REMEMBER THE POOR.
When Paul and Barnabas were about to set forth to labor among the heathen, Cephas, James and John gave them the right hand of fellowship with a charge included in these words: "Only that they would remember the poor." How they should do it had been indicated by Him who said of his own labors "the poor have the gospel preached to them."
The expression "the poor" is comprehensive. All human wants relate to it. The poverty of some, however, is more complete than that of others, and the poorest have early, if not the first, claim to attention. The Pauls and Barnabases of our times may justly listen to appeals which arise from the following conditions:
1. Ignorance. In this country it may be said ignorance is the mother of poverty. Indeed, ignorance is one of the worst forms of poverty. Intelligence among the masses, coupled with true religion, would soon abolish it. Whatever is lacking of knowledge of God, of what He has promised, of what He has made for us, of what we can do for ourselves, must be supplied. It was an observation of Dean Stanley that we ought to teach the heathen how to count three before attempting to instruct them as to the doctrine of the Trinity. The great Preacher was the great Teacher also. If there be the greatest ignorance South, the appeal from the South to us to remember the poor is urgent and imperative.
2. Poverty. Where a large proportion of the people can neither read nor write, there nothing but a fractional supply for human wants is to be expected. Inadequate buildings meagerly furnished, insufficient clothing for the young, lack of medical care and neglect of the aged and infirm—these are evil conditions only too common all over the South, rendering much that ministers to a thrifty and manly character impossible, as things are now. Where there is the greatest sickness, privation and want, there apostles to the poor have legitimate field for labor. Is there any such field in our country as that presented at the South?
3. Vice. It is admitted that ignorance and poverty beget vice. According to recent statistics, gathered from the whole country, it is shown that the illiterate classes commit more than ten times their pro rata of crime. The missionary must stay the progress of vice, drying up its sources as best he may, and uncapping the fountains of life. To do this he must impart knowledge and preach the gospel.
If, in consequence of the ignorance and poverty of the people South, there is vice and crime unparalleled in the annals of our country; if these things combined constitute a poverty unknown elsewhere in the land when estimated by its extent, then those who seek the poorest will not neglect the millions in the Southern States.
It is our work, as an Association, to do what we can to render these people the help needful. Will not the friends of Christ help us "remember the poor?"
Christian Educators in Council is the title of a pamphlet of 266 pages, giving full report of sixty addresses by American educators at Ocean Grove last August, arranged topically as follows: I. Education and Man's Improvement. II. Illiteracy in the United Slates. III. National Aid to Common Schools. IV. The Negro in America. V. Illiteracy, Wealth, Pauperism, and Crime. VI. The American Indian Problem. VII. The American Mormon Problem. VIII. Education in the South since the War. IX. Christ in American Education. Tables: Illiterate and Educational Status, United States, 1880. Rev. J. C. Hartzell, D.D., the editor and compiler, purposes to issue a second edition for general circulation. He may be addressed at the Methodist Book Concern, New York. We know of no one document of equal value, on the subjects discussed. The price is one dollar.