OUR ENLARGED WORK.
We have been saying for a long time, when we are free from debt we will do more work, and now that we are free, we have felt constrained at once to begin the fulfillment of that promise. The great question is to find the just mean between cowardice and rashness. No organization like ours can say, we will never spend a cent that we have not in our treasury, for we have to make engagements amounting to many times the sum at our present command. We must follow the leadings of Providence not only, but its indications, and rely on God’s people to sustain us in our anticipations of what they will do.
In our Salutation to our friends, we spoke of the call for the enlargement of our work that confronts us on all sides. During the struggle of the past few years for the payment of our debt, we could have but one answer for the pressing appeals that came to us for more room and better accommodations—an answer which was hard to give and hard to receive, for those who saw so clearly the great good that would result from a comparatively slight expenditure of money.
But now that the debt is paid, our friends must tell us whether we can venture to make a different and more cheering answer to our appeals. These appeals are coming to us from Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, &c., as may be seen by noticing the “Items from the Field,” in this number of the Missionary. These items were taken without any special reference to this article, and surprise us, as we glance over them, by the needs which they disclose.
In addition to these, we give just here a few extracts from letters not quoted in our “Items.”
One teacher writes:
“Our school opened with a rush. It reminded me of the time when I used to attend lectures at L—. A crowd would assemble, and as soon as the doors were opened they would press in, each intent on the best seat. So it was in my schoolroom, each parent striving to get the first chance to enter his child or children; and ever since the opening, I have had to turn away applicants, though they begged with tears to be admitted.”
Another:
“If our number increases this year in the same proportion as two years ago, in February we shall have 121 boarders; if the same proportion as last year, we shall have 134. We can not find room for any such number. From present prospects we shall reach that number. If anything is going to be done by way of enlarging this year, we ought to order lumber immediately.”
And in a subsequent letter:
“We have more young women boarding than we have had at any time before since I have been here, and several others have engaged rooms. Every room in the Ladies’ Hall is filled. Two rooms have four in them. Miss E. expects to arrange beds in the sitting-room. We cannot put four into our 10 x 14 rooms. The new scholars this fall have mostly come from schools that have been taught by our pupils, and have been able to go into the Preparatory Department.”
Still another:
“Something must be done for our relief at once. We are overrunning full.”
From another the story is:
“I wonder if all your stations have such increasing wants as this one has! We trust that our request for another teacher is honored by an appointment. We intimated that our wants would still increase. This is verified. The question now before us is this: How much enlargement of this work can you make? Are your means equal to the demand? Now, we wish that our building were larger by two rooms; especially so, since many tell us that a large number are planning to begin school after Christmas. We submit very earnestly the proposal that we be authorized to rent a building that is contiguous to our grounds, and that you send a sixth teacher to occupy it. If we do thorough work this year, the demand another year will require a permanent enlargement of room. We unite in the most earnest wish that you not only send us the fifth teacher, but also the sixth.”
We have already appropriated several thousand dollars more than in previous years upon the Southern field, and that mainly in the work of Christian education. If our readers only knew the many things we have not done, they would count the expansion to be very little. Among other things, as was indicated in the Annual Report, and as is set forth more explicitly elsewhere, we have enlarged our Indian work, not in the far West, but in Virginia. We have allowed something more for the foreign field, and added a few hundred dollars for the Chinese Mission in California.
Our friends will have the satisfaction this year of knowing that their gifts all go to do the work which presses now; no more is needed to fill up the hollows of the land through which we travelled long ago. They must not fail us, then, who have helped us in our distress; but much more, stand by us, now that they have enabled us to give ourselves wholly to the wants to be met and to the work in hand.