THE PLACE OF THE CHURCH IN THE WORK OF MISSIONS.
In these days, when science is pushing her inquiries in every direction with reference to the discovery of new facts, in order that she may deduce therefrom the course of nature and the system of the universe, there is danger that we overlook the basis in man’s moral constitution on which, alone, knowledge can have the highest significance and value. The drift is seen not merely in the public schools, but in the college and the professional seminary, which, more and more, are reducing education to the acquisition of facts, or to a simple intellectual drill. The scientific method, so called, has no place for moral agents or moral causes, and so its account of the world is forever rendered on a physical rather than on a metaphysical basis. With such a tendency in education, this Association can have no sympathy. It is the friend of all good learning, and will do its utmost to advance education; but it does not believe that a man can be well or symmetrically educated until his moral faculties are disciplined in advance of, and equally with, his intellectual. For this reason it would put the church at the center and foundation of all its work. In this respect it would co-operate with God, accepting His own appointed agency for the moral instruction of mankind. The church, as the great moral teacher, bears the stamp of a divine origin and authority. Its function is to teach divine truth, and to put man into right moral relations to the deep order of the universe. Any system of education, then, which ignored the church, or even set her in the background, would fail in a well rounded development of all the mental powers. A partial substitute may be found in other professions and other institutions, but nothing can take the place of the church as the authoritative teacher of moral and spiritual truth.
It is well to remember, also, that that which best develops and educates the moral powers is the best possible discipline for the mind itself. No subjects require clearer perception, sharper analysis and more discriminating reason than moral subjects, and no men show keener minds than those who have been trained to reason on moral questions. Illustrations of this in ancient times are found in the Jewish patriarchs, and in modern times in the people of Scotland and of New England. And yet the common schools of these latter countries, until within fifty years, were of the rudest sort, and only taught the simplest elements of an English education. But their people, trained in the sanctuary, under a ministry which was able to reason of righteousness, temperance and a judgment to come, were as strong intellectually as they were tough and clear-minded morally.
Senator Hoar, in his recent oration before the law school of Yale College, asserted and proved that the best lawyers of the last generation were indebted to the strong pulpits of New England more than to anything else for their intellectual clearness, and for their judicial discrimination and force.
Let there be a strong pulpit in any community, and there will be strong men around it, mentally and morally, though the schools are of the simplest. On the other hand, if the pulpit be weak and the outcoming moral influences be feeble, though the schools be ever so well equipped and endowed, the people around will lack high purpose, and scholarship itself will be frivolous and effeminate, destitute of the rugged strength which comes to natures fed from the deep roots of moral earnestness and conviction.
It need hardly be said that the great need of the South, especially among the colored people, is a strong church and a pure church; for slavery damaged the colored man morally vastly more that it did intellectually. Indeed, his intellect was rather sharpened by the invention and craft on which it was constantly put, while the forces which strengthened the will and nourished a pure heart were the weakest possible; and yet nine persons out of ten suppose the damage was intellectual, and are greatly surprised when our teachers assure them that colored children are as bright, and learn as readily, as white children.
A moment’s reflection would satisfy any one that the weakness would be on the moral side, for the reason that the life of the slave was so ordered as to ignore all moral distinctions and to violate all moral obligations. Hence, the building up should be strongest on the moral side. No greater mistake could be made than to attempt to graft on to a low moral character a high degree of intellectual culture. Should we send forth a generation of students, with sharp wits and dull moral perceptions, we might contribute to the roll of more adroit villains, but we should add little to the list of good men.
The church, therefore, should be emphasized at all points and at all times. It should command for its preachers the best and the ablest men. Both races need this. Only this can destroy the conditions which made it possible that white blood should now be running in the veins of three-fourths of the colored people. The Southern pulpit has failed to sufficiently enforce either good morals or practical righteousness. For lack of this, slavery was possible, and dueling and violence covered the land with blood. The remedy for this is a new and right system of moral teaching. This, we repeat, is the peculiar function of the pulpit. That this may be made possible, churches pure and intelligent must be established all over the South. It should be done now, because we are laying the foundations and determining the character of the coming generations. If the first crop of leaders are morally weak, they will enfeeble their successors, and perhaps vitiate the seed and the crop for all time to come.
We need to put into the African blood the iron of the Puritan faith and purpose, so that they may do for the African continent what our fathers did for America. The first men sent to that dark land should hold the ideas and principles out of which may be evolved churches, schools, homes and Christian states, from the mouths of the Nile and the Congo clear down to the golden Cape. If we cannot inoculate the colored race with those moral sensibilities and forces which will render them charitable, humane and just, then we look to them in vain for help in the salvation of our own land, as well as in the founding of Christian institutions and Christian states for the continent of Africa.