Read Ebook: The American Missionary — Volume 50 No. 02 February 1896 by Various

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EDITORIAL.

THE OUTLOOK, 33

LINCOLN MEMORIAL DAY, 34

PAT'S MISS'N BOX , 35

THE PROBLEM OF ILLITERACY, 36

FIELD WORKERS, 37

ABRAHAM LINCOLN CENT SOCIETY, 38

LIST OF OUR FIELD WORKERS, 39

TEACHERS' RESIDENCES, 68

RECEIPTS, 72

NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION, Bible House, Ninth St. and Fourth Ave., New York.

Price, 50 Cents a Year in advance. Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as second-class mail matter.

AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

PRESIDENT, MERRILL E. GATES, LL.D., MASS.

GEORGE S. HICKOK. JAMES H. OLIPHANT.

CHARLES L. MEAD, Chairman. CHARLES A. HULL, Secretary.

SAMUEL HOLMES, SAMUEL S. MARPLES, CHARLES L. MEAD, WILLIAM H. STRONG, ELIJAH HORR.

WILLIAM HAYES WARD, JAMES W. COOPER, LUCIEN C. WARNER, JOSEPH H. TWICHELL, CHARLES P. PEIRCE.

CHARLES A. HULL, ADDISON P. FOSTER, ALBERT J. LYMAN, NEHEMIAH BOYNTON, A. J. F. BEHRENDS.

COMMUNICATIONS

Relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to the Corresponding Secretaries; letters for "THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY," to the Editor, at the New York Office; letters relating to the finances, to the Treasurer; letters relating to woman's work, to the Secretary of the Woman's Bureau.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

In drafts, checks, registered letters, or post-office orders, may be sent to H. W. Hubbard, Treasurer, Bible House, New York; or, when more convenient, to either of the Branch Offices, 21 Congregational House, Boston, Mass., or 153 La Salle Street, Chicago, Ill. A payment of thirty dollars constitutes a Life Member.

NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.--The date on the "address label" indicates the time to which the subscription is paid. Changes are made in date on label to the 10th of each month. If payment of subscription be made afterward the change on the label will appear a month later. Please send early notice of change in post-office address, giving the former address and the new address, in order that our periodicals and occasional papers may be correctly mailed.

FORM OF A BEQUEST.

The AMERICAN MISSIONARY

VOL. L. FEBRUARY, 1896. No. 2.

THE OUTLOOK.

The debt-showing in our treasury has varied during the last few months. At the close of August, 1895, it reached its highest point during that fiscal year, amounting to 1,151.66. During the next three months it was reduced considerably below that highest figure; but now, at the close of December, it has reached the amount of 4,943.95. It would be difficult to show in detail the reasons for these changes. But the last figure is the highest ever reached in the history of the Association, and if we could not look with faith beyond, it would be discouraging. But we cannot be despondent in view of the past. Discouragements have been incident in every stage of progress in this connection. In the old anti-slavery days there were times of almost hopeless discouragement. In the great struggle for the life of the nation and the emancipation of the slave there were days when only the bravest had hope. And in these last days of reconstruction and of the work for elevating the Freedmen, there have been very dark hours. But thus far triumph has come in the end. We believe that God, who led the Children of Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness and never ceased his care till the people were planted in their own land, with their homes and olive yards, will not desert this larger company which he has brought with a high hand out of bondage. We believe, too, that the merciful Saviour who regards every good work done for the poorest and most helpless as done unto himself, will not desert an organization that devotes itself earnestly and successfully to the elevation of these needy races.

We, therefore, bate not one jot of heart or hope, but trusting in the faithfulness of our Heavenly Father, and in the self-sacrificing and conscientious liberality of his followers, we yet believe that this debt will be removed and the means be furnished for the continuance and enlargement of this great work. Hence, we repeat the call we have already made to pastors, churches, Sunday-schools, Christian Endeavor Societies, and to individuals, to make this our Year of Jubilee, the time of emancipation and deliverance.

LINCOLN MEMORIAL DAY.

Two years ago the American Missionary Association introduced a new day in the church calendars. The pastors of our Congregational fellowship were asked to observe the Lincoln Memorial Day on the Sabbath nearest to the birthday of our greatest President. This request was generally responded to and sermons and responsive services were held in commemoration of Abraham Lincoln's birth. A Concert Exercise was prepared by the Association which was used very largely.

This year Lincoln Memorial Day comes on Sunday, February 16, and we trust will prove a day of wide observance among the Congregational churches. It is, as our readers all know, the Jubilee Year of the American Missionary Association. Special collections are most appropriate this year and are being pledged by many of the churches in behalf of the great work of the American Missionary Association among the neglected millions of our own land and to roll up this Jubilee offering on the Jubilee Year.

Special envelopes have been printed and will be furnished any of the pastors who desire to celebrate Lincoln Memorial Day in taking this special collection for the Association. The Concert Exercise will be sent to the pastor or superintendent in any Sunday-school who may desire to add their gift to awaken a wider interest in this work. Abraham Lincoln was born on the edge of the great region occupied by the mountaineers of the South, or "American Highlanders" as we like to call them. Among these people the American Missionary Association has established its churches, schools and missions, and they have loyally responded in co?peration in the spread of an intelligent gospel among the two and a half million people.

The work among the Negroes must always be associated with the name of Abraham Lincoln, who lifted them from slavery into freedom and gave his life a willing sacrifice to the cause of their liberation and the salvation of our country.

The work of no other society gathers so immediately about the name of Abraham Lincoln as does that of the American Missionary Association, and we trust that Lincoln Memorial Day will be celebrated by the churches throughout the land, and that large special offerings will pour into the Association's treasury to bring emancipation from debt and furnish the means for larger labor this glad Jubilee Year.

BY MRS. E. C. READ.

Truly, "A little child shall lead them."

THE PROBLEM OF ILLITERACY.

The question of illiteracy among the peoples that come to us from foreign lands is one of great importance. The large percentage of those unable to read and write sent to us from Europe startles us. When we come, however, to compare the percentage of illiteracy in the lands represented by the larger body of immigrants with the illiteracy in our own Southern States the insignificance of the former is at once evident. The great body of illiterates are not those who come from across the ocean, but those who are born and bred in our own land--native Americans. That this is most emphatically true the following table gathered from the last census reports abundantly proves:

Ireland, percentage of illiteracy 23 France, " " " 15 Netherlands, " " " 14 England, " " " 9 Scotland, " " " 6 Switzerland, " " " 5 Germany, " " " 4 Scandinavia, " " " 3

The following tables are compiled from the United States Census of 1890, and represent the condition in our Southern States:

Total Population. Native White.

Alabama 41% 18-4/10% Florida 27-8/10% 11-3/10% Georgia 39-8/10% 16-3/10% Kentucky 21-6/10% 16-1/10% Mississippi 40% 11-9/10% South Carolina 45% 18-1/10% North Carolina 35-7/10% 23-1/10% Tennessee 26-6/10% 18% Virginia 30% 14% Louisiana 45-8/10% 20-1/10%

From this table it will be seen that no foreign country of all the list given above equals in illiteracy any one of these Southern states with the exception of Tennessee.

It will be also noted that eliminating the Negro factor from the South and taking simply our native white population the percentage of illiteracy in North Carolina of this class is one-tenth of one per cent, greater than the percentage of illiteracy in Ireland, the most illiterate of all these given.

This is an amazing fact and ought to startle us all into more earnest efforts to lift up out of the darkness of ignorance and illiteracy this great mass of people, black and white, in our Southern states. It absolutely destroys the weight of the argument so often heard in presenting the dangers threatening our country on account of the ignorance of foreign immigrants. This alarm bell is muffled when we hear the alarm echo from Southern lowlands and mountains.

FIELD WORKERS.

We publish in this number of the MISSIONARY the annual list of our Field Workers. We wish our readers to follow them to their appointed locations, where they are now busied in the peculiar toils and anxieties incident to all who are engaged in their special callings. We say these are peculiar, for we believe that the faithful preacher and teacher carry special burdens of care and anxiety that tax not only the body and mind, but weigh most heavily on the heart. When Paul enumerates the great burdens which rest upon him, he names as last and greater than all outer "that which presseth upon me daily anxiety for all the churches."

But beyond all this, the toilers in the South, laboring as they do among the poorest and most ignorant in the land, have added trials in meagre salaries and limited means for enlargement, and especially in an environment if not hostile yet unsympathetic. The people for whom they labor are held down under a severe race prejudice, and their preachers and teachers must share the odium with them. We gladly admit that the prejudice in the South against our workers is in many places moderating, yet it remains as a trial and a hindrance felt in no other part of our land. These discouraging features occur to some extent in all parts of our field--among the mountaineers, the Indians, and the Chinese on the Pacific Coast. Poverty and ignorance are common to all, and the race prejudice that confronts the Indian and the Chinese is scarcely less than that which rests upon the Negro in the South. But these burdens our workers are willing to bear as followers of Him who spent His life among the lowly and gave as the greatest proof of His divine mission that the gospel was preached unto the poor.

But the hearts of these self-sacrificing toilers may be cheered by the sympathy and prayers of God's people and by such liberal gifts as will take away the continual fear of any further crippling of the work. We ask that in the supplications in the pulpit, at the family altar and in the closet, these consecrated men and women come in for a share in the petitions, and we ask also that in this, our Jubilee year, our treasury be remembered with so much liberality that it may be indeed for this great work a year of release.

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