OUR BROADSIDE.
We give room in this number of the Missionary to a broadside on Church work. Our object is to present to our patrons, at a view, an array of the large number of new churches we have established for the colored people. A majority of the pastors employed by us have been connected in some capacity with our Institutions, a goodly number of them having graduated from the theological classes at Talladega College, Fisk and Straight Universities.
It may be said, with grateful assurance and peculiar emphasis, that this Association establishes its churches. It prepares a constituency by its day and Sabbath-schools, and from this educates a ministry. In this way it develops a demand for a pure church, and also the possibility of maintaining it when established.
It will be observed that nearly all the churches reported have been blessed during the year with additions to their numbers, and that many have made improvements upon their property. The Sabbath-schools have everywhere received due attention, and much of the progress in the different churches has been made possible by the earnest, prayerful and unremitting labors of our missionaries in this department of religious work. Missionary meetings and societies have been greatly encouraged and the cause of temperance widely promoted. Many of the young converts have found their way to institutions of learning, and many have engaged in teaching and missionary service.
When it is taken into account that these young churches are reformed churches, and that their church life is a new experience among the colored people, where they shine as lights in the world, it will be readily seen, we think, that this branch of our work augurs most hopefully a day of better things for the new South, and that the hearts and hands of these brethren, whose letters will be found elsewhere, should be strengthened, and their numbers largely increased.