The American Missionary. Volume 42, No. 11, November, 1888

In drafts, checks, registered letters, or post-office orders, 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 151 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.

NOT QUITE FREE

In the November MISSIONARY of last year, the financial statement bore the simple and joyous heading "FREE." This year we are compelled to prefix two qualifying words. Our books closed September 30, with a balance of $5,641.21 on the wrong side. While we regret that there should be any debt, we rejoice that it is no larger.

The receipts applicable to current expenses fell off somewhat during the year, while the expenditures, owing to general growth and some special demands were greater than last year. The first of September, therefore, found us confronting an impending debt. The appeal which we felt constrained to make for September, and which was made under some special disadvantages as compared with last year, was met with so hearty a response in gifts and in expressions of interest in our work, as to move us to gratitude to God and thankfulness to our friends. A few of the donors gave $1,000 each, but the larger share of the responses contained remittances of less than $100. Many of the sums were quite small, and some of them indicated great self-sacrifice on the part of the donors. A few brief extracts, all that our limited space will allow, from a small portion of the letters received, will be found below.

We thank God and take courage. We believe that our friends who remembered us in the past will not forget us in the future, and that our wants in October, and in all the following months, will not be forgotten because they were so well remembered in September. One thousand dollars a day represents our needs for carrying on the work in its present development.

Encouraging Responses to our Appeal

"I would like to send you more, but I send you the last dollar I have ($71.00,) and must trust the Lord for means to support us until my next month's payment, and for means to go to the meeting of the A.B.C.F.M., in case I attend."

"Twenty-five cents of this money was from a woman 82 years old. She is almost helpless. The family in which she lives is very poor. She has not a penny that she calls her own. She said to me, 'Here is the widow's mite. I prayed that the Lord would send me something to give away. You please take it and send it where it will do the most good.' I send it to you trusting that with her prayers of faith, it may be useful."

The writer of a letter enclosing a donation of $10 adds in a postscript in regard to the donor: "Mrs. A– was born May 5th, 1787, and is an old contributor."

"I have expended all my appropriation for charitable purposes this present year, yet I can, perhaps, curtail in some directions and so remit to you $20 as a small tributary to swell the stream for meeting indebtedness. I hope your appeal will accomplish the results desired.

"Through abounding grace, my wife and I are once more permitted the joyful privilege of sending for the general work of the American Missionary Association, $100 enclosed herewith in draft to your order. (Their third contribution this year. Ed.) Say to the dear brethren in the work of the Master: 'Be of good courage, fear not, for I am with you'; His own words enduring forever."

"Enclosed, please find check for $100. I am always glad to be remembered on special appeals when they are necessary, even if I cannot help. I do not know that I enjoy anything more than what I am able to give to the A.M.A. I trust your appeal will find many generous responses."

"Your kind and thoughtful letter of the 13th, received. It affords me real pleasure to respond to your call for our Association. The good Lord has more or less blessed me with opportunity and ability to acquire money, and may He forbid that I should turn his blessings into curses by hoarding the gifts of his providence, when the cry of the poor and down-trodden is heard. I enclose my check for $100 for the cause."

"It is a small contribution, but it comes from a small church. Certainly it represents a genuine interest in the work of your society and is accompanied with prayers for its success."

An executor, in remitting a legacy of $500 says: "It is not due according to the terms of the will till next spring, but you may find it useful at this time to help out the year."

We have received from Oaks, North Carolina, towards the extinguishment of our debt, a contribution from forty-nine different persons, amounting to $5.66. This represents a degree of sacrifice, not surpassed, perhaps, by any who have contributed. Seventy cents of it were in cash; sixty-six cents were value in fodder; one dollar and thirty-four cents in potatoes and corn; one dollar and one cent in work.

The missionary who is ministering to these very poor people says: "If all who love the A.M.A. would do as well, according to their ability, your treasury would be filled."

THE MOHONK CONFERENCE

This Conference is unique in its character, and in the place where it is held. Lake Mohonk was born in a great earthquake that sunk it in its solid rocky bed, and piled up around it wonderful ranges of hills and vast splintered rocks. The splendid summer resort built on the margin of the Lake is the work of Mr. A.K. Smiley, a man of creative genius, and of kind manners and a warm heart. The house, or rather the range of houses, is picturesque, and the walks among the hills and down the rocky gorges, and the forty miles of excellent roads, give the widest scope for walking and driving.

The Conference is the invention of Mr. Smiley. To it, he invites annually a hundred or more guests, giving them the freedom of the house; and three days are spent in the discussion of Indian affairs, interspersed with afternoon drives amid the striking scenery. The invitation is extended to those who are supposed to be intelligently interested in the Indians; but within that limit there is the freest range—men and women of all political parties and of all religious denominations being included. The acts of the Conference, like the utterances of a Congregational Council, have only the authority of the reason that is in them; yet it is wonderful what an influence this peculiar body has had on public sentiment. Its utterances have been discussed and have had their weight in the pulpit, the press, in Congress and in the White House. The Indian and the Nation owe much to the Mohonk Conference.

The Sixth Annual Conference, which closed September 28th, sustained the interest of past years in the importance of the topics discussed, in the divergency of opinion at first, and in the complete harmony at the end. The points agreed upon in the platform were arranged under five heads. The first relates to the establishment of Courts of Justice in the Reservations and accessible to the Indians; the second to the important need of education, demanding that the Government shall undertake at once the entire task of providing primary and secular education for all Indian children; the third urges that this education shall be compulsory, under proper limitations; the fourth emphasizes the duty of the churches to furnish religious instruction to the Indians, and the immunity of their work from all governmental interference where sustained wholly by missionary funds; the fifth approves of the co-operation of the Government with the missionary societies in contract schools during the present transitional condition of the Indians. We append the last two items of the report.

4. In view of the great work which the Christian Churches have done in the past in inaugurating and maintaining schools among the Indians, and of the essential importance of religious as distinguished from secular education, for their civil, political and moral well-being, an element of education which, in the nature of the case, the National Government cannot afford, the churches should be allowed the largest liberty, not, indeed, to take away the responsibility from the Government in its legitimate sphere of educational work, but to supplement it to the fullest extent in their power, by such schools, whether primary, normal or theological, as are at the sole cost of the benevolent or missionary societies. And it is the deliberate judgment of this Conference that in the crisis of the Indian transitional movement the churches should arouse themselves to the magnitude and emergency of the duty thus laid upon them in the providence of God.

5. Nothing should be done to impair or weaken the agencies at present engaged in the work of Indian education. Every such agency should be encouraged and promoted, except as other and better agencies are provided for the work. In particular, owing to the anomalous condition of the Indians and the fact that the Government is administering trust funds that belong to them, what is known as the "contract system"—by which the nation aids by appropriations private and missionary societies in the work of Indian education—ought to be maintained by a continuance of such aid, until the Government is prepared, with adequate buildings and competent teachers, to assume the entire work of secular education. In no case should the Government establish schools to compete with private or church schools which are already doing a good work, so long as there are thousands of Indian children for whose education no provision is made.

ORDINATION AT NEW ORLEANS

A council of Congregational Churches was held in New Orleans, Sept. 16th, for the purpose of ordaining Prof. Geo. W. Henderson, A.M., B.D., to the Christian ministry. Rev. R.C. Hitchcock, President of Straight University, was chosen Moderator. Mr. Henderson sustained an excellent examination, and was installed Pastor of the Central Congregational Church. The entire service was impressive, and Rev. Mr. Henderson enters upon a very responsible charge of a large church with many encouragements and hopes of great success.

OUR SCHOOLS AND THE YELLOW FEVER

We have been extremely gratified with the manifestations of faith and courage on the part of our lady teachers in the South during the time of fear and panic because of the yellow fever. Some were already at their stations and in their schools, and some were on the way, subject to the trials of quarantine. Not one hesitated in the path of duty. Many teachers from the different parts of the North were ready to go when the reports of the pestilence were most alarming, but not one of the teachers who had previously been in the work, failed to await instructions to go forward whenever we should speak the word. We have been grateful to God during all these days of the autumn for the splendid qualities of consecration and courage which have come out of our correspondence with our honored teachers. Never did their fathers or brothers, years ago, when deadly war called them to face the perils of battle, show higher courage or a larger sense of duty. Almost all of our Southern schools are now in session, and begin with increased attendance.

SCHOOL ECHO.—A teacher writes: "One of my pupils who had been teaching during the summer came to me in despair over a sum, saying: "I can't understand sympathizing fractions."

(When we went to school years and years ago, "sympathizing fractions," meant broken candy. We understood, but the teacher didn't. Times change, and we change with them.)

THE SAMARITAN WOMAN

BY REV. C.J. RYDER, BOSTON

"And they marveled that he talked with the woman."

Why? She was a sinful woman. But these disciples must even thus early in Christ's ministry have learned that he had come to call sinners, not the righteous, to repentance. She was a Samaritan! That was a larger reason for their marvel. They could rise above their hatred for sin more easily than their race prejudice; so can we. The Samaritans were an inferior people. Degraded they were. They had been degraded for centuries. The Jews shunned them. Socially our Lord was making a great blunder, perhaps a fatal blunder, in talking to this Samaritan woman. His cause was in its infancy. The hand of social prejudice would surely throttle it. Why antagonize the existing order of society? How much better to utilize it for the establishment and enlargement of the great and glorious kingdom of our Lord! This cause needed the influence of Jewish leaders. Why risk this potent influence for the sake of one miserable Samaritan woman, or, for that matter, for a whole race of Samaritans? It seemed very poor management of a cause, new in that country. "Far be such unwisdom from thee, Lord," we can hear the impassioned and worldly-wise Peter exclaim. But our Lord chose to sacrifice the temporary success of his kingdom that he might be true to the eternal principles of that kingdom; and so he talked with this sinful woman of this despised race just as considerately as with Nicodemus. He invited her to his discipleship just as cordially, and to the same discipleship. There is not a hint that the Good Shepherd built another fold for the Samaritan sheep, lest some of the Jewish flock should jump over the fence, if they were put into the same fold.

These Samaritans were not only degraded and despised socially, but they were also superstitious in their religious beliefs, and semi-heathen in their forms of worship. It would take generations to bring them up to a level with the Jewish Christians. They could not comprehend much of the intelligent preaching that Christ addressed to the Jews. Why not appoint a special missionary for them, and then quietly exclude them from the ordinary gatherings? This course would avoid criticism; it would not violate the established ideas of social and religious propriety. Nothing need be said about it. It would not be best to put it on parchment; just let it be quietly whispered about that the disciples thought it was better for the Samaritan Christians not to meet with the others. The disciples were surrounded by prejudiced people, to be sure, but these prejudices were very old; time would correct all these social and race inequalities. The disciples thought it better to ignore them, and just organize and carry on their work with no reference to these degraded and superstitious Samaritans. Such seems to have been somewhat the reasoning of these timid disciples. It was not our Lord's reasoning; the doors of his blessed kingdom opened to all. It required no magic sesame of race respectability to throw back these gates of pardon and hope. Sin must be left outside, but the sinner of every race and tribe was welcomed to all the privileges of this kingdom. We now see the wisdom and the divinity of our Lord's course.

Had these marveling disciples had their way, the sect of the Christians would have been added to the sects of the Herodians and the Sadducees, and been buried in the same grave centuries ago. The voice that talked with this Samaritan woman is heard round the globe now, and every century only adds greater authority to its divine utterance; and it is heard because it spoke with this despised Samaritan woman. Our Lord did not ignore this race prejudice; he rebuked it. And so these timid disciples, realizing only the temporary danger that threatened, marveled that he talked with this woman. God pity them! But how human they were. So to-day, in India, the missionaries of the cross, true to their Lord's great example, talk with pariah and Brahmin, and welcome them both to equal privileges in the kingdom of his grace—and men marvel. And so in Alabama and South Carolina, the missionaries of the cross, true to the same divine example, talk with black and with white, and welcome them both to the same privileges in this kingdom—and even some timid disciples marvel. But the principles of this divine kingdom do not change; the Lord of that kingdom, who talked with the sinful, weary, despised Samaritan woman, would, if here in bodily presence now, talk with the sinful, weary, despised black woman, no matter how much his worldly-wise disciples might marvel. His kingdom is built upon this eternal truth of human brotherhood, and it will endure because it is. Nothing short of this is of his kingdom, but will crumble to dust.

The Congregationalist

Forty-Second Annual Report Of The Executive Committee,

FOR THE YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30TH, 1888

General Survey

The field of missions is the world which lieth in darkness. We have to do with that part of it for which we are doubly responsible. It is in darkness and it is our own.

We look upon our own land, with its States equal in extent and capacity to foreign kingdoms. When we know that they hold the certainty of a future influence of which their past power has been but a prophecy, our fears press hard upon our hopes.

Nor are our work and our fears an intrusion. When the pestilence which walks in darkness brings the destruction which wastes at noonday, it is our call to feel deeply the distresses of those who are stricken. But plagues consuming human lives are less grevious than those which abide, and which, walking in the intellectual and moral darkness of a people, waste the lives of men and the hopes of souls. This is our call.

Remember that it is our own country where, in twelve great States, like empires, forty per cent. of the population cannot read, where, to-day, three-fourths of the illiteracy of the whole nation exists; where the darkness is increasing more rapidly than it is being lighted up; where much which passes for religion even among those who preach it, is a travesty upon Christianity, openly divorced from relationship with truth, purity, integrity and intelligence.

Our survey takes in questions that are painful; disturbing questions that are not in the North, nor in the West. They are difficult to meet. They are near, and the troubles which the questions hold are near. They come close to the heart of Christianity. They are close to the life of the churches. They are close to the first principles of human rights. They are questions that can have only one final solution, which may be so remote that fearful dangers will culminate in terrible disasters before the only remedy can do its work. There are now nearly eight millions of a Negro population, from four millions twenty years ago. There are more than two millions of mountain people in the South, one-half of whom cannot read. These benighted people live where there has never been a public-school system even for the more highly favored race, and where this more highly favored race deliberately assigns those who are not of its color to a permanent inferiority. The laws of caste are to be inflexibly enforced against all people of color who would rise from their low-down conditions. This is our Southern mission field, which God has committed to us, according to our faith and opportunity.

Those of our own race in the South could not do this work, which is upon our consciences and hearts, if they would. They do not see what we see. They would not if they could. They do not feel what we feel.

We are sent, not as philanthropists who hear the cry of the poor and needy, nor as patriots who realize the perils that overhang the State, but as missionaries of Jesus Christ who believe that salvation takes in the whole man, including philanthropy and statesmanship, and whatever builds up man for time and for eternity.

We have, however, no other charter for our work than that of missions. We have no other errand than that of the messengers of Christ. Only as we go in his name and with his spirit do we ask the churches to listen and hear with us, and with us to look and see.

OUR SCHOOLS