ALABAMA SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONVENTION.
Young Man with Backbone—Refreshing Gathering.
PROF. GEO. N. ELLIS, TALLADEGA.
We have just returned from the Fifth Annual Conference of the Congregational Churches of Alabama and the first meeting of the State Sunday-school Association held at Selma.
This Association was organized only last year at Montgomery, so this was our first gathering. We had a glorious, a soul-stirring time. The Convention opened Friday evening, March 26th, with a sermon by President DeForest of Talladega.
I summarize reports as follows:
Thirteen schools were represented by delegates, four by written reports, one by letter; their aggregate shows over thirteen hundred teachers and scholars in attendance, seventeen hundred volumes in libraries, one hundred and eighty dollars raised, and one hundred conversions. This does not include the schools taught by our students through the summer, although they are really a part of our work. This brief sentence gives no idea of the interest with which these reports were given and received, or of the amusing or touching incidents connected with the giving.
Mission Schools.—It will not do to pass these by unnoticed. It is marvelously surprising how quickly the love of Christ, once received into their own hearts, inspires this people to go out and seek for others.
We have three such schools about Talladega. Selma and Mobile report one each. Childersburg has a county association.
The superintendent of the mission school at Selma gave an interesting account of his experience in organizing and conducting it. By the way, he is the young man recently mentioned in the Advance, who refused a position, worth $25 per month, in a store, because whiskey was sold there, which he might sometimes have to handle. It takes moral backbone in this country to stand up for temperance. I learned something of this young man’s history. He is making every effort to educate himself and at the same time partially supports a widowed mother with her large family. He will make his mark in the world; moreover, what he is as to character is largely due to the faithful efforts of a patient teacher.
A large number of visitors were present; among them Rev. Mr. Woodsmall, Principal of the Baptist School at Selma, and others, many of whom favored us with short addresses, which were spirited, enthusiastic and pointed.
We feel that we may fairly call our first convention a success in numbers, exercises, interest and results.
Busy Days—Health-talks—“Major Ann.”
MISS M. J. ADAMS, MONTGOMERY.
It often seems as if our work grew upon our hands, so that we have no time to tell about it; with our nearly 400 pupils, with all the cases of discipline that must arise, with interviews with parents and visits to their homes, in addition to the full hours of school given to instruction; then the school prayer-meetings, the special meetings for Bible study, the Young Men’s Association of the school—a condition of membership of which is a pledge to abstain from the use of tobacco,—and the semi-monthly meeting of the Woman’s Missionary Society, which we have of late devoted to “Health-talks.”
At our last meeting I sent an invitation to the mothers of our pupils to come to the school-room on Monday at four o’clock. A large number responded, and we gave them such instruction as we could, regarding things they so much need to know for themselves, their children, and their homes. The women listened earnestly, and begged for another meeting of the kind.
We set apart a portion of the day of prayer for colleges for appropriate exercises, and had a solemn meeting. Since that day, some have been seeking Jesus. Our hearts are specially cheered with the evident sincerity of two promising young men, who, we trust, are now entering upon the new life.
We have a weekly school prayer-meeting, and meet on Tuesday nights such pupils as we think will be specially helped in a small social meeting.
I must tell you a little about “Aunt Ann,” a member of my Sunday-school class, who has just died. She was in many respects a remarkable woman. Of a giant frame, of strong practical common sense, an imperious will, a contentious and often a bitter spirit, her life full of tribulation, it was, indeed, a warfare. She was quite a politician, and very fond of public speaking, so that she was known throughout the city, by both the white and colored people, as “Major Ann.”
She had learned to read in her old age, and had a great love for the word of God. She always had her Bible by her in her market-stall, and never failed of being in her place in the class, with her lesson well learned, and at every Sunday-school concert or Christmas festival she must say her “speech.” During the last of the year I noticed with how much more of a tender and quiet spirit she enjoyed the truths of the lesson, especially those about Heaven. When visited during her long and painful sickness, she always called for the reading of the 5th chapter of Revelation, adding, “Read it right, for I shall know if you make one mistake.” That chapter and the repetition of the twenty-third Psalm were a sure comfort to her in her suffering, poverty, and loneliness.
Major Ann’s dying message to me was, “Meet me in glory; meet me at the first trump.”
