Read Ebook: The American Missionary — Volume 39 No. 07 July 1885 by Various

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 261 lines and 33849 words, and 6 pages

PAGE.

EDITORIAL.

THE FIGURES--FINANCIAL 187 EXERCISE OF BENEVOLENCE 188 THE COLORED PEOPLE AT THE NEW ORLEANS EXPOSITION. 189 PARAGRAPHS 191 CONGREGATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF OHIO--GRAVE OF LOVEJOY--WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE CHINESE? 192

THE SOUTH.

BUREAU OF WOMAN'S WORK.

STATE ORGANIZATIONS--VERMONT SCHOOL AT MCINTOSH, GA.--ILLINOIS HOME MISS. UNION 205 A TRUE INCIDENT 206

CHILDREN'S PAGE.

THE LITTLE BLACK GIRL'S SACRIFICE 207

RECEIPTS 208

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

Rooms, 56 Reade Street.

Price 50 Cents a Year, in Advance.

Entered at the Post-Office at New York, N. Y., as second-class matter.

American Missionary Association.

PRESIDENT, Hon. WM. B. WASHBURN, LL. D., Mass.

W. H. ROGERS, PETER McCARTEE.

JOHN H. WASHBURN, Chairman. A. P. FOSTER, Secretary.

LYMAN ABBOTT. A. S. BARNES. J. R. DANFORTH. CLINTON B. FISK. A. P. FOSTER.

S. B. HALLIDAY. SAMUEL HOLMES. SAMUEL S. MARPLES. CHARLES L. MEAD. ELBERT B. MONROE.

J. E. RANKIN. WM. H. WARD. J. L. WITHROW. JOHN H. WASHBURN. EDMUND L. CHAMPLIN.

COMMUNICATIONS

Relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to the Corresponding Secretary: those relating to the collecting fields, to Rev. James Powell, D. D., or to the District Secretaries; letters for the "American Missionary," to the Editor, at the New York Office.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

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 112 West Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member.

FORM OF A BEQUEST.

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY

American Missionary Association.

5,000

NEEDED FOR THE CURRENT YEAR.

Your Committee are convinced that not less than a THOUSAND DOLLARS a day are imperatively demanded to perfect the admirably organized plans of the Association, even for the present, to say nothing of the pressing needs of the early future.--

THE FIGURES.

Our financial storm signal is still out. That threatening forty thousand dollars' deficit does not let up in its indications of approach. The black clouds are plainly discernible. We have been for months anxiously watching their movements. Our prayers and efforts have been steadily turned towards their dissipation. We do not lose faith. We believe in our work. We believe in our friends. The work has merit. Our friends have ability. The two will come together and the merit will cause the ability to stand forth. There are many things very decidedly encouraging.

Never in all our history has the work been more abundantly blessed. Our schools have been crowded and God's Spirit has come down in great power upon the hearts of our pupils. In one school the revival character of the religious services had to cease, because there were none left to be converted! Our churches have been revived and enlarged. A spirit of joy and thankfulness is in the hearts of our missionaries.

Notwithstanding the hard times, our receipts from the churches and living donors are larger by several thousand dollars than they were at this time last year. These facts are the indications of a living cause and an able constituency. They call upon us to lift our heads in hope and to inspire one another to still greater activity, and, if need be, to self-denial. We have no legacies in sight, and we certainly do not desire our friends to die. Our prayer is that they may live; that they may live long. Apart from their gifts in money we desire the strength and the grandeur of their lives to aid us in carrying forward the great and growing work on hand. We again call upon them to help us round out this year without a debt.

We take the liberty to point out one way in which they can do this.

Our missionaries are, many of them, returning at this time of year for a brief rest at the North. They need it. They have earned it. It may seem wrong to tax these brave workers, but we venture to say that if they are invited to tell the public the story of their experience they will not refuse to do it; and we venture to say further, it will be a story the public will be glad to hear. Let them have a royal welcome home by the churches. In the language of Rev. Sam Jones, the noted Southern Evangelist, as he counseled the churches to receive the new converts, "Let it not be on the tips of your fingers or on the palms of your hands you receive them, but, on your hearts," and God will bless the welcome to the churches, to the missionaries and to the work. Hear their story, heed its lessons, and it will not be long before the clouds shall roll away and our financial storm-signal be taken down.

The exercise of benevolence Christ never conditioned on human recognition. The publicans and heathen furnished examples on that plane. When Christianity uncovers its roots there is never anything commercial even hinted at. Sinners need salvation. That is enough. Divine love moves in the presence of necessity. Its movement is electric. Even if ingratitude smite it in the face; nay, worse, if malignancy would summon forces for its crucifixion, without relaxing an iota it breathes the prayer, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Unswervingly Christ held along, doing right because it was right. Passion in all its forms of unbalanced feeling lay far beneath His holy life. A righteous indignation against Phariseeism He felt; He was moved with compassion when He saw the people scattered abroad as sheep without a shepherd; in numberless forms in the presence of sorrow and want His emotion was stirred, but the machinations of wicked men against the establishment of righteousness, He contemplated with imperturbable equanimity. It was not merely that He had a strong faith that all such opposition was the imagination of a vain thing. He knew that it was so.

It may not be given His disciples to walk so much by knowledge as did the Master, but where He leads, they can follow in a faith that shall sustain them and give them triumph in every path of duty. Opposition may meet them. Difficulties may lie in the path. Evil men may oppose them, and good men, misinterpreting their motives and misunderstanding their work, may misrepresent them. But what matters it? Conscious in the strength that they are doing right, they will work on unhindered and undisturbed. Christian virtue finds in its own development all the reward necessary to stimulate continuance in well doing.

THE COLORED PEOPLE AT THE NEW ORLEANS EXPOSITION.

The colored people of the United States are just twenty years out of the house of bondage. With long centuries of barbarism and two hundred and fifty years of slavery behind them, they started out homeless, landless, moneyless and experienceless. The New Orleans Exposition was to have exhibits from all lands: Asia, with its millennium of transmitted achievements; Europe, with its centuries of enlightened development; the United States, with their wonderful improvements on the best the world had produced, were all to be there. What show could the twenty-year-old freedmen make in such company? The very idea of their attempting to put in an appearance would seem absurd.

But the colored people desired at least to stand up and be counted. They determined to be there. The entire gallery in one end of the immense Government building was assigned them, and the specimens of their skill more than filled it. They came from nearly every State and Territory in the Union. Their exhibits represented almost every department of mechanical, agricultural and artistic skill. Excellence in workmanship, fertility in invention, tastefulness in the fine arts, were all displayed to a remarkable degree in the large collection. Southerners and Northerners were alike astonished at what their eyes beheld. Those who thought that the negro has no higher mission than to be a "hewer of wood and drawer of water," were compelled either to change their minds or else to say they did not believe that the colored people did the work. It was amusing to hear the remarks of some of the latter class, as they looked at some beautiful specimens of negro handicraft or ingenuity.

It may interest the readers of the MISSIONARY to glance at the great variety of lines along which negro ability put itself on exhibition.

Examination papers from schools were very numerous, showing proficiency in penmanship, spelling, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, free drawing, grammar and translations from the classics; fine needlework of all kinds; millinery; dress-making, tailoring; portrait and landscape painting in oil, water-colors and crayon; photography; sculpture; models of steamboats, locomotives, stationary engines, and railway cars; cotton presses, plows, cultivators, and reaping machines; wagons, buggies; tools of almost all kinds, from the hammer of the carpenter to the finely-wrought forceps of the dentist; piano and organ making; carpentry, cabinet-making; upholstery; tin-smithing; black-smithing, boot and shoe making; basket and broom making; pottery, plain and glazed; brick-making; agricultural products, including all the cereals and fruits raised in the country; silk-worm culture; fruit preserving; flour from a mill, and machinery from a foundry owned by a colored man; patented inventions and improvements, nearly all of them useful and practical, were quite numerous; drugs and medicines; stationery, printing and publishing.

Some of the articles on exhibition are worthy of special mention--a black walnut pulpit, in design and finish as beautiful and tasteful as any church might wish; a sofa finely upholstered, and the covering embroidered with artistically-executed needlework, showing four prominent events in the life of Toussaint l'Ouverture; a chandelier, very beautiful in design and finely finished; a complete set of dentist's instruments, in polish and finish remarkable; a little engine, made by a silversmith of Knoxville, who was a slave, and who has become a skilled workman of local reputation. He never worked in a shop till he had one of his own. He learned the use of tools without any instruction. These articles would certainly merit attention, even if put in competition with similar specimens of the very best workmanship.

The Colored People's Educational Day at the World's Exposition called out an immense crowd and proved to be of very great interest. Speeches were made by representatives of both races. Rev. Dr. Palmer, the eloquent Presbyterian divine, of New Orleans, and Col. Wm. Preston Johnson, President of the Tulane University, represented the Louisiana whites, and in their speeches not only complimented the colored people on the progress they had made, but assured them of the hearty sympathy and co-operation of all good people in the South. The Rev. A. E. P. Albert, a graduate of our Straight University, represented the colored people. The newspapers published his speech in full. We have read it with much interest. It is a speech of considerable power. It is an honor to the man, to his race and to the A. M. A.

Our Student's Letter this month is from Talladega College. The memories it portrays are not pleasant, but it is fitting to remember the pit out of which we have been digged. The darkness of the picture makes the present opportunities and privileges of the colored people to shine out all the brighter. Heartily can we thank God that these terrible things are now only a memory.

CONGREGATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF OHIO.

After the address of Secretary Powell before this body, May 13, 1885, a committee consisting of Rev. James Brand, Rev. Enoch F. Baird and Thos. C. Reynolds was appointed to report upon it. We subjoin the report, which was adopted:

"GRAVE OF LOVEJOY"--CORRECTION.

EDITOR AMERICAN MISSIONARY.--DEAR SIR: Did Brother Imes misunderstand Father Johnson, or has the old man forgotten? There was no "hasty burial by the river." The body remained all night in the warehouse, was taken to the house the next day and buried from the house in the cemetery. Johnson dug two graves there; the first in a spot afterward taken for a road or walk, and the second where the remains now lie. The memorial tablet was put there in good faith by an editor of Alton, who greatly admired Lovejoy's defense of the freedom of the press. But will there never be a more appropriate monument? Is "Spare him now he is buried" all that is ever to be said over the grave of Elijah P. Lovejoy?

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet