The American Missionary. Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889

SAMUEL HOLMES,

SAMUEL S. MARPLES,

CHARLES L. MEAD,

ELBERT B. MONROE.

For One Year.—ALBERT J. LYMAN.

A ballot was taken and the brethren named were elected. After the benediction by the President, recess was taken until 7:30 P.M.

THURSDAY EVENING

The Association was called to order by President Taylor. "Stand up, stand up for Jesus," was sung, after which Rev. Simeon Gilbert, D.D., led in prayer.

The records of the previous sessions of the day were read and approved, and the Secretary was instructed to complete the minutes.

The invitation to hold the next Annual Meeting in Northampton, Massachusetts, was accepted.

President George A. Gates, of Iowa College, addressed the Association, and was followed by an address by President Cyrus Northrop, D.D., of Minnesota, and also by President E.D. Eaton, D.D., of Wisconsin.

The closing address of the Association was made by President Taylor.

The following minute read by Secretary Roy was then adopted:

When, just eighteen years ago, this city was smoldering in the ruins of the great fire, which had consumed the holy and beautiful house of this New England Church and the homes of every family in it, the pastor, searching among the ashes within these walls for some memento, found a charred leaf of the pulpit hymn-book on which he was able to decipher these words:

"Daughter of Zion, awake from the dust,
Exalt thy fallen head:
Rebuild thy walls, thy bounds enlarge,
And send thy heralds forth."

That hymn was sung at the first service in the rough board tabernacle erected upon this spot.

We give thanks to God this day for the faith and courage by which this people did awake from the dust and rebuild these walls, and by which they have gone on building up their spiritual temple and participating largely in the whole round of service for extending the Redeemer's kingdom, a part of which has been the inviting and the welcoming of this missionary convocation to their sanctuary and to their homes, and for which, to them, along with all others in the sister churches who have joined them on this occasion in exercising this grace of hospitality, we express our heartiest thanks.

We here call to mind with grateful emotion one of the manliest of men, one of the truest disciples of Christ, Dea. C.G. Hammond, who counted it an honor to have ministered at this altar from the day of its setting up to the day of his translation, and who for many years had served as one of the Vice-Presidents of this Association, and had been giving largely of his substance to its treasury.

At this closing hour, we are also thankfully reminded that the First Congregational Church of this city was ready thirty years ago to entertain this Association in the days of its weakness and of its cross-bearing witness for Christ and for his lowly poor: and likewise, ten years ago, to open its doors to receive the same body then brought along by the providence of God to a position of honor and extended usefulness.

And so we gratefully name the Union Park Church, which is now lending us its pastor as one of our Vice-Presidents, and which, with the other two churches mentioned, has furnished us with the three grand annual sermons of Drs. Goodwin, Noble, and Little, and the Plymouth Church, which, from the day of its organization, with its testimony and its offerings, has stood by this Association, and all the other churches of this vicinage, grown now to be such a comely sisterhood, which have shared with these others in the support of our work.

To the four great railway passenger associations, which have extended to us their courtesies; to the city press, which has so immensely broadened the influence of this missionary convocation; to the gentlemen who, at no small sacrifice of time and labor, have honored this occasion by their addresses, reports, and clerical service; and to our honored and beloved President, who has guided our deliberations with such skill and grace, we express our obligations of thanks.

Rev. Norman Seaver, D.D., responded for the New England Church. He said there was a saying that lightning never struck the same place twice, yet, though it fell to him to welcome the Association, it had also fallen to him to respond to this vote of thanks. He had asked Secretary Beard what he would say on this occasion, and was answered, in his witty way, "Tell us Godspeed, and we are glad to get rid of you." Dr. Seaver felt that the local people were the recipients, and the visitors the benefactors in what had been done. The President had inspired them with his spirit; he had not withdrawn his presence, and very late might he return to the heavens. Students and young ministers had been benefited by listening to those many learned men and devoted servants of God, and were inspired for future usefulness. "We are not the benefactors, we are the recipients, and we wish you Godspeed."

After having sung the doxology, with the benediction by President Taylor, the Association adjourned, to meet at Northampton, Massachusetts, for its next Annual Meeting.

J.C. ARMSTRONG, }

E.S. WILLIAMS,  } Secretaries.

SUMMARY OF TREASURER'S REPORT

EXPENDITURES

RECEIPTS

    H.W. HUBBARD, Treasurer,
    56 Reade Street, New York.

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION—ITS PLACE AND WORK

BY SECRETARY M.E. STRIEBY

We commemorate the forty-third anniversary of the American Missionary Association. During these years, its place and work have become somewhat definitely settled, and I take this occasion to set forth the position that it now holds in relation to its constituents, its sister societies, and the great work providentially thrown upon it.

1. The Association recognizes the control of its constituents. That recognition was one of the corner-stones on which it was founded. It sought its members and its funds from persons of evangelical faith and practical morality. Of such, it offered membership to any one who contributed to its funds. Thus broadly was it placed on a popular basis.

At length, however, it began to be felt by many of its supporters that there were evils in this method—that the acts of the society were liable to be regulated by the local attendance at each annual meeting, and that such meetings might easily be "packed" to carry out a purpose. The officers of the Association, true to the cardinal principles of its founders of control by its constituents, welcomed the discussion and cheerfully accepted the present constitution, which was adopted after due deliberation. That constitution designates as voters, life members and delegates from the churches, local conferences and state associations. The Executive Committee believe that we have now reached a satisfactory basis, but if it shall be the will of the constituents to make further modifications hereafter, the fundamental principle of the Association will dictate a ready acceptance of any change that will not set aside the evangelical, missionary, and philanthropic basis on which the Association was founded, and that will not impair contracts or endanger invested funds. The Association belongs, under Christ, to its constituents.

2. The work of the Association embraces all forms of effort in both the church and the school. It was organized and chartered as a missionary society. This was its fundamental aim. It was not till 1869, twenty-three years after its organization, that the word "educational" was put into its charter. But this change did not alter the character of its work—the school is missionary, the church an educator—and this church and school work are inseparably blended. The people among whom it labors are children in knowledge, and will remain so for a long time, for there are millions of blacks, mountain whites, Indians, and Chinese in our country who cannot read and write. In Northern communities where the children grow up in Christian homes and are environed in cultured society, with the best of common schools, the church finds the material for its membership, so far forth, prepared to its hand, but among these millions of unlettered peoples the church, if it is to be pure and intelligent, must be the outgrowth of the Christian school; and the branches of the tree might as well be expected to grow up without the roots, as such churches without these schools. The work among them begins in the primary school, and follows them through all departments of industrial, normal, collegiate and theological instruction.

In all this long process the teachers are with them at every step—in the shop, the school, the Sunday-school, the prayer meeting, and the church, and often the principal of the school is the pastor of the church. Thus the church, which grows up within or along side of the school, gets the priceless boon of the personal example and influence of these Christian teachers, in refining the manners and in making character; and as the pupils are converted they enter the church to become its stable members and intelligent officers. On the other hand, the families in the church, with their kindred and friends, furnish the pupils for the school and help to sustain it by their money and prayers, both the church and the school being stronger by their mutual support and more potent in their influence in the community than if they stood apart. And even after the scholars have left the school and have entered upon the business of life, the Association is especially fitted to gather them into churches. It has occurred in several instances, in starting new churches beyond the range of our schools, that we have found them to be made up first almost wholly of graduates and students from our different institutions, and that these have remained the most intelligent and reliable members.

We have found, too, that when a church was thus organized where we have no school, we are very soon importuned to start one. In localities with a scattered population there might not be sufficient public funds to open a colored public school; in many more places they would sustain the school for only two months in the year, and in larger towns it sometimes has happened that these public schools were of such a character that the parents begged for a Christian school as a means of saving the moral purity of their children. Thus, in every way, and under all circumstances, the school and the church need and help each other. And what is true of the colored people is equally true of the whites in the mountains and elsewhere, among whom the Association is working so auspiciously, planting its schools and churches in mutual helpfulness.

The suggestion that all the church work of the denomination in the home-field be given to one society, and all the educational be concentrated in one other society, deserves thoughtful consideration, for it meets with this very serious objection, that it provides for but one collection for work that now receives two or three. The experience of our churches is conclusive against the hope that one enlarged collection would be given to the one society. For a time, a brief time, spasmodic efforts might, as in former cases, result in some special contributions, but the new experiment would certainly be more disastrous, if it should fail, than those already tried, because it would involve far greater interests.

It is not to be supposed for a moment that such consolidation is contemplated in order that the churches may escape the large responsibility now resting upon them; and if economy and efficiency are the only objects sought, we fear the result would be disappointing. Such an arrangement would not save in the number of workers in the field, and surely it is not wise business management to leave great interests inadequately supervised. Even if the consolidated society were divided into separate departments or bureaux, the supervision could not be less, if efficient, while the combination would be likely to lead to complications, and would weaken, in the several departments, the sense of individual responsibility and take away the impulse of historic life and achievement.

More work well managed and vigorously pushed seems to me to be the only plan that will satisfy the Christian conscience or meet the approval of the Master.

3. The work of the Association extends to all races of men. This claim is sanctioned by the fraternal agreement existing between it and the American Home Missionary Society, by its own history, and by the needs of the field. The agreement with the sister society says explicitly that the Association is "to pursue its educational and church work in the South among both races." The history of the Association shows that at the beginning the populations reached by it in America were all white except the Indians and a few colored refugees in Canada.

Its home missions at the North and West were among white people: and so were they even in the South before the war. John G. Fee and his heroic associates in Kentucky, and Daniel Worth and others in North Carolina, founded churches and schools only among the whites. Berea College was for whites only, at the outset. It was not till the era of emancipation with its overwhelming flood of freedmen that the Association turned its direct and almost exclusive attention to them. It heard the voice of God in the tramp of these millions marching out of bondage into freedom, and in that voice it heard the call to itself, providentially prepared for the new era. It answered the call, without, however, abandoning its mission to preach the gospel to the whites also; and now, with its schools and churches well established throughout the South, with an open door to the whites, and especially to those in the mountain regions, it hears the voice of God calling it thither. The ready adaptation of its methods to these people, and the success of its efforts among them, attest the validity of its call and the wisdom of its response.

4. The work of the Association is not a transient one. A New England pastor at the beginning of our work for the freedmen, gave me a hearty welcome to present our cause in his pulpit, telling me frankly he did so the more cheerfully because he thought our work would soon be over—say in twenty or twenty-five years. Now that good man believed that home missions in the West, and in some of the older Eastern States, would be needed well nigh on to the millennium, yet he imagined that the blacks, just escaped from bondage, utterly poor, ignorant and degraded, would (perhaps he hardly stopped to think how) rise in twenty-five years above all need of help from any quarter in their upward struggle! But the fallacy of such a supposition is realized more since these twenty-five years have passed than it was then. It is now clearly seen that these ex-slaves will require for three or four generations the most abundant help to bring them up to the level of those Western settlers, including the Swedes, Germans and Norwegians crowding in thither, who are comparatively well-off and intelligent. And then, after that preparation of the Negro has been made, the regular work of home missions will only be fairly begun among them. The work for this people, therefore, is not transient, and the missionary society that has it in hand has before it not only a great but long-continued task.

And for that great work the Association has had a manifest call and preparation, and has gained an experience and an influence of peculiar value in its further prosecution. The Association has wrought itself into the schools and churches, into the industries of the colored people, the improvement of their homes, the preparation of their sons and daughters for home and business life, and for teachers and preachers and physicians; it has wrought itself into their better aspirations for both this world and that which is to come. It has won upon the confidence and respect of the white people by its unselfish and Christian work, its kind but firm adherence to principle, and by the blessing it has conferred upon both races in aiding the South in the only true solution of its great problem.

The Association has become anchored to this great work by the large amount of invested funds intrusted to its care. It has received thousands of dollars from the Freedmen's Bureau, from the Avery estate, from the gifts of Mrs. Stone and others, and added to all these is the large sum placed one year ago in its hands by the munificence of Mr. Hand. These several sums aggregate more than two millions of dollars—an amount of endowment, we believe, without a parallel among our Congregational societies for the home field. While no inconsiderable share of these funds is in plant, and therefore increases instead of diminishes current expenses, yet the Association is the only legal custodian of these funds. They constitute, therefore, a strong evidence of the confidence of large donors in its usefulness and stability and in the importance of its work, and at the same time they make a strong plea for current contributions to sustain that work. God has moved the hearts of noble men and women to lay these firm foundations. Will not others equally able and far-seeing in their benevolence add to these gifts and thus extend these foundations, and will not the churches build thereon with diligent and cheerful hands?

These forty-three years under review have been memorable in the history of this Nation. They have witnessed the reign of slavery in the height of its arrogant domination. They have seen the rising protest of conscience and religion against that domination, with the mad resistance of slavery, until it culminated in one of the bloodiest wars of modern times. They have beheld a united Nation emerge from the conflict, and not a slave in all its broad land. They have seen the uplifted hands and hearts of the freedmen grasping for knowledge. And, last of all, they behold the new power seated on the throne vacated by slavery, dooming the colored man to a position of inferiority scarcely less degrading than slavery itself.

Along all these lines the sympathies and efforts of the Association have run. It pleaded for the slave in his bondage, when to do so cost odium and ostracism; it joined with others in the appeal against slavery, with the hope that righteousness would avert the calamity of war. When the slave came forth free, it went with prompt hands to fit him for his new position, and now, as he enters the long and dark struggle against poverty, ignorance and race-prejudice, it girds itself for the great struggle, armed with what have ever been its only weapons, the light of knowledge and the love of the gospel of Christ. The contest may be long, the work will be great, but the triumph must be sure. May the church of Christ, the patriots of the land, and the abundant blessing of the Almighty God strengthen and help us in this great undertaking!

THE MISSIONARY VIEW OF THE SOUTHERN SITUATION