Read Ebook: The American Missionary — Volume 33 No. 06 June 1879 by Various

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EDITORIAL.

PARAGRAPH--MONEY WHICH COSTS MONEY 161 RAILROADS AND RIVERS 162 CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE SOUTH 164 WORK STOPPED, BUT THE RECOMPENSE CONTINUED 165 ITEMS FROM THE FIELD 166 GENERAL NOTES 167 OUR QUERY COLUMN 169

THE FREEDMEN.

A TOUR OF A MONTH THROUGH THE SOUTH ATLANTIC STATES: Rev. J. E. Roy, D. D. 169 TENNESSEE, MEMPHIS--Students' Day at Le Moyne 171 GEORGIA--NO. 1 MILLER STATION--Perils of Young Converts--An Open House 171 GEORGIA--Midway Church--Dorchester Academy--New Church at Cypress Slash 172 SOUTH CAROLINA, CHARLESTON--Plymouth Church and Avery Institute 174 ALABAMA--State Conference 176 LOUISIANA--South-Western Conference--Revivals and Conversions 178

THE INDIANS.

SPICE OF MISSIONARY LIFE 181

THE CHINESE.

THE "CONGREGATIONAL WAY" IN MISSION WORK: Rev. Wm. C. Pond 184

GOLDEN WEDDING GIFTS 186

RECEIPTS 186

WORK, STATISTICS, WANTS, &C. 190

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

should be sent to H. W. Hubbard, Ass't Treasurer, No. 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.

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.

We are in receipt of several communications suggesting that we, as an Association, should do something for the relief of the negro emigrants to Kansas. We are compelled to say to this, however, that 1. We cannot divert funds from our overdrawn treasury from the work to which we are pledged and the responsibilities we have definitely assumed. 2. Our legitimate work is with the Freedmen in the South, where our schools and churches are, and where the mass of the people will be for a very long time yet. 3. That assistance to reach their destination has been given to them from many sources, and that their greatest need of help for a time will be after reaching Kansas, in securing and settling upon lands. 4. That we cherish the deepest interest in the suffering multitudes who have already left their homes, and will cheerfully transmit, for friends who may prefer to send through us, such moneys as may be designed for this specific object, and will use our utmost diligence to see that they accomplish the end for which they are set apart.

MONEY WHICH COSTS MONEY.

It is unfortunate, perhaps, that the agents of the beneficence of the churches and Christian people of the land should be compelled so often to "rise and explain," but the necessity will in all probability continue so long as there is a possibility of misunderstanding facts and figures. We are all creatures of association, and things which are coupled together are apt to make unwarranted impressions on our minds.

For instance, the name of the American Missionary Association has been of late passing the rounds of the public press in connection with large sums of money. 0,000 to four of its institutions from the Stone estate; ,000 for Fisk University from the Graves legacy; ,000 from the estate of Deacon James Smith, of Philadelphia; ,000 announced last month from the Avery estate, and which is to be increased to about ,000; ,000 from Mr. Arthington, of Leeds. All this sounds very rich and prosperous, and our contributors say: "They are rich and increased in goods. For a time, at least, they will do well. Let us thank God for their prosperity, and turn to those whose wants are more pressing than theirs can be."

Just here is where the explanation must be made. First, then, almost none of these bequests are in our hands as yet. The largest of all is coupled with conditions which we hope to be able to meet, but of which, until we shall have met them, we have no right to be sure.

But secondly, and what is of more consequence, with one possible exception, the way in which all this money is to be expended is determined before it reaches our treasury. The donors have examined the field, or parts of it, for themselves, and have given their gifts, not to us, but only through us, to certain definite fields and uses. Most of this, which is for home use, is to build buildings, and must go for that purpose. But it will cost us money to see these buildings built; the oversight, the correspondence, and the co-operation of all sorts will be a drain upon our time and treasury; and when the much needed buildings shall have been erected, the enlarged work to which they lead will increase very considerably the annual expense for which we must provide. Other of these funds are for a new mission field, of which the founding is only an item, but the carrying on from year to year will demand larger resources than the past has ever furnished.

Dear friends, we recognize the call of God in these large gifts to go forward, trusting in Him and in His people to supply our needs. We do not wait until our work shall be fully provided for before we enter on it; we do not shrink from the advance which may be needed; but we do want you all to know that while, on the one hand, the equipment and the opportunity for larger work are thrust upon us, the outfit for the journey is insufficient, and the officers are embarrassed already to carry on the work in hand.

Even with special gifts to help the current work, our receipts are ,595.85 less than last year at this time , through the falling off in legacies. Enlarging work and a shrinking purse--this is our quandary.

Is our explanation clear? We want money day by day--more money day by day. Not millions, though we could use millions so that they would help on the cause of our Divine Redeemer in the world; but moderate gifts--yes, mites even, as they come with prayer and love for Christ; but more in number and with greater frequency; above all, the steady supply of constantly recurring and increasing needs, to carry on the work in hand. It costs money to spend money; that is our most pressing need to-day, and our new gifts will need more money. Will you plan to supply it? Or must we say to those who would entrust us with the administration of their beneficence, "We cannot afford to administer the trust"?

RAILROADS AND RIVERS.

There are railroads and there are rivers. The first are laid out after careful survey of the country, and follow the most direct lines of communication possible or politic between two given points. They tunnel mountains and bridge gorges; they cut through hills and level up valleys. They are made. But the rivers--we, at least, do not make them; we only find them, follow them, and use them. They do not run exactly in parallels of longitude, nor flow exactly south or west. They do not take the shortest courses to the sea; they yield to circumstances, and gracefully circle round the obstacles which they cannot surmount. Somehow, they always reach their destination, and leave a path of life and beauty as they go. You may divert them for a little to serve other than their main uses, but still they flow on unwasted to the larger waters, into which they pour their steady streams.

There are two theories of missionary work, and especially of the work of missionary societies. One, which sets out to do one definite thing, and to reach it by the shortest surveyed and graded road; another which seeks an end with no less purpose and persistency, but seeks it with more pliability--does not make the country over to fit its needs. Now, our Association is not a railroad, but a river. It was not made by man to serve one fixed and changeless end. It was born of an emergency, and it has been adapting itself to the changing needs of successive years for the third of a century of its existence. We need not recapitulate its history. Its early work was peculiar, and in part transient. Enough that since the war the claims of millions of Freedmen, enfranchised but in ignorance, has seemed its greatest work. It has stretched out a hand more warm than full to the Chinamen on the Western coast. It has not forgotten the wrongs or the needs of the poor Indian. Intrusted with a fund for African evangelization, it has sought to exercise that trust with all fidelity. Of late the foreign work, by new offers, has claimed new attention, and the possibility of opening a new mission in that field has been considered. A little help was sent through it to the poorest class of sufferers by the scourge of pestilence; a little aid seeks by it to reach the needy thousands who have just sought asylum in Kansas; and some of our old friends, perhaps, have come to fear lest we were in peril of being diverted from what they and we consider to be still our great and most important work.

We write this to assure such friends that they need not be anxious on this score. There are no such anchors as institutions whose foundations are laid deep in the soil. Many men talk with less swelling pride than a few years ago of owning real estate, when the plain truth is that real estate owns them. So we are held, if by no other bond, to the educational and church work among the colored people of the South. But far more we are, and shall be, kept true to this as our main work by our ever-growing sense of its importance to the race so long oppressed, and to the interests of Christian civilization in our land.

The river will flow on southward still. It may bend a little to the east or to the west, as Providence may determine; there may be eddies along its banks, and now and then a dam along the stream to concentrate its power; it may open, as does our own Mississippi, through more mouths than one into the Gulf; but its course for a generation to come is fixed, not by human resolution, but by the Providence which makes the water-sheds and water-courses both. To educate the colored people of the South and lift them to the elevation of a worthy Christian citizenship is our great work.

So let the springs among the hills of New England, and the streams which water the prairies of the West, not fear to flow in as aforetime, only with a larger flowing, and we will pledge them that the work to which they are devoted shall go on till the end be reached. Meanwhile, let us not try to be a railroad, but a river--one of the rivers of God's earth which flow into the sea of His great universal love and peace.

We call special attention to the account in Mr. Alexander's letter of the work of grace which accompanied and followed the recent meeting of the South-western Conference, at New Iberia, La. Such records are rarer than they ought to be, and ecclesiastical bodies are often more careful to be "not slothful in business" than "fervent in spirit." Pastor Butler, of the church in that place, writes that already fifty-seven persons have offered themselves for reception to its membership, and still more are coming.

CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE SOUTH.

DIST. SEC. C. L. WOODWORTH, BOSTON.

But if we had not assumed these obligations by forcing upon the negro the condition and duties of an American citizen, he would lay them upon us by all the wrongs he has suffered at our hands; by all the gains we have made from his unpaid toil; by all the aid he rendered us upon the field, and by his fidelity to us through all the years of the struggle. How he served our living, nursed our sick, fought our battles, watches by the graves of our fallen, will be the unequaled theme of the future historian.

As he alone in the South showed us sympathy and offered us aid, so now he alone is ready to receive learning and religion from the lips of Northern instructors. And is not this reason enough why our churches should improve the opportunity to fill his mind and heart with those principles which are so fraught with human weal, and are working so powerfully for the regeneration of the world? For every interest of the South as well as of the country at large, Congregationalism is summoned to put in its best work for the colored people. Only thus can we lay to rest the passions which have reddened the South with innocent blood, and bring to the land the reign of peace and love.

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