Vol. XXXII.
No. 2.
THE
AMERICAN MISSIONARY.
“To the Poor the Gospel is Preached.”
FEBRUARY, 1878.
CONTENTS:
| EDITORIAL. | |
| Paragraphs | [33] |
| Gifts from the Field | [34] |
| African Evangelization | [35] |
| Life of Edward Norris Kirk, D.D. | [36] |
| News from the Churches | [37] |
| Central South Conference—Is the Negro Dying Out? | [38] |
| African Emigration | [39] |
| Indian Notes | [41] |
| Chinese Notes | [43] |
| NEW APPOINTMENTS. | |
| The Southern Field | [44] |
| Among the Chinese—Among the Indians—Mendi Mission, West Africa | [48] |
| AFRICA. | |
| Our New Missionaries | [48] |
| Kaw Mendi, Sherbro, W. Africa. Rev. J. M. Williams | [49] |
| COMMUNICATIONS. | |
| Poetry. “Christ in the Person of the Poor.”—Replacing the Burned Buildings | [50] |
| Campaign in Massachusetts. Dist. Sec’y Powell, of Chicago | [51] |
| American Missionary Association. From the Fisk Expositor | [53] |
| THE CHILDREN’S PAGE | [54] |
| RECEIPTS | [55] |
| CONSTITUTION | [59] |
| WORK, STATISTICS, WANTS, &c. | [60] |
NEW YORK:
Published by the American Missionary Association,
Rooms, 56 Reade Street.
Price, 50 Cents a Year, in advance.
A. Anderson, Printer, 28 Frankfort St.
American Missionary Association,
56 READE STREET, N. Y.
PRESIDENT.
Hon. E. S. TOBEY, Boston.
VICE PRESIDENTS.
| Hon. F. D. Parish, Ohio. Rev. Jonathan Blanchard, Ill. Hon. E. D. Holton, Wis. Hon. William Claflin, Mass. Rev. Stephen Thurston, D. D., Me. Rev. Samuel Harris, D. D., Ct. Rev. Silas McKeen, D. D., Vt. Wm. C. Chapin, Esq., R. I. Rev. W. T. Eustis, Mass. Hon. A. C. Barstow, R. I. Rev. Thatcher Thayer, D. D., R. I. Rev. Ray Palmer, D. D., N. Y. Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, D. D., Ill. Rev. W. W. Patton, D. D., D. C. Hon. Seymour Straight, La. Rev. D. M. Graham, D. D., Mich. Horace Hallock, Esq., Mich. Rev. Cyrus W. Wallace, D. D., N. H. Rev. Edward Hawes, Ct. Douglas Putnam, Esq., Ohio. Hon. Thaddeus Fairbanks, Vt. Samuel D. Porter, Esq., N. Y. Rev. M. M. G. Dana, D. D., Ct. Rev. H. W. Beecher, N. Y. Gen. O. O. Howard, Oregon. Rev. Edward L. Clark, N. Y. | Rev. G. F. Magoun, D. D., Iowa. Col. C. G. Hammond, Ill. Edward Spaulding, M. D., N. H. David Ripley, Esq., N. J. Rev. Wm. M. Barbour, D. D., Ct. Rev. W. L. Gage, Ct. A. S. Hatch, Esq., N. Y. Rev. J. H. Fairchild, D. D., Ohio. Rev. H. A. Stimson, Minn. Rev. J. W. Strong, D. D., Minn. Rev. George Thacher, LL. D., Iowa. Rev. A. L. Stone, D. D., California. Rev. G. H. Atkinson, D. D., Oregon. Rev. J. E. Rankin, D. D., D. C. Rev. A. L. Chapin, D. D., Wis. S. D. Smith, Esq., Mass. Rev. H. M. Parsons, N. Y. Peter Smith, Esq., Mass. Dea. John Whiting, Mass. Rev. Wm. Patton, D. D., Ct. Hon. J. B. Grinnell, Iowa. Rev. Wm. T. Carr, Ct. Rev. Horace Winslow, Ct. Sir Peter Coats, Scotland. Rev. Henry Allon, D. D., London, Eng. Wm. E. Whiting, Esq., N. Y. |
| J. M. Pinkerton, Esq., Mass. | |
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.
Rev. M. E. STRIEBY, 56 Reade Street, N. Y.
DISTRICT SECRETARIES.
Rev. C. L. WOODWORTH, Boston.
Rev. G. D. PIKE, New York.
Rev. JAS. POWELL, Chicago, Ill.
EDGAR KETCHUM, Esq., Treasurer, N. Y.
H. W. HUBBARD, Esq., Assistant Treasurer, N. Y.
Rev. M. E. STRIEBY, Recording Secretary.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
|
Alonzo S. Ball, A. S. Barnes, Edward Beecher, Geo. M. Boynton, Wm. B. Brown, |
Clinton B. Fisk, A. P. Foster, Augustus E. Graves, S. B. Halliday, Sam’l Holmes, |
S. S. Jocelyn, Andrew Lester, Chas. L. Mead, John H. Washburn, G. B. Willcox. |
COMMUNICATIONS
relating to the business of the Association may be addressed to either of the Secretaries as above.
DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS
may be sent to H. W. Hubbard, 56 Reade Street, New York, or, when more convenient, to either of the branch offices, 21 Congregational House, Boston, Mass., 112 West Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. Drafts or checks sent to Mr. Hubbard should be made payable to his order as Assistant Treasurer.
A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member.
Correspondents are specially requested to place at the head of each letter the name of their Post Office, and the County and State in which it is located.
THE
AMERICAN MISSIONARY.
Vol. XXXII.
FEBRUARY, 1878.
No. 2.
American Missionary Association.
We desire to express our grateful appreciation of the kind notices with which “The Missionary” in its new form has been received, especially by the newspapers edited under Congregational auspices. Their relations to us have always been of the pleasantest, and their readiness to do us favors has been a constant help and encouragement. May their circulation never grow less!
We are daily receiving enclosures of twenty-five cents, as payment for the Missionary for 1878. We trust that the receipt of the January number, and the present form of the magazine, will monthly remind our friends that a quarter of a dollar only pays for half a year. Please send the other quarter, all who have made this mistake.
The Belleville Avenue Congregational Church of Newark, N. J., and the Congregational Church at Mount Carmel, Conn., have already accepted our proposition to send 100 copies of the Missionary for the year to one address for $30.00. Other churches and neighborhoods are canvassing for it; who will go and do likewise? We want readers, and those who pay something for the magazine will read it. A letter, enclosing his subscription, from a Presbyterian minister, says that he can secure the information he desires in regard to the Southern field and work from no other source.
We welcome with special pleasure to our table, the first number of the Fisk Expositor, published at Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., from which we give an extract on another page. It is an additional witness to the devotion and enterprise, with which our professors and teachers are working in all directions, to extend their influence for the information and enlightenment of those among whom they labor. This is another of a group of such publications, among which are the Southern Workman, of Hampton, the Southern Sentinel, of Talladega, and the Straight Occasional, of New Orleans. They are full of information as to the work of these institutions, and of valuable discussions of topics of interest and importance to the colored people of the land.
SMALL GIFTS.
We cited in the Missionary for January a number of large gifts from wealthy men and women, to relieve from debt the Missionary Boards of various churches, as worthy examples to some of the men of liberal heart and means who are in especial sympathy with our work for the lowly. We still have hope that such, alone or in combination, will do great things for us, and make us glad, in freeing us from accumulated but already diminishing indebtedness.
Meanwhile, to enable us to carry on our constantly increasing work, it may not be needless to address this word to those who cannot give large sums from a large store of good, but who, out of their moderate incomes and limited means, have been in the habit of sending us smaller amounts.
Dear friends, after all, it is on you that we depend. If you will look through our list of receipts from month to month, you will see how large a proportion of it all comes to us in little sums—a few dollars here and a few dollars there. You must not fail us, then. We cannot afford to give up the large contributors, perhaps; still less the small ones. Sometimes, when it has gone abroad that such an one has given his five, ten or twenty thousand dollars, the givers of five, ten or twenty dimes are checked for a while in the flowing of their generosity. Because there was a heavy rain yesterday, the dews will not form to-night. The suggestion of plenteous supplies goes abroad because of one large receipt, and the small sums seem so very small to the givers as they compare them with the large ones.
But, after all, good friends, a deluge of beneficence only comes once in a great while. Our bow of promise of unfailing resources is formed upon the drops of your steady giving. Forty days and forty nights the Deluge lasted; but, for forty years, each morning, “when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small, round thing...on the ground”—it was the daily bread of Israel. So your gifts—if they be only “small, round things,” the dimes and quarters, the ancestral dollars—are the gifts to which we look for the maintenance of the great host which we are trying to lead from the bondage of ignorance and sin to the liberty of intelligence and Christ.
There has been coming into our treasury during the last month a class of offerings for the debt, which have a peculiar and almost pathetic significance. They are the gifts from the Southern field—from the teachers and pupils in our institutions, from the pastors and people of our poor colored churches; one from a Band of Hope, one from a Sisters’ Benevolent Association. One Sunday-school agrees to take a monthly five-cent collection from its 200 members, and hopes to send $10.00 a month. The Avery Normal Institute at Charleston. S. C., and the Chattanooga Band of Hope gave each a holiday entertainment, and sent us, the one $38.60, and the other $50.00, for the debt, “as tokens of love and respect from a grateful people.” We believe the original suggestion was made by Rev. G. S. Pope, of Tougaloo, Mississippi. The amounts have varied from over one hundred to three dollars, and are accompanied with hearty expressions of kind and grateful feeling.
A missionary, who has devoted the last ten years to work among the freedmen, writes: “I think the story of these Christmas gifts from the South toward the A. M. A. debt, ought to bring ten-fold from the North. I tell you, boys and girls here have given their five cents, dimes, quarters and half-dollars, who have hardly decent or sufficient clothing to wear.”
One old and poor colored member of one of the churches said: “I will give a dollar for that, if I have to go without meat and bread for a week.” A teacher writes: “Would that the history could be written of every dime and ‘nickel’ of this offering, which comes from old men and women, youths and maidens, and little children in their rags, to the A. M. A., which God has ordained as a channel of blessing to the colored race in the South and their fatherland.” Such gifts are sacred, by the sacrifices of which they are the fruits, and by the spirit of loving devotion to which they testify.
PROVIDENTIAL PREPARATIONS FOR AFRICAN EVANGELIZATION.
It is a significant fact that God moves His providences on parallel lines. One great event is made to match another. The supply and the demand spring up together, as the following circumstances, with many others, illustrate:
In 1855, Mr. Charles Avery gave $100,000 worth of property to this Association, to constitute a perpetual fund for charitable use, in sending the Gospel and the blessings of civilization to the colored people on the continent of Africa. Almost simultaneously, Burton and Speke made known to the world the fact that the heart of Africa, instead of being a wild waste, possessed a wonderful lake system, a most fertile country, and millions upon millions of vigorous and interesting people.
At a later day, Mr. Stanley visited these lakes, and made an appeal for missionary effort, which was answered by a response as liberal as the donation of Mr. Avery; and as a result, the Church Missionary Society of England is sustaining a mission at Uganda, in Mtesa’s Kingdom.
When Dr. Livingstone was in the heart of Africa, he wrote: “Come on, brethren, to the real heathen. You have no idea how brave you are till you try.” His words were caught up, and the story of his explorations, devoured with eagerness, resulted in the establishment of three missions at least, far in the interior. More than $60,000 was given for the establishment of Livingstonia, on the Nyassa Lake. A large amount was also given for the University’s Mission in the same vicinity, and $25,000 by Mr. Arthington, of Leeds, to the London Missionary Society, for the purpose of establishing a mission at Ujiji, on the shores of the Tanganyika.
To this latter amount was added a sum sufficient for sending forth a full corps of missionaries to that locality, and recent reports warrant the hope that they have already reached their destination.
Perhaps no more striking illustration of the parallelisms we have suggested has been exhibited, than the one recently brought to our knowledge by the report of Mr. Stanley’s explorations, and the doings of the Baptist Missionary Society of London.
Last May, this Society received a letter, stating, “There is a part of Africa on which I have long had my eye. It is the Congo country. There is not much knowledge of the Christian religion in the Congo. Only three or four of its inhabitants can read and write. The language of the coast is the original African. The old king has strongly expressed his hopes that some white men would come to them. It is, therefore, a great satisfaction, and a high and sacred favor to me, to offer £1,000 if the Baptist Missionary Society will undertake to teach these interesting people the words of eternal life. By and by, possibly, we may be able to extend the mission eastward, and carry the Gospel, as the way may open, as far as Nyangwe.”
While this letter was being penned, Mr. Stanley was pushing his way from Nyangwe, through a vast unexplored region, to the mouth of the Congo, having overcome the obstacles which had baffled Dr. Livingstone and Commander Cameron, who attempted the same explorations, from the same point of departure.
It is to be remembered, also, that there have been other forces affecting Africa, parallel to these gifts, and explorations and missions. Fervent prayers of faith have been offered for its redemption, and many things indicate that these are being speedily answered.
“I go,” said Dr. Livingstone, in his last public utterance, before leaving England, “to open the door to Central Africa. It is probable I may die there; but, brethren, I pray you see to it that the door is never again closed.”
It requires no great reach of faith to apprehend that the time has fully come when the words of the risen Saviour may become our assurance respecting tropical Africa—“Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it.”
LIFE OF EDWARD NORRIS KIRK, D. D.
The appearance of this biography renews our remembrance of the honored man whose life and work is chronicled so well by his former pupil and friend, Rev. David O. Mears. As the President of the American Missionary Association for nearly ten years—from 1865 until death sundered the relation—it is fitting that there should be a notice of this published record of his career in the organ of the Association.
Dr. Kirk was born in New York City, was graduated from Princeton College, and pursued legal studies for a year and a half, living a life which he characterizes as profligate. His conversion, after a severe struggle, was complete, and the purpose of his life was utterly changed. He immediately devoted himself to preparation for the ministry of the gospel.
Handsome, gifted and ardent, he at once took a leading position. His two pastorates, at Albany and in Boston, were full of fruitfulness. While yet a pastor, he did the work of an evangelist, with a power and success which has been seldom paralleled. He was a direct and pungent preacher, sometimes, as in Albany, stirring up opposition, and yet wonderfully tender and conciliating in his manner, and so gaining friends even from those who antagonized him.
He was always a reformer, but a radical only in the best sense. He spoke manfully of the slave, and of the possibilities of the African race, in 1820, when only in his eighteenth year, a student at Princeton. Not until much later was he in sentiment an Abolitionist. He was never a denunciator. In opposing a false system, he made all charitable allowance for those involved in it, and was careful to recognize the fact that there were slaveholders who became or continued such that they might protect and benefit the slave. In the summer of 1860 and in the spring of 1861, when the South was peculiarly sensitive, Dr. Kirk was traveling in Virginia, North Carolina and beyond, expressing his sentiments frankly, and yet so courteously and wisely that he was always met with kindness.
In 1865, when the emancipation of the slaves had opened to the A. M. A. the work of their instruction and Christianization, Dr. Kirk was chosen its President, as a man representing its aim and spirit most fully. His sympathy with its work was deep and earnest, and continued to the end.
But this was not a specialty. He was equally earnest in the cause of Foreign Missions, of work among the Roman Catholics, of Education (as shown by his interest in Amherst College and the Mount Holyoke Seminary), of Temperance, and of evangelistic work at home.
So far as the memoir reveals the secret of his power, it seems to have been a rare combination of fearlessness and tact—the courage which comes from deep conviction, and the tact which comes from a loving sympathy with men, and a real sweetness of disposition. But more than all, it shows him as a man who walked with God in reverential yet familiar intercourse—who realized that the Lord Jesus was indeed with him always, and whose prayers were in accord with the resolution of his early life—“I intend hereafter, in my prayers, to converse with God, and not make speeches before Him.”
Such lives are powerful in their influence while they are with us, and profitable in their instruction when we have only the record of them to read.
NEWS FROM THE CHURCHES.
Sand Mountain, Ala.—This church has no pastor. Sunday services kept up by the reading of sermons; does not sustain a prayer-meeting or Sunday-school. The church is composed of white people, all from the North. A day-school, numbering fifteen, is sustained in connection with the church.
Selma, Ala.—Rev. Fletcher Clark, pastor, reports the field as encouraging, with earnest workers in the church. The meetings are well attended. The church is very strong in favor of temperance, and against the use of tobacco, as compared with the other churches in vicinity. Sabbath-school flourishing. An earnest effort is making in behalf of the young men. A very encouraging feature of the work here is a Woman’s Prayer-meeting, which meets once a week.
Atlanta, First, Ga.—Rev. S. S. Ashley, pastor. Several additions during the year. Large proportion of the church, heads of families, also in the Sabbath-school, which numbers about 275. The church has adopted the plan of “Envelope Collections,” and finds it increases the amount of collections.
Byron, Ga.—This church has been supplied, during the year, by Bro. H. Watkins. The church holds its own, and still sustains the mission-school at Powersville.
Macon, Ga.—Rev. M. O. Harrington, pastor. This church has not been in a very good condition for two or three years past; their church and school building have been burned during the year past, and consequently they are much broken up. A new building is nearly completed, and much hope is felt that the church will take a “new departure” in Christian earnestness and godly living. The school sustained in connection with the church is in as prosperous a condition as could be expected under the circumstances.
Marietta, Ga.—Rev. T. N. Stewart, pastor. This church was organized February 8, 1877; now numbers 21. The Sabbath-school averages 20.
Chattanooga, First, Tenn.—Rev. T. Cutler, pastor. This church is in good condition, though the Young People’s Meeting has been given up. The Band of Hope prosperous; a Mother’s Meeting is held once a month; Sabbath-school, 175.
Nashville, Union, Tenn.—Rev. H. S. Bennett, pastor, is connected with Fisk University. The church is composed almost entirely of students. A hopeful feeling manifest.
Golding’s Grove, Ga.—“The condition of the church spiritually is pretty good. The presence of the good Spirit has been felt in our midst, and we have gathered some of the fruit. At our last communion season, which was on the last Sabbath in November, six joined with us, five by confession of faith. Three of these five were very old persons; one eighty odd years of age. The old man’s experience was full of useful lessons, and it seemed as though we could almost see the long, patient love of God toward sinners, as he sat and told of a wasted life, and, with tears in his eyes, sorrowed for his sins. There is much interest in our midst still.”
Savannah, Ga.—“We received six new members into our church last week, two by letter and four by profession.”
Hampton, Va.—“We are still favored with the influences of God’s Spirit in the conversion of souls. These influences, with which we were so richly blessed the last school year, did not end with the year, but in some instances bore fruit unto life during the long summer vacation, and, since the beginning of the new school year, have been manifested in turning heavenward the thoughts and steps of one and another of our pupils. Four united with the church on the first Communion Sabbath of the year, and at least as many more are expecting to make a public profession of their faith in Christ on the coming Sabbath.
“Another item of interest is the increase of the missionary spirit, and we trust that the reflex influence of the one who has gone as a missionary to Africa, will be more and more richly blessed to those still in the school, quickening them to corresponding works of faith and love. Such certainly should be the result.”
THE CENTRAL SOUTH CONFERENCE.
At the recent meeting of the Central South Congregational Conference, the minutes of which have just been laid on our table, the following resolutions were passed:
On the subject of Education, it was
Resolved, That education is a matter of prime importance, and that it is the duty of all our churches to advance the cause by contributions, by sending promising young persons to the schools within their reach, and in every other way.
Resolved, That the necessity for aid from the North is still pressing, and that the American Missionary Association be requested and urged to continue its assistance in this direction.
In regard to Church Extension the following resolution was passed, viz.:
That the needs of the churches represented in this Conference call for the appointment of a man of wisdom and experience to be a Missionary Superintendent, whose labors should be first directed toward establishing, upon a firm basis, the churches already organized; and next toward selecting promising and needy fields for planting new churches and directing our young ministers in opening such fields.