OUR ANNUAL MEETING.
The Thirty-third Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association will be held in the First Congregational Church (Rev. Dr. Goodwin’s), Chicago, Illinois, commencing October 28th, at 3 p. m. The Annual Sermon will be preached by Rev. R. S. Storrs, D. D., of Brooklyn, N. Y., service commencing at half-past seven in the evening. A paper on the Chinese question will be presented by Rev. J. H. Twichell, of Hartford, Connecticut; one on the Necessity of the Protection of Law for the Indians, by Gen. J. H. Leake, United States District Attorney, Chicago, Illinois. Other papers and addresses on timely and important subjects will be presented by able writers, the announcement of which will be given in the daily press at an early date.
Parties desiring entertainment during the meeting will write, by or before October 8th, to H. G. Billings, Esq., 242 South Water Street, Chicago.
It will be seen that our communications from the Southern field are very limited this month. It is, of course, the time of vacation in all our Southern institutions, except a few of the public schools, to the support of which we are contributing, and from which we hear mainly through the larger schools of which their teachers are pupils or graduates. Soon the wheels will begin to revolve again, we trust, with greater effectiveness than ever before.
A confidential word from the Editor to the members of the missionary and teaching force who occasionally write to the Missionary.—Your communications are always read in the most kindly and interested spirit. Their contents are always noted, and if they contain any incident or item which even perhaps may be of general interest to our readers, we use it. Do not be too greatly disappointed or grieved at us if we do not always use them in the form in which they are sent. There are many things which must be weighed in the make-up of a magazine which no one but those who see it all can even know. The Editor’s basket is not a waste basket, even when it receives MSS., for they do not go into it unread, nor do we mean to let any wheat get lost among the chaff, although doubtless we occasionally do. Sometimes an article must be squeezed into an item or be squeezed out. Please keep writing, then, not for your local audience, but for all; or, if you please, as though it were meant for the Editor’s ear alone. Don’t be disappointed—much more, don’t be angry, if all you write does not get into print. And don’t promise anybody, that a certain thing you send will appear in the Missionary; for, after all, the Editor who must decide is in the New York office.
Prof. A. K. Spence and wife arrived in August by steamer “Bolivia,” from an absence of a year in their native Scotland. They have been for ten years connected with Fisk University, and have resumed their work in that institution. By their visit they have been greatly refreshed in health. They have been constantly engaged in private and public effort to interest their Scottish people yet more in our work as related to the Christianization of Africa. With their territorial and commercial interest in that dark continent, British Christians are all the more disposed to care for the religious welfare of the inhabitants of that country. The many friends at the West who have heard the familiar talks of Mrs. Spence, will be prepared to believe that her recital of the Freedman’s story to the sisters of her motherland was greatly acceptable.
Prof. Spence’s mother, who, at the age of eighty-five, recently contributed to the Independent a poem on George McDonald, whom she had known from his childhood, sent on the fee for her article to the treasury of the A. M. A.
Revivals in Summer Time.—The people of the North, who are apt to be under the respite of vacation at this season of the year, and who are addicted to special efforts for the promotion of revivals in the Winter time, are sometimes surprised to hear of such movements at the South during the heat of Summer. At first it seems quite creditable to the piety of our colored brethren that they should warm up to such service in dog days. But the reason for selecting this season for such service is the same as that which at the North locates it in the Winter. That is the slack time of the year. The corn and the cotton have been laid by, and now there is leisure before the time comes for picking and harvesting. The Association of South-west Texas meets at the middle of July, and refuses to fix any other date for assembling, desiring to use that “set time” for some revival effort, and expecting to bless the entertaining church in that way. We are hearing that nearly all of our churches in the South have been making more or less of special effort.
The Southern Sentinel, a monthly, published at Talladega College, under the new management of Prof. Geo. N. Ellis, editor, and P. P. Green (one of the students), publisher, is taking on more of freshness and of force. A department of agriculture has been added. This will be of great value. In this we see the hand of the farm superintendent, Mr. Atkinson, who went down from Olivet College to help on in this part of the Talladega movement.
“What is that to thee? Follow thou me.”—This response of the Master to Peter’s inquiry about the lot of John indicates the measure of consecration requisite on the part of those who are called to this missionary work among despised classes. It is an unquestioning, an unconditional obedience that is needed. One may say: “Others are staying at home and having easy times.” What is that to thee? “Down there we may be sneered at and treated like pariahs.” What is that to thee? “It was easy up North to have been an abolitionist, but to go and put yourself down by the side of and underneath the outcast ex-slave to try to raise him up, that is another thing.” What is that to thee? Follow thou me. Follow my call; follow my example in caring for “these my brethren.” Sympathy with the Saviour in His love for souls, in His self-forgetfulness while winning lost men to His Gospel, is the first qualification for this Christly work. It was a rigid scrutiny that set aside the few men that were to gain the victory of the Lord at the hand of Gideon. A like carefulness of selection is necessary in this holy war. It would enlist only those who give themselves to its cause with such alacrity that they stop not for personal ease, but who lap their drink.
But the reward of those who thus follow the Divine Leader in this service is quick and ample. They are a happy set of folks. They love their work; they love their people; they have joy in their calling; in this they are like returned foreign missionaries.
A Worker at Rest.—Mrs. Anna M. (Day) Peebles departed this life at Dudley, N. C., on the 28th of August. Educated at Oberlin, she had been one of our teachers in the Washington School at Raleigh, N. C., serving also as teacher and leader of music. Something over a year ago she was married to Rev. David Peebles, of Dudley, N. C., where she took charge of the school, becoming greatly successful and beloved in the same. Excelling as a teacher, enthusiastic in the missionary aspect of her work, and winsome among her associates and pupils, her loss to our cause is greatly felt.