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EDITORIAL.

THE FREEDMEN.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA--Revival in Howard University 14 VIRGINIA--A Destitute County 14 ALABAMA--New Church at Shelby Iron Works--Talladega a Missionary Centre 15 FLORENCE--Thin End of the Wedge--First Thanksgiving Service 16 MISSOURI--Free Schools in the State 17

AFRICA.

THE MENDI MISSION--A Church Organized and Dedicated at Avery 18

THE INDIANS.

THE LATE INDIAN WAR AND CHRISTIANITY: Rev Myron Eells 20

THE CHINESE.

CONGREGATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CHRISTIAN CHINESE: Rev. W. C. Pond 21

RECEIPTS 24

WORK, STATISTICS, WANTS, ETC. 27

PLEASE READ, THINK, COPY AND MAIL 28

NEW YORK:

Published by the American Missionary Association,

ROOMS, 56 READE STREET.

Price, 50 Cents a Year, in advance.

American Missionary Association,

PRESIDENT.

HON. E. S. TOBEY, Boston.

VICE-PRESIDENTS.

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

DISTRICT SECRETARIES.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

COMMUNICATIONS

relating to the business of the Association may be addressed to either of the Secretaries as above; letters for the Editor of the "American Missionary" to Rev. Geo. M. Boynton, at the New York Office.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member.

Correspondents are specially requested to place at the head of each letter the name of their Post Office, and the County and State in which it is located.

THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

American Missionary Association.

OUR OUTLOOK FOR 1879.

The review of our last year's work has been so recently and so fully given in connection with the annual meeting of the Association, that it is scarcely needful for us to ask our readers to join us in another survey of what has already been accomplished. It is more fitting, as we stand upon the threshold of the new year, to ask what are the signs of the times, and what the demands of the work before us.

There are still dark clouds in the Southern sky. A mere granting of civil and political rights by formal enactment is of small importance unless the rights themselves are honestly allowed and faithfully accepted. The adjustment of alleged wrongs we must leave to politicians if not to statesmen, and to courts of law if not of justice. Our work, obscure and remote as it may seem, is more fundamental and important than that of either Congresses or courts. For by whatever defences the Freedman may or may not be surrounded, the only safeguard of his rights must be in his fitness to exercise and his ability to maintain them. It is for us, through all the changes of the year, to keep steadily to our work. It is not checked because the winter is upon us; nor will it be over when the summer comes. It is not for this year's harvesting alone that we are working; we are sub-soiling and so laboring for the permanent reclamation of these vast fields. We believe that more depends upon the moral and intellectual elevation of the Freedmen of our land, not only in regard to their welfare, but in regard to the great questions of which they are only a factor, than upon anything which can be done for them by legislative enactment or military power. We purpose, then, to press on with the school and the church. Intelligence and virtue are the Jachin and Boaz, the two great pillars of the porch of the Temple of American citizenship and liberty. While it rests on anything else, it is uncertain and unsafe.

Our lesser work at home among the Indians and Chinese will demand the same moderate but constant share of our attention as before. Our connection with the six Indian Agencies, through the Interior Department, is not a matter of expense, but mainly of time and care. If we shall be relieved from that, our missionary work will still remain and may be enlarged. And though the immigration of Chinamen has been checked to some degree, and their interest in learning English has been abated by the abuse they have received, the work has been, and is yet, too fruitful of good to be given up.

Our African mission has passed through one year under its new organization, with apparent prosperity and success. We shall need to strengthen its forces before long. We shall want both the men and the means.

OUR APPEAL FOR 1879.

Our receipts for the last two months have been very inadequate for the work we have in hand. What does this mean to us with this outlook for 1879? Does it signify withdrawal from fields already under cultivation? Already the Executive Committee have had under serious advisement two cases, in which it was necessary either to stop fruitful work at important points or spend a little more money. Retrenchment is easier to talk of than to accomplish. It costs as much sometimes to stop as to go on. A temporary suspension is sometimes more expensive than continuous work. Our teachers are engaged and our buildings are prepared for the year. Shall we stop the whole machinery of a great factory to save the price of the gas which lights it? That would be ruinous economy indeed.

But we do not seriously believe that the friends of the three most needy races on our continent have lost heart, or hope, or means, to carry out the generous plans they have devised. These last months of 1878 have been trying alike to them and to us. Our plea is only this, that, with the new year , there may be a fresh and final attack upon that enemy of our peace; and more even than this, that there may be a fuller and a steadier flow of the Lord's money into our treasury for the wants of the work of 1879.

We are happy to say that a goodly number of ladies whom we have asked to assume the responsibility of raising a share of , towards the payment of our debt, have replied favorably. The following extract from a letter sent us by one who has been abundant in her efforts for the Freedmen, indicates the enthusiasm and thankfulness with which some of the ladies respond:

An old and faithful friend from Sag Harbor, N. Y., sends us thirty dollars to make a life member. At the same time he asks us to star the names of his two oldest children, who were among the first of the twenty whom he has thus added to our list. They have gone up higher. He concludes thus:

I was much interested in reading the article in December number, page 387, "Students Want to 'Batch'--Who will Help?" I would like for my to go to assist in building one of those 0 houses. Can't you get some one to add the other , and put up one of those dwellings for those scholars who are so anxious to get an education to teach and to preach?

THE LORD'S WORK AND THE LORD'S COMING.

One of our friends, who was at our annual meeting at Taunton, remembering doubtless that the Prophetic Conference was in session during the same days in New York City, puts the two things together thus:

The Book of God's Providence is as much inspired as the Bible itself. And whoever studies the former as prayerfully as the latter, must labor hard to stifle the feeling that the clock of earth, instead of getting ready to stop, is being wound up to keep good time for a thousand years, as a prelude to that perfect righteousness which shall dwell forever on the new earth and beneath the new heavens.

THE LONDON UNION MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

The London Union Missionary Conference was held in November. The Congregational churches of America were represented by Dr. Clark of the American Board, and Dr. O. H. White of the Freedmen's Aid Society, of London, who also represented the American Missionary Association, to which the F. A. Society is auxiliary. The last gathering of the kind in England was in 1860, at which one hundred and twenty-six delegates assembled. The sessions were mainly private, the societies represented were chiefly British, and plans were discussed rather than achievements reported. This later meeting was somewhat different in its character. Six hundred delegates were in attendance from various lands and denominations of Christians. It was not so much a conference on methods as a comparison of results. The sessions of the week were apportioned to the work in the various lands. A great mass of information was collected, which will doubtless be more impressive and complete in the volume of proceedings to be published, than it could have been in the hearing.

"Among the effective speakers on these African missions were Dr. Waugemann, of Berlin, who described the work of the Berlin Society, especially in the Transvaal; Dr. White, of the Freedmen's Aid Mission; the Rev. E. Schrenck, of Basle, who spoke of work in Ashantee; and the Rev. Dr. Moffat, who told the Conference about his Bechuanas, and of course with his strong gray hair and his eighty-three years of age and sixty-two years of service for Christ, received an ovation at its hands. The noble presence and the stirring words of the grand old man on the African day were a striking feature in the meetings of the Conference."

Such gatherings must help on the cause of Christian comity in missions, as well as broaden the views of all who are engaged in working the field under their hands. It is well to look up sometimes from our own furrow, even if we have to stop ploughing for a little, that we may realize that the field is the world, and that the harvest belongs to one Master.

THE POLITICAL PROGRESS OF THE FREEDMEN.

Was it wise to give the ballot to the ex-slaves? The answer that came in the hour it was given, from the Congress that gave it, from the Northern people that sustained it, and from the colored people that enjoyed it, was an emphatic and enthusiastic "Yes!" The answer that came at that hour from the Southern white man was in a suppressed voice, and was an execration hissed out between grinding teeth. Since that hour the voice of the Southern white man has grown firmer, and, as it came up from misgoverned South Carolina and Louisiana, has rounded out into a full-toned "No!" Nay, more, it has been re-echoed from the North, and recently with special emphasis from the lips of one of the purest Christian scholars on the heights of Christian learning in New England. What answer do I give? Unhesitatingly, "Yes!" I say nothing about the mere party reason given either then or since, for I do not write as a partisan. I put the wisdom of the ballot on more substantial grounds.

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