At the first some of our best friends thought that the Association was too slow in its church work; but all now, we think, agree that the wisdom of experience justifies the process which mainly through our schools grows its own timber, out of which to build its churches, taking the young people thus trained and the adults who are converted to the standard of Christian living and away from the superstitions and immoralities of the old time. At first view this would seem to be a tedious process. But it is surprising how soon the youth run up to maturity and to become the leaders of churches, the best of which have come on by this nurture. Then there are some adult people, noble natures, of a childlike spirit, who gain by absorption and take on the ideas of the younger folks. In this way, through these seventeen years since the war, our churches have come on from two or three to number 83, which is an average of five a year. Nor are these merely skeleton churches. Every one of these 83 has a pastor, except one whose minister died a short time ago. Of the 73 ministers who serve these 83 churches, 22 are from the North, and 51 are native preachers. Every one of these churches except seven has its own house of worship, or chapel, and there are only four of these that depend upon the college chapels for their places of religious assembly. Some of these are rude in structure; the most are plain but comely; four or five are of brick and of commanding appearance; all are blessed sanctuaries. Many friends, in going through the South, are pleasantly disappointed in finding these churches so well housed. Nor, for young churches, are these deficient in encouraging numbers. They have a total of 5,641 members, an average of 68, while the average membership of the Congregational churches west of the Mississippi River is only 45, and of all west of Pennsylvania, 63. The additions on profession were 709; the Sunday-school scholars numbered 1,835; the amount raised for church purposes $9,306, and the benevolent contributions reached $1,496.50.
It is beautiful to see how readily these plain people take up the New Testament idea of church government, and how this natural process tends to their education and discipline of character. Herein we find confirmation that the Apostle made no mistake in setting up such churches among the Christians of his day who had not been trained in New England. These churches in the South are known everywhere as insisting upon a high standard of ethics. Their example, their methods, their influence, are greatly stimulating to the churches round about them, so that by quality they make up in part for want of quantity. These churches are organized into seven conferences. Many persons have smiled upon reading the reports of these convocations, and have wondered how such an ecclesiastical body would seem, whether its members were not simply playing at an ecclesiastical parliament. Our suggestion is, come and see. If you were to come, you would find a fulfillment of the Saviour’s words, “All ye are brethren,” the white and the colored being members of the same body. You would find a rigidity of parliamentary usage. You would find literary exercises, discussions, reports, Sunday-school assemblies, devotional services going on after the manner of those with which you are familiar. Some of our brethren testify that these meetings seemed to afford as much intellectual and spiritual stimulus as those which they were accustomed to attend before going South. An additional feature of these gatherings is the presence and participation of the lady missionaries and teachers, whose reports are greatly interesting. In Alabama the conference has associated with it a Ladies’ Missionary Society with auxiliaries in different parts of the State. The exercises of these women’s meetings are not only to cultivate the missionary spirit, but to help the wives, mothers and daughters of this people to be missionaries of sweetness and light, of order and comfort, in their own homes. These ecclesiastical assemblies become not only a representative of our work in its spirit and extent, but they become occasions for drawing out the fellowship of the pastors and churches, white and colored, where they meet. At first these bodies were ignored. Now it is a common thing for the local pastors to drop in upon them, to participate in the exercises and to offer their pulpits for supply. This has been done at Wilmington, Macon, Mobile, Marion and Selma.
During the last year, six new churches have been organized, those at Williamsburg, Ky.; Cedar Cliff, N.C.; Athens, Ga.; Meridian, Miss.; Eureka and Topeka, Kan. All of these are supplied with pastors. Athens uses the assembly-room of our Knox Institute; Meridian for the present rents rooms for the church and school; Eureka and Topeka have both built houses of worship. New meeting-houses have also been built at Caledonia, Miss.; Fausse Point, La., and Luling, Tex. Paris, Tex., has replaced its big shanty by a fine church edifice. Childersburg, Ala., burnt out, has rebuilt with great self-denial on the part of the people. Mobile, burnt out, is to be accommodated for a time in the assembly-room of the Emerson Institute, rebuilt since the fire. The church at East Savannah, blown down, has been rebuilt. The suburban church at Louisville, Ga., also blown down, is still in its ruins. At Five Mile, out from the city, a mission house has been built. By the wonderful enterprise of their pastor, Rev. A. A. Myers, the people have put up a commodious house at Williamsburg, Ky., in the mountain country. The town is sixty years old, and this is the first church brought to completion, three others having rotted down during the process of building. The church at Clover Bottom, Ky., has been supplied with a school-house sanctuary through the aid secured by President Fairchild, of Berea. The great church at Midway, Ga., has been finished up. The church at Anniston, Ala., has been enlarged. So during the year ten churches have been erected.
The closing year has not been without its comforting measure of spiritual influence. The dew has been in the fleece of most of our churches and schools. In some of them individual cases of conversion have been the reward of large faith and zeal. In others, clusters of souls have been won to Christ. Distinctive revivals have been enjoyed at Chattanooga and Memphis, Tenn.; McIntosh and Macon, Ga.; Marion, Ala.; New Orleans, Talladega College, and in the Fisk, Atlanta and Tougaloo Universities. The total number of additions to our Southern churches on profession is 709. Those who in our missions have been led to Christ but who have gone to other churches would nearly double that number. The total number of members in all our Southern churches is 5,641.
When our last annual meeting was in session we had two parties upon the ocean on their way to Africa. Mr. I. J. St. John and Rev. J. M. Hall were going to reinforce the Mendi Mission, and Superintendent Ladd and Dr. Snow were going to explore the Upper Nile with reference to locating the Arthington Mission if the project should prove feasible. Mr. St. John was to be the business manager and to have charge of the John Brown steamer which was to be built. Mr. Hall, from the theological department of the Howard University, was to take charge of the Good Hope Station. He readily got hold of the work and proved himself an acceptable and successful missionary. He has the church, and a native teacher has the school under his supervision. Mr. Hall, being of the sturdy mountain stock of East Tennessee, has endured the climate well, and we can but hope that an extended career of usefulness is before him. Mr. St. John, by his own unavoidable exposure on his voyages between Freetown and Mendi, and up the rivers to our stations, was himself made sick, and so was confirmed in the judgment that called for the steamer as a means of preserving the health of our missionaries. The English Governor-General of the West Coast agreed with Mr. St. John to give the steamer the carrying of the mail and of all Government freight between Freetown and Mendi, which is an English dependency. The transportation of supplies for the Mission and the marketing of the lumber of our mill, the only one on the West Coast, call for this steam craft. All views conspire to put down the “John Brown” as one of the most effective missionaries to be introduced to that region, where there are no roads nor beasts of burden and where the water highway is the main reliance. It was thought best that Mr. St. John should not take the risk of the first wet season at the Mission, and so he returned to this country, coming over by a sailing vessel to save expense. He makes the gratifying report that in his intercourse along the coast he found many evidences of the good influence of the Mendi Mission in its training of men who have gone out into the ways of business, and who retain their integrity of character. He named the noble chief of a tribe where is located the vigorous Shengay Mission, who, with his son, had been educated at our Good Hope Station. Rev. A. E. Jackson has continued in charge of the Avery Station and boarding-school. During the year the Mission was afflicted in the death of Rev. J. M. Williams, of the Kaw Mendi Station, who, after having endured fifteen years of service in Africa, succumbed to the disease of diabetes. Rev. Mr. Jowett, one of the native preachers, is acceptably supplying Mr. Williams’ place at Kaw Mendi. Mr. Jowett has a son now in the Fisk University, who gives promise of making himself a useful man in his native land. The other three lads from the Mendi Mission at school at Hampton and at Atlanta, are doing well. The Debia Station is under the care of Mr. and Mrs. Goodman.
Dr. Ladd and Dr. Snow, having made their long and perilous tour, which took them up the Nile 2,500 miles, have returned. They report no sufficiently inviting location for a mission in the region of the Sobat. They recommend that Khartoum be occupied as a base of operations, and that a school be established on the east bank of the river opposite the city, which lies in the junction of the Blue and White Niles. That site is quite healthy. They would have a steamer by which to communicate with the Arthington district of the Upper Nile. The Executive Committee, of course, had to submit to the inevitable, as indicated by the double revolt, and voted to put the mission into complete abeyance for the time.
Though the Indian once had the continent to himself, he yet seems to be “the man without a country.” And the Christian missions which have sought to identify him with his native land have with him been driven along before the advancing tide of the white man’s migration. So has it been from the days of Jonathan Edwards, John Eliot and David Brainard down to these times of the Riggses and Williamsons. The Indian missions of this Association have fared in the same way, those at Northfield, Mich., and those at Cass Lake and Red Lake, Minn., which were served by some fifteen missionaries, among them Revs. S. G. Wright, J. B. Bardwell and A. Barnard. Of these the venerable Mr. Wright still abides in the service, being now at Leech Lake. Returning this year to his field, he writes: “We were very happy to find the little company of earnest, devoted Christians, whom we left two years before, still faithfully pursuing their work for God. They are truly the salt of the earth, burning lights in this great darkness, the spiritual power in the place.” Again he says: “I wish I could attend the annual meeting. I should love to give the friends a short history of the conversion and rich Christian experience of numbers of those around us.” Our church at S’Kokomish, Washington Territory, Rev. Myron Eells, pastor, during the year has swarmed, seven of its members having taken letters to unite with four other Christians of the Clallam Indians to form a Congregational Church at Jamestown. One infant was baptized. A half-dozen white neighbors came in and communed with them. Mr. Eells says that the services were held in Chinook, Clallam, English, Chinook translated into Clallam, and English translated into Clallam, a Pentecostal gift of tongues. The work of the mother church has been more encouraging this year than the last. Five have united with the church on profession of faith. The service of the agents at the S’Kokomish, Fort Berthold and Sisseton agencies has been about as usual in routine and outcome. The work that is now going on at the Hampton Institute in the educational and industrial training of 89 young Indians of both sexes is truly encouraging; not only as to its immediate accomplishment, but as to its future bearings upon the welfare of the Indians, and upon the Indian question itself. At the last commencement, the Indian classes claimed their full share of attention, and showed an improvement in the general character of the pupils over last year. One noted speech was made by an Indian youth. Rev. Dr. Bartend, referring to that speech in his address, said: “Two hundred and fifty years ago there came floating into this beautiful harbor vessels from the old country. What was their object? What was their hope? The prayer that arose from their decks was this: ‘God give us strength that we may educate and Christianize the Indian.’ William and Mary College, now almost ready to perish, is the monument of their endeavor. They did not see the answer to their prayer. God works in His own way, in His own time, with His own men. Could they see what we to-day behold, they would say, as do we, Speed on. God speed this glorious school.” Although the Association, which founded and developed the Hampton, has surrendered its control to a Board, yet besides aiding in the support of the pastor, who cares for the three races, associated in the one church of the place, it also makes a special appropriation toward the Indian department of the Institute. The Association will be ready to co-operate with the Government under its new appropriation, using some of its own institutions for the instruction and training of Indian youth. It has been proposed that the Association take up a new mission among a neglected tribe in the deep Northwest. Gen. Armstrong, by his recent tour among the several Indian tribes of that region, has been able to make judicious suggestions which will be duly considered.
But a little while ago we were praying God to open the door of China; and now the Chinese are pressing in at our own back door, having a steam ferry between our shore and theirs. Even the building of our Chinese wall, while China has been tearing down hers, has had the immediate effect of hastening 25,000 of these people in at our Golden Gate before the law should go into effect, and this influx has been felt already in our schools, which for the last few months have had a total larger than that of any former months. Mr. Pond certifies that even the enforcement of the law will not for some time occasion any let up in the pressure upon our school accommodations. We have as stock on hand, as raw material, these 125,000 people whom we should work up in the Christianizing way, so that they may be prepared, some for their own mission work at home, and some to receive the masses who may come by-and-by when the embargo is lifted. So that while our government stands at the Golden Gate to warn off any Mayflower immigrants, it may be that this enforced quiet and isolation will become a mighty factor in the scheme for Christianizing China. But none the less is it a ludicrous object lesson that the nation which stands with its front door wide open to receive 90,000 Europeans a month, should yet shudder over the 125,000 Mongolians who in many years have sought admission at the back door. It is a humiliating confession that 50,000,000 of Christian people, compacted as a nation, should shrink from having their system come into contact with the effete superstitions of 125,000 sojourners. But the politicians’ law is only for ten years. The principle, the conscience of the nation will be at work. The law may become a dead letter or be repealed. Before we are aware of it, the flood-gates may be raised and a great tide may set in. So, in any event, we have herein a grand opportunity, a mighty obligation.
Our last Annual Report mentioned a desire on the part of the converted Chinamen in California and their friends, that a mission be located at some well-chosen point in Southern China, from which their Christian brethren going back to fatherland might go forth to carry the Gospel to their countrymen. Further consideration has settled it that Hong Kong, the centre of the district from which most of our California Chinamen come, is the proper location. Such a mission would give a Christian greeting to the returning Christian Chinamen, would furnish an atmosphere and an instrumentality for keeping up their spiritual life, would be a training-school for those who should become missionaries, would be a rallying centre there, and would be the point of juncture between our work on the coast and that heathen empire. But, as it is the purpose of this Association not to extend its operations abroad, we made a distinctive proposition to the American Board that it take up the proposed mission at Hong Kong, and so work in harmony with us on this side the Pacific. We are glad to report that this overture has been cordially acceded to, and that that venerable missionary body accepts this “sacred trust.” Our brethren of the Chinese Christian Association out there have in hand already a fund of $700, which they intend to put into that mission as an offering of the first fruits.
In its work on the Pacific Coast, the Association is represented by its auxiliary, the California Chinese Mission, whose President is Rev. Dr. John K. McLean, and whose Secretary is Rev. Wm. C. Pond, who, in addition to the care of his city parish, has the supervision of our operations there. Taking up the work into his own mind and heart, he gives to it an amount of study, watch-care and service that is marvellous. With a Pauline spirit, he goes the round of the missions, cheering and directing the workers, healing divisions and laying new plans.
Our fifteen schools are located at Berkeley, Marysville, Oakland, Oroville, Petaluma, Point Pedro, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Stockton, and at San Francisco, where are the five missions, No. 1, No. 2, Barnes, Bethany, and West. The work of the year has been greatly encouraging. These schools have been taught by thirty-one teachers, of whom eleven are Christianized Chinamen.
The total number of scholars enrolled during the year was 2,567, a gain over the previous year of 935, while that year had a gain over the former one of 76. Of these during the past year 156 have ceased from idolatry and 106 have given evidence of conversion. Nor do these figures give the full number of those who are brought to the light in our schools, for many are scattered and cannot attend them. The whole number of those of whom we have hope that they are born of God in connection with our work from the first, Mr. Pond thinks cannot be less than 431, and wisely does he add: “The figures will cease to look dry and the statistical table will glow with even a celestial light, if we but reflect that every unit in these numbers stands for an undying soul, and every unit in some of them for such a soul brought out from the dark bondage of Chinese paganism into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.”
It is proposed now to re-establish our mission at Los Angeles, which, as the original, gave way for a time to another that came in but has turned out a failure. Chico, where there are many Chinese, and no one to care for them, is another place where the Superintendent could start a mission. So also the door seems to be opening for yet another school in San Francisco at the great Pioneer Wooden Mills, where 600 Chinese are employed. And so the expanding work demands the additional appropriation which the Committee have already voted, making a total of $13,000 to be used.
At our last annual meeting we reported a total of $243,795.23, which was a gain of $56,315.12, or 20 percent, over that of the previous year. One year ago the Committee felt constrained to ask that this sum should be carried up to $300,000 for the support and enlargement of the varied work in charge. We started out well. Then in the spring our chariot came to dragging heavily with a debt of $25,000 upon it. Then there was a rally, and the fiscal year came to its close, Sept. 30, with $297,584.45, which is a gain of $53,789.22 over the last year, or 22 per cent. Besides the current receipts we have received toward the endowment of the President’s chair in Talladega College, $15,000; and for scholarships in the same, $6,000; also a Scholarship note for $500, in behalf of Fisk University, which makes a total of $319,584.45 received into our treasury during the year. This leaves the treasury out of debt, with a balance in hand of $789.83, and an increase of endowment fund of $21,500. For this accomplishment we offer devout thanks to Almighty God.
The exigencies of the work, the enlargement of the expenditure made almost inevitable by the new buildings and increased facilities, will scarcely be met by $300,000 the coming year. An increase of that amount by 20 per cent, could be most economically and wisely expended without any attempt at undue enlargement. The legitimate and almost irresistible progress of the work demands that. But we are the servants of our constituents, and assume not to decide. We can most efficiently use the increase, but will faithfully work as best we can with the means entrusted to us. We can only add that the work will suffer if less than the $300,000 be secured.
As boys run backward that they may jump the further forward, so we may profitably compare the receipts of this Association in its earlier years with those of this last year. The nearly $300,000 just announced is equal to the total of contributions for the first ten years. And the total for the year, as given by the Treasurer, of the contributions from the same constituency for the general work in which the Association is engaged, more than $500,000, is equal to the receipts into our treasury for the first fourteen years.
Never have the affairs of this Association seemed more prosperous; never have its labors on the field yielded a more abundant and precious fruitage; never has it seemed more firmly established in the confidence of the people, both at the North and the South; never has it shared more fully the favor of God!
May we have grace to walk so humbly before God, and so honestly and faithfully before men, in the administration of our trust, that His favor and their confidence may abide upon us!
The Committee to whom has been referred the subject of the educational work of this Association, beg leave to report that we heartily approve the policy of the Association by which it has put its main efforts upon the Christian education of teachers for the colored people. Our Congregational churches, while it is important to plant them, are not the first need. They can enter but slowly. The people do not appreciate them nor ask for them. Education they beseech us for. The lower common-school education we can supply only here and there. We thank God, and we recognize it as a blessed evidence of the growth of healthy public sentiment, that every year more and more attention is paid in the States of the South to free public education, and that in this the colored people are having their part, and that the expense of supporting their schools is more and more cheerfully borne. But the States which are willing to educate children are not all ready as yet to educate their teachers. Whether the common schools of the South are good, depends on whether the schools for teachers are good. We believe there is no other agency which is doing so much to secure teachers for the colored youth of the South as the American Missionary Association. This is a task which does not carry with it ecclesiastical profit; but it carries the blessing of the Great Head of the Church, as it has the good will of good men in every communion.
Apprehending the paramount importance of this work, we would impress upon the officers of this Association, what they doubtless feel, the importance of raising their chartered institutions and normal schools to the very highest possible grade. Bricks and mortar are necessary, good buildings are noble, but the first demand is for good teaching, for the very best instruction which Northern culture can secure. A few extra hundreds paid to a competent principal may be of more real use than many thousands paid for a building. Our consecrated wealth will provide the buildings. That we do not fear for; but it needs great and rare executive wisdom to see that these buildings shall be put to their best use for the best instruction. Now is the molding time for the colored people, and they need to be molded aright. Good education in barracks is better than poor education in a palace. It has been the boast of our constituency that they have known how to educate. They have supported the best colleges in the North. They are now supporting the best schools in the South. We are glad that, apprehending these duties, the Association has just appointed a competent Superintendent of Education, whose special business it will be to see to it that the standard of education shall be raised to the highest possible grade. We would especially recommend that all our institutions be carefully examined, that we call nothing college or university whose course of instruction falls below the grade which belongs to the name, and that, if it be necessary in any case, inferior teachers be weeded out and their places supplied by such as are competent and earnest. This we urge, while knowing that our institutions, as a rule, are models in all the South, because we would not have the Association satisfied with that to which we have already attained, and because we believe that our schools can and should be made so superior to other institutions that they shall attract white pupils as well as black, or break down the walls of caste.
We see with satisfaction the progress made in Howard and Talladega in theological education, which has been followed by the organization of numerous prosperous churches. We would urge that, as soon as possible, Fisk and Straight universities be supplied with similar active departments of theological instruction.
Industrial departments have been made very useful in Hampton and Tougaloo. These institutions are models in these as in other respects. The explanation rests in part in the great enthusiasm or ability of the gentlemen whom we are so fortunate as to have in charge of those institutions, and who have a special gift in developing these departments, and in part in the fortunate locality in which these institutes are placed. While we would be glad to have similar instruction given in Fisk, Atlanta, and elsewhere, we recognize the great difficulty of doing similar work in cities. Domestic labor should be encouraged, to relieve the expense of board; but experiments in establishing schools of carpentry, blacksmithing, nursing, etc., while excellent, need to be made with the greatest care, and under the supervision of such teachers as possess the requisite enthusiasm and faith.
We would especially urge, in this connection, on those who manage our institutions, that they impress on the pupils the virtues of thrift and self-support. The students who have come to us are no longer ex-slaves. They have all been reared in freedom. They should be required to pay a reasonable amount for tuition. This should be imposed as an educating influence. They should be made to understand that when education is given it represents a money value as well as does the food that goes into the stomach. More and more should they be required to pay their tuition, if it be but a dollar a month, that they may understand its value. The aggregate of this will be of considerable help, as it will elevate the educational notions of the people.
We are glad to see that our chartered institutions are making progress toward independence of the Association. For this they should work by the increase of their endowments for instruction. We express our great thanks to the generous friends who have so nobly given for these purposes, and especially to the wise and generous benevolence of Mrs. Stone, which has made this a marked year in the history of our institutions. May the Lord reward her, and may her example stir up many more.
Our work would not be complete without a more formal and a most cordial recognition of the thanks we owe to the self-denying teachers of our institutions. They are men and women of most admirable culture; they have made the greatest sacrifices; they have entered with the warmest enthusiasm into their work. We have been greatly pleased with the professional enthusiasm of those at the head of some of our excellent normal schools, to whom no words of praise can be extravagant. The progress in nearly all our institutions has been such as to merit our heartiest appreciation. We commend this, our great work, to the generous hearts of our Christian constituency.
G. F. Wright, Chairman.
BY PRES. E. M. CRAVATH, FISK UNIVERSITY.
1. The negroes are citizens, and vested with all the rights, duties and responsibilities of American citizenship. The ballot is in their hands, and as a necessary consequence they will share the offices of trust and responsibility. There must and will be political leaders among them. It might be better for the country if the colored people would use the ballot purely, with an eye single to the best interests of society; if they should always vote for the wisest, most honest and most capable men, uninfluenced by personal prejudices, race distinction, or the popular excitement of heated political campaigns, and with no aspiration for political distinction or the honors and spoils of office. It might be better for the country if the citizens of other races would do this. But how unlike the Anglo-Saxon or the Celt would be the African if he should do it. But, fortunately, or unfortunately, there is about as much genuine human nature in the American citizen of African descent as there is in those of European; and we must expect essentially the same results under like conditions. It will not prevent colored men from having political aspirations, and from being elected to offices of trust and responsibility, to confine education among them to public, normal and industrial schools. The safer and better way is to give to the young men who have aspirations for a higher education the opportunities and advantages they seek, just as they are provided for the youth of other races.
2. The six millions of colored people in the South are organized into distinct and separate churches, which are ministered to by persons of their own race. This is the result both of choice and necessity. The white churches are not open to them, and as a general thing they prefer to have their separate organizations. The influence and power of the minister among the colored people are exceedingly great. No people stand more in need of an intelligent, wise and educated ministry, and among no people can such a ministry do such a noble work for the proper training of the young men who are to constitute the religious teachers and guides of these six millions of colored American citizens just delivered from bondage, and now making trial before the world of freedom and citizenship. I urge the necessity of institutions for higher education.
The public schools of the South for colored children are in general taught by colored teachers. This is usually demanded by the parents. In these public schools there are hundreds of positions such as are filled in white schools by men who have had their training in the best colleges and universities of the South, and why should not colored young men be given the same training for the same responsibilities and duties? The same principles and necessities hold in the departments of law and medicine. Is there any reason, in the nature of the case, why a young colored man does not need to have as good an education to fit him for these professions as a young white man does? In all enlightened countries, institutions of higher education are regarded as indispensible; they accomplish a work in the interests of society, the Church and the State, which cannot be left out with safety to any race or any country. But there are weighty reasons why the colored youth of the South need the advantages of a higher education. They have received less by inheritance. Education, discipline, culture, the habits and surroundings of life through generations, to some extent, at least, determine the inherited intellectual and moral qualities of individuals, families and races. The colored youth begins life without the inherited qualities which can come only through generations of civilization.
Then, too, he has not had the advantages (and these are among the greatest children can possess) of a cultured home, refined and intellectual associations, a purified and stimulating social life, and the instruction of an educated ministry. These have largely been denied him in his earlier years. Thus, when young colored men or women set out to secure an education that shall put them on a high plane of intellectual life and give them a fair chance to work a career which shall entitle them to be honestly ranked among the educated and cultured of the white race in the higher departments of the world’s work, they find themselves at a great disadvantage.
How shall this be overcome, except by patient, long-continued and wisely-directed study? Aspiration must mature into purpose and purpose ripen and harden into character. Intellectual labor must be encouraged and even exacted until it becomes comparatively easy and pleasurable. Habits of study and investigation must be formed and the judgment must be matured. Where shall the young men of the South get these advantages except in schools for higher education? But there is one more consideration which I wish to urge. These six millions are the representatives of a race 200,000,000 strong and of a continent. No equal body of Africans was ever before placed in a condition so favorable for the development of whatever possibilities there are in the race. Under slavery they have been disciplined to toil and have learned the lessons of work; they have come to like the ways of civilized life and have acquired a desire and taste for its comforts and luxuries. Pagan worship and heathen superstitions have been largely destroyed, and the people have accepted the Christian religion. They are widely scattered among their fellow citizens of other races, and they have intrusted to them the full duties, and have resting upon them all the responsibilities of citizenship. Whatever possibilities are in the race can here be developed in a shorter time and by a more direct way than in the case of any section of Africa. So the race is on trial, and every aid should be given in order that the best possible result may be reached. Who can properly estimate the power for good which colleges and universities, founded in the right spirit, strongly administered and wisely adapted to the wants and necessities of the people, can exert in determining the future of the negro in this country and the future of the great African race?
The church work of the Association during the year has been steady, growthful, and encouraging. Quite the average of progress has been attained. This will readily appear by reference to a few statistics. Six new churches have been added to the list, making in all eighty-three. Ten houses of worship have been erected. It is a remarkable fact that every one of the eighty-three churches, except one whose minister died a short time ago, has a pastor. And equally remarkable that fifty-one of these pastors are native preachers. As showing the value of theological seminaries established by the Association, and the ability and usefulness of trained colored men, the average membership of sixty-eight in each church exceeds the average of all the Congregational churches west of Pennsylvania. The addition of 709 on profession, and the conversion of about an equal number who have found other church homes, make an average of seventeen conversions to each church, an increase of 20 per cent. Where else can an equally good exhibition be made? Only about one to a church throughout the country. There are seven churches which have added from twenty-five to forty-five to their membership. There are only six that report no additions. So far as reported all but eleven churches contribute money for church purposes. Thirty-seven report benevolent contributions. One church reports $350, another church reports $158, another church reports $86, another church reports $83, another church reports $60, another church reports $50. Seventy-four Sunday-schools are reported. One Sunday-school has over 500 members, another 400 members, ten schools 200 members, and seven schools 100 members. These figures indicate vitality in the churches, for Sunday-schools do not thrive very well, excepting where there is activity in the churches with which they are associated. In nine localities precious revivals have been enjoyed. The local associations indicate growth in fellowship and power. When we remember that these results have been reached amid manifold hindrances and discouragements arising from ignorance, prejudice, superstition and vice, we may well exclaim, “What hath God wrought?” “Thank the Lord and take courage.” But the best results of the year do not admit of tabulation. The unwritten history of these churches are the tears, the struggles, the sacrifices, the prayers, the burdens silently, uncomplainingly borne. This is their real history. God knows it all, and those who have been the patient workers in its making will be remembered in that day when he counts up his jewels. Then it must not be forgotten that these churches represent almost infinitely more in the South than their small number would indicate. They are tonic in their influence upon all the other churches around them. Their simple New Testament polity, which encourages self-government and self-development, their high standard of ethics, which is a constant rebuke to an emotional religion apart from morality, make them peculiarly lights shining in dark places, and invest them with that quiet, but inscrutable transforming power that belongs to good leaven.
In this has been vindicated the wisdom of the policy which has preferred quality to quantity, good character to great numbers, intelligent piety to ignorant devotion, a pure life to a noisy profession. Without doubt the Association might have doubled its present number of churches during these seventeen years. It has cost something to move slowly in this matter.
We have said that the past year has witnessed the average growth. The rate of progress during the last seventeen years has been uniformly very constant, about five churches a year. Ten years ago six new churches and ten houses of worship were reported. The question now comes whether it is not quite time to change the rate by doubling it, at least to quicken the pace. The church work is initial and fundamental. It underlies all else. The Association is in the South for no other purpose than to make Christian manhood and womanhood. For this glorious work the church of God is the divinely appointed agency. Others are auxiliary. There is but one opinion as to the sore need of more churches. The Macedonian cry is heard in many directions.
It has been demonstrated that Congregational churches can exist and thrive west of the Hudson and south of Mason and Dixon’s line.
The polity and faith of the Pilgrim Fathers is not for the elect few but the unsaved many. And if the methods, influence, and example of our churches in the South are greatly stimulating to the churches round about them, that is an additional argument for their multiplication.
It can hardly be doubted that the schools and universities, by their direct and indirect influence, have prepared sufficient material for more churches. What are eighty-three among the millions who sit in darkness? It must be kept distinctly in mind that educational facilities are multiplying in the South, and that to educate without Christianizing is possibly to augment the perils instead of the defenses of the Republic.
The sanctifying and consecrating forces must be held in close contact with the secular, so that education may be hallowed, or it will end in defeat. We must hold steadfastly to our fundamental principle that nothing but the gospel of Christ will uplift and save the South. And while our educational institutions are thoroughly Christian, yet the church must be the energizing and radiating centre of Christian influence and power. Brethren, does not the church work need and deserve a fresh impulse? Ought not the momentum gathered during the seventeen years to accelerate its progress very greatly now? Would not all hearts be gladdened, if the next annual report should bring tidings of twelve instead of six churches organized under the favoring auspices of this society? Opportunities are (I was about to say waiting, but they don’t wait) passing. Much has been irrevocably lost. Much yet remains. Ideas are changing rapidly. We had feared that crystallization would occur earlier than this, and society become so incrusted with prejudice and hardened by vice that the helpful activities of this and kindred societies would be hindered or defeated. But God is mercifully holding the elements still in solution that churches and schools, like ours, may become the dominating centres of the new civilization. Let these blessed centres of light, healing, influence, be multiplied, surcharged with transforming energy, with assimilating power. The multiplicand already exists; men and money must furnish, under God, the multiplier.
Arthur Little, Chairman.
Within the past two years it has been my privilege to look in upon three or four of the churches contemplated in this report. One year ago last August I found myself on the Sabbath day in the city of Chattanooga, and I started out at an early hour to find the Congregational church. I made several inquiries of the white people whom I met, but none of them seemed to know. I sauntered along until I was in front of the white Baptist church of the place, and found an aged colored gentleman ringing the bell preparatory to service. I asked him if he knew where the Congregational church was. “Oh yes,” he said, “I’se a member of dat church myself.” Then, having an opportunity, I chatted with him a few minutes, and asked him why they wanted to sustain a Congregational church in Chattanooga. “Oh,” he said among many other things, “we doesn’t believe in dese yer incitements dat de old churches has.” And then I asked him what they proposed to do in the future. “Look a heah, brudder,” he said, “we’s come heah to stay.” Presently I found myself in that Congregational church. I found an ordinarily good little structure, comfortably furnished for church purposes. When the congregation came in I saw decently clad people with hymn books and Bibles in their hands. Presently from the study door came the pastor, and with all dignity and order, took his place in the pulpit, and he preached a sermon in which, if my eyes had been closed, I should have found no evidence that he was a colored man. He was a graduate of Atlanta University. There was every evidence of order and system, of calm and deliberative religion, which we should find in this church on the next Sabbath day.
In the evening of that same day I had an opportunity for comparisons and contrasts. I went over to one of the old colored churches which stands diagonally across an open square or common. The scene was that of one billowy sea of emotion and excitement, of hallooing and amen-ing. Now, I said to myself, here is this pure church established in this community as a standing testimony against that sort of thing. I said, as I sat beneath the spell of emotions which found vent in tears, here in this Congregational church and on this ground are both prophecy and fulfillment. The Congregational church stands not more than six rods from where my tent was at one time pitched when I was a soldier; where the shells from Lookout mountain used to drop in the days of Thomas and Hood. Here, I said, in this scarred ground, is a prophecy which was uttered eighteen years ago, in the thunder of artillery and the clash of battle. It was a prophecy of liberty; and this church for colored people, for free colored people, our brothers and sisters, is the fulfillment of that prophecy. It was my privilege, only a few days later, to be present in the Storrs Congregational church of Atlanta. And it was a pleasure to be permitted to speak to those people. I saw there the same evidence of Christian order and propriety; everything which bore testimony to a high type of Christian life. I attended two of its prayer meetings. There was the calm, subdued temper which bore witness to the suppression of the animal nature and the development of the spiritual. And I want to say here, brethren, that if God in his providence should send me to Atlanta, I should cast in my lot with the Storrs Congregational church.
I wish to second what was said by Doctor Little with regard to the enlargement of our church work in the South. We feel that the time has come for broadening the boundaries of this distinctively religious work. Our churches are, and are to be, the conservators of the other work done in our educational institutions. None of our young people should be allowed, for want of a church home of our own polity, to escape from holy and pure influences. Nor should they be allowed to expend in other directions power and influence acquired in our schools which might be conserved in our churches. Let us not make the mistake south of the Ohio River which, thirty or forty years ago, was made west of the Hudson; but let us rather from this annual meeting look to the enlargement of this blessed part of our work, concerning which such glad harbingers are before us in the general survey presented by the Secretary.
The Committee to whom was referred the general report on Africa would submit the following:
Little that is new or very noteworthy has occurred during the year past. The Mendi Mission, which has been so long, and at such sacrificial cost, maintained by the Association, was reinforced by a graduate of the theological department of Howard University, Rev. Mr. Hall, who took charge of the church at Good Hope station, and has brought to his work such qualifications as promise to make him a valuable worker in this growingly hopeful field. Mr. St. John, who went out to become the business manager of the missionary steamer John Brown, though obliged temporarily to return to this country, has accomplished some useful exploration, and demonstrated that the proposed steamer will become a most timely and invaluable assistant to the missionaries in the way of facilitating transportation and intercommunication. There are encouraging signs that the influence of the workers at this mission is extending to the interior, and that the representatives of its schools and churches who are engaged in secular callings are a credit to the same, and are advertising the value of Christian training and character to those who are as yet strangers to both. One faithful laborer has, during the last twelvemonth, fallen at his post, after a service of fifteen years, Rev. J. M. Williams. His name will go to swell that ever-increasing list of heroic workers, who sacrificed their lives for Africa’s redemption. A native preacher has taken the vacated place, and so the holy work goes on, though the brave workers here and there are summoned to leave their toil and go up to their exceeding great reward. It is a token at once significant and prophetic, that this successor of Mr. Williams, at the Kaw Mendi station, has a son now in Fisk University who will keep up the succession of workers in Africa, by in due time returning to the land of his fathers as a herald of the gospel of Christ. Three other youthful representatives of the Mendi Mission are at school at Hampton and Atlanta, their very presence here being fraught with good to fellow students from the colored people of this country and to the land from which they came as the first fruits in the way of missionary consecration. At the last Annual Meeting, great interest was excited by the expedition of Superintendent Ladd and Dr. Snow, which had just been entered upon, to find on the upper Nile a suitable place for the proposed Arthington Mission. Much was hoped for from this resolute attempt to locate a new station in the region of the Sobat. These pioneers have safely returned, and bring their mature recommendations as to what is expedient to be done in the district, where that generous patron of African missions, Mr. Arthington, was so urgent something should be done. On the whole, this Association has made a noble record, in concert with other missionary societies in the dark continent. The chapter of what has been endured and achieved by its representatives will be one of imperishable glory in the annals of this body. Whatever changes the future may bring, for the good brave work of the past, we and all lovers of Africa will praise God. Never was its mission work in the far-away land more promiseful, and we can but believe that days of large ingathering and of immediate advance are before it, so that past sacrifices and toils will not have been in vain, and the speedier successes of coming days will justify a missionary policy of the boldest and broadest character.
M. McG. Dana, Chairman.