soul's salvation. She read the Bible to me, talked to me, and prayed for me, and made the way of life and salvation seem so plain and simple that it was not long before I accepted the Lord Jesus as my Saviour.

My heart overflows with gratitude to that Christian lady whenever I think of my conversion. There is no favor which one person can do for another so great as that of leading him to Christ.

Soon after I was converted I felt inclined to enter the ministry, and was advised to go to Talladega College and there take a theological course. I wanted to go but did not see any way to get there, to say nothing of how I was to stay there, but a lady from the North had been visiting one of our lady teachers at Mobile, and heard me deliver an oration in a prize contest. She said she liked it, and after she went back home she sent me $25 to help me in my education. I had been praying that a way might open for me to go to Talladega, and I felt that the $25 came in answer to prayer. I used up the money in getting ready and in going to Talladega. I wrote Dr. G.W. Andrews, who has for a number of years been instructor in theology there, that I was anxious to go and enter his department, but I had no money, and he wrote me, if I had money enough to get there, to come on. Thank God that I went, and that a way was provided for me to stay there and finish the course of study; and now I am out in the ministry and trying to do something for Him who has so wonderfully led me and blessed me.

THE INDIANS

PERILS OF MISSIONARY LIFE

Rev. T.L. Riggs, our missionary at Oahe, Dakota, thus describes the loss of a team and the peril of his fellow missionary, Rev. J.F. Cross:

"I wished to cross my team on the ice to the west side of the Missouri and keep it there for use during the breaking up of the river. Being very busy with some writing, I asked Mr. Cross to take my team over when he started to return to the White River, sending a man with him. Mr. Cross's team went over safely, but mine, which Mr. Cross himself was driving, broke through and were drowned, in spite of every effort of the two men. Mr. Cross had a narrow escape. He managed to save the wagon, but the horses went down with harness on as they were driven. Mr. Cross took the loss so to heart, that together with the strain and agony of the moment, it quite prostrated him. He started for White River in a day or two after, though I felt that he was hardly fit to go."

FIRST FRUITS

REV. C.L. HALL, FORT BERTHOLD, DAK

In the fall of 1879, a young Gros-Ventre Indian named Dahpitsishesh, "The Bear's Tooth," began to attend the day school at Fort Berthold, and although he was over twenty years old and not very quick to learn, he surpassed the younger pupils by his industry. He attended the day school, in the day time or in the evening, quite regularly during the winter, and became a help to the missionary in translating parts of Scripture into the Gros-Ventre language.

He wore his long hair braided behind, and banged and plastered with clay in front so that it stood upright, and he dressed in blanket, breech clout, leggings and moccasins, and the lower joints of several of his fingers were cut off in accordance with the Indian custom of mutilating themselves at the burial of a friend. His first appearance to a new teacher who came the following spring caused her no little trepidation, but she soon learned to prize him as her best pupil, and the next year the influence of God's word upon him was seen by his saying, after recounting some of his Gros-Ventre religious fables, in which his belief had been shaken; "I have been coming to school now more than a year. Since reading these books about God and angels I cannot sleep at night, but have had dreams. I think some harm will come to me. I am poor and cannot help myself, but I pray God to keep me from harm, and I want to trust him."

From that time on, we hoped he would take a decided stand for Christ. As yet, none among his people had been converted. A few passages of the Bible and a few words of song had been given to the Gros-Ventres in their own tongue, and every Sabbath there were attentive Indian listeners, but would there ever be a Gros-Ventre convert? "The Bear's Tooth" continued to come to us, and learned to understand quite fully the requirements of our faith. He became a trusted helper in charge of the mission cattle and the milking, working regularly as few Indians would do at Berthold, and he soon had stock of his own in which he took great pleasure. He read the Bible on Sabbath afternoons with one who was soon called to her reward; it was almost her last prayer that he might be saved. He came in spite of dissuasions, jeers, and even persecutions from his people, and yet he took no stand for Christ. Three years after, there were Indian inquirers, and he helped to explain to them the demands of Christ, but they all felt that "the way was too hard for them" and "went away sorrowful."

Some of the young people who had been taken away to school and removed from the opposition of their people had confessed Christ, but there were none to face it here and say that they loved him. "The Bear's Tooth" took a wife in the Indian way, unwilling to marry, and removed, as it seemed, away from our influence, to a claim forty miles up the river from our mission station.