Read Ebook: The American Missionary — Volume 33 No. 07 July 1879 by Various

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EDITORIAL.

PARAGRAPHS 193 SIGNS OF THE TIMES 194 RESPONSIBILITY OF ANSWERED PRAYER: Rev. J. E. Roy, D.D. 195 AFRICA IN AMERICA AND AMERICA IN AFRICA 196 CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE SOUTH: Rev. C. L. Woodworth 197 GENERAL NOTES 198 OUR QUERY COLUMN 201

THE FREEDMEN.

THE CHINESE.

THE NEW CONSTITUTION AND OUR MISSIONARY WORK 215

THE CHILDREN'S PAGE 217

RECEIPTS 218

CONSTITUTION 221

WORK, STATISTICS, WANTS, &c. 222

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.

The time has come when our schools at the South are closing the year's work. In this number will be found communications from Hampton, Fisk, Straight, Tougaloo, Howard, and Beach. All of them give reports encouraging and hopeful. The change wrought in those who go forth from these institutions by their few years of study and discipline is marvelous, and the contrast in all the course and influence of their lives with what it might have been may well satisfy all who have taken part in so good a work.

The Boston anniversary day has come and gone again. The last hour of the morning was given to the work of this Association. Secretary Woodworth read a brief report of work. Rev. P. B. Davis, of Hyde Park, spoke from his observations in a recent tour among our schools and churches. Rev. Albert H. Heath, of New Bedford, spoke of this continent as the mens' battle-ground for the settlement of the great questions which have never been decided, and argued that, having the opportunity and the ability, we are under obligation to help the three despised races.

We have no word to say in favor of intermarriage between whites and blacks in our country, but we desire to say an earnest word against the laws of Virginia in the South and of at least one State in the North, which makes a marriage between such parties a cause of imprisonment, but permits them to live together in illicit relations unpunished. The best restraint upon such miscegenation will be by punishing it when unlimited by law, and only allowing it when it does not violate the law of God.

A few barrels of clothing have been received by us for the Freedmen in Kansas. We forwarded them to the Kansas Freedmen's Relief Association at Topeka, and have received their acknowledgments and thanks. Governor St. John, who is the President of the Association, in a recent letter says:

"Between three and four thousand refugees have arrived in Kansas, and have been distributed to various portions of the State, and I think, perhaps with the exception of say not to exceed one hundred of the entire number, they are now making their own living, and getting along without asking or receiving aid. I am inclined to the opinion that the rush is over for the present, but will be renewed again in the fall; meantime, no doubt there will be small numbers coming in from time to time, but I think, as a general rule, will not require much aid. There are now between two and three hundred on the banks of the lower Mississippi desiring to come here, but the boats refuse to bring them. I think it very likely that measures will be resorted to that will end in transporting these people to the North, and in all probability to Kansas, and it is very likely that within the next few weeks they will have to be provided for."

One of the best ways of aiding the poor negroes in Kansas, or anywhere else, has been devised by Mr. Montgomery, a colored planter in Mississippi. Visiting Kansas, he bought a section of land in Wabaunsee county. Four other sections have been divided into forty-acre tracts, and a colony of about fifty families will be established upon them. Until the colonists get their little farms in order, they will be given employment upon Mr. Montgomery's 640 acres, and will thus be able to earn enough for their support. The settlers agree to pay .65 an acre for their land with 7 per cent. interest. Could there be a simpler or better way devised of helping poor immigrants or poor citizens to help themselves?

THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

It seems to be a day of great bequests. While our country and others as well have been straitened by hard times, fortunes well planted have been growing silently, and those who have watched over them have been devising liberal things. The estate of Daniel Stone of Massachusetts, yields ,000,000 for educational endowments; that of Asa Otis of Connecticut, at least ,000,000 for foreign missions. Judge Packer of Pennsylvania leaves ,000,000 to the Lehigh University; this in addition to ,000,000 which it cost to found the institution. Gardiner Colby of Boston directs nearly 0,000 to be distributed among various Baptist institutions and societies. Dr. Hugh Miller of Scotland leaves some 0,000 for missionary purposes. Nor can we fail to mention here the 0,000 which Mr. Robert Arthington of England has given or offered to British and American missionary societies, of at least four denominations of Christians, for the planting of missionary enterprises in Equatorial Africa. The estate of Mr. R. R. Graves of New York, in addition to large gifts already made, has nearly 0,000 in process of distribution mainly for work in the South. These and others like them are significant facts, that from so many sources there should have been such large appropriations to such good work.

We are led to look, therefore, to the other end of the line. What is the motive which has moved these stewards of God to turn their benefactions in such directions in so large a measure? Rather, we ask, what is the corresponding providence which has called for them, or the preparation which has been making far away for their wise use, the signs of which were not seen, perhaps, by the givers at the time when they were thus carrying out the Lord's will? What is the significance of it all in the divine plan?

Is it not that the world is suddenly opening for missionary work as perhaps never before in all its history? that in more than one direction the long twilight which has been slowly creeping over the eastern sky is breaking in a moment into glorious dawn? that the seed which has been growing secretly these many days has come to be the bud, and now is bursting into the flower? Such crises do come in the history of God's world, in the progress of the Gospel of his Son.

God has brought his church into a crisis by which he will try its faith and its faithfulness. He has opened the doors wide for its entrance into new fields. No longer does the missionary have to push himself into the midst of heathendom; but the cry is heard on every side, "Come over and help us." And then the Lord of both the fields and the fountains has shown us by these illustrious examples of both the living and the dead, how he looks to the men who hold his wealth to administer their trusts, and to lead on the hosts of those who may swell the stream with much or little, as he has prospered them. Will the church of Christ bear the testing? Let us hope that these large gifts are only the great drops which tell us of the coming shower which shall fill all the pools. Nay, rather, let us pray that this may be the beginning of "the latter rain."

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF ANSWERED PRAYER.

Once answered, the prayer brings the additional responsibility of walking in its light. We find ourselves straggling within the toils of some disaster. We ask the Lord, "How is this?" He gradually unfolds the meaning as indicating some transition in His plan for our life. Having carried us safely through, and having set us surely in the line of the new departure, He expects us to take up the full measure of its obligation. When, with Saul of Tarsus, we are dazed by the new experience and cry out, Lord, what wilt thou have us to do? we are, with him, to accept the labor and sacrifice implied thereby. David puts it thus: "I will pay Thee my vows which my lips have uttered and my mouth hath spoken when I was in trouble." Hannah, with her prayer answered in the gift of a son, must fulfil her vow in devoting him to the service of the Lord. For a long time God's people were praying Him to open the way among the nations for the entrance of the Gospel of his Son. He answered by setting open the door to every land and to every island of the sea. It is our duty to enter and occupy. If we do not, we are grossly disobedient to the heavenly vision; we are found guilty of deserting in the battle of the great day of the Lord Almighty. The Christian world now rests under this obligation.

We wrestled with God in prayer for the deliverance of our brethren in bonds. We cried, Oh Lord, how long! how long! The answer came by terrible things in righteousness. We had scarcely expected to see it in our day. Our thought had stopped with the great burden of emancipation. Our vision scarcely took in the mountain of obligation looming in the horizon of our answered prayer. We thought that if we could only see our country delivered from its crime and shame of oppression, the millennium would be near at hand. We had not yet taken upon our hearts the burden of lifting up the emancipated race. We had not yet received our divine commission to lead this people through their forty years of training into the citizenship of the republic and of the kingdom of God. But this was all implied in the answering of our prayer. We asked for this child of liberty, and now it is but the instinct of nature and the demand of reason that we meet the obligation of its nurture. We prayed that the slaves might be set free, and this implies that we make good the conditions of freedom. In the words of the martyr-President, they are "the wards of the nation." So also are they the children of the Church, given in answer to prayer, to be nourished into Christian character for service in this their native land and in the country of their ancestral home.

J. E. ROY.

AFRICA IN AMERICA AND AMERICA IN AFRICA.

We are glad to print the following letter, from an intelligent friend in New England, to a member of our Executive Committee:

MY DEAR SIR:

I have received and read with interest the paper you have sent me in relation to Africa and the colored people.

The climate of tropical Africa, taken as a whole, is evidently fatal to the white man. There is a region about those large interior lakes, though under the equator, which from its altitude at the Victoria Nyanza, is represented by Mr. Stanley to be salubrious. But the climate, even in this most highly favored part of the African continent, is enervating and ultimately destructive to the life of the white man. The missions upon the West Coast of Africa have been conducted for the past hundred years at a fearful sacrifice of the lives of white missionaries.

We may not forecast events for the Providence of God to follow. We do our duty when we faithfully perform the work He assigns us. But I cannot exclude the thought from my mind, that sometime at the proper time, the children of Africa now natives of our own country, must be prepared by education and the Spirit of God to go with hearts of love, laden with the Gospel of Peace, to their own race in Africa, and elevate them from their degradation and barbarity, to the liberty wherewith Christ maketh free.

I feel deeply the wrongs which have been perpetrated upon poor, suffering, abused, down-trodden, defenceless Africa. Her country has been the foraging field for the violent, the cruel and bloody-minded for centuries. A dim light now dawns upon it. The slave trade is nearly, perhaps quite suppressed. A million of philanthropic hearts are beating high with earnest desire to repair the wrongs which inhumanity has inflicted upon it. God grant that the sun of righteousness may soon arise upon that benighted land.

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