TENNESSEE.
Methods of Revival Work at Fisk University.
REV. A. K. SPENCE, NASHVILLE.
You request me to give an idea of our “methods, success, and experiences” in revival work in Fisk University. It is with much hesitation that I attempt to comply with your wish, for it is difficult, in a brief communication, to convey a correct idea in such matters, and, also, one shrinks from bringing into the foreground human agencies in a work which, if genuine, must be Divine.
To understand revival work here, one must know the ordinary religious work done in the University. Varying from time to time, the following are the means of grace enjoyed by us. We have a church which is, practically, a part of the school. There are three services on the Sabbath—a preaching service, a Sunday-school, and a prayer meeting. During the week there are school devotions in the morning and family devotions in the evening, and also one meeting for prayer. Upon all these attendance is required.
Many other meetings are held voluntarily by the students, conducted frequently by an instructor. There is a Christian Association of the young men and one of the young women, meeting once a week, or oftener. The Society for the Evangelization of Africa holds a meeting once a month, and every Sunday morning since the departure of our missionaries to Africa, a meeting has been held to pray for them and their cause.
Besides these stated meetings, there is a large amount of personal religious work done in a private way, to lead the unconverted to Christ. Opportunities are sought for conversation and prayer with individuals alone. As employees of the American Missionary Association, we feel ourselves bound to labor, as we can, for the salvation of our students. We try to keep it before us continually that we should aim at nothing less than their conversion. And we seek to impress it upon all, that the Institution is entirely the Lord’s, built with His money, kept by His care, and dedicated to His service. We are sustained by the charities of God’s people, given for the sake of His cause. We remember the way in which our wants have been met, in the use of the Jubilee Singers and by other means. The place whereon we stand is holy ground.
In “times of refreshing” the ordinary means of grace have been quickened into greater life, and other means have been used as the Spirit of God seemed to direct. The morning and evening devotions have at times been turned into revival meetings, and extra meetings for prayer and labor with inquirers have been instituted. In a few cases the work of the school has been suspended and the day given to religious meetings; but usually the ordinary work has gone on. Persons under too deep conviction to attend to aught else, have been allowed and advised to wait upon God, and suitable persons have been permitted to wait with them. Occasionally scenes have transpired not to be forgotten nor to be described—the tears, the sighs, the groans, the bowed or prostrate form—and the after unspeakable joy! As time has gone on, whether for better or worse, the emotional has diminished. We have never sought to produce excitement, nor have we sought rudely to crush it out when it came spontaneously, but to quiet it off by indirect means, a thing always soon successful. Doubtless clearer views of truth are doing away with that frenzy of religious excitement which has so largely prevailed, unbalancing the reason and prostrating the body.
We find it necessary to follow a revival with oft-repeated instructions as to the doctrines and duties of Christianity. The young converts need much loving and wise watchcare. They are exposed to many dangers, and have nearly everything to learn, except that they are the Lord’s and he is theirs.
Some years in the history of Fisk University have been years of great barrenness in spiritual things, but none of entire unfruitfulness. Yet long and sorely have we been made to cry unto God, and humble ourselves before Him. Other years are precious in our memories because of God’s peculiar presence there. Three are especially so, 1870, 1873, and 1876; but space will not permit us to enter upon them. Books might be written about them, but they are recorded in God’s book of remembrance; there let them remain. Oh, for a mighty and continual baptism of the Holy Ghost on all our schools in the South!
Sanitary Reform—Business—Industrial Instruction—Lecture Course—Revival.
PROF. A. J. STEELE, MEMPHIS.
Great is sanitary reform, at least so say all good Memphians. The Memphis of last November is not the Memphis of this, except in muddy and broken streets and shabby street cars drawn by more shabby mules. For these, “men may come and men may go, but they go on forever.”
The business season opened in October, hopefully and more brisk than ever before, notwithstanding that our population has within the three years dropped from fifty to thirty-five thousand.
Merchants are reaping a rich harvest, and all kinds of labor find employment and fair pay, interrupted somewhat for the past month by severe cold and continued rains, which have also seriously damaged the ungathered cotton crop. What would you say to ninety inches rainfall in eleven months? This is the amount reported by the signal service observer at Vicksburg for this year up to December 1.
No one now thinks of Memphis as a failure; what with a unique and almost perfect system of sewerage nearly completed, and what with a growing wholesale trade and many permanent improvements, both public and private, a new Memphis, indeed, must soon replace the old.
School opened in October with a full attendance and every promise of a most successful year. Our rooms for industrial instruction are now finished and ready for use. The classes in needlework, etc., are organized, and in January a class or classes in cooking will receive regular instruction, with practice in the experimental kitchen.
Instruction will also be given to a class in the care of the sick. It is a fact that the great majority of our pupils must continue in very humble positions and circumstances; our aim must be to fit them to fill well the lots that must fall to them in life; and whatever positions they may fill, they must know how to build up, and even adorn, homes that shall be very different from those their parents have known.
The proverb runs, “A man far from home is near to danger.” The most direct way, certainly, of bringing better things to these people, and to the South, is through the home.
Our lecture course for this year is about made up. Dr. Magoun, while here in attendance upon the conference and to visit his daughter, our music teacher, gave the first lecture in this year’s course. Among others to speak are Rev. Dr. Max Samfield, Jewish Rabbi; Rev. Mr. Mayo, of Boston; Judge Pierce of the Circuit Court, two physicians and other prominent professional and business men here. Our idea is to have all the lectures, as far as possible, deal with practical matters, in some degree according with our regular industrial work. In the past four weeks we have been greatly blessed by the Spirit’s presence with us, over thirty of our pupils having found the “better way,” we trust. With the exception of one or two sitting-room meetings, we have only held a half-hour prayer meeting each day directly after school. Some of the conversions have come with wonderful power and presence of the Spirit, but all with quietness and assurance. We hope for still more, and we are glad to have before us so much of the year with its opportunities for training these “lambs” in the Christian life. Most of them go with their parents and friends to the old churches, where, too often, the weekly or occasional emotional outburst or religious frenzy takes the place of real Christian growth and experience. A number will join our church, two or three even breaking away from friends and parents to find a more intelligent, helpful church connection.