The Committee to whom was referred Secretary Strieby’s report, on recommending the simplification of the work of the American Missionary Association, by withdrawing from the foreign field, and assuming more fully the work among the Indians to which it is now providentially invited, approve in general of its proposals, but beg to recommend to the Executive Committee of the American Missionary Association, in considering and settling the questions involved, the following points which they suggest as conditions in effecting the changes contemplated:
1. That the entire Mendi Mission, with its long and checkered history, representing such heroic sufferings and achievements, and in the sustenance of which our British friends have so generously aided us, be continued by transferring it to the A. B. C. F. M. or to the United Brethren, who have a mission near by and who will entertain overtures for the same, and that to this end the churches, schools, and other property be made over to either party, with the interest of the Avery fund, in the one case at once and in the other for a limited time, as the Committee may arrange. That the steamer John Brown, to which the Sabbath-schools of our churches have contributed some $7,000, be built, and be given over to such parties as will use it for the purposes originally contemplated.
2. That the interest in, and funds for, the Arthington Mission be, so far as may be, transferred to the A. B. C. F. M., and that failing, to the United Presbyterians who are doing such excellent work in the Nile Valley.
3. That this Association will assume the Indian Mission in Dakota offered it by the A. B. C. F. M., and will withdraw from the foreign fields, and arrange ultimately for the transference of the interest of the Avery fund to the American Board.
And your Committee propose for your adoption the following resolution, covering the adjudication of this question.
Resolved, That the matter of accepting the Dakota Mission from the American Board, and of transferring our African Mission to that Board or some other organization, be referred to the Executive Committee with power, provided that it be made certain that the Mendi Mission, so dear to the hearts of many of the Association, be in some way sustained hereafter.
M. McG. Dana, Chairman.
The Committee on Indian Missions would report:
First. That the work of this Association among the Indians—a work so small that the expenditure for it is only about one-fifth that for the Chinese in America—has been prospered during the last year. The blessing of the Master rests upon it, and our thanksgiving and prayers should be stimulated thereby.
Second. We heartily approve of its plan to combine an industrial with a literary education, that the boys and girls may take the lead in Christian arts as in Christian culture. Yet the experiment of training them in schools far from home should be carefully watched, lest there be formed a gulf of separation between the tribe and its educated youth, a gulf so deep that those returning from Hampton shall, through social longings, lapse into the customs of their fathers, or else shall stand aloof from their people in cultured isolation. We should subordinate individual advancement to tribal advantage; the benefit of the few to that of the many; and for this purpose schools are being established nearer home. Hence we recommend the careful study of the results of the experiment.
Third. We would earnestly press the evangelistic work among the Indians. They are to stay with us. They are soon to be of us, citizens with us of this Republic. So much is written in the providence of God. To educate them is not enough. The federal government is increasingly engaged in this. But its Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the Hon. H. Price, in his forthcoming report says: “Civilization is a plant of exceeding slow growth unless supplemented by Christian teaching and influence.” “In no other manner and by no other means, in my judgment, can our Indian population be so speedily and permanently reclaimed from barbarism, idolatry, and savage life as by the educational and missionary operations of the Christian people of our country.” Christianized education is the watchword, the vitalizing of all the truth of God with the love and spirit of God. This means more than schools; it means Christian schools and Christian churches. For this very work this Association has been ordained of God, and it should enlarge its work to the demands of the hour. The proposed exchange with the American Board means, for this society, enlargement. The rapid progress of the Indian towards citizenship demands enlargement. God calls this Association to enlarge its Indian missions that it may prepare both the negro and the Indian for citizenship and God.
Fourth. We believe that the welfare of the Indian demands the abolition of both tribal and reservation relations, the allotment of their lands in severalty, their amenability to State and federal laws and courts. And while we recognize with gratitude the past attempts of our national government in these directions, we need to press upon Congress the duty of renewing its endeavors and enlarging its appropriations for schools, that it may speedily turn these wards into industrious citizens. And for this end we would recommend that a committee of nine be appointed by this Association to memorialize Congress to place the Indian by the side of the negro and other citizens in the right to buy, own, and sell property, real and personal, to work at what he pleases, and live where he pleases, to have the same standing before the law, to vote and hold office, in short to possess all the rights and obligations of citizens of the Republic.
A. H. Ross, Chairman.
BY GEN. S. C. ARMSTRONG.
At Hampton there are ninety, and at Carlisle there are nearly three hundred Indians—boys and girls—who are learning civilization as an object lesson, and are themselves an object lesson to the centres of intelligence and wealth, where is the sentiment that inspires and the means that provide for the combined practical and spiritual teaching of the red man. They suffice, perhaps, for a tangible proof of the Indian’s capacity, of which the need was great; their effect upon public sentiment has been marked. The result with these Indians has, so far, proved satisfactory. Scattering these pupils among the farmers of Massachusetts and of Pennsylvania for a portion of the year, has had such a good effect mutually, that five hundred more might well be so placed in various States, under the care of special agents, with proper rendezvous where the sick or unsatisfactory might be kept with a view to returning home, say ten per cent, of the entire number.
The Negro institutions at Nashville, Tenn., at Talladega, Alabama, and elsewhere, could do excellent work for them. The aims and methods of most white schools render them unfit for Indians.
We have found the weak point of the race to be physical, not mental or moral. They can endure the hardships peculiar to the plains, but not steady work from day to day. They are tainted with inherited disease; the lungs are their weak point. They are sinewy but not muscular; however, as a race they hold their own with favorable surroundings, are not decreasing seriously, if at all, and will not settle the problem by dying out.
Mechanically they have proved apt to learn, but slow to execute. Our Hampton Indian work-shops have this year supplied the Indian Department with two thousand pairs of men’s brogan shoes, five hundred dozen articles of tinware, and seventy-five sets of double plow harness, which were pronounced by the inspectors well-made and satisfactory. Carlisle has done more.
Both girls and boys take quickly and kindly to neatness and to industrial pursuits, as well as to books. They are as eager as the Negroes for knowledge, and become more and more so as they advance. Want of ambition is the least of their troubles. Teaching them is hard work, but interesting and stimulating in the highest degree.
They resent injury, but are not revengeful; not a sign of treachery in nearly five years. Religiously, they are, I believe, the most hopeful of the heathen races. The vastness and the grandeur of the West has affected them as desert life has the Arabs; they are remarkably Oriental in customs and ideas. They worship no fetish, there are no idols to break, but they have a crude faith to be cleared, dim eyes to be opened.
Christian efforts, under the care of Archdeacon Kirby of the Episcopal Church, have evangelized ten thousand Indians of British America, in their simple natural life. The mixed, harassed condition of our own, makes the work far more difficult.
The mingling of races at Hampton has worked well; they are mutually helpful and stimulating. An Indian classmate is kindly, thoughtfully treated by his colored compeers. A race that has been led is leading another. The “House-Father,” chief of our sixty Sioux boys, is a negro. With perhaps finer mental and moral texture, the red race does not produce half enough to feed itself; the rougher, stronger blacks have not thrown a pauper upon the country, and raise raw material for the mills of Christendom. With benevolent intentions we have diminished and weakened the one; using the other only for selfish purposes, it has multiplied and grown stronger. Bringing both races under the care of the American Missionary Association is most fitting and wise. Both are peculiarly the concern of the American people, are providentially committed to our care, and are a part of us. In doing for them we are doing for ourselves, our children, and our country.
On the Indian girl rests most heavily the weight of past and present influences. When, in October, 1881, I took 25 Indian boys and five girls back to their Dakota homes, after three years’ training at Hampton, the former were readily placed in rooms by themselves, away from the camp, employed in agency work-shops at the trades they had learned, and thus helped on greatly. The girls could not be so isolated; they had no trades, and though they could make their own garments and do housework, there were not suitable situations for them; they returned to their mothers and grandmothers, who might sell them to the brave who would pay the highest price in ponies for them.
One of the five, an earnest Christian, wrote: “Hard to be good woman out here.” She finally married a white man of good repute. Another is reported as a most satisfactory house servant in the family of a missionary; another keeps her father’s store and books. He is one of the best and most thrifty of Indians; but the family live in one room in a log house. Two others, younger, are waiting an opportunity to return to Hampton for two years’ more training, with a view to becoming teachers.
Teaching is the career for Indian girls, as it has been the one way for colored girls of the South to be more than drudges; there it is the only field for a womanly ambition. The increase of educational work for Indians creates some hope for their girls, on whom rests the future of their race.
There is a tendency to increase our Indians’ course of study to longer than three years. One set having returned, the Indians, whose parental feelings are tender and strong, are more trustful of us, and readily consent to a longer absence of their children. One boy has already returned at his own expense, and another is saving his money for the purpose, both to learn more and to perfect themselves in their trade of shoemaking. The sooner the Indian can stand without government aid, the better. Any boy can return who will pay his way back. This gives a motive to work, and creates appreciation of his opportunities.
For the practical necessities of Indian life their training should be practical.
We give half the day to study and half to labor. An education which does not fit them to take care of themselves may do them more harm than good.
I think that when charity and the government are linked together for Indian work, the former should erect the buildings and maintain the teachers, the latter supply the wants of the body. United States beef and flour and shoes are as good as any body’s, but government employés, as our civil service stands, are not the men to elevate the Indian. The telling factor in all work for men is the person who does it. Unless that shall be supplied from the pure fountains of our Christian civilization it will not, as a rule, be supplied at all. I refer to the educational work at the agencies; there the government day and boarding schools should be strictly responsible to the controlling power, and their moral value will be that of the agent in charge. Missionary institutions should stimulate these, and should be conducted by superior men and women directly responsible to their Eastern supporters. I call it sham missionary work to send out Christian teachers to be supported on public pay. The churches who do that, and some do, are doing nothing. Let us first send our own teachers for the Indians, and then fit them to become their own teachers; to make the teachers is to make the people.
The free Negro schools in the South are vitalized by a number of strong central institutions under Northern men that train the picked growth of the race as teachers. This is, I think, the true relation of Eastern charity to the Indian. There should be an excellent boarding and industrial school at each important agency for this purpose. Getting fifteen dollars a month of government for food and clothing for each pupil need not in the least weaken the independence or morals of teachers. The friends of the Indian will do the rest.
The situation is critical, the opportunity is great; the rising tide of public sentiment, the movement at Washington, the eagerness as well as the exigency of the red man mean much.
But this work needs a leader; it will drag if thrown on an overloaded man. The man is as much as the money; the one will bring the other, both by wise appeals and good work that will commend itself to the country.
For more than a century Indians rejected our civilization; now their thinking men, for they are a race of thinkers, forecast the future and wish their children taught the white man’s way as their only hope.
They do not choose this; they are compelled to it. Hundreds, thousands, are waiting for an education. They beg for what they once refused.
Your Committee on the Chinese Mission of the Association have agreed upon the following report:
There are three points which demand special thanksgiving to God.
First. The manifestly wise policy of the Association on the whole question of Christianizing the Chinese. This appears (1) in the noble stand it has taken and the work it is doing for education and Christianity on our Pacific coast, thus uttering a perpetual rebuke to the intolerable selfishness and barbarism of political parties in the passage of the anti-Chinese bill; (2) in the admirable disposition made of the proposed mission in China itself.
The desire of earnest Christian Chinamen in California that a mission be started in Southern China, which might be a “rallying centre” of Christian influence for converted men on their return home, and from which they could “go forth to carry the gospel to their countrymen,” is a desire which must commend itself to reason; and the readiness of these Christian Chinamen to aid such a movement with contributions of their own is worthy of the highest commendation. Moreover, that Hong Kong, that great gateway of Chinese emigration, that district wrenched away from the Chinese by English selfishness and rapacity forty years ago, in the ignominious struggle of the opium war, should be the place agreed upon for that mission, seemed peculiarly fitting. But that this Association should be the body to establish the mission there, thus distracting attention from its great peculiar work at home, and dividing the contributions of American Congregational churches between two foreign Congregational boards in China, could hardly seem wise to any. How gratifying then to learn that this Association, holding to the purpose of no more missions abroad, has successfully arranged with the American Board to accept and carry forward this movement at Hong Kong. The principle of simplicity of arrangement and economical division of labor among our great benevolent societies is thus endorsed once for all.
Second. The second point calling for thanksgiving is the marked success of the work among the Chinese on the Pacific coast. There is no more promising work for China, as a whole, in all the world, than that now being done by the California Chinese Mission. Its fifteen schools, with thirty-one teachers, eleven of whom are converted Chinamen, twenty-five hundred scholars—an increase of almost a thousand over last year, and a hundred and six conversions to Christ, all show that it is no longer a mere experiment. The efficient Christian organization known as the Congregational Association of Christian Chinese, with its missionary spirit and liberal contributions, demonstrate the fact on our own soil that the Chinamen, like others, when touched by the spirit of Christ, are a power for righteousness.
Third. The recent influx of 25,000 Chinamen, hastening to reach our shores before the pagan bill of Congress should go into effect, has suddenly increased the demand for laborers and money.
The work on the Pacific coast ought not to receive less than $13,000 the coming year, that the 125,000 Chinese already in the country may, during the ten years of national disgrace, be quietly fitted to become a great Christian power for the elevation of their countrymen.
While the anti-Chinese outcry from California has filled the ears of the nation, your Committee wishes to recognize with thanksgiving the noble work which many of the Christians of that State have done and are doing for China and for Christ. The Chinese missions of the Association are at present restricted to the State of California. But your Committee are impressed with the importance to the Association, in this part of its work, of full and exact information as to the condition of the Chinese population throughout the country, and as to the work done in their behalf by various Christian agencies, and especially by the local churches of various denominations. And we recommend that a systematic inquiry be instituted on this subject, the result of which shall be reported at the next annual meeting.
James Brand, Chairman.
Mr. President: At one of the former meetings of this Association, one speaker, in pleading for China, proposed that the audience go with him, in imagination, to the Chinese quarter in San Francisco, in order that from a personal inspection of the thrift, economy and order manifested there he might get an argument for Christian sympathy and support in Chinese education. They did so and the argument was good. At the same meeting, another speaker, pleading the same cause, proposed to the audience to go with him to a more sacred place than the Chinese quarter, namely, the battle-fields of the war, that he might gather from the memory and suggestions of those hallowed places an argument for the maintenance of the national and Christian principles contended for in that war, and hence an argument for the Christian treatment of the Chinese.
Now, in getting the purchase for another argument for the same unhappy people, I propose that you go for a few moments with me to a more sacred place still than either the Chinese quarter or the battle-fields of the war. I mean that upper room where, eighteen centuries ago, occurred that last, long interview between Christ and his disciples, before the crucifixion. Let us reverently step in there and stand behind that little circle of the eleven. Let us catch the spirit and the suggestions of that tender and holy scene. The Divine One is speaking his last words to those men who are soon to go forth and undertake the conversion of the world. What is his most weighty thought? It is that which was expressed in his closing prayer: “As thou hast sent me into the world even so have I sent them into the world;” that is, the mission of Christian men in the world was to be the same as His own. It was to be a mission of vicarious suffering and service for all the world. Men were dying in their sins in all countries. The nations were sitting in the shadow of death. Generations were tramping on, each in the track of the others, to hopeless doom. They did not know God’s redeeming love. It is this spectacle of humanity rushing on to a hopeless eternity, that puts that solemn and intense tone into the Saviour’s voice as He talks and prays. They were to be men like Christ. They were to go into all the world, bearing the love of God.
This is what the world needs. This world of faith in force, and faith in diplomacy, and faith in partisan politics; this world of faith in intellectual skill; this world of brain power, elaborating expedients; this world of self-seeking refinement; these nations that are under the shadow of death are all sending up through the gloom of their moral miseries the inarticulate cry to God for just this Christlike mission of loving men, to the world. This, then, is the warrant; this is the groundwork of my plea for China. It is not that the Chinese are very worthy, or that our nation ought to be very consistent with its fundamental principles, but it is that 400,000,000 souls need a Saviour from sin, and we, whose mission is identical with Christ’s, have something to do in the case. This applies, of course, to all nations as well as the Chinese, but I plead for a special application of the principle to China on two grounds:
I. Because of the vastness and need of China and the peculiar relation it now sustains to ourselves. What have we done for her people? We have shut our door in their face. We have said no poor laboring man of China shall feed his children on our shore for ten years to come. Three hundred and thirty thousand of them will have gone into eternity before these ten black years shall have expired! Do we not hear the echo of that tender voice from that upper room, “Inasmuch as ye did it unto these, ye have done it unto me”?
II. I plead for China because of the wrongs she has suffered at nominally Christian hands, and especially at the hands of the United States Government.
The anti-Chinese bill is a violation of treaty, a violation of the spirit of impartial justice to foreigners, a violation of our own interest, because opposed to the spirit of Christ, which when resisted always reacts. It was carried through, like the opium trade, for present personal advantage on a small scale. It is the child of partisan politics, born out of a fear lest other foreign laborers, finding themselves underbidden by the more economical Chinese, might raise an outcry, and disturb the equilibrium of party power. Hence, to gain votes, one party will sacrifice national policy and Christian principle, and the other will do the same rather than lose votes. Thus China must be affronted, and Christianity dishonored before the world. It is not, however, the American people as such who have done this thing—thank God for that! Whenever the national conscience has spoken at all on the subject, it has spoken against it. This anti-Chinese legislation is the adoption, in America, of the old barbaric cast-off policy of exclusion, which China herself has pursued for centuries toward other nations. China is going forward: we have gone back.
Now what is to be the result in this case? It must be reaction. There must come reaction against American commerce, losing more than it gains, reaction against American integrity as to treaty stipulations, awakening Chinese distrust and hate, casting a blight upon Western civilization and, worst of all, defeating American Christianity.
The great American nation has divided at the Chinese quarter. Say what you will, that Chinese quarter in San Francisco has become the great moral divortium or water-shed of America where Christian and anti-Christian sentiment divide. On one side the Chinese workman is mobbed, excluded; on the other he is educated and led to Christ. On the one side men act for party ends and call the Chinaman a “heathen dog;” on the other they recognize him with all his infirmities as a man for whom Christ died, and call him brother. This is a tremendous responsibility we assume when we thus prejudice a fifth part of the human family against the religion of Christ.
Now, then, if we make special pleas for the Indian because we have manifestly wronged him and ought to make amends; if we are under special obligation to the freedman because we have sinned against him, or because he may become an important link between our Christianity and perishing Africa, why is not the same argument good for the Chinese on the Pacific coast? Surely, in God’s sight, these ten black years ought to be ten very bright years for the Christian schools for Chinamen in California. China ought to have at the end of that time a larger force of native missionaries trained up on the Pacific slope than all the Christian workers employed in that great empire to-day. The truth is, we are all taking one side or the other of this question. In deciding which it shall be let us keep in mind the noble sentiment of Henry Richard. Speaking on the opium question in the House of Commons, he said, “I am not ashamed to say that I am one of those who believe that there is a God who ruleth in the kingdom of men, and that it is not safe for a community, any more than an individual, recklessly and habitually to affront those great principles of truth and justice and humanity, on which, I believe, He governs the world. And we may be quite sure of this, that, in spite of our pride of place and power, in spite of our vast possessions and enormous resources, in spite of our boasted force by land and sea, if we come into conflict with that Power we shall be crushed like an egg-shell against the granite rock.”
Better still, let us listen again for the serious tone of the Divine prayer in that upper room. “I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine. And now I am no more in the world but these are in the world. Holy Father, keep them!” While the shadow of to-morrow’s cross was already darkening his path, his thought was not for himself but for them. “These are in the world,” and to be in it, to work, to choose, to suffer in it—“in the world,” and so are tempted to use the world’s tactics, tempted to lose sight of their great commission and to become callous to the world’s needs—“in the world,” and so they have to settle momentous questions—“in the world,” having to meet its pains, its storms, its falsehood, its curse, its fascinations, and so, may lose sight of the claims of thy kingdom of love: Holy Father, keep them! Keep them!
Your Committee on Finance beg leave to report that they have examined the Treasurer’s statements of receipts and expenditures and find them properly certified as correct by the auditors. Also the trial balance, and the list of trust funds, and the books of accounts are so certified.
The trust funds appear to be securely invested and wisely administered for the purposes for which they were created.
We find that the accounts of the Treasurer are carefully kept and that the control and disbursement of the current funds of the Association are conducted in a thoroughly systematic and business-like manner, with ample safeguards against error and loss.
Your Committee take pleasure in commending the wisdom, fidelity and economy of the officers and Executive Committee in the financial administration of the great trusts confided to their care.
It is gratifying to find that the expenditures of the Association have been so carefully guarded and distributed that for six consecutive years last past they have not exceeded the annual income. During this period a large indebtedness previously incurred has been wholly paid and no new indebtedness created in any department of its work.
The balance in the treasury is $789.83, after paying all bills due to September 30.
There is every reason to expect that this satisfactory condition of things will be continued through the generosity of the churches to this cause.
At the last annual meeting, your Committee on Finance recommended that the churches increase their contributions from $243,000 to $300,000 for the then current year; and the reports submitted at this meeting show that this was done within $3,000. This additional sum of $54,000 has been used partly in completing the college buildings at Talladega, Ala., and Strieby Hall, at Tougaloo, Miss. It has also greatly helped in the support of needy students, besides materially increasing the working force and general church and school efficiency.
It is worthy of remark that almost every dollar of this increased contribution has done effective work in the mission fields, since, while the receipts for the past two years have been more than $100,000 larger than in the two years next preceding them, the expense of raising and disbursing these funds and managing the affairs of the Association has increased less than $400 per annum, thus showing that the Association is fully equipped for a much larger work without additional cost for the machinery of administration. This fact constitutes a strong appeal to the benevolent who wish their gifts applied without waste or diminution to the good ends for which they are bestowed.
These more ample facilities for church and educational work bring with them larger demands for funds, so that simply to preserve its efficiency in fields already occupied the Association requires an annual increase in contributions. Besides, new demands are continually made for new foundations in different places.
From the reports and papers submitted at this meeting, we gather that $5,000 more than last year will be needed to increase the work among the Chinese in California; $20,000 more for the enlargement of the work among the Indians; $25,000 more for the support of schools and churches among the Freedmen, and $25,000 more towards the building of Smith College at Little Rock, Ark.
In view of all these facts and reasons, the urgency of which all friends of the Association will readily appreciate, your Committee recommend that at least $50,000 be added to the current income of the Association for general uses during the next fiscal year, and express the earnest hope that the further sum of $25,000 may be obtained for special purposes, making a grand total for 1882–3 of $375,000.
J. G. W. Cowles, Chairman.
REFERRED TO THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
We, the undersigned ministers and teachers, representing the work of the American Missionary Association, mainly in the State of Georgia, respectfully petition the annual meeting of the Association about to assemble at Cleveland, Ohio, that they appoint a committee of five, more or less, who shall report at the annual meeting in 1883 with reference to the policy that should govern the Association and its representatives in matters suggested by the following questions:
First. Is it the mission of the Association to work solely among the three despised races, so called, or through its work for these races to labor for the upbuilding of other people without distinction of race as rapidly as they can be brought within the sphere of its influence?
Second. Should it or should it not be the policy of the Association to establish separate churches or schools for different races?
Third. What should be the relations of comity between the Association and our other benevolent societies when undertaking to do missionary work of the same nature in the same field?
Fourth. What light, if any, is shed upon the foregoing questions by the history of the foundation and early work of the Association?
We would suggest that the committee be instructed to invite correspondence from the officers of the Association, from the officers of our other missionary societies, from all workers in the field, and from others interested, and that the report be published in the religious press at least two months before the annual meeting of 1883.
BY SECRETARY STRIEBY.
At the regular meeting of the Executive Committee of the American Missionary Association, held Sept. 11, 1882, the following resolution was adopted:
Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to invite a conference with the Am. Board respecting the advisability of transferring our African work to the Board, and assuming the work among the Indians now carried on by the Board.
In accordance with this vote a delegation from our Executive Committee, consisting of Drs. Ward and Roy, Mr. Mead and Secretary Strieby held an interview with the Prudential Committee of the American Board in Boston, Sept. 14, at which the proposed exchange was fully and fraternally considered. The Prudential Committee of the Board subsequently passed a resolution recommending to the Board the approval of the transfer, if all legal and other difficulties could be obviated. In response, the Board, at its late meeting in Portland, Oct. 3, passed the following resolution:
Resolved, That further arrangements for the Dakota Mission be referred to the Prudential Committee with power, but with the earnest recommendation that the whole mission be transferred to the care of the American Missionary Association, unless the practical difficulties shall prove to be insuperable.
On the 13th of October, a meeting was held in New York, of a special committee of the Prudential Committee of the Board, and of a special committee of the Ex. Com. of the A. M. A., in which the principles and methods, as well as the difficulties in the way of the transfer, were again considered.
The spirit of that meeting was not that of sharp bargaining in commercial values, but of an earnest desire on the part of Christian brethren, representing affiliated missionary societies to consummate an arrangement that would facilitate the upbuilding of the Redeemer’s Kingdom. Yet commercial values were canvassed. The Board has in its Indian missions, buildings for churches and schools, and other property, estimated at $36,000. The value of the properly of the A. M. A. at the Mendi Mission can be stated with less definiteness, but the buildings for churches, schools, and industrial work can hardly be worth as much as that of the Board in the Dakota Mission. But in addition to this property there is the fund from the estate of Rev. Charles Avery, for African missions. The points of difficulty suggested and discussed were: the legal authority of the Association to transfer this Avery fund; the continuance of the Mendi Mission by the Board; and its assumption of the Arthington Mission. On the first point—the transfer of the Avery fund—a legal opinion, very clear, and so far as could be judged, satisfactory, was obtained, of which the following is the decisive portion.
“Under the bequest thus given to the American Missionary Association, it cannot lawfully delegate to another the discretion which the testator has intrusted specifically to it. But it may delegate to others the execution of purposes which are approved by its discretion, and which are within the objects defined by the testator. It may employ the agency of its own officers and servants in the application of the income, or it may employ the agency of other organizations, as in its discretion may be most fit, useful and efficient in accomplishing the testator’s purposes.”
In regard to the second point, the Committee of the American Missionary Association expressed the wish that the Mendi Mission should be continued, while the representatives of the Board deemed it unadvisable, on account of the great enlargement of its African work recently entered upon; and on the third point, in like manner and for the same reasons, they thought the Board would be indisposed to assume the responsibilities of the Arthington Mission. No final settlement of these points was attempted, it being deemed necessary to wait until this annual meeting of the Association should, if it thought best, approve of the exchange of the missions, and, as the Board had done, remit to the Committee the authority to arrange details. With a view to securing such approval, I shall now proceed in behalf of the Executive Committee to give the reasons for the exchange of missions.
1. It is believed that the churches desire the exchange.
A living missionary society must have a vital connection with the churches. Thence mainly come its funds, and funds are as essential to it as to a bank or factory; yet if it get from them nothing but funds, it is no better than a bank or factory. It needs to be grounded in the confidence of the churches, and to be permeated in every branch and fibre by their piety and prayers. The wishes, therefore, of the churches as to methods as well as aims should be sought and heeded. Do the churches desire this change? That they do, I offer in evidence the effort made to that end in the National Council at New Haven. That effort was no sudden impulse originating in the mind of a single individual, and as suddenly laid aside by the Council. An elaborate report on the subject was presented and discussed at great length. It is true that the movement was not successful, yet it was full of significance, mainly from the character of those who pressed it. They were among the strongest and most influential men in the denomination. They were at the time outvoted, but their convictions were not changed, nor in so far as they were representative men is the weight of their testimony to be disregarded. Passing down to the present time, we come to the respectful resolution adopted by the Congregational Association of Ohio, asking for substantially this exchange. This resolution is not the work of foes, but of warmest friends, as our cordial invitation and reception here abundantly testify.
But the most convincing fact of all is the reception which has been given to the announcement of the proposed change. Almost unanimously comes to us the assurance that the exchange is heartily approved by the churches. I have said “almost” unanimously, for there have come to us, from a few old and tried friends, words of regret that we should abandon our work in Africa, so cherished in precious memories.
There may be more of sentiment than of sound judgment in this plea, but I beg the privilege of expressing my personal sympathy with the feelings of these old friends. When I think of the toils and sufferings of the workers in the Mendi Mission, of the buried dead there, and of the survivors now in this country, with shattered health, and when I think of the friends in this country and across the ocean who have sustained this mission by their prayers and offerings, I am frank to admit that it has cost me sleepless hours and a sore heart to yield my consent to part with it—unimportant as that consent may be. But in spite of all these sympathies and of old associations, the reasons for the exchange seem to me so conclusive as to leave no room for hesitation; and one of these strong reasons is the one I have just presented—the wishes of the churches.
2. The division will simplify the appeals in behalf of the two Boards.
It is a surprise that so many people know so little about Missionary and Benevolent Societies. This is sometimes simply amusing, as when at the recent meeting of the American Board in Portland, it is said that an agent of a railroad centering in Portland asked if the Am. Board was an “Odd Fellows’ Society”; and an intelligent looking man was overheard instructing his friend that they were “Freethinkers.” But the matter becomes serious when it results in the improper designation of bequests in wills and legacies. People that leave legacies to missionary societies are certainly interested in them, and might be supposed to know about them, but mistakes are constantly made that invalidate legacies and cause perplexity to heirs and loss to missionary treasuries. But it must be admitted that the present distribution of work and the appeals in its behalf foster the mistakes into which so many fall. Sec. Humphrey, for example, appears before a Western conference and in eloquent and earnest words presents the broad claim of the American Board, dwelling with emphasis on the remarkable openings in Africa, an almost newly discovered continent, and then calls for sympathy for the Indians now lifting up their hands to welcome the white man’s Bible instead of his whisky. Then follows Sec. Powell in his vigorous and breezy way, telling not only of the colored man in the South but of the wonderful land of his fathers, and follows this with a stirring appeal for the Indians! Is it not too much to expect of the average Christian that he should be able to separate these tangled branches and make each tree stand out before him in its own proper individuality?
But now, if the Am. Board, with its history of nearly three-quarters of a century and its noble work in all parts of the foreign field, is recognized as the sole agency of the Congregational churches for foreign missions; if the Am. Home Miss. Society, with its record of more than half a century, and with its field stretching from Maine to California, dotted all over with the monuments of its beneficial labors and filled with a vast and ever-expanding population, shall be the channel for distinctively home mission work; and if the American Missionary Association, with its peculiar and diversified educational and religious methods, shall be set apart to the work among the colored people of the South and among the whites as far and as fast as the vanishing of caste prejudice will permit, and also among the Indians and the Chinamen on the Pacific Slope, then will the distinction between the several societies be made clear, and Benevolence, which, like commercial capital, is cautious, will see before it open and distinct channels, through which it may pour its benefactions.
3. Providential indications point to the change. Missionary Societies, if vital and effective, are born of the Spirit, but developed in outer form and methods of work by providential events, and if their usefulness continues, they must not remain stagnant, but be obedient to the call of providential changes. The American Board once wisely embraced three denominations of Christians, Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed. But the growth of those denominations and of the missionary zeal in them, made it clear that each would do more good if working separately, calling out the individual responsibility of the several denominations, and the result has abundantly verified the anticipation. So, too, has the Board modified its work. The changes in its Indian missions, once reaching far South and now confined to Dakota, may be cited as an illustration, not of the Board’s fickleness, but of its wisdom.
The A. M. A. has been guided to marked changes. Its original aim was to do mission work free from all possible complications with slavery. It did not, as I understand the matter, assume that all other Boards were in favor of slavery, while it alone was opposed to it, but its founders felt that the time had come when their consciences could be no longer satisfied unless their missionary contributions and labors constituted an active and public protest against slavery. The breadth of this principle included all forms of missionary efforts, and hence the constitution of the Association provided for both home and foreign work, and in its greatest enlargement on this basis, it had about 110 home missionaries in the field, and its foreign missions extended to West Africa, Jamaica, the Sandwich Islands, Siam, the Copts in Egypt, the Indians in the United States, and the refugees in Canada. But the war changed the whole aspect of affairs for the Association. It set free the millions of slaves and gave the opportunity for reaching them directly with schools and the Gospel. The Association at once concentrated its efforts upon these people, having shortly before or soon after the war abandoned or transferred all its missions—home and foreign—except the Mendi, and this was retailed as cognate to its work among the Freedmen in this country. But now as we look back on the history of that mission, so useful up to the date when we surrendered our other foreign missions, and so comparatively unsuccessful since, we are constrained to ask if it, too, should not then have been relinquished.
Let me detail the facts: At the annual meeting in 1861, the Mendi Mission reported four stations, three outstations and seven preaching places; thirteen white missionaries on the ground, two who had just returned to America, and one under appointment—sixteen in all. Up to that date its schools and churches were prosperous, converts were added, a theological class was formed and one young man licensed to preach. And in addition to this more direct evangelical work, it has exerted a marked and happy influence in averting war among the natives, in checking the slave trade and in developing industry and commerce among the people. I find this testimony concerning a single station of the mission, that on the Boom River: “The whole trade of this river has been developed within the last ten years. It is now worth more than $40,000 a year. The coast, or slave trade to the North, has been stopped. Natives, in their own canoes, carry their produce to market, which only four years ago was bartered away for half its value. The credit for this change is due to the mission. The industry of the people has increased ten-fold through that influence.” The mission at that date was the most conspicuous work of the Association, and the account of it stands at the head of the Annual Report, and occupies seven pages. But at the close of the war, only four years later, this mission took its place at the close of the Report, occupied only a page and a half, and the sadly significant lines on that page and a half were: “The increased expense (owing to the very high rate of exchange) combined with the great demand for missionary labors among the freedmen and the absorption of young and middle-aged men in the armies of the country, has deprived the committee of the ability to reinforce the mission as it needs. For no inconsiderable portion of the year, Rev. Mr. Hinman and wife have been the only white missionaries at the mission.” For more than ten years the mission remained inadequately recruited. In 1876 we sent the loved and lamented Rev. E. P. Smith to explore the field with the view to enlargement, but, alas! he never returned to tell us the story, and his bones hallow the soil of West Africa. In 1877 we inaugurated the effort to supply the mission with the educated sons and daughters of the freedmen. From 1877 to 1881 we sent thither fourteen missionaries with five children—nineteen in all. To-day there is but one of these at the mission. Finally an effort was made to recruit the Mendi mission with well-trained colored men, but our efforts thus far have been unsuccessful. If twenty-one years ago we could have foreseen these results, could we have felt justified in going forward with the mission; and with the results now before us as history, can we hesitate to surrender it to another Board? Does not the Lord of missions seem to say to the Association: I have other work for you?
Before passing from this subject it should be stated that our experiment has been favorable as to the health of colored Americans in Africa. Of the nineteen colored missionaries sent thither since the year 1877, only three have died, one man and two women, and in none of these cases did death result directly from the effects of the climate. The retirement has in many cases been due to the ill-health of the wives. The result emphasizes the necessity of very close medical examination, especially of the women, and of maturity of judgment and character in the missionaries and of adequate preparation in study.
In 1879 Mr. Robert Arthington made to the Association the generous offer of $15,000, on condition that it would establish a mission within an area designated by him on the Upper Nile in tropical Africa. The Committee expressed gratitude to Mr. Arthington, yet feeling the responsibility of so great an undertaking, took suitable time for deliberation. Estimates were made as to the probable cost, and with all the light available, it was judged that $50,000 would equip and found the mission. The Committee then proposed to undertake the mission if our British friends would supplement Mr. Arthington’s gift with a like amount. By the efforts of the Freedmen’s Missions Aid Society this additional sum was secured, and in 1881 Rev. Mr. Ladd and Dr. Snow made a preliminary exploration, extending their trip 2,500 miles up the Nile, only to find, however, the rebellion of the fanatical Achmet in full career on the upper Nile, and barely escaping with their lives, descended the river to find the rebellion of Arabi Pasha just ready to break forth. The exploration was heroically and carefully made, and yet it showed clearly that nothing could then be done towards establishing the mission, nor can anything yet be attempted in the present disturbed condition of the Nile basin.
In the meantime the experience of the British missions, lately established in tropical Africa, shows us that a much larger sum than $50,000 would probably be needed to plant the mission; and, moreover, it has become more clear that the sud—a collection of soil and weeds—so impedes the navigation of the Nile above the mouth of the Sobat as to render access to the site specially designated for the Arthington Mission extremely difficult, uncertain, and, at times, impossible.
Under all circumstances it has become manifest that the farther prosecution of the effort to plant the Arthington Mission will involve the expenditure of greater sums of money, and the encountering of much more formidable difficulties than we had anticipated at the outset—and raises the question as to the wisdom of transferring the fund, with the possibilities of the mission, to another Board with larger resources and more experience, or of returning the money to the generous donors.
Turning now from this foreign work which the Committee are disposed to transfer, let me invite attention to the work which will be left to us, and which, in consequence of the exchange, if made, we can enlarge and prosecute with more vigor.
I begin with the work among the Freedmen. That work has been remarkably, continuously and increasingly successful. It has gone beyond the stage of experiment. It is planted firmly on lands and in permanent buildings, and still more firmly in the confidence of the colored people and in the respect of the white citizens. It has been among the most important levers for the elevation of the colored people, one of the strong influences in the settlement of our national problem, and a most effective instrument in the spread of the pure Gospel in the South. It has reached a point where it ought to be greatly enlarged. If Congress shall pass the bill appropriating ten millions of dollars annually among the States on the basis of illiteracy, it will give such a stimulus to common-school education in the South as to make a demand for teachers by the thousand where we and all other agencies supply only hundreds; it will do the preliminary work in the education of a population that will call for a much larger number of educated ministers; and it will give an uplift to the masses that will render leaders in business and professional life a necessity to their further progress and security. The munificent gift of a million of dollars by Mr. Slater will impart a grand impulse to the education of the colored people. It will doubtless render important help to many societies; it will come far short of meeting the full wants of any; and it would be a sad mistake, deprecated by no one more than Mr. Slater himself, if this great gift should weaken the sense of responsibility in others. Its greatest ultimate value will probably be in awakening other generous hearts to the fact that the work needs millions as well as hundreds and thousands. This people are generations behind the Anglo-Saxons in preparation for the duties of life, and they and their children need not only as great, but for the time being greater facilities to enable them to catch up in the race and then to march forward at even pace in the responsibilities and privileges of citizens and Christians. The time has come to push this great undertaking. The nation is aroused to it, and the American Missionary Association, so well prepared for it, needs only to be stripped of outer and foreign garments, and to enter with disencumbered hands and redoubled energy and means into the great work to which it has been so plainly called.
Nor by this concentration will the Association lose sight of Africa. It believes as much as ever that God means that the Freedmen have not only a great duty and destiny here, but that they have also a special call and fitness to bear the Gospel to the land of their fathers. In its schools and churches it will direct their attention to this field, and endeavor to inspire them with the missionary spirit. The only change will be in the hands that shall lead them to Africa and guide and cheer them on in the work there. The Association and the Board will work harmoniously and more efficiently to this great end, the one on this continent, the other on that.
The A. M. A. is prepared to do an enlarged work among the Indians. Popular consent in the churches supporting the Association has assigned to it especially the care of the colored races in America. There is a fitness in putting these together; they are alike alien to European blood: they are alike the victims of caste prejudice, and they alike need schools as well as churches. The Association has been the strenuous opponent of race oppression and caste prejudice, and has devoted itself to the varied modes of industrial, educational and church work needed by these races. They should no longer be regarded as the subject of foreign mission efforts. The Indians, for example, are the original inhabitants of the land, and the strenuous efforts of those most interested in their welfare are to induce the government to make no treaties with them as foreigners, but to bring them as rapidly as possible into the ranks of citizens, sharing the protection of law and holding lands in severalty. It is a hindrance to this desirable consummation if the Indians are treated ecclesiastically and religiously as foreigners. If the State makes them citizens the church ought certainly to regard them as “no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens.” On the other hand, no home mission board with its simple plan for aiding in the formation of churches and the support of ministers can adequately meet their wants. They need the school and the industrial training as well as the church, and these the A. M. A. is prepared to furnish and to carry forward under the light of its ample experience in the South.
The Association is no stranger to the Indian work. At one time it had twenty-one missionaries among them. It is true that its missions were abandoned in large measure and the efforts of the Association concentrated upon the South. But precious fruits are yet gathered from that neglected planting. The Association gave its hearty co-operation to the peace policy of Gen. Grant, rendering useful service to the Government and the Indians by the appointment of some good agents, a few of whom, notwithstanding all detractions and temptations, are alive and remain unto this present. It has aided in the education of Indian youth at Hampton, and the Committee had voted for the current year a much larger appropriation for Indian work. If the Board shall transfer to it the Dakota Mission, the responsibility and the call for funds may be larger than was anticipated, but if it be the call of Providence there will be no shrinking from duty.
Caste-prejudice is the curse of most of the nations yet unconverted to Christ, and a great hindrance to the Gospel. In this country it is the bitterest force left by Slavery—bitter in him who cherishes it, and in him who suffers from it. Christianity must conquer it as it did slavery—for the world. It can do this; its love can subdue the pride of the Caucasian, and its light and power uplift the negro, the Chinaman and the Indian. To the practical preaching of this love and light must the American Missionary Association devote its concentrated efforts, till all the people of this land shall come into the fellowship of the Gospel and into the glorious liberty of the children of God.