OUR ANNUAL MEETING.
The Thirty-fourth Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association will be held in the Broadway Church (Rev. Dr. Chamberlain’s), Norwich, Ct., commencing Oct. 12, at 3 P. M., at which time the Report of the Executive Committee will be read by Rev. M. E. Strieby, D.D., Corresponding Secretary. The Annual Sermon will be preached by Rev. Wm. M. Taylor, D.D., of New York City, Tuesday evening. Reports, papers, and discussions upon the work of the Society, may be expected throughout Tuesday and Wednesday. The following persons have promised to be present and participate in the exercises, with others: Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D., Gen. Clinton B. Fisk, H. K. Carroll, of New York City; Rev. A. F. Beard, D.D., Syracuse, N. Y.; Rev. Alex. McKenzie, D.D., Cambridge, Mass.; Prof. Wm. J. Tucker, D.D., Andover, Mass.; Prof. Cyrus Northrop, New Haven, Ct.; Rev. Sam’l Scoville, Stamford, Ct.; Rev. Joseph Anderson, D.D., Waterbury, Ct.; Rev. Wm. H. Willcox, D.D., Malden, Mass. We also have invited Pres. Julius Seelye, Amherst, Mass., and Hon. John P. Page, Rutland, Vt., and hope for favorable responses. For reduction in railway fares and other important items, see fourth page of cover.
In addition to the speakers from the North announced above, much interest will be added to our Annual Meeting by addresses from some of the prominent workers in the Southern field.
During the vacation of our schools and workers, there is a dearth of intelligence from “the field,” which must be the Missionary’s apology for its leanness. The next number will be made fat with the good things prepared for us at Norwich, and may be delayed on that account, after which there will doubtless be abundance from our teachers and pastors, who will by that time have their work well in hand once more for another year’s labor.
The St. Louis School Board has added oral lessons in etiquette to its course of studies. A few scholars read in turn five pages from a manual of etiquette, and then a conversation is held on the topic by teacher and pupils. We do not see why good manners are not as essential as good grammar.
So says the Congregationalist, and so says the American Missionary. In several of our Institutions at the South, a small text-book on good manners is used with accompanying oral lessons. Colored pupils take well to such instruction.
Chicago is the freest city in this country. There is no discrimination except in brains and money. Every place is open to the colored man. The schools of the city have white and colored children on the same seats and in the same classes, and no “kicking” is heard. But what is the strangest of all, there are two colored ladies who teach schools composed of white as well as colored.—Ex.
It is possible we may yet go to the negro to learn many things, especially the virtues allied to, and growing out of, patience under provocations, of which certainly he has been a wonderful example. The editorial fraternity of the country would do well to imitate the example of the colored brethren, who at the meeting of the Colored National Press Association, recently held in Louisville, disposed cheaply of what has hitherto been regarded as the editors’ inestimable and inalienable right by resolving, “That when differences arise among us, we will eschew vituperation and personal abuse, and that the columns of our papers shall be kept free from everything calculated to detract from the tone and character of journalism.”
The defense Roman Catholicism makes against Protestant ruffianism varies according to environments; in Uganda it takes one form, in the United States another; but it is good to see the necessity of some form of it, as stated in one of the Roman Catholic journals in Mexico as follows: “It is necessary that the Catholics rise resolutely and make a rapid and voluntary movement in defense of their belief. To-day, unfortunately, the Protestants come with a subvention, and their teachings are extending throughout the whole country. They circulate their writings at the lowest prices, even give them away, sometimes in tracts, sometimes in papers, which is the favorite method of sowing the bad seed; and, sad to say, in exchange, the Catholic weeklies are dying off for lack of subscribers to sustain them. Protestantism is becoming truly alarming among us.”
The colored Baptist churches of Virginia and South Carolina, believing the time has come when they should go forth to the millions of their fatherland with the Gospel, have sent out two missionaries; and now the churches of Virginia unite in calling a convention to meet at Montgomery, Ala., on the 24th of November. This call is as broad as all the colored Baptist churches and other religious bodies of the colored Baptists of the United States, and is “for the purpose of eliciting, combining and directing the energies of all the colored Baptists in one sacred effort for the propagation of the Gospel in Africa.”
This may seem to some a somewhat narrow call, but it is for a broad work—a work that shall yet elicit the energies of all our Father’s children of whatever color and denomination, until the dark continent shall be made glorious by the Sun of Righteousness.
Mohammedanism, whatever its affinity for Africa as it has been, and its baleful power because of this, has no outlook for the future of that sad, but soon to be made glad, continent. The Foreign Missionary well says: “If we consider only the physical condition of success, it must be allowed that Islam has an immense advantage in its central position and its vicinage to the field to be won. There is much also in the greater similarity of character between the Moslem and the heathen tribes as compared with Europeans, whose habits are so utterly different from those of all African tribes. But on the other hand, the forces of Christianity have now well nigh surrounded Africa, and are pushing through a hundred avenues into the interior. Discovery, time, commerce and civilization, are handmaids of the Gospel as they are not of Islam. That can only endure the dim light which survives from a past age. It belongs to an age which has passed away, and to a type of civilization which is everywhere sinking into decay.”