Book: American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889
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Various >> American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889
* * * * *
A MINISTER'S TESTIMONY.
"I have just been reading the AMERICAN MISSIONARY for August with
profound interest. I rejoice with you that the 'figures are still
improving'.
"Your 'practical thoughtful friend' is a suggestive example for us all,
I am not surprised that this year he 'has doubled his special
contribution.' 'Nothing succeeds like success,' is true also of
achievement in bringing ourselves to give to the Lord of what he is
constantly giving to us.
"I thank God for the simple, but singular and noble justice done by that
judge and jury in Chicago who maintained the civil rights of brother
Smith.
"Mrs. Regal's paper on 'The Local Society,' seemed to me full of
excellent suggestions. One in particular, that of a birthday offering
containing a cent for every year of age, is eminently practical, and
conducive to surprising results. How better can we set up our Ebenezer
than by thus saying from our purses as well as from our hearts,
'Hitherto hath the Lord helped us'?
"Finding it is best for myself to 'strike while the iron is hot,' I sit
down at once to send you a check. The signal mercy of the Lord enables
me to make my offering of dollars instead of cents, and has put so many
benefits already into the fraction of the current year that it may be
reckoned as a complete year. How small an acknowledgment does even a
dollar seem for a year of life, with all its escapes from peril and all
its experience of good! What a refreshing addition to the resources of
the church would result if each professing Christian would give such a
birthday offering of one cent for each year of life! May the Lord fill
us all with the spirit of him who gave himself unto the death for us.
"I pray earnestly that the American Missionary Association may continue
to enlarge, and its work to prosper."
* * * * *
NOTES BY THE WAY.
BY DISTRICT SECRETARY C.J. RYDER.
White Men and Red Men.
"THE ROUND UP!
INTERESTING HIGH SCHOOL COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES LAST NIGHT."
The above was the characteristic heading in a Dakota paper of an
editorial notice of the closing exercises of their High School.
Everything takes its color from the peculiar condition of society. A
rubber overcoat is a "slicker," and a native pony is a "broncho." Not so
inappropriate, either, is the term "The Round Up," for the closing
exercises of a school year. It ought to be the round up, a complete
circle or sphere of successful work and accomplishment, so far as that
period of school-life is concerned. The white men of Dakota are changing
perceptibly, I think, in their feelings toward the red men among them,
or among whom they are. A sense of responsibility for their
Christianization seems to have taken possession of the minds of the
intelligent Christian people. One is impressed with the abundance of
church buildings in these small white settlements. In one small village
of perhaps five hundred people, I counted eight Protestant churches.
With Christian churches so numerously planted as they are in these new
Western States, we may hope for large help from them in the Indian work
of the Association, before many years. They are now falling into line in
this great work. I rode on one side of the Missouri River for many miles
among the white settlements. Afterwards I rode on the other side of the
river a long distance among the Indian villages, and could not help but
contrast the condition of life of the two. The Government relations
differ materially. If the supplies were withheld from the Indians, and
they were compelled to take land in severally, and not hustled over the
prairie every month or two weeks for meat, sugar and coffee, I think the
change for the better would be perceptible in a twelvemonth. There is
general hopefulness on the part of the missionaries among the red men,
now that two Christian men stand at the head of the Indian Department.
It was my privilege to take a cordial letter of greeting from Supt.
Dorchester of the Government Indian Schools to the A.M.A. missionaries
at Santee Agency, Neb. It was an encouragement to these earnest toilers
in this far-away field to know that there was appreciation on the part
of the Government of the Christian work among these Indians. Great care,
intense study, great deliberation of action will be necessary if these
new Government officers succeed in bettering the condition of the red
men, as they are doubtless sincerely desirous of doing. They must know
what they are doing, before they do it.
The Government schools which I visited furnished abundant evidence that
considerable time would be necessary to correct the evils existing in
these, and to make them what they should be before any radical policy
could be safely adopted by the Government in reference to contract
missionary schools. The Roman Catholic influence seems to have been a
dominant power in the control of these schools for some time.
Wolf Chief, a Mandan Indian, called on me while at Fort Berthold and
begged that his tribe be protected against a Catholic priest who, he
said, wanted to compel them to send their children to a school that he
proposed to establish near them. "We Mandans are Congregationalists,"
said this Indian chief, "and we want to send our children to your
mission."
* * * * *
Incidents both amusing and pathetic are of frequent occurrence in this
Indian work. Such incidents throw light upon the inside life of the
Indians and missionaries, and are often useful in the "Monthly Concert,"
and so I record some of them here.
"Cherries-in-the-mouth," a somewhat aged and highly-painted Indian, was
very much taken with one of the missionaries. He came to the
Superintendent of the mission and offered eight ponies for her, or, I
believe, more correctly, said he would give eight ponies, if he had
them. His affection was larger than his pocket-book, as is sometimes
true of his pale-faced brother.
* * * * *
"Plenty Corn" was a sweet little Indian girl, who attended the mission
at Fort Berthold. She had won her way wonderfully into the hearts of the
teachers, and when she died last spring, there were sorrowful hearts in
the mission, as truly as in the Indian tepee. The parents had been
reached also by the influence of the mission. They permitted the
missionary to lay the body in a coffin. The Indians took up the little
white casket and bore it to the boat in which it was to be taken across
the Missouri River. The father rowed the boat, as the mother sat on the
opposite bank waiting for her dead darling, and from the boat there went
up the piteous wailing of the father, which was echoed back from the
bank in the piteous wail of the mother. It was a sad, sad sight, and
emphasized painfully the need of Christian instruction, that the hope of
the Gospel may break through the superstitious darkness of these sad
lives.
* * * * *
ECHOES.
An old man who teaches in the country heard we had a number of
Sunday-school papers, and asked us if we had any "overtures of
Sunday-school literature" to give him.
One of the older boys was obliged to leave school to work. In the last
prayer-meeting he attended he said: "It makes me feel very sorry when I
think that next week my seat will be filled with my absence."
Another prayed that he might walk more "citcumspotly before the world."
* * * * *
"FREELY YE HAVE RECEIVED, FREELY GIVE."
(_Written for a Missionary Concert held in the interests of the A.M.A._)
So free are the gifts of heaven,
So many the blessings which fall,
That, should we attempt to count them
We could not number them all.
For God is a generous Giver.
Who sows with a liberal hand
Shall reap a bounteous harvest
And gather the fruits of the land.
For 'tis God that gives the increase,
And oft it's a "hundred fold,"
And men are reaping in many ways
Aside from lands and gold.
The blessings of home and fireside,
Of friendship, of books, of health,
Of knowledge, of church, of worship,
All these are a part of our wealth.
But off in the sunny Southland,
In a part of our country large,
Are _needs_, which with us are _blessings_,
And to us there comes this charge:--
_Freely received are God's mercies;
And now will ye freely give?_
It will be a glorious mission
To help a nation live.
BLUEHILL, ME.
M.
* * * * *
THE SOUTH
* * * * *
ITEMS FROM THE FIELD.
BY FIELD SUPERINTENDENT F.E. JENKINS.
NEW CHURCHES.
Two new Congregational churches in connection with our work completed
their organization with communion services on Sunday, September 1st.
Both were organized by Northern people who have settled in the South in
places which are likely to grow by immigration from the North. One is in
Roseland, La., and is under the pastoral care of Rev. C.S. Shattuck. It
starts with eleven members.
The other is in North Athens, Tenn., and for the present is cared for by
our general missionary, Rev. G. Stanley Pope. It begins with thirteen
members. Both will come into the regular State organizations of
Congregational churches.
The First Congregational Church of Alco, Ala., was organized August
25th, with twelve members. Rev. James Brown, a graduate of the last
theological class at Talladega College, is the pastor.
At Fort Payne, Ala., the first steps were taken August 21st toward the
organization of a church. It was voted to complete the organization as
soon as possible. Rev. Geo. S. Smith, recently of Raleigh, N.C., has
gone to Fort Payne to take charge of the work.
NEW CHAPEL.
The Plymouth Congregational Church of New Decatur, Ala., aided by the
American Missionary Association, is erecting a chapel which is to be
used as a church until the congregation shall become larger and
wealthier. This church has been organized by Northern people who have
gone to this new and growing town to make their homes. It is connected
with the Central South Association of Congregational Churches.
HYMN BOOKS WANTED.
The Plymouth Congregational Church of New Decatur, Ala., greatly needs
hymn books. It has a few copies of the "Songs of the Sanctuary," but not
enough to enable it to use them. Any church having copies of this book
which are not needed in its service could scarcely do better with them
than to send them to this courageous little church.
From Crossville, Tenn., we have this appeal: "It would be esteemed a
great favor if some church could furnish our people with a donation of
hymn books for church singing. You may know of some church having a new
supply of hymn books who would be pleased to give this poor flock on the
mountains their old books. If so, they would be thankful, and highly
appreciate the favor."
* * * * *
VACATION AT TOUGALOO.
BY FIELD SUPERINTENDENT E.S. HALL.
Awake? With the "Rat-a-tat Quir-r-k, tat-tat" of the great
crimson-crested woodpecker hammering just for noisy fun on the wide
cornice of the "mansion," with the summer sun shining in through the
window, and the five o'clock bell pealing sharply from Strieby Hall, the
seven sleepers would have to be awake and doing at Tougaloo University.
The mercury is passing the 72 deg. point at sunrise; but the morning, as the
sunshine sparkles on the dewy grass between the wide-spreading live-oaks
of the grove, seems as cool as a morning on the Berkshire hills. The
wide-rolling plantation fields to the west give no hint of the long hot
mid-day hours when the cotton revels in a heat that sends all animate
nature to the deepest coverts.
The Tougaloo grounds are a paradise for all feathered life. The quail
with their cheery "Bob White" whistle in the kitchen garden, following
in plain sight the boys hoeing out the "grass." The blue-jays, martins
and mocking birds render a trip to the Paris Exposition entirely
unnecessary, if one wishes to hear all parties talk at the same moment
and in unintelligible syllables. Curious, is'nt it, that these shy
denizens of field and forest are so bold, in term as well as vacation
time, where these colored lads and lasses congregate, for people of a
low, brutal nature, incapable of any spark of generosity or ambition,
are no friends to innocent nature. The papers that characterize the
Negro as such, a creature unfit to live in a white man's country, cannot
be blinded by prejudice!
What of the human life at Tougaloo? College is out; the teachers are in
the far North. Miss Emerson, Preceptress of the Girl's Hall; Mr.
Hitchcock, Treasurer; Mr. Klein, Superintendent of the Farm; and Mr.
Kennedy, Superintendent of Carpentry; and Mr. McKibban, borrowed from
Macon school, are present to supervise the necessary work, for Tougaloo
cannot be closed a day. With its farm and forest and its shops, it is to
become for the Southwest what Hampton is for the Eastern South. May the
Lord prompt some of his stewards to make investments here which will
bring in a ten-fold interest for the nation and for heaven!
The dining-hall shows a number of tables well filled at meal times. Most
interesting are the ten little girls whom Miss Emerson has taken to
bring up to womanhood with habits of industry and economy, and with
characters pure and joyous. Each day has its routine for them; the
bedroom, the dining-room, the kitchen, the sewing-room, the lesson hour,
the play time and the period for personal advice and religious
instruction, have their appropriate but never-forgotten place.
There are a dozen of the large girls, young women who do the washing,
"clean house," cook the daily meals and can fruit from the garden and
orchard for the Sunday-night dish of sauce during the coming year. Part
of these are girls in the regular domestic course, a few are kept to
work for their board and instruction rather than have them obliged to go
into the cotton fields at home under unscrupulous overseers. These girls
have a long, busy day, for the work needed to keep any one of the great
boarding schools in efficient operation would surprise any one of our
contributing friends who has never been "thro' the mill."
The boys--_little_ fellows some of them only seventy-two inches tall in
their bare feet--comprise the regular students in the industrial
courses; the baker, the butcher or meat boy, the irrepressible John boy
of all work about the kitchen; then the stock, the farm, the carpenter
and blacksmith apprentices, together with several kept for general help,
for work of an unusual magnitude was to be undertaken this vacation.
The Girl's Hall, a great three story building with seven thousand five
hundred square feet of ground plan, had been slowly settling into this
treacherous alluvium, which is three hundred feet deep to the first sand
and gravel, until the building was in danger of falling. Southern
contractors advised taking it down because it could not be safely
repaired. But the American Missionary Association's force was equal to
the emergency. The weight, with the resulting strains and thrusts, was
calculated. Concrete footings of sufficient area were planned, brick
piers and heavy timbering were skillfully placed, and the building will
stand stronger than new and much improved in plan.
If these youths, who pulled on the forty-eight great "jack-screws,"
lifting and blocking up the building section by section, who excavated
exactly to the surveyor's stakes, who mixed concrete and mortar, who
framed and handled the huge "hard pine" timbers, who earnestly undertook
whatever was told them--for this was new and strange work--if these
youths had not been "Negroes," the outside world would have been glad to
picture them in magazine and review.
The writer has had a long experience as master of a boy's boarding
school in the North, situated in a village which also contained a young
ladies' seminary. Had those young people been as sober and in earnest as
these dusky-skinned ones, as free from midnight mischief, how many weary
vigils would he have escaped!
The religious life at Tougaloo does not cease with term time. Two or
three young men go out to hold Sunday services in the country cabins,
the Sunday-school is full and the older ones serve as teachers, for many
children come in from surrounding fields, making a school of nearly one
hundred teachers and pupils. The young people's society meeting each
Sunday afternoon, and the prayer meetings on Sunday and Wednesday
evenings are characterized by a quiet, earnest Christianity, that would
do credit to any circle in our Northern States.
* * * * *
FROM A TEACHER IN THE TENNESSEE MOUNTAINS.
Let me tell you of the general interest manifest in several of the
counties west and north of us in attending this school. One of our
students has visited many cabins over the mountains during his vacation,
and finds school advantages very scarce and poor. He finds poverty and
degradation, and ignorance of the world and of books. Some of the people
are still using the old-time method of kindling their fires by flint and
steel instead of matches. He has met many young people who are thirsting
for books and school, has also found numbers who have struggled up
through the darkness and have become teachers in their own neighborhood,
"the blind leading the blind." Such almost invariably wish to come to
our school and say they shall be here as soon as their schools close.
Many are too poor to come. This is true of a number of young girls who
would come if they could _work_ their board or in any possible way
pay for it. Whoever will provide funds to meet the expenses of these
neglected girls, and place them in our school and prepare them for the
future duties of life, will be doing an angelic work, and in the end
will do the greatest good that can be done to this people. Very much of
the money spent for this mountain people will be the same as thrown away
if this effort is not made to educate the girls.
The natives are having their big yearly meetings and lively times
shouting and actually chasing each other in and around their log
churches to pull them to the "mourner's bench," and, in their wild
efforts, they upset stove pipes and benches. It is so much like a circus
that everybody runs to the big meetings.
* * * * *
SIGNS OF PROGRESS.
BY PRES. R.C. HITCHCOCK.
Every little while, some article giving ultra views of "The Problem,"
gets into the papers, sometimes painting a roseate-hued picture, and
again some one, who does not find people of dusky hue all angels, writes
that there is no hope; that all experiments leading to intellectual and
especially to moral elevation are failures; and that she (as one wrote)
is ready or almost ready, "to throw away the Bible and advise the
negroes to be honestly heathen."
I will indicate a few plain signs of progress. The negroes are rapidly
learning self-control. Six years ago, if a package was left in the hall
over night, there would be signs in the morning that it had been meddled
with. The contents might be all there--I have not found them greatly
given to peculation, from the first--but they did not seem to have the
power to resist the temptation to peep. Now, this is never done; a
package of any kind may be left where it is freely accessible for weeks,
and it will be untouched.
The first time a fire occurred in our neighborhood, what a panic there
was! All were screaming and tearing about, trunks were dragged out of
rooms, and one boy threw his out of a second story window. It was all we
could possibly do to quiet them and restore order. Since then, there has
been a fire so near as to scorch the rear fence and no panic, no
screaming, hardly a student left his room. Formerly, on the receipt of
bad news, as the intelligence of the death of a friend, it was not
uncommon for one to have a fit of hysterics or something resembling it;
now, such news is received with deep feeling indeed, and with tears, but
no hysterics or fit of any kind.
There is, also, a grand growth in the sister virtue of gratitude. In
this, they have more to overcome, probably, than in any other matter,
for here they carry an inheritance of great weight, from the old slave
days. Why should they be grateful? What chance to exercise the feeling!
It became, like the eyes of the fish in the Styx of Mammoth Cave,
useless, and to all appearances disappeared. But the germ is there, and
with light it will again come to the surface.
I could cite scores of anecdotes. I will give but one, and I give this
because it also illustrates a most loveable trait of character which
abounds among these people--sympathy for suffering. Mrs. H. and myself
started one day, to drive from New Iberia to the Avery salt mine, some
ten miles distant. It was Monday following a hard Sunday's work
speaking; it was as hot as days can be out in the Teche country, and
when a little more than half way there, I was suffering from a terrific
headache. We were too far to go back, and so drove on. Arrived at the
"Island," we drove, as directed, to the boarding house, seeking a place
where I could at least lie down, to find only a shed filled with tables,
where the men ate, going elsewhere to sleep. I asked Mrs. H. to drive on
and, holding on behind the carriage, was groping my way along, more dead
than alive, when I heard a voice cry out, "Why, howdy, Professor, how
ever came you here?" Glad was I to hear a friendly voice. It was that of
a young girl who had been, some months before, a visitor at the
University, and to whom I had given a little book and spoken some
friendly words. My bread came back to me--a whole loaf for a crumb. All
day long, she and her mother, who left her wash tub to attend to me,
worked over my miserable head. A mile and more she ran in the burning
sun for ice, and no herb that grew on "Petit Anse" from which a
decoction could be made, was left untried, until ice, herbs, and a tough
constitution prevailed, and I was able to ride home. I offered pay, but
it was almost indignantly refused. I wish space would allow me to tell a
hundred stories to illustrate their kind-heartedness, not only to each
other, but to strangers, and even to their old masters and mistresses.
Their Christian faith is something wonderful. It has been my blessed
privilege to be at the bedside of several young people as the death
angel hovered near, and nowhere did I ever feel so near the pearly
gates. Such pure faith and perfect confidence, such perfect resignation,
one could almost hear the rustle of the wings as Azrael bent down to
take the sweet spirit home.
They have gained much in stability of character. Frivolity and silly
nonsense are not the rule. Our boys and girls who go out to teach, carry
a load of responsibility with them. Some of the parishes have been
almost entirely transformed by their work. Three of our boys last summer
built the school houses in which they taught, the people contributing
time, lumber and money, and they are the _only_ school houses in the
State, outside of the large towns, that were built for, or are fit for,
the purpose. Two of them have halls above for meetings, are fitted up
with blackboards, desks, etc. The stories our boys tell of their efforts
to introduce modern appliances and methods, remind me of those I used to
hear from the old veterans Barnard, Camp, and others, of their struggles
in the early days in Connecticut.
They have grown in cleanliness and industry beyond expression. When I
first came here, it was sometimes harder to get a bit of work done than
to do it myself. Now, it is a pleasure to work with them.
In nothing, perhaps, has there been so great a gain as in the habit of
reading. The progress in this is simply astonishing, and cannot be
described in a few words. Seven years ago, there was hardly a reader in
the school. Now, many of our young people come to my library and,
looking over my books, talk of them and their authors as intelligently
as young people of the same age in Massachusetts would.
I conclude by saying that, in this far-away corner, God has greatly
blessed the efforts made by faithful teachers, and there is every cause
for encouragement and hope.
* * * * *
OBITUARY.
Another of our educated, consecrated and useful colored pastors has
passed away. Rev. Welborn Wright, pastor of the Second Congregational
Church of Lawrence, Kansas, died at his home, August 14th, of
consumption. He was born in South Carolina, and had been pastor of the
church in Lawrence over six years. He was a man of thought, earnest in
his convictions, and had acquired a large influence over his own people.
His church had prospered greatly under his care.
He won the esteem of the white people. Two years ago he was elected a
member of the Board of Education of the city, and proved himself to be a
man of good judgment in practical affairs. His funeral was attended by
Rev. Dr. Cordley, Rev. R.B. Parker and Rev. A.N. Richards. He was
Secretary of the Minister's Meeting of Lawrence, and resolutions of warm
commendation and sympathy for his family were passed by that body, and
also by the Board of Education of Lawrence.