The American Missionary. Volume 42, No. 06, June, 1888

Thirty-five years ago the Congregational Union was initiated in the Albany Convention on purpose to protect Eastern friends from the miscellaneous and irresponsible and persistent solicitation for individual church enterprise. It is the business of that Society to receive, inspect and decide upon all such applications. Take it away and the flood gates would be lifted again. No less in the cause of missionary education is such discretionary service needed.

THE NEGRO QUESTION

This is the title of a recent brochure by George W. Cable, published by the American Missionary Association. With the most vigorous and courageous devotion to the question that "is the gravest in American affairs," Mr. Cable addresses himself to the problem and to the answer that should be made to it. His apprehension of injustice is so keen and true, and his seriousness, in view of the weariness and offence that the whole subject gives to a great majority of the people, is so urgent, that the paper has been criticized as pessimistic, and as an impatient cry against evils that are speedily being rectified. We may say that the optimistic view of evils never did much to correct them, and that those who are patient with wrongs will never create a sentiment against them. To us, this seems the voice of a prophet pleading for righteousness to man and righteousness in the land.

OUR WHOLE COUNTRY

Among the recent issues of the press, none has been more effective and deservedly popular than the pamphlet entitled, "OUR COUNTRY," written by our esteemed friend, Rev. Josiah Strong, D.D. It has aroused public attention in a remarkable degree, and has opened the way for a career of most promising usefulness to the author.

Our only regret in reading these stirring pages, has arisen from the fact, that in its survey it leaves almost entirely out of account nearly one third part of our country, namely, the South, a part, too, that contains as many elements of future trouble to the nation, and elements, too, that if properly dealt with, can minister as largely to the nation's future prosperity, as any other portion. Our object in penning this item is to suggest that some man of equal diligence in collecting facts, and of equal skill in handling them, shall write a book entitled, "Our Whole Country," that shall omit no part of it.

A SAMPLE OF SOUTHERN CHURCH WORK

The Rev. G.W. McClellan, a graduate of Fisk University and recently a student at Hartford Theological Seminary, has formed a "Boys' Christian Association" in connection with his church work in Louisville. The boys meet on Friday evenings for literary exercises, and the following are some of the questions debated this winter.

1. Resolved, That Washington was a greater general than Grant.

2. Resolved, That capital punishment ought to be abolished.

3. Resolved, That strikes are right and necessary.

4. Resolved, That boys, as a rule, after graduation from the High School, should go to College.

EXTRACTS FROM EXAMINATION PAPERS

Question. What was the Dred Scott decision?

Answer. "The Dred Scott decision declared that slave owners could carry their slaves into any territory except their own."

Another Answer. "Dred Scott decision was, that protected tariff should be kept out of the territories."

Question. What are ocean currents?

Answer. "The Ocean currant is a celebrated meal-storm on the coast of Norway."

A STRAW

A few days since, there was an examination of candidates for positions as teachers in the New Orleans public schools. Four of our Straight University girls presented themselves, three graduates and one an undergraduate, and all passed the examination, receiving respectively 94, 93, 92 and 87 per cent., and three were at once given good positions.

IN MEMORIAM

Another good man has gone to his reward. Rev. Geo. J. Tillotson, who has perpetuated his name in the Tillotson Institute, Austin, Texas, died March 29th, at his home in Wethersfield, Conn. His useful life was spent in that State. He was born in Farmington, Feb. 5, 1805, was graduated at Yale in 1825, studied theology in the Yale Seminary one year and at Andover for two years, completing his theological studies in 1830. He had several long pastorates, which he filled with great fidelity and success. From 1876 he was not employed as a pastor, but devoted himself with great assiduity to various modes of promoting the Redeemer's kingdom. He had practised economy and had the means to give, and this he did with a discriminating, and yet a liberal, hand. To the founding of the Tillotson Institute, he gave not only from his own resources, but devoted his time and energies to collecting funds from his friends. But his benefactions were not confined to one object; he had a broad sympathy for every good cause. He was a man of genial temperament, and closed his useful career after a short illness in the 84th year of his age.

THE RADICAL FORCES OF CHRISTIANITY, AS EXHIBITED IN THE WORK OF THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION

BY REV. J.W. COOPER, D.D.

The work of Christ is the work of Christianity. By the "radical forces of Christianity," we mean the simple spirit of the Master, in its original and energetic operation. We are dealing with no abstractions, neither are we considering the operation of human agencies. What Christ was in his earthly ministry, that Christianity is, because of His living presence in the church to-day. Wherever we discover the working of those principles which were exemplified in his life, there He is present in living power, the inspirer of the endeavor, and the strength of it. The claim that the work of the American Missionary Association makes upon our attention, may be presented in a variety of forms. Its work is commended to us, for example, because it is patriotic, that is, it makes its appeal to our self-interest. The instinct of self-preservation demands that we sustain it. Four and a half millions of Negroes in our Southern States are utterly illiterate. Half that number of Southern whites are in the same deplorable condition. These men are citizens. They hold the ballot. Our free institutions are not safe in such hands as these. Education is an absolute necessity. This wide-spreading and dense ignorance, among masses of free American people, must be speedily overcome. We do not wonder, therefore, that Andrew D. White in his scholarly address, "The Message of the 19th Century to the 20th," puts the education of the South first among the many great and pressing problems that claim the attention of statesmen. It is a matter of self-interest and self-preservation.

This work commends itself, also, because of its justice. It appeals as a duty, to every enlightened conscience. The ignorance of the Negro, and the degradation of the Indian, are more our fault than theirs. We owe it to them, as a matter of simple justice, that we now make reparation, as best we can, for the wrong done to them in the past. If we, as a nation, have helped push them down, we ought to help lift them up. It is a burden which stern justice lays upon us.

But I turn from all such impressive arguments as these, to find another and altogether different motive to this work, one which the statesman may consider of little worth, the appeal of which mere conscience may not feel, but, which to the Christian heart must ever be more powerful and persuasive than all other motives that can be named. This work commends itself to us, because it is a Christly work. The spirit of the Master is in it. The radical forces of Christianity are exemplified by it. This Society may stand forth before the world to-day, and without any sacrifice of humility or reverence, opening the book and finding the place where it is written, it may say, in concert with the Master himself, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim deliverance to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord that He might be glorified." And here is its strongest claim upon our sympathy and support.

That this representation is not an exaggerated one, and that the claim is in no way over-stated, we shall see more clearly as the comparison is followed out in detail. The work which this Association has in hand will bear the test of analysis. It is not only a Christian work, it is a work which, from the beginning, has called into exercise the fundamental principles of Christianity. It exemplifies Christianity in its most original and essential features.

I.—A RADICAL FAITH

As I look into this work, the first thing that impresses me is the faith that inspired it. It was a most sublime undertaking. It began, so far as relates to its present fields of labor, with the millions of freedmen just emancipated from two and a half centuries of bondage. What this bondage signified, this present generation will find it difficult to realize. For years it had been a crime to teach them the alphabet. They had been bought and sold like cattle. Their lives were a daily school in sensual immorality, deceit and dishonesty. Every manly aspiration, and womanly feeling, was smothered at its birth. They had come from savagery to slavery, and in a day, without training or preparation, they were set free. It is no wonder that they were ignorant, indolent, degraded and despised. As one of their own number says, "We came into bondage naked and destitute of worldly goods, we went out of it penniless, homeless and almost characterless." Now it was this mass of degraded humanity that this Association set itself to elevate and Christianize, and it did it with a calm assurance and serene hope which no obstacle has as yet been able to disturb. The road has been a long and hard one, but it did not anticipate an easy time or miraculous success. It has met with new and perhaps unexpected difficulties. It may be that all the workers would say what the President of Talladega writes in a recent letter, "The magnitude of the obstacles are more and more real to me as I live and work." But they still live and they still work, never doubting the final result. If you want to find men who have undying faith in the future of the black race, go to those who, in the spirit of their Master, are toiling night and day, under the commission of this Society, for its elevation.

In the same spirit, also, this Association has welcomed new labors and entered into new fields. When Chinamen were to be Christianized, immediately it had great faith for the Chinese. When the Indian missions were laid upon it, then it saw wonderful possibilities in the red man. And now, last of all, when some million or two of long-forgotten and neglected "Mountain Whites" are brought to its attention, it sees in these abjectly poor, dispirited and superstitious people, only another opportunity for elevating humanity, and proving the power of Christianity to restore the lost manhood of every race.

These servants of God are not engaged in a forlorn hope. They have faith. Wherever they work there they expect results, not only in the saving of individual souls, but in regenerating whole races of men. A Christian woman, missionary to the poor whites among the mountains of East Tennessee, under the inspiration of her great faith, writes home to her friends, "We can almost hear the bells ring in unreared steeples, and hear the songs from choirs that are as yet totally oblivious to the spirit of melody, and enter into the heart-worship of the prayer meetings that are to be when shall have been fulfilled the prophecy, that 'to the people which sat in darkness and the shadow of death, light is sprung up'." Such buoyant, hopeful faith as this, so clear and beautiful in its confidence in the promises of God, is one of the "radical forces" which command, while they inspire, this holy work.

II.—A RADICAL LOVE

But what may be called the special characteristic of this Society among missionary organizations doing work in our own land, that which establishes its special claim upon hearts of Christian people, is the radical spirit of love there is in it. It exemplifies in a most practical way, the brotherhood of man. It repudiates caste. It is absolutely color-blind. It works for the despised. It helps those who are themselves the most helpless. This is no newly-discovered fact. I remember the first sermon I ever heard in behalf of this work, more than twenty years ago; it was drawn from the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The text was, "Who is my neighbor?" The address of the honored late President of this Association at the close of the last Annual Meeting which he attended, was in the trend of this very same Scripture. "This organization," he said, "is the Good Samaritan, loving to bestow its aid upon the poorest and most despised, the most severely wounded races of our country." The sermon, a score of years ago, told us that our neighbor was the Negro, just then made free. So said President Washburn, "If you can point out to this organization any race that needs its assistance, whether colored or white, there is the legitimate field of this Association."

It would seem that a law so emphatically taught by Jesus Christ as the common brotherhood of man, and so familiar to the world, would long ago have been accepted and adopted in the practice of Christian nations, especially by a Christian Republic within its own borders. But, instead of that, it is the hardest of all laws for us to learn and the most difficult of all to put in operation. Our policy toward the general colored races in this land has been one of cold-hearted and cruel selfishness. As ex-Senator Brace has said, speaking in behalf of his own people, "From the red race was taken their lands, from the yellow their labor, from the black their persons. The red race was gradually driven toward a setting sun; the yellow race, the rabble demanded to be driven from the country; the black man was a slave in chains, with no rights which the Constitution recognized."

These unjust prejudices are by no means altogether a thing of the past. They are not as violent as they once were, thanks to the influence of this Association, but they still exist. "Niggers," are still ordered out of Southern churches. Many a professed Christian still wants his Indian "dead." This work has all along been compelled to fight its way against suspicion, bigotry and hatred; it must do so still, because it recognizes man as man, whether his skin be white or black, red or yellow; and, in taking this radical ground, it is interpreting to the world the benevolent spirit of the Saviour, and is preparing the way for that universal reign of love on earth which He came to establish. Such a work as this is the salvation of our Christianity. Without it, one of the chief evidences for Christianity would be taken away, and the spirit of it would die. Standing before a congregation of white men, Negroes and Indians, with a Chinamen or two to make the tale complete, President Mark Hopkins last May dedicated the new chapel at Hampton to the worship of Almighty God. He voiced the sentiment of this whole Association when he said, "Here will be taught and promoted a Christianity as narrow in its creed as revealed truth, and as broad in its love as humanity!" "A creed as narrow as revealed truth." Yes! we want no inspirations from outside the sacred book. "A love as broad as humanity." By all means, yes! for no smaller measure will satisfy the demands of that book or fulfil the will of the Master.

III.—A RADICAL CONSECRATION

Another principle required in this work and exemplified by it, is a thorough-going consecration. The men and women who have taken up this work, have followed Christ in his self-abnegation. There is no worldly honor in it. It is not an easy life. You know well enough how these devoted missionaries have braved social ostracism, and shut themselves in to their lowly ministry. With the Christly "sympathy of identification," they have made themselves one with their despised brethren, bearing their burdens, sharing their privations, stooping to meet their needs. What almost infinite patience it has sometimes required, what forbearance and charity, we cannot know, but they have served willingly and cheerfully, and found the sacrifice to be a joy. And there are many of them, in school and church and home, in our Southern land and in the Western wilds, who are serving there in a spirit of self-abnegation and patient sacrifice, and whom God will honor. These faithful workers are not martyrs; but there is something heroic in their lives. It is the heroism of those who lay upon themselves the lowliest duties, and perform them in the spirit of the loftiest devotion. The work that calls forth such consecration as this, so disinterested and sincere, bears its own letter of commendation. The spirit of Him, who "came to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many," is exemplified by it.

IV.—A RADICAL METHOD

There is one thing more that I would mention. It is the radical method which this Association has adopted in doing its work. It has never been satisfied with surface culture. It strikes down to the roots of character. Not "quantity," but "quality," is manifestly its motto. As an illustration of intelligent thoroughness in Christian service, therefore, this Association commends itself to our regard.

A decided advance was marked in missionary work when the church came to see that not only the conversion of the heathen, but their establishment in Christian character, was a legitimate object of missionary endeavor. Francis Xavier in ten years visited fifty kingdoms and baptized a million converts, but the ten years' labor of some of our modern missionaries, spent in laying solid foundations and thoroughly training a few chosen men, may, after all, come to more in its permanent results upon the world, than all that was done by Rome's great apostle. Jesus gave the best part of his three years of public ministry to the training of twelve men. He might have baptised a million. He preferred to do thorough work with a few. This Association has acted upon this principle. It has sought to develop manhood and womanhood after the pattern and by the power that is in Jesus Christ. It calls to its aid every possible force. It educates the mind, the heart, the conscience, the hand. It uses the church, the school, the workshop and the Christian home. Character-building is its vocation, the foundation Jesus Christ, the superstructure such as should stand the test of fire. These oppressed races need above all things else leaders from among themselves. It has been the endeavor of this Society to furnish them—men and women of such moral and mental quality as shall be fitted for the responsible position. They have been taught to think, to work and to live. Because labor is a moral force in establishing character, industrial education is introduced. Nothing is too great to be attempted, nothing too trivial to be omitted, the object always being the substantial development of moral and Christian character.

Such is this mission. It has gone forth in the spirit of Christ, with faith and love and consecration, seeking to do an honest work with thoroughness. God's blessing has been upon it. It has results to show in the renovated and ennobled lives of thousands who have been the subjects of its ministry; and its broader influence in the elevation of the oppressed and despised races, begins even now to be clearly apparent. It has been a faithful monitor to the churches which have sustained it, an inspirer of their benevolence, an almoner of their gifts, and an honor to their name. And beyond all this, standing for those principles which are most essential and fundamental in Christianity, it has glorified God by exhibiting to the world the power of Christian faith and sacrifice. Those who have been bound of Satan, lo, these many years, are loosed from their bonds and made free in Christ. War has struck off the chains of human bondage. Love shall now complete the emancipation.

THE SOUTH

"NOTES IN THE SADDLE."

BY REV. C.J. RYDER, DISTRICT SECRETARY.

The following, which was taken from the public records of a white school in Tennessee, illustrates the intellectual condition of a portion of the white citizens of that and the other Southern States. It also shows what kind of men have charge of public instruction in some districts throughout the South.

"TENN July —, 188-.

"Rulus for scoul No 4.

Teacher will not low the scoulars to scouful or clime or swhisparn in time of Books; the Teacher can ad eney rulus to this he thinks needud and eney Larg secular can not comer ounder rulus will have to quit the scoul."

These "rulus," as the word is spelled, were signed by two members of the School Board by whom they were written. How strange, that in localities in which there is such frightful illiteracy the school authorities should fail to welcome, with large-hearted cordiality, teachers who come among them. The white people, as well as the colored, need missionary schools, as the illiteracy among them is appalling.