LAST WORD.—FINANCIAL.
As we go to press, Sept. 12th, we find that the treasury is lacking $24,028.11 of the $300,000 which was asked for at the last Annual Meeting, and which the work absolutely demands. We yet have time to wipe out this deficit if our friends will respond promptly. October and the next year will have their own burdens to bear, and so, as usual, our books will close with the remittances of September.
“AN ARITHMETICAL PROBLEM.”
Our District Secretary Powell has the art of putting things, and this is the way he puts the question, how to “reduce 1172 to 0000,” i.e., to reduce the number of churches from which no contribution has been received since last September for the A. M. A. within the States of the Interior, to zero. The answer is, transfer each church to the list of those contributing.—Q. E. D.
A superintendent of our educational work has been appointed by the Executive Committee, the plan having been approved by a conference of our leading workers, held last winter. Professor Albert Salisbury, of the Wisconsin State Normal, at Whitewater, is the man. In the growth of this department, and in the purpose of the A. M. A. to do the very best work in its institutions, it was found needful to secure one who, as an expert in school processes, should help to the most approved methods of organization, of discipline, of instruction and of unification. Professor Salisbury had been assigned by his State to the specialty of conducting teachers’ institutes. In the same way he will serve our teachers and the native teachers whom they have raised up. Prominent educators and the Wisconsin and Boston journals of education have commended him as the right man for the place. Dr. Roy will continue in his service as Field Superintendent, giving yet more attention to the church work.
A mission at Hong Kong had been proposed to this Association as a means of gathering into fellowship the Chinese who may have returned from this country to their native land as Christians. It seemed to some that such a work would be cognate to ours on the Pacific Coast. But as it is the purpose of the A. M. A. not to extend its missionary operations abroad, our Executive Committee proposed to the American Board that it take up the mission at Hong Kong, and so work in harmony with our operations on the coast. We are glad to report that this overture has been cordially acceded to, and that the American Board accepts this “sacred trust.” And hence the rejoicing of Mr. Pond in his letter, to be found at the proper place. Now, will not our good friends bear in mind our mission on the Pacific, which is to be a feeder for that one on the opposite coast, and send us such additional funds as will enable us to enlarge our work, and so to help feed the millions of China with the bread of life?
A series of missionary meetings similar to those held in Connecticut several years ago, and in Ohio three years ago, has been held in sixteen of the leading Congregational Churches of central New York during September. The places were Penn Yan, Norwich, Walton, Utica, Antwerp, Norwood, Sandy Creek, Oswego, Elmira, Ithaca, Canandaigua, Fairport, Lockport, Homer, Binghamton and Poughkeepsie. The A. B. C. F. M. was represented by Dr. H. C. Haydn, the A. H. M. S. by Rev. C. C. Creegan, the Cong. Union by Dr. L. H. Cobb, and the A. M. A. by Drs. O. H. White and J. E. Roy. Pastors and leading laymen bore a good share. A fuller account will be given next month.
A series of articles, worthy of attention, has recently appeared in the Atlantic Monthly under the title of “Studies in the South.” The name of the author is not given, but internal evidence shows that he is a Northern man who went South to study its problems with an honest purpose to get at the facts rather than sustain any pet theories. He was free in his intercourse with people of all classes and colors, and is very frank in his report of what he says. His statements as to the political situation are somewhat startling, yet correct, as we think. It is, however, his view of the deeper questions of the condition and prospects of the masses of the people, white and colored, that we are most concerned about, and we give a few extracts on these points.
It is with profound sorrow that we note the death by drowning of two adult sons of Rev. J. A. R. Rogers, now the pastor of a Presbyterian Church at Shawano, Wis. All our readers are familiar with the heroic labors and endurance of Mr. Rogers before and after the war, in building up the college and church at Berea, Ky. The names and birthplaces of the sons are historic. William Norris was born at Berea in 1859, and Lewis Fairchild was born in Ohio, while the family were in exile on account of the war. The eldest was a graduate of Berea and was a teacher there the last year, active, useful and greatly beloved. Lewis Fairchild at the time of his decease was a member of the senior class in Olivet College. “Lovely and pleasant in their lives; in their death they were not divided.” Multitudes of our friends will be afflicted in this bereavement of our brother and his companion.
One of our old friends writes: “Do the colleges and literary institutions supported by the A. M. A. prohibit the use of tobacco, as well as of intoxicating liquors, among their students, as Oberlin does?” We are happy to inform him and all other friends that this is the rule in all of our schools, and that they would be delighted to observe the freedom of all our school buildings from the pollution of tobacco. It is a fine element in the formation of character, as well as a matter of health and of economy.