A FEW WORDS TO THE CHURCHES.
It is customary for our District Secretaries at this season to send to the churches letters and circulars containing statements of receipts and appeals for future co-operation. We give below extracts from circulars issued from our offices at Boston and Chicago, commending them as pertinent, timely, and fitted to provoke unto love and good works.
The following comes from Secretary Woodworth:
The battle for the Republic and her institutions will be fought in the South; and for the simple reason that the battle will be fought where the causes of the battle exist, and the principles which underlie our free institutions encounter most of opposition and danger.
And this battle for the foundations of the Republic, and for the administration of every public right and interest, is now upon us. The war itself involved no graver questions, and called for no higher style of patriotic sacrifice and zeal. Every appliance of Christian education and of moral power must be enlisted to uplift the people and unify the nation; and for this work the time favors. For four years, at least, we have an open course; the political signs are more auspicious; and we may hope to push far ahead the forces of intellectual and moral regeneration.
The colored people are intensely loyal to the rule of majorities; they believe, heart and soul, in those who broke their chains; they accept their principles, and receive joyfully the lessons of their teachers and their preachers. With them we can build up free schools, Christian churches and homes, and plant and develop the seeds and forces which have their type and prophecy in Plymouth Rock. Now is our time.
Arm them with a true manhood; educate them into a true knowledge of their duties to God and to man, and they will bring peace and strength to our land, now threatened with storm and wreck, and prepare the way for the redemption of the Dark Continent itself.
Secretary Powell’s appeal concludes with special requests, inviting immediate attention. He says:
The Executive Committee ask for an increase of twenty-five per cent. this coming year to the contributions from churches and individuals.
1. If your Church has not yet made a contribution to the American Missionary Association during the year, will you please ask them to do so before the year ends?
2. When your Church reviews the benevolence of the past year, and plans for the next, will you please see to it that the A. M. A. is placed on the list of causes for which contributions are to be made, and that the time of year when the contribution is to be taken is chosen with a full view of the great importance of our work? The time of year selected often makes all the difference between a large and a small contribution.
3. At the monthly concert will you please plan so that the work of the A. M. A. will have a place in the prayer and thought of your people, and that some field or branch of our work shall be reported? The despised races of America, and those who, in great self-denial, privation, and sometimes opposition, labor for them, should not be forgotten when God’s people meet to pray for the conversion of the world.
4. Will pastors please arrange so that at some time during the year they will preach a sermon to their people on the work of the A. M. A.? The November number of The American Missionary will be found rich in fact and suggestion for such a discourse. The theme will prove to be of great interest both to preacher and hearer.
5. Will you endeavor to enlarge the circle of the readers of our monthly magazine, The American Missionary?
Specimen copies in any number will be sent you free if you so request. The Magazine gives reliable information respecting our work, and notices the current events that relate to the welfare and progress of the races for whom we labor. It will be found a helpful factor in the development of an intelligent, patriotic and tender piety to the membership of the churches.
May we not confidently look for the co-operation of every one into whose hand this appeal comes to make certain that the increase asked for by our Executive Committee shall be secured? Plan for it, pray for it, talk about it, interest others in it, and don’t forget to give for it.