REPORTS OF COMMITTEES.
REPORT ON EDUCATIONAL WORK, SOUTH.
BY REV. W. F. SLOCUM, CHAIRMAN.
Your committee, to which the report of the executive committee on educational work in the South was referred, would express at the outset their profound gratitude for the success that has followed the efforts that have been put forth in this large and important department of the work of the American Missionary Association.
While they deplore with all those who have the interests of this work at heart, the political attempts to limit the usefulness of the Association, that has grown out of unworthy partisan prejudices, yet they perceive with thankfulness that there is an element growing stronger every year at the South that appreciates the place, the importance and the value of these schools. Notably is this shown in Mississippi, where the State appropriation for the Tougaloo University was the only one not reduced. They would speak with appreciation of the Christian spirit that infuses all these schools, and the deeply religious character that is given to the work, and of the strong personal influences which are brought to bear upon the students.
Your committee feel that the time has come to push with greatest vigor a work that shall meet the demand for teachers in the public schools of the South, and to avail ourselves of the opportunity to reach the children and the homes of colored people through these; that every effort needs to be put forth to send out these teachers established in Christian ethics and feeling that the moralities of life are the basis of all true education.
Great pleasure is taken in the advance that is made each year in the matter of industrial and agricultural training; and every effort which tends to transform this people into an intelligent, upright Christian yeomanry, will be a profound blessing. Our constant aim should be to establish the true dignity of labor and the healthful desire to possess property and an intelligence that secures the best condition as property holders. Your committee are of the opinion that the opportunity for good through these schools was never larger than at present, and that the need of enlargement in many is imperative, and also that the time has come to push the work of special endowment for the larger institutions, that they may become independent of any financial pressure and may be put upon a permanent basis. And therefore of the three alternatives suggested by the claims of the work at present which they suggest in their report, can endorse one only, and do therefore most heartily recommend that instead of sacrificing the character of the work, instead of reducing the amount of work done, the Association shall have more money.
REPORT ON CHURCH WORK, SOUTH.
BY REV. CYRUS RICHARDSON, CHAIRMAN.
Your committee into whose hands has been placed the report of the church work in the South desire to state their impressions by calling attention to three or four important points.
First, to the marked increase in the membership of the Sunday-schools—an increase during the year of 2,000 pupils, or 15 per cent., bringing the present membership up to 15,109.
Comparing this with the entire enrollment in 1882, we find that during the five years there has been a growth of 100 per cent.
This is specially gratifying because it is understood that Sunday-schools or missions started at new stations look to the speedy establishment of churches at those stations; while well-organized schools in churches already established result in the careful study of God’s word, with a constant application of inspired doctrine to practical life, looking both to the permanence of the churches and the personal purity of their members.
Another important item noticed in the report appears in the statement touching the amount of money which these churches have given.
Beside the $16,000 contributed for their own religious work, $2,300 have been devoted to pure benevolence. If this should seem a small sum as a contribution of 127 churches, it must be remembered that it is the gift of poverty, and not of wealth. The free-will offerings of almost any one of these congregations, when compared with the contributions of not a few New England churches, suggest the words of the Master: “She hath cast in more than they all.”
Their spirit of sacrifice has often won for the colored people hearty commendation. To those of us who live amid multiplied temporal and spiritual privileges, and who easily lose sight of the goodly heritage for which we are to give an account, it is a spur, if not an inspiration, to read the story of the sacrifices which some of these brethren make in the giving of their scant substance for the more destitute members of the human family.
Their offerings for pure benevolence were above $600 more than the previous year, and are double what they were four years ago.
Your committee are glad to find that this feature of denominational work is strongly emphasized by the Executive Board, and that these churches, poor though they be, are taught that giving as well as receiving is a necessary factor in their growth, and that in true worship alms as well as prayers rise before God as a memorial.
Another noticeable item in the report is the building of meeting-houses. Indeed, the report characterizes the past year in its Southern work as one of “building activity.” Every church that is to become permanent must have its house dedicated to God. The sanctuary helps to hold the people together and attach them to forms of worship that demand a reverential attitude. Perhaps no people have greater need than our colored brethren of those religious forms and ceremonies which secure quiet and order in the public devotions of the assembled multitudes.
We therefore rejoice in every new meeting-house that this society helps the struggling churches of the South to build.
Another item in the report to which we call attention is the organization of seven new churches during the year, about the average number, if you take a series of a dozen or more years, but not the average if you take simply the last five years.
Since 1882 the average rate of increase has been eleven per year.
It would undoubtedly be a joy to us all if the rate of increase could be more rapid. We must not, however, forget that we are at work “among a people who have no congregational trend or training.” It is undoubtedly wise to proceed with care, planting churches at the right centres and only where they will give promise of permanence.
After all the caution that has been exercised it has been necessary recently to drop four or five from the list. The aim should be at stability and worth rather than numbers. A single church organized on the right basis, watched over with painstaking care, so that her members shall adorn the doctrines they profess, will do more for the prosperity of Congregationalism in this part of the country than would a score of churches hastily organized and unsuitably located. We think the officers of this society have been wise in their movements thus far; nearly all the churches organized having made a history that deserves the admiration of Christian people everywhere.
But when we think of the constantly increasing number of graduates from the Christian schools and colleges under the patronage of this society; and the greater familiarity of the Secretaries with the localities suited to become strategic points for Congregationalism in the South; and the marked success of those churches whose permanence is beyond question, are we not warranted in expressing the hope that in the near future we shall see a radical advance all along this important line of denominational work? We know that this is what our Secretaries long for as well as pray for, and what with our contributions cheerfully made, they will hope to accomplish.
They heartily agree with us in believing that the uplifting influences of schools and colleges would be readily dissipated or turned into channels for evil if they are not gathered up and multiplied in rightly constituted bodies which shall prove the germs around which the forces of the community shall organize for good. Working together, therefore, as contributors and directors, we may expect to be cheered from year to year with the rapid growth in the numbers of these organized Christian forces which have in themselves vitalizing and transforming power which works for righteousness both in character and conduct.
REPORT ON MOUNTAIN WORK.
BY REV. A. H. QUINT, D.D., CHAIRMAN.
The committee on so much of the Annual Report as relates to mountain work, particularly in Tennessee and Kentucky, respectfully reports as follows:
The few details given in the report are of such an interesting character as to suggest the earnest wish that far more extended accounts of facts and incidents had been spread before the Association.
Want of space in the narration of the vast work of this body was of course the constraining reason for brevity in the report. But the comprehensive statement which is made exhibits conclusively the opportunity for a new and peculiar work, namely, that of giving the Gospel, its character and its schools, to a class hitherto scarcely touched by beneficent Christian agencies.
This is a class of white population, a class which felt of course in some degree the blighting influence of slavery, which contaminated everything within the reach of its malaria; but this class, from its circumstances, was not a slave-holding class. It is a class of sturdy blood and mountain habits, and is capable of great development. Two considerations urge the necessity of covering this field.
One is, the ordinary obligation to preach the gospel to those who do not have the gospel.
The other is, the evident capacity of this peculiar people to become a power in the development of that section of our land.
While the field and the number of persons are both limited in comparison with the great work among the freedmen, their importance appeals to this Association with steadily increasing force.
The opportunity is at hand, and it is in a line which old friends of our regenerating work could scarcely have hoped for. Devout praise is due to Almighty God for this open door to a vast success.
It is worthy of notice in this respect how, in the history of this Association, God has steadily placed before it successive duties and successive privileges. From the first dawning of its Foreign and Home work, freed from complicity with the great sin of our country, new specialties have been added as fast as older ones were ripened into practical efficacy. This comparatively new work seems to be in a direct line of Divine development. Your Committee feels that the sanction of this Association should be emphatically given to the work of its administration in this department, a work in which no spirit of caste shall be in any way tolerated, and that the call for a large increase of laborers to be located at all suitable points, should be met as rapidly as possible.
The Committee has no doubt of the wisdom and judicious care which characterizes your Executive Committee, and believes that that committee needs only the hearty approval of this body to encourage it to go on in this direction.
REPORT ON INDIAN WORK.
BY MR. FRANK WOOD, CHAIRMAN.
The first great work of this Association was due to a crisis in the history of one oppressed race on this continent, who after more than one hundred years of slavery and oppression, had, in the providence of God, freedom and citizenship suddenly thrust upon them. Four millions of souls—a large majority poor, ignorant and degraded—to these came the A. M. A. as God’s own messenger to lead the way to education, usefulness and Christianity.
A similar emergency has now arisen in the history of another oppressed and wronged race for whom this Association has always done good work—the North American Indian.
Since the last annual meeting of this Association, the Dawes Bill, which has been called the emancipation proclamation of the Indian, has passed both houses of Congress, and is now the law of the land. Public attention, as never before, has been turned to the wrongs and the needs of the Indian. The new conditions have developed new necessities, new opportunities, and new dangers. Numerous societies, in thirty-two different States, have been organized to assist them. All this gives new importance to the work of the A. M. A. among the Indians. The summary for the year is encouraging. The conversions and additions to church membership tell a story of faithful, unselfish work for the Master, in one of the hardest possible fields of missionary labor, with little of the romance or pleasure of travel sometimes afforded by missions in foreign lands; among a people whom a Judge of the Supreme Court called “a despised and rejected class of persons;” handicapped and hindered in all their efforts by the suspicions and hatreds developed by centuries of injustice, robbery and cruelty from a Government that claimed to be civilized and Christian, and also by the Reservation System, which puts the missionary and the teacher under the absolute control of the Indian Agent, who may be a mere political tool and a man of no character, yet has despotic authority on the reservation, with power to expel or imprison the missionary, or break up his school or congregation. Yet in spite of all obstacles, through love of Him who was also “despised and rejected of men,” they remained faithful amid dangers and difficulties, till, through their labor and that of their companions and predecessors, there are now nearly 29,000 Indian church members.
None have done better or more faithful work than the missionaries of the A. M. A. None are doing better work than Mr. Riggs and his associates. Yet, when compared with the extent of the field and the number and spiritual needs of those not yet reached by the influences of the gospel, and the opportunities and perils incident to their new and changing conditions of life, how very small is the work that the Christian Church is doing in this great field. Think of it—two hundred and forty-eight thousand Indians in the midst of a Christian land, and after the labor of 200 years only 29,000 professed Christians among them, and only 143 missionaries, of all denominations, to carry the gospel to this great multitude; and these few are hampered and hindered in their work by the intercourse laws, the opposition of agents and the orders of the Commissioner. When for the first time legislation, based on justice and humanity, is opening up vistas of usefulness and progress to the Indian; when the need of Christian teaching, guidance and care is greater than ever before, the Indian Bureau has issued orders that paralyzes missionary operations, by prohibiting the use of the vernacular in teaching English or the truths of the gospel. The Indians all know the vernacular. They have been carefully shut away from any other language by the Government restraints that surround all reservations, shutting out everything that would educate or civilize. The vernacular is used in the mission schools to teach English and the truths of the gospel to those who understand no other language. With this use we should submit to no interference. In a contest for religious liberty against the official tyranny that has for the last hundred years tried to usurp the place of Divine Providence to the Indian, we may be sure of the support of the freedom-loving American people. The intercourse laws should be repealed, so far as they relate to the operation of missionary societies. We should insist that all obstructions to the preaching of the gospel should be swept away. Then bring before all the churches the pressing and immediate needs of these neighbors who have fallen among thieves, who are pagans in a Christian land. While we are waiting they are passing into eternity. Shall we remain in selfish indifference till we are aroused by the dreadful sentence, “If thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thy hand.” This Association is only the servant of the churches. The means and the men must come from the churches. If the churches were awake to their duty in this matter, and realized their responsibility for the Christianizing of the Indian, they could send missionaries to every part of this field within a year. There are 348,000 Indians in the country, excluding Alaska. From this number we should deduct 65,000 in the five civilized tribes. This leaves 183,000. Of this number 28,600 are already church members. This leaves a population not greatly more than three times the size of this city of Portland. Would we dare to say to our Master that we cannot occupy this field?
There never has been a time so propitious as the present; there never has been a time when the wrongs and the needs of the Indian have received so much attention from the Christian, the legislator and the philanthropist.
Therefore your committee would recommend that a committee of five be chosen to co-operate with the Financial Secretary for Indian Missions in devising and carrying out measures to bring the needs and opportunities of the Indian field before the churches, other missionary societies doing Indian work, and the numerous Indian Aid societies now organized throughout the country.
This committee should make an effort to secure the co-operation of all Christians and friends of the Indian in a greatly enlarged, thorough, systematic mission work. They should also labor to create a public sentiment that should demand the repeal of the intercourse laws, so far as they hinder mission work; the order in relation to the use of the vernacular in the mission schools, and the removal of every other obstruction of the Indian Bureau to the civil and religious liberty of the missionary and teacher on the one hand, and the Indian on the other.
The gospel of Christ offers the only solution to the Indian problem. It must precede and prepare the way for civilization. Through it alone can we save the Indian, and atone for the century of dishonor in which our Government’s system of dealing with the red men has made them paupers and kept them barbarians and pagans. This is the work of the Christian church, and if we shrink from or avoid the duty of the hour, God will not hold us guiltless.
REPORT ON CHINESE WORK.
BY REV. S. L. B. SPEARE, CHAIRMAN.
Your committee note with special satisfaction the following indications of progress in the work of our Association for the Chinese. Willing subjects of missionary labor are more numerous and more accessible. Past years of foundation work, dealing with Asiatic inertia and colossal prejudice and just resentment under wrong, are bearing fruit unusual in amount and assured genuineness. Our faithful missionary superintendent on the Pacific coast does not abate his courage or enthusiasm. Faithful teachers and co-workers can be found. The Lord of the vineyard has set his seal of approbation by granting harvests which, in the light of difficulties in the field and their promise for the future, are truly great. That Foreign Missionary Society, spontaneously formed by Chinese converts, thoroughly equipped and liberally supported in proportion to their means, and which aims, finally, at nothing less than the conversion of China’s millions, should silence any and all cavil or uncertainty as to their motives in embracing Christianity. Japan, also, hears tidings of Christian sympathy as her wandering sons are met with helpful counsels and religious enlightenment on these far western shores—the land of their ideal civilization. We rejoice that those in charge of the field see their way clear for “tentative evangelistic work” and have entered upon it. This betokens firm conviction and resolute purpose that the field shall be taken for Christ. Difficulties and embarrassments only multiply their zeal and methods. Like the great missionary to the Gentiles, these heralds of the gospel look upon “many adversaries” and “an open door” as equivalents. The statistics of recent progress emphasize our golden opportunity to reach the “hermit natives” through their representatives within our borders.
Your committee note with profound regret the serious falling off in the money appropriations for their work. Native helpers, skilled and consecrated, are the chief preaching agency of all missionary fields, and of China preëminently. Ours is the opportunity to multiply such helpers. California is in the foreground to-day as never before, not excepting the old mining days. The church should occupy that field with a zeal and wisdom that shall emulate the enterprise of railroads and real estate projectors. The church must not contradict all her traditions and working principles when Christ’s poor come to her borders by the thousand and under conditions specially favorable to Christ-like approach. Her own life will be impoverished by so doing. The priest and Levite wronged and degraded their own souls by passing on the other side from the wounded sufferer, as much as the good Samaritan enriched his by pouring oil into his wounds and sheltering the victim of robbers.
Your committee hope that measures can be taken to bring the attention of our beloved churches to this their phenomenal opportunity and duty—to give the gospel at short range and nominal cost, to Asia’s millions and support that message with all possible sympathy and aid.
REPORT OF FINANCE COMMITTEE.
BY MR. CHAS. A. HULL, CHAIRMAN.
In presenting their report upon the financial condition and management of the business of the American Missionary Association, your committee on Finance desire to commend the clear and thorough manner in which the accounts are kept, so that any needed information may be had regarding any one of the numerous items of investment or expense at the numerous places where the work of the Association is carried on. The schedule of the property owned by the Association shows it to be possessed of buildings and land for the carrying on of educational and church work, the aggregate cost of which stands at $576,540.15. In addition to this plant, the Endowment funds amount to $229,375.78 which are securely invested, and yield an annual income of about $10,000. The Association also holds conditional trust funds amounting to $69,726.95. The good judgment shown in the purchase of land, the erection of buildings, and the investment of the permanent funds speaks well for the thorough care of the officers and the Executive Committee.
The committee desire to congratulate you and the Congregational churches of our land upon the extinction of the debt which for several years has been a burden to the Association. The treasurer’s report shows a balance on hand of $2,193.80, after paying every liability of the Association up to October 1, 1887, including the debt of $5,783.71, which remained at the end of the previous year.
In order to accomplish this, however, it has been necessary to defer until the receipts should warrant it, much work which presses with importunity upon the Association in the various fields.
We find that the treasurer’s accounts are regularly and faithfully examined each month by the financial committee of your executive board; and at the end of the year by two auditors chosen by the Association who attach their certificate to the report, and who are thoroughly reliable business men. The accuracy and economy of the work are thus as fully secured as in any merely business establishment. The by-laws of the executive committee provide a system of checks upon the officers similar to those in use in great corporations; and while of old it was said that “the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light,” we are glad to note that in the administration of the American Missionary Association so great a degree of worldly wisdom or common sense has been employed.
The duties of the treasurer are responsible, and have been performed with exactitude and fidelity. The receipts for current work of the year from all sources have been $306,761.31; and the expenditures therefor, $298,783.80.
These items of expenditure have been carefully examined in detail by your committee, and they report that in each department the most careful economy has been used, and no curtailment which would not materially cripple the effective force of the Association seems possible.
Your committee have taken some pains to compare the expenses of the Association with those of other missionary societies, and we find that it does not suffer in the comparison. The committee note with regret that the expenditures for work among the Indians and Chinese have been cut down materially as compared with the previous fiscal year; but we believe that the policy of the executive committee in refusing to incur liabilities which the Congregationalists of the country would not meet is the right one.
They must keep the Association so economically and so safely managed that no reproach may justly fall upon it; and the fact that they are able to come before you at this meeting, and to report the absolute extinction of the load of debt which has been upon them and you for several years, and have yet developed and prosecuted with vigor the grand labor for the oppressed, appeals in the strongest possible way to you for the most generous increase of the sums to be intrusted to their management in the year to come.
All departments need enlarging. The Southern work ought to have not less than $275,000; $15,000 is a small sum to spend upon the Chinese on our western coast, while $60,000 would hardly give the much needed development to the Indian Mission. Shall not the $350,000 thus plainly needed and earnestly recommended by the last National Council of Congregational churches be forthcoming? From us to whom much has been given, much will surely be required. If we cannot in person go with these Christian men and women who are devoting their lives to the direct work of this Association, into the cabin of the Negro, the abode of the mountaineer, the opium den of the Chinese, or the wigwam of the Indian, let us at least say to those who do,—“We will uphold your hands, we will abundantly support your work, we will, as far as we can, share your burdens and be your fellow laborers.”