CHURCH WORK.
Report of the Committee on Church Work in the South—Abbreviated.
The annual report of the condition and work of churches in the South under the care of this Association gives occasion for gratitude and encouragement; for, while the numbers in themselves seem not large, we are to remember that the work is comparatively a recent one. In 1864 there were but four churches under the fostering care of this body; in 1869, only twenty-three; while now they have grown to sixty-seven, with 4,600 members; 745 of these members were added to the churches during the past year, and 85 per cent. of the additions were on profession of faith.
It is much to have 6,219 pupils in Sunday-schools, being drilled in the first principles of Divine truth and into a better knowledge that religion must mean righteousness. And when we remember that the 7,207 scholars in the other schools are all under positive religious influence of the sort we are accustomed to, and the 150,000 pupils taught by teachers who have been trained in the schools of the American Missionary Association are indirectly receiving something of the same influence, we must feel that the religious work of this Association in the South is a large one.
A thoroughly good work has been done during the year in “edifying the churches,” building them up into a sturdier virtue, more rational views, and a more intelligent zeal. They are evidently growing in the features of a healthy church life. At several points there has been very encouraging progress in the matter of self-help, in building churches and supporting the ministry—a point of prime importance in the development of self-respect and manly ability. There has been an awakened interest and effort in the temperance reform, aiding to correct vices which have been the Freedmen’s besetting sins. There has been a marked improvement in the homes of the colored people, influenced by the personal visitation of devout and sympathetic women who have gone South for this very purpose. Following this hint, it is suggested by some that perhaps Christian colored women, trained in our institutions, of tried discretion and tact, maybe found fitted for a similar work among their own class, and may find a large usefulness opening to them as city missionaries. These churches, too, in the expression of fellowship at formal ordinations, and in the wide-awake meetings of their seven conferences, have done something to promote that spirit of co-operation which the colored man needs to learn.
But while we must give special care to the nurture and training of these infant churches, and while it were to the last degree unwise to rush into every opening and organize new churches indiscriminately at every point where it may easily be done, it is an important question whether the time has not arrived when we may wisely do more in this direction than hitherto. We have fortified our strategic points and entrenched ourselves in educational fortresses that form a cordon of arsenals all around the field, to supply material of war. Shall we not now deploy the troops to feel the way forward, and, pushing out from our base of supplies, begin to occupy the land?
A variety of reasons easily suggest themselves for giving greater prominence to this part of the work. The educational needs of the colored race seemed to demand it. With unquestionable wisdom this Association lays chief stress upon its educational work in the South; but it should not be forgotten that the Church is a leading factor in that work. The schools help the churches. Twenty or more of the churches are in more or less close connection with the colleges and schools of this society, and they are among the best and the most flourishing. The more the negro is educated the better he likes our style of religion, and the better he makes it work.
Moreover, the young ministers we are training need them as fields. And now that we are raising up a conscientious, godly and well-instructed class of pastors, where shall they find flocks unless this Association gathers them?
Again, Dr. Strieby’s admirable paper last year showed that wherever these churches exist, the thrift and material prosperity of the colored man is greatly increased. He gains in self-respect, economy, foresight, patience. He has a better home and more money, and is every way more of a man. Now thrift is a potent civilizer, and if we would help the negro in this respect we can do it largely through the churches.
It is to such churches, too, that we may look for recruits for that great missionary work in the dark continent which now begins to open before the Christian world with such magnificent opportunity. We look for new Livingstones among our colored brethren of the South, and there is a call for them. The eyes of English missionary societies are fixed upon the open door of Africa, and it seems probable that they will want to send out and support all the well-qualified colored missionaries we can furnish. But this cannot be done unless there is a greatly increased missionary spirit among the colored people themselves; and to cultivate this missionary spirit we need more churches.
Nor will it do to excuse ourselves from this work on the plea that there are other churches in the South to which the negro, by immemorial traditions and long association, is better accustomed, and still others which may be at first more attractive to him than ours. The question is not, what would the untutored negro prefer, but what will best secure his development and help him to a nobler life and character. The other method of argument would surrender him to the Roman Catholics at once.
As a matter of fact, the introduction of these churches of the pilgrim sort is found to have worked well in two directions. It improves our somewhat frigid method to be warmed up with the African ardor; and it improves the negro to be toned down and disciplined to self-control by our methods. A sound, healthy religious life has been developed in many of our churches in ten years, which could not have been developed in fifty years in those churches where the ebullient spirit of the negro is allowed to run to riotous excess unchecked.
It is a noteworthy fact also that our churches have had a large influence upon the other churches about them. They have been recognized as presenting a higher type of piety and character. Their quiet methods of worship have made the boisterous methods of their neighbors unfashionable. Their higher moral standards have been a tonic to the conscience in the others. They have set the negroes to clamoring for an educated ministry.
While, then, we would not multiply churches for the mere sake of multiplying them, we deem the time opportune for laying new stress upon this part of the work. We would increase our constituency in the South in Christian churches which shall share with us in the work of education and in home missionary endeavor, and in the newly-opening foreign field; and we would ever remember that to elevate the negro we must keep him in the glowing presence of the cross, red with the heart’s blood of Divine love, and of the crown, which may be his as well as his white brother’s, in that great kingdom where there is neither white nor black, but where “Christ is all and in all.”
C. H. Richards,
F. P. Woodbury,
A. P. Foster,
F. Bascom,
J. F. Dudley,
D. Peebles,
U. Thompson.