The American Missionary. Volume 50, No. 04, April, 1896

Various

The American Missionary – Volume 50, No. 04, April, 1896

Jubilee Year Fund

of the American Missionary Association

It is now fifty years since the American Missionary Associationwas organized. Its work and history are before the churches. We have reason to rejoice in the accomplishment of the past. We are grateful to God for this ministry of grace to His needy ones. We have come now to the semi-centennial year of the Association. We propose to celebrate the Fiftieth Year, and to acknowledge the goodness of God to us in the past.

But we find ourselves in this present time in distress. Our work has been severely affected by the adverse times. Our mission schools and churches are suffering. For the last three years our average current receipts have been $93,000 less per year than during the previous three years. The work has been cut $184,000 during these three years. If it had been fully maintained the debt would have been three times as great as it is.

We are now confronted with the question of further and more disastrous reductions, for our obligations must be met. The $100,000 borrowed for mission work must be paid. We do not believe that the churches wish this to be done by closing more schools and church doors against the poorest of our countrymen throughout the Southern lowlands and mountains, amid the Dakotas and Montana, from California to Florida.

The Association has come to the last half of its fiscal year. Up to this time it has made no special plea for help. It has waited fraternally until kindred organizations have received the aid they[pg 114]so greatly needed. This vast Christian service in the most necessitous fields of the continent is as distinctively the trust of the churches as any of their enterprises are. Shall it not now have the same equitable relief as has been given to others? Has not the time now come for helping this suffering work? Will not those who have charged the Association with this burden of service now consecrate anew their benevolence to its relief and make this a Year of Jubilee, to wipe out the last vestige of debt?

It is proposed to raise during the next six months a special Jubilee Year Fund of $100,000 in shares of $50 each, with the hope and expectation that these shares will be taken by the friends of missions without lessening those regular contributions which must be depended upon to sustain the current work.

The plea is urgent because the need is urgent. Will not all friends of this great work, pastor and people, now heartily unite in one special Christian endeavor to raise this American Missionary Association Jubilee Year Fund?

Charles L. Mead,

Samuel Holmes,

Samuel S. Marples,

William H. Strong,

Elijah Horr,

William Hayes Ward,

Lucien C. Warner,

James W. Cooper,

Joseph H. Twichell,

Charles P. Peirce,

Charles A. Hull,

Albert J. Lyman,

Addison P. Foster,

Nehemiah Boynton,

A. J. F. Behrends

Executive Committee of the

AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

Our Industrial Work

We publish in this number of the Missionary an article copied from The Talladega College Record, giving a detailed account of the industrial work carried on in that institution. We invite attention to it as showing the wide range of those industries, and of their thorough and systematic arrangement.

The School and Church

As is the school and church in any nation or community, so are the people. The Chinese for ages with universal education, such as it is, and the religion of Confucius, are a superstitious, stagnant, and an unheroic race. Europe in the middle ages, with no schools and an ambitious hierarchy, became ignorant and war-like, oppressed in Church and State. In these United States, their abundant educational facilities and a free church have developed largely the most intelligent and free people on the earth. But we said "largely," for there are[pg 115] millions of people in this nation that are still in the lowest grades of ignorance and superstition. There are four millions of colored people who can neither read nor write, and have not yet escaped from the degrading effects of centuries of slavery. There are among the mountaineers of the South two millions of people, descendants of a noble race, who have for more than a hundred years been largely without schools or intelligent churches, and they have fallen far below the intelligence and enterprise of their fathers. Our American Indians, though comparatively a handful, still need our care. More than half their school population is without education or industrial habits.

It is among these unfortunate races that the American Missionary Association is doing its great work. It comes to them with its schools and churches–its schools religious and its churches intelligent–and throughout the wide range of its work, lifting them up in knowledge and the industries of life, and in all these directions it has accomplished great results, planting wisely with good seed, and is beginning already to reap large and continually enlarging harvests.

We print in this number of the Missionary two articles written by Secretaries of the Association, which give reliable statements touching the deplorable needs of some of these people, and yet of the cheering transformations made in their condition by our schools and churches. We invite attention to these two articles.

The Year of Jubilee

APPEAL FOR RELEASE FROM DEBT AND LIMITATIONS

A Jubilee Fund of $100,000 in Shares of $50 Each

We have come to our Year of Jubilee. Fifty years ago the American Missionary Association had a darker outlook than it has to-day. It saw 4,000,000 of people, children of a common Father, who were born under the skies of our common country, in a land of churches and Bibles, and saw them, not only with no legal rights, but not even the rights of persons, chattels under the law, bought and sold as things, in sin and degradation, and without hope in the world. That was a dark outlook.

But God's providence came, and now the country, which the Association could not so much as enter, is dotted with our schools, and with ten thousand other schools, and with churches, which stand for the truths which the Congregational churches of our land believe in and teach. Has anything more wonderful occurred in the wonderful fifty years, now gone by, than this change of conditions in the South,[pg 116] or any more demanding duty come to our churches than the work which has grown out of these changed conditions?

It belonged to no man fifty years ago to foresee the magnitude of our work in the South. Add to this that among twenty tribes of Indians, and our missions in the highlands of the South among the whites, and that which has been so greatly blessed of God on the Pacific Coast, and who could have foretold it all fifty years ago?

In all this we are not engaged in a merely philanthropic work; we are doing more than to educate people in industries, though we are doing this. We are building on a foundation which no other can lay than is laid, Jesus Christ. In the schoolroom, in the teachings of agriculture and mechanics, the various trades and industries, as well as in our churches, this is our foundation. We are bringing salvation to the peoples who need it, knowing well that salvation includes this life, as well as that which is to come. Our supreme thought is to hasten on the time when there shall be a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. This has been, and this is, our work. Now we need to meet our indebtedness. It is a distressing load to carry. We are seeking to pay our obligations this Jubilee Year. We have not pressed our grievous burden upon the churches as urgently as we would have done, because our sister societies, in like distress, were in the field with their special appeals. Our hearts are now gladdened by the gracious providences that have come to them. Now, will not the churches generally engage in a special effort to lift the burden of our debt and restore prosperity to this work, which the churches and our individual givers have been, and are, doing through this Association?

In view of these facts, we most earnestly urge as the call of this Jubilee Year:

First. That measures be taken in each church to make full and regular contributions to sustain our current work. It has been sadly reduced. During the last three years the receipts of the Association have been less than in the previous three years by about $93,000 a year, and but for our retrenchments this would have made a debt three times as great as it is now. If this reduction of receipts is to continue it will mean a ruinous increase of debt or an equally ruinous retrenchment of the work.

Second. So great is our sense of the need of sustaining our present work that if regular contributions are not adequate we urgently appeal that the effort be made to secure it by largely increased contributions or by a special collection.

Third. That our friends and all interested in this work now so imperiled will take shares in the Jubilee Fund of $100,000. This fund is divided into 2,000 shares of $50. We would have each of these fifty[pg 117] years in the Association's history stand for a special contribution of a dollar, the whole fifty years being signalized by a Jubilee subscription of $50 and the semi-centennial made memorial by raising the money for the Jubilee Fund.

Only six months are left of the present fiscal year. We come to all who believe in our work to help the Association and to help it now, so that we may at the great convocation at the Jubilee convention in Boston next October celebrate not only the heroic faith of the fathers, but the steadfast zeal and purpose of their children.

The South

Notes by the Way

Secretary A.F. Beard.

In making my rounds among the schools of the Association and of the churches I find new experiences in old paths and new incidents by the way. Within the limitations of "an article" I cannot recall them, but I invite my readers to visit with me some of the places en route.

FARM BUILDINGS, ENFIELD, N. C.

It is not a long journey from New York to Enfield, N. C. We will not find a New England village there when we leave the Weldon and Wilmington Railway. It is quite another part of the world. A ride[pg 118] of four miles among plantations and cotton fields brings us to the latest-born school of the Association. Here are a thousand acres of arable land, which ought to be a fortune to its owner and has been in years gone by. Now, however, cotton and corn have ceased to be kings, oftentimes they are more like beggars. Thus it came to pass that this noble plantation became the property of a benevolent lady in Brooklyn, N. Y., who made it a splendid gift to the Association, with sufficient money to build the fine brick building which stands in the center of this great farm, the beginning of the "Joseph K. Brick Normal, Agricultural, and Industrial School."

Is it needed? We will say it is when we have acquainted ourselves with the condition of the colored people in these parts. I know not what could have been their condition in slavery. Except for the buying and the selling, it could not have been worse than we find it here to-day. Rags, ignorance, poverty, and degradation indescribable are in the cabins. Have the children been taught in any school? No. Can the parents read? No. Shall we find a Bible in the cabins? No. Weak, wicked, and absolutely poor, in dumb and stolid content with animalism and dirt, here families are herding like cattle, in windowless and miserable cabins of one room. The children who fail to receive the benignity of death grow up here and exist and suffer in this dreadful life. Yet we can ride by this plantation and in sight of it any day on our way to Florida, and never see what is so near. Nevertheless, here it is a reality much worse than it reads, for ten times one are ten and ten times ten are one hundred.

In such environment and conditions is our "Agricultural and Industrial School" now half way through its first year.

PRINCIPAL T. S. INBORDEN.

If the principal of it should tell the story of his life, how he walked eight miles every day for three months of the year to learn to read and write; how he worked for 20 cents a day to raise enough money to get away from his limitations for an education; how he became bell-boy at a hotel until he earned enough to buy a grammar, an arithmetic, and a dictionary; how he found himself at last at Fisk University with $1.25 with which to continue his studies for eight years before he could graduate; how he worked his patient way along teaching in vacation, pulling himself up hand over hand, it would pay one to stay over a day for it. There were only a few times during[pg 119] the eight years in Fisk when he had money enough to stamp a half dozen letters at once. This story, however, differs only in its incidents from that of other students at all of our colleges. The story of their struggles is the story of their strength.

"Shock and strain and struggle areFriendlier than the smiling days."

All of the teachers at Enfield are graduates of Fisk University, and they each have their own story how heavy-weighted with poverty, they kept "inching along" with a resolute faith that had divinity in it. Are they not the very ones to help upward the poor boys and girls about them who, until this year of grace, never had one chance in life, and never dreamed of one? We will keep our eyes on the school at Enfield.

YOUNG MEN'S HALL, ENFIELD, N.C.

Next accompany me to Beaufort, N. C.. It is a place to visit. After we have gone as far as the land holds out, we set sail for a queer little town as far into the sea as it could get; but when once we have arrived there we are repaid for any temporary discomfort on the waters. We find at Beaufort, "Washburn Seminary" with its excellent industrial plant–a school of much merit–and a church that gives us who are watching and caring for churches through their weaknesses and doubtful times, much encouragement. A few years ago it was a question if[pg 120] the church would survive. Now it lives and stands for not a little and has strength of its own. Here, at the time of our visit, a young man, whose only educational privileges had been those of "Washburn Seminary," preached his first sermon to a congregation which crowded the church. It was a most creditable discourse in method, matter, and manner. The best of it is that, among those who have always known him, there is the common testimony that the young preacher lives his faith. Such incidents as this are not singular in the history of our schools and churches, but they are significant. They represent the evolution that is going on.

Of our visits at Wilmington, Greenwood, Athens and Marietta, Atlanta and Anniston, we make no record.

We will come to Talladega. President DeForest, with his hearty grip and whole-souled voice, gave me good welcome to Talladega. We were in old times classmates and friends at Yale, when we called ourselves boys. "You must not stop in the Hall this time, but come to my home and we will talk over what Talladega is doing and what we ought to do," he insisted. Precious days were those, as I now recall them, with this scholarly man, so instinct with faith, so earnest and hopeful in his work, so happy in his family, and so full of plans for the time to come. We talked together of the interests of the institution which, within seventeen years, he had led on from a normal school to a college. Together we went through the various classrooms and heard the recitations; the mathematics cultivating the reasoning powers, the geography giving correct views of the world, the history widening the vision of it, the astronomy unfolding God's love of order and truth. We heard together the lessons in language, in ethics, in mental philosophy, and saw the students taking on strength and character, whom he had watched from grade to grade, from year to year. Not only in the theological department, where students were intent upon their calling, but in the farm work, in the industrial classes, everywhere, and on everything, was the stamp of earnest Christianity. So, through president and teachers, the highest ideals had been constantly held before the students. It was inspiration to me to meet once more the devoted teachers of the College, and the students, greedy for knowledge and willing to work for it, on the farm, in the industries, and in whatever way they could earn enough to help themselves through the year. When the time came for the "Goodbye," with the hearty invitation "come again," he did not know, nor I, that before a month should pass I should "come again" to look my farewell upon my silent friend who could no more welcome me. He had no word for me but I heard a word, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labors and their works do follow them." Surely the works of[pg 121] this man of God will follow him. The slow procession on that funeral day moved out of sight, and the next day the usual College work went on, but the days for Talladega have been sad.

I would that I might extend the invitation to continue and visit a score of places with schools and churches on this journey, each of which gave to me its own suggestions. There is the unique and fruitful school at Cotton Valley, with its record of transformations; there are Selma and Tougaloo, Jackson, New Orleans, Mobile, Thomasville, Albany, Marshallville, Andersonville, Macon, Savannah, Charleston, Knoxville, Jonesboro, and others, where schools and churches, hand in hand, are saving the needy peoples. I can only say that as I visited these and other places I was constantly cheered both by the fidelity of the workers and by the efficiency of their work. The story of these workers together with God will never be fully told.

In many places I found deepest poverty. The greatest luxury of the poor people is the "schooling" of their children. Parents will go hungry for this. Many of the children trudged along barefooted for miles when ice was on the pools by the roadside. I found, as I have before, churches and schools leavening their communities with more intelligent manhood and womanhood, with better homes, with wiser industries and economies, with stronger and truer characters. Many times I said: "If the good people who have ordained and sustained this work until now could only see it and know it as it actually is, our distressing debt would vanish within half a year. Our Jubilee would come, and we should 'arise and shine and give God the glory.'"

A Home Mission Work Little Understood

Secretary Frank P. Woodbury.

Those who have visited only the cities and towns of the South have not seen the black South. In the six Southern states containing what has been called the Black Belt there are four millions of negro people. Less than half a million of these live in the cities, towns, and villages, while more than three millions and a half of them dwell on the plantations of the country. Mr. Bryce in his work on America has called attention to the enormous difference between the colored churches of the cities and those of the poor negro districts, in some of which not merely have the old superstitions been retained but there has been a marked relapse into the Obeah rites and serpent worship of African heathenism. The rank superstitions, the beliefs in necromancy and witchcraft, the wild orgies of excitement, the utter divorce between the moral virtues and what is called religion, which obtain among the millions of the plantation[pg 122] negroes of the South, are but little understood. By one who knows it, the Black Belt has been called the great Dismal Swamp, the vast black malarial slough of the American republic.

Gladstone has frequently emphasized an ancient saying, "The corruption of the best thing is the very worst thing." This is emphatically true of much which has been called Christianity in the plantation churches of the South. The testimony which comes to us of the moral and religious condition of many communities in the Black Belt, is startling. One negro witness who has been in direct association for many years with ministers in this part of the South, says, "three-fourths of those who are now acting as preachers in all this region, are absolutely unfit to preach the gospel. It is rare that one can find in the country districts where the masses of the people dwell, a minister who is both intelligent and morally upright."

It is not long since the "Wilderness-Worshiper" excitement swept through a region of the South like a prairie fire. The excitement of expectancy for the immediate coming of Christ added fire to the hearts of the people. Hugh pyres of pine logs were rolled together and lit into flame as the darkness of night came on. These great fires were to light the way for the Saviour when He should come. Men rolled their bodies through the forests in a kind of pagan ecstasy of self-sacrifice to meet Him. So credulous are the negroes of the Black Belt, says a resident white lawyer, that if a fellow with a wig of long hair and a glib tongue should appear among them and say he is the Christ, inside of a week the turmoil of the Wilderness-Worship would be outdone.

Now, a great awakening is beginning among these dark masses of people. Dr. Curry has well said: "Freedom itself is educatory. The energy of representative institutions is a valuable school-master. To control one's labor, to enjoy the earnings of it, to make contracts freely, to have the right of locomotion, and change of residence and business, have a helpful influence on mankind." Many of these people are calling for better preachers; preachers who are earnest and virtuous men and know their Bibles. "We used to listen," said a negro man at a recent meeting, "to these whooping and hollering preachers who snort so you could hear them over three hundred yards, and we would come home and say, 'That's the greatest sermon I ever heard.' But now we want men who can teach us something." "Our preachers are not what they ought to be," said one woman. "We have got too many gripsack preachers–men who go around from church to church with a gripsack, not full of sermons, but of bottles of whisky, which they sell to the members of their congregation." Great masses of negro people are beginning to feel that what they have called religion is not really religion at all.[pg 123]

It must be remembered that every man or woman of these millions who has reached middle life was born a slave. The great bulk of the population have been brought up practically in the environment of a servile life. While there was much that was tender and pathetic and strong in the mute faith with which thousands of them lived through the dark trials of slavery, looking unto Christ as their deliverer, still the superstitions and degradations of slavery, its breaking of all home ties and life, could but infect the current religion of the black people. At its best, in multitudes of cases, it is but a form of physical and sensational excitement. The deep work of regenerating the soul and the life, which is the vital need of these people, is not done; it is not even attempted in the vast majority of the negro churches of the Black Belt. "The problem of the Kanaka in my native Hawaiian Islands," General Armstrong once said to me, "is one with that of the Southern negro. The Sandwich Islander, converted, was not yet rebuilt in the forces of his manhood." On the side of his moral nature, where he is weakest, the black man of the South has still to be girded and energized. In him are still the tendencies of his hereditary paganism, the vices of his slavehood. These will sink him unless his whole nature is regenerated by the ministration of a pure and vital Christianity.