WOMAN’S OPPORTUNITY THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE AGE.
There is nothing like it in any land—the opportunity of the Christian women of America to labor for the uplift of womanhood the world over. The call, however, for woman’s work in America during the past twenty years seems to us to have been peculiarly urgent, and yet we think the majority of the noble Christian women in our churches have, up to this time, seen only dimly the demands upon them in this regard. How loving, pitying woman, whose labors and sacrifices are so abounding in behalf of women, should have seen with so little responsive interest the necessities for work among the colored women of this land, is among the marvels of Christian ethics.
If women, anywhere, are under obligation to help women, it seems to us the women in our churches are indebted, beyond words to tell, to the negro women in the South. Their condition is what we have made it, and remains what we will it.
But let us not convey the impression that Christian women have been wholly indifferent to the wants of their colored sisters. On the other hand, we affirm that there is not a brighter page in modern missions, than that which records the labors and sacrifices of Northern women for the lowly dwellers in the cabins of the South. We only speak, comparatively, of the great body, who need to be stirred and mastered, as have been the few who have hurried with the medicine of light and love to relieve the stricken and the despairing. These have sacrificed youth and beauty, and the hope of family love and joy, in the attempt to serve a race. With a calm and reverent step they have gone into the darkest homes of poverty and suffering to clothe the naked, to minister to the sick, to comfort the dying, and to save the perishing.
Twenty-one years ago, when this Association called for teachers and missionaries to submit to reproach, and obloquy, and ostracism for the sake of these needy ones, these rare women, in numbers beyond our ability to send, answered the call. And during all the years they have stood at our doors, as they stand to-day, saying “Send me.”
The work they have done in school building, in church building, in home building and in character building, cannot be matched in the history of this generation, certainly, and probably not in the history of the world.
When it is remembered, that in 1863 the slaves in the South did not own an acre of ground and had not a cent of taxable property—that they had no right to know a letter of the alphabet, and that there was not a legal marriage among them: but that in 1880 they were taxed for a hundred millions of dollars—that some 800,000 of them had learned to read, and that purer churches were teaching purer and better morals, one can but exclaim, “What hath God wrought!”
This is, largely, due to the Christian teachers and missionaries of the American Missionary Association. No society has sent so many of them to the field, or has so signally demonstrated the quality and the value of their work. If the history of many of the most promising and useful of our graduates could be written up the story would read like romance.
The draught upon mind, and heart, and body has been heavy and exhausting. Not a few have left the service broken in health for life, and others have paid the penalty of overwork in early graves. All this they have not complained of; but their keenest anguish has come from lack of that fullness and warmness of sympathy which they had a right to expect from the whole Christian sisterhood of the North. They ask for it now, and we ask for it in their name!
Will not our Christian women re-examine this question of their duty with reference to the elevation of the colored race, and especially of the women of that race? There can be no sure and lasting elevation of that people without refined and intelligent homes; and there can be no such homes without pure and intelligent colored women to build them. Such women can be brought forward, only as they have pure models to imitate, and refined teachers to instruct and guide them.
Fortunately, Northern homes are full of such models and of such teachers; and they only need the supporting word and hand of their sisters to go forth in larger numbers, and to lay, more broadly and grandly, the foundations of a regenerated South. They know that the colored woman can be elevated by the gospel of Christ, they know that she can take on culture like a garment, and be made a power in redeeming her race.
May we not, then, once more call the attention of Christian women to this work, so peculiarly theirs, and laid upon them by so many providential tokens?
It will be of interest to a large circle of friends on both sides of the water to learn of the marriage at Prof. Geo. L. White’s residence, Fredonia, N.Y., of Miss Ella Sheppard, pianist of the original Jubilee Singer Company, to Rev. Geo. W. Moore, of Oberlin. Mr. Moore is a graduate of Fisk University and acted as pastor of the Howard Chapel at Nashville for some time, where his labors were much appreciated. He has recently been connected with the theological department of Oberlin College and has preached with acceptance to churches in Ohio.
A FALLING OFF OF 17 PER CENT. IN DONATIONS FROM THE LIVING.
The receipts from living donors for the first three months of our fiscal year amounted to $39,528.77, against $48,174.97 for the corresponding months of the previous year, showing a falling off of more than 17 per cent. The receipts from legacies, however, amounted to $15,486.65, against $7,029.65 of the year before. The total receipts for the three months ending Dec. 31st amounted to $55,015.42, against $55,204.62 for the previous year.
The Committee on Finance at Cleveland estimated that for this year $375,000 would be wanted, against $300,000 for the year then closed, an increase of 25 per cent. If this gain had been realized, we should have received for the first quarter $93,750 instead of $55,015.42, a difference of $38,734.58. The friends of this Association will see from these figures that if the plans suggested at our Annual Meeting are carried out, not only must the smaller sources of contributions be augmented, but the churches having the means to give must contribute more largely. With this in view we take the liberty of making the following suggestions:
1. That in localities where money is raised by solicitation from a few old friends who have already taken a deep interest in the Negroes, efforts for collecting funds be made immediately.
2. In parishes where the benevolent organizations connected with the church give no assistance to the Freedmen, we suggest that special efforts be made in Sabbath-schools, the monthly concert and at the annual collection, so that the amount raised for this Association may be in due proportion to that given to the other missionary societies supported by the Congregational churches.
3. In churches that do not follow a fixed system as to time for taking collections, we suggest that the claims of our work be explained and urged at least once a year, and that contributions be forwarded to us at the earliest date possible.
We commend these suggestions to that thoughtful and prayerful consideration which we believe is justified and demanded by the necessities of the great work in which we are engaged.