American Missionary Association.
FINANCIAL—THE DEBT.
Our receipts for the eleven months ending August 31st show an increase from collections of $14,452.76; a decrease in legacies of $5,195.52; with a net increase of $9,257.24 over the corresponding months of last year. On the other hand, the expenditures for these eleven months have been $31,835.70 more than those of last year, and hence a debt of over $22,000 is impending. The explanation is to be found in the fact that an unusually large per cent. of our collections this year is in specified gifts for special objects, and could not, therefore, be used to meet appropriations for current work; and the added expenditures have been absolutely required by the natural and healthful growth in our varied industrial, school and church work in all parts of our extended field.
As our friends have had occasion to know, we are making an earnest appeal for special help to avert this threatened debt. The responses thus far are encouraging, but not such as to leave the question beyond doubt. This magazine will reach most of our readers before the last Sunday of the month. We urgently appeal to our friends to make a grand rally on that day for our relief.
ANNUAL MEETING.
The forty-second Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association will be held at Providence, R.I., Oct. 23-25. The meeting will open promptly at 3 o'clock, Tuesday P.M., Oct. 23. On Tuesday evening, the annual sermon will be preached by Rev. Arthur Little, D.D., of Chicago. Those purposing to be present and wishing entertainment are requested to write to Mr. G.E. Luther, Secretary of Committee of Entertainment, Providence, R.I. (See the last page of the cover.)
[pg 268]
VOTING MEMBERS.
By our Constitution it will be observed that the following persons are entitled to vote at the annual meetings of this Association: Members of evangelical churches who have been constituted life members by the payment of $30 into its treasury, with the written declaration at the time or times of payment that the sum is to be applied to constitute a designated person a life member, such membership beginning sixty days after the payment; delegates chosen to attend the annual meeting by evangelical churches which have within a year contributed to the funds of the Association, such churches being entitled to send two delegates each. Each State Conference or Association is also entitled to send two delegates. Such delegates are members of the Association for the year for which they were appointed.
We sincerely urge our patrons to avail themselves of the opportunity thus afforded to participate in the management of the trusts of this Association, hoping that by so doing they will share more fully in the responsibility of its work and become more helpful in furthering its development in years to come.
We are happy to announce the return of Rev. Dr. Beard. He attended the London Missionary Conference, as the delegate of the American Missionary Association, and presented a paper on "History of Missions among the North American Indians." He was called by a telegram to Florence to the sick bed of two of his children, one of them very severely ill. Both recovered and he now returns to America, himself and family in excellent health. During his absence, he preached in his former pulpit in the American Church in Paris, and met many of his former parishioners. He had become greatly attached to that church and much interested in the very successful McAll Mission, to which he was greatly helpful. We welcome him once more to his chosen field in the work of the A.M.A., where he will find ample room for the exertion of his best energies.
The executive committee of the American Missionary Association has unanimously appointed the Rev. Frank E. Jenkins a Field Superintendent, to examine and report upon the work of our schools and churches in our Southern field. Mr. Jenkins is a graduate of Williams College, Massachusetts, and has had some years' experience as a principal of advanced schools. He is a graduate of Hartford Theological Seminary, and has been engaged successfully in our work in the South. Some parts of the field are already well known to him, and with others he will make immediate acquaintance. We commend him to our missionary teachers and preachers in the field, as a beloved Christian brother whose heart is in full sympathy with our work. [pg 269] We trust that the relationships which will be established, will be fruitful in helpfulness. His residence will be in Chattanooga, Tenn.
The prevalence of yellow fever at Jacksonville, Fla., and the danger of its spreading into the towns and cities of the southeast, will make it wise for us to delay for a time the opening of a few of our schools in that region. In former years some of our teachers, while at their posts, were caught by this malignant scourge and they faced the danger bravely—some of them laying down their lives and others permanently impairing their healths, by taking care of the smitten ones. Such heroism is demanded when the danger comes, but it does not seem best to seek the danger. A little delay in some places, we hope, will be all that is necessary.
By the time these pages reach our readers, most of our workers will have resumed their labors in the South. Many of the ministers and a few of the teachers have remained at their posts all summer, but the schools have been closed. Work in the cotton fields has called for the younger pupils, the summer schools have given employment to the older ones, while rest and a change of climate have been required by the white teachers from the North. But now activities will be resumed, and we contemplate the work with joy and hope.
These workers, and others like them, are the hope of the South. They go not arrayed and armed for bloody battle-fields; they go not as commercial travelers to sell the wares of the North; they go not as capitalists to start the whirling spindles or to kindle the fires in the smelting furnaces; they go not as politicians to speak for or against tariffs, nor to build up or break down parties. Their work is quieter and deeper than all this. They reach the mind and heart. As Christ aimed not so much at once to tear down or build up the outer, but to reach the inner springs of the soul, so these workers aim to make character, intelligent, pure, active, and thus to impel to all that is noble and honest in life, that stimulates to industry, economy, thrift—to making the home pure and all outer things prosperous and right. But, as Christ was misunderstood and rejected, so are these laborers ostracized. We rejoice to find a growing recognition of their worth and work, and trust that the day is coming when they will be fully appreciated and welcomed. In the meantime they toil on uncomplainingly, and for their sakes and for the work's sake we invoke, not perfunctorily but earnestly, the prayers of God's ministers and people in their behalf.
On another page will be found a review of two books by the well-known author, Edmund Kirke (J.R. Gilmore), who has made a special study of the white people of the Mountain regions of the South. Mr. Kirke has [pg 270] at our invitation prepared a paper to be read at our Annual Meeting, in connection with the Report on our Mountain Work. We have been permitted to read it. It is replete with racy incidents and delineations of quaint yet noble characters. If the tears and smiles which the reading of the paper drew from us are any test, then we can promise a treat to those who may hear it at the meeting in Providence.
QUALIFICATIONS OF CANDIDATES FOR MISSION WORK.
Many of our missionaries who are engaged in their devoted and self-denying labors in the South, have been compelled by the nature of our work to take their summer vacations. The educational work of the American Missionary Association is through and through a missionary work. It is begun with a missionary purpose and is carried on in the name of Christ to disciple the people, that they may know Him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. All of our teachers are sent to be missionaries. Many are returning now to their fields of service with which they are well acquainted, and some are going for the first time. Among these, questions are raised as to the requirements needed in those who are to go. We have thought that a few suggestions given to the candidates for the China Inland Mission by Hudson Taylor, might be properly repeated here for those who are to take upon themselves these responsible Christian duties. He says:
First of all, it is absolutely essential that those desiring to be missionaries should have a deep love for Christ, a full grasp of His plan of salvation, and be wholly consecrated, in their inward lives, to Him. Mission work is not preaching grand sermons, or witnessing marvellous baptisms; it is a patient Christ-like life, day by day, far from external help, far from those we love; a quiet sowing of tiny seeds, which may take long years to show above the ground, combined with a steady bearing of loneliness, discomfort and petty persecution. The work demands of every worker very real and manifest self-sacrifice and acts of faith. It aims at, and ought to be satisfied with, nothing less than the conversion of the people to God. Not witness-bearing merely, but fruit-bearing is the end in view. Anything short of the salvation of souls is failure.
It is generally found that when people are of no use at home, they are of no use in the mission field. The bright, brave, earnest spirit, ready to face difficulties at home, is the right spirit for the work abroad. A patient, persevering, plodding spirit, attempting great things for God, and expecting great things from God, is absolutely essential to success in missionary efforts. Those will not make the best missionaries who are easily daunted by the first difficulty or opposition, but those whose strength is equal to waiting upon God, and who fight through all obstacles by prayer and faith. The spasmodic worker, frantic in zeal one month, and at freezing-point another, will be weary long before the station has been reached: while in the strength of Christ the weakest of us need not draw back, nor say, "I am not fit," yet nothing less than burning love to Christ, and in Him to perishing souls, will survive and overleap the difficulties and disappointments of the work.
These are royal words, and we believe that our teachers and missionaries engaged in this most glorious work of saving needy souls will take with them this spirit, and be blessed in the communication of their blessing to others.
[pg 271]
IMMIGRANTS AND NEGROES.
The Immigrant question challenges attention. Shall immigrants be welcomed, restricted or prohibited? In the early days of the Republic, when the revolutionary war had welded the people together and our boundless territory begged for occupancy, we welcomed the oppressed of all nations. Later, the welcome has been responded to by such a rushing, heterogeneous and even dangerous mass that we are compelled to pause. Restriction is talked of, but the line of discrimination is hard to be fixed. No committee at Castle Garden can detect anarchists, criminals, or even the poor, if that line should be chosen. Prohibition—exclusion is talked of—nay, is enacted stringently against the Chinese. If need be, it may extend to all. So there is a way of averting this evil.
But the Negro question cannot be put away. The Negroes are here. They outnumber the immigrants that have come to our shores in the last thirty years, and have a foothold upon the soil as valid as the Aryan race, whether we consider the date of their coming or the labor they have put upon the land.
There is a strange disposition to shrink from the Negro question. Some avoid it by flippantly denying the danger; others turn from it because they are appalled by it. Thus an able writer on Immigration in a recent number of the Century passes the topic with this awe-stricken remark: "This problem (of the Negro) cannot be touched practically; ancient wrongs bind the nation hand and foot, and its outcome must be awaited as we await the gathering of the tempest—powerless to avert, and trembling over the steady approach" (The italics are ours.) This is not wise; it is not manly. Why try to avert the evils of immigration, or any other, if we are meanwhile only to await tremblingly the doom that is to come on us from the conflict with the Negro?
There is a strong disposition to gather hope from the newly-developed manufacturing interests in the South. But this is delusive. The South is essentially a rural population; the new industries will necessarily be confined to a few localities, and will reach but slightly the wide agricultural region, and will scarcely touch the Negroes. And more than all this, these industries will only be importing into the South the struggle between labor and capital, which so vexes us at the North. Instead, therefore, of solving the old difficulties at the South, they will add a new one.
The danger of a war of races is scouted at the North; it is not at the South. This is natural. The North is not in immediate contact with the danger; the South is. When the war of the rebellion was impending, the North refused to believe in its coming; and when it came, one of the wisest statesmen of the North, Mr. Seward, predicted that it would "not last sixty days." No such delusion prevailed in the South. Many of the best men there, nay, nearly all the border States, dreaded its coming and held back as [pg 272] long as possible, but they were swept into the flood they foresaw and could not avert.
Thoughtful men at the South now have no rose-colored views about the Negro problem. They fear the impending conflict. With them the supremacy of the white race is the settled point, but they see in the growing numbers, intelligence and restlessness of the Negroes an increasing danger that will only be aggravated by delay. Why should not the North and South alike manfully face the question of a war of races? What will it mean? What will be its end? If the whites and the blacks of the South alone engage in it, the blacks will be exterminated. Nothing less will meet the case. If the North mingle in the struggle, it must be to help the whites or the blacks. If to help the whites, that will mean the more rapid defeat and slaughter of the blacks; if the North help the blacks and save them from destruction, then we shall be worse off than we are now, the two races will be together with enmities aroused a thousand fold!
But why not face the more hopeful question: Is there a remedy? There is! The teacher and the preacher, the spelling-book and the Bible, the saviours of men, the reformers of society, the uplifters of races, are spreading over the South. They go to the manufacturing towns—the Birminghams and the Annistons—they go to the large cities with their common and normal schools, their medical, law and theological seminaries. When the pupils become teachers, they go into the smaller towns, they go into the rural districts, on the small farms, everywhere instructing, encouraging and stimulating the people, leading them to more intelligent industries, to economy, to the purchase of land, the erection of better houses, to a higher aim in life, and to the formation of a right character. Of such stuff men are made, citizens, Christians; men who can use the ballot, who own property that must be protected by the ballot; men who have homes that must be refined and pure, churches where God is worshipped intelligently and where a practical morality is taught and attained. Such a people will be safe, for they will be bone and muscle of the South, they will be needed in its wide expanse of fertile soil, needed in its practical trades, needed for the accumulated wealth, intelligence and cultivated piety they will bring into all the walks and avocations of life.
But it will be some time before these educational and religious means reach all the blacks, and in the meantime much patience and toil will be needed. To the blacks we would say: You won the admiration of men and the blessing of God by your patience under the yoke of slavery when there seemed to be no hope; now win both again by bearing in like spirit your lesser present ills, while hope dawns and help is near.
To thoughtful men North and South we urge: Take hold of this work like men. If a thousandth part of the self-sacrifice and money spent in the war were devoted to this work, the evil might be averted. Why stand over-awed at a threatened flood that if met in time may not only be averted but be turned into fertilizing waters over the broad lands?
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BOOK REVIEW.
THE REAR GUARD OF THE REVOLUTION. By JAMES R. GILMORE (Edmund Kirke). D. Appleton & Co.: New York. 1.50.
JOHN SEVIER AS A COMMONWEALTH BUILDER. By JAMES R. GILMORE (Edmund Kirke). D. Appleton & Co.: New York. 1.50.
Just one hundred years before the rebellion of the Southern States, Daniel Boone cut on a beech tree near Jonesboro, Tenn., the following words, which are still legible:
D. Boon
Cilled A BAR on
THE Tree
in YEAR 1760
The same year that Daniel Boone "cilled" (killed) this "bar," William Bean, a former companion of Boone's, settled in the valley of the Watauga River, in what is now Eastern Tennessee. The two volumes whose titles are given above trace the history of this mountain settlement from the time that this pioneer crossed the Alleghenies down to the death of John Sevier, Sept. 24, 1815. These books are of much more than ordinary interest to the readers of the AMERICAN MISSIONARY. James R. Gilmore (Edmund Kirke) has put the same power of graphic description, the simple yet thrilling narrative, which held us spell-bound to the last chapters of Among the Pines.
Our limited space does not permit an extended review of these volumes. We only call attention to them here because they touch upon great missionary problems, and throw a flood of light upon these interesting Mountain people among whom the A.M.A. has so extensive and important a work. The first of these volumes in chronological order is the Rear Guard of the Revolution. The colony of the Mountain people in the Watauga Valley, led by John Sevier and James Robertson and Isaac Shelby, constituted this "rear guard." No better blood ever mingled in the veins of a people than that which flows in this Mountain people. French Huguenot, Scotch-Irish Presbyterian and Welsh Presbyterian were their ancestors. With such leadership as these three men furnished, the early Mountain colonists ought to have been heroes, and they were.
In the author's own words, "These three men, John Sevier, James Robertson and Isaac Shelby, * * * were like Washington and Lincoln, 'providential men.' They marched neither to the sound of drum nor bugle, and no flaming bulletins proclaimed their exploits in the ears of a listening continent; their slender forces trod silently the western solitudes, and their greatest battles were insignificant skirmishes never reported beyond the mountains; but their deeds were pregnant with consequences that will be felt along the coming centuries."
They were, and they held themselves to be, "providential men." Whether reading the Bible by the light of the great pine fires, or burning the cabins [pg 274] of the Cherokees, or driving the marauding Chickamaugas into their lair at "Nick-a-Jack" cave, or beating the British at King's Mountain, these men felt themselves called of God to maintain for the people a free government.
There was the same reckless administration of punishment that still characterizes these Mountain people. A tory appeared in the road one day near the home of Colonel William Campbell, of the "Backwater settlement." The Colonel at once gives him chase; after a brief absence he returns to his home, and his wife eagerly asks "What did you do with him?"
"Oh, we hung him, Betty, that's all."
These early settlers did not immediately plant churches and school-houses, as the settlers of New England did. Still they were not altogether illiterate. A public document still in existence has the signature of 112 out of 114 of their number who signed the paper, two only making their X.
In 1779, the first Court House was built at Jonesboro. At about the same date, the author informs us, "The school mistress was to be found at nearly every cross-road in the older settlements. She occupied a small log-house, generally about sixteen feet square, and often without floor or windows." The author might have added that she, or one like her, occupies the same school-house to-day.
In 1779, the first "church-house" was erected, and Rev. Tidence Lane became the "first settled minister beyond the Alleghenies."
To those of our readers who have recently followed the missionary work of the A.M.A. in this Mountain region, these books will be of great interest.
CHAS. J. RYDER.
We have received from Rev. Austin Willey, author of "THE HISTORY OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY CAUSE IN THE STATE AND NATION," a gift of one hundred copies of the book for gratuitous distribution among our workers in the South. We gave a brief review and a warm commendation of the volume in the AMERICAN MISSIONARY for June, 1886, and we renew our endorsement, and tender our thanks to the author for his benefaction. Our field workers will be interested in this candid sketch of the early anti-slavery struggle, and we believe that many of our white friends in the South will be glad to read in the light of these quiet days the sayings and doings of a class of people whom they then misunderstood.
The book may be had of B. Thurston, Portland, Me., or of C.T. Dillingham, 678 Broadway, N.Y. Price, 1.50, postpaid.
The reference to Father Willey and his book is suggestive. He is one of the "old, original" abolitionists. Men who were once denounced and are now scarcely honored, for lo! to the amazement and amusement of some of us, we find that everybody was an abolitionist and always had been, that everybody learned to hate slavery on the mother's lap, and was always opposed to it! We who in those early days were treated as outcasts by "gentlemen of property [pg 275] and standing," and mobbed by the rabble at their bidding, are led to wonder what has become of all those who thus disagreed with us! One marked exception occurs to us. A prominent professor in a theological seminary, when the question was put to him ten years ago: "Professor, when did you become an Abolitionist?" replied, with a merry twinkle in his eye: "When it became popular." We have found few, however, who are so frank or so witty.
M.E. STRIEBY.
THE UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE OF OUR MISSIONARIES AT THE SOUTH.
In a recent number of The Nineteenth Century, Sir William W. Hunter, an eminent authority, reporting the influence of the missionaries in India, says that among the people to whom they have gone they have built up the most complete confidence and implicit faith in the purity and unselfishness of their motives. He declares that he regards the missionary work of the English as an expiation for wrong-doing, and he believes that the missionary instinct forms the necessary spiritual complement of the aggressive genius of the English race. Sir William also claims that the advance of missionaries in the good opinion of non-Christian peoples is a most striking evidence of their high character and intelligence, and that no class of Englishmen has done so much to make England respected in India as the missionaries, that no class has done so much to awaken the Indian's intellect and to lessen the dangers of transition from the old state of things to the new.
After this much of condensation of that profound article by the Christian Union, we quote from the author:
"The careless onlooker may have no particular convictions on the subject, and flippant persons may ridicule religious effort in India as elsewhere. But I think that few Indian administrators have passed through high office, and had to deal with the ultimate problems of British government in that country, without feeling the value of the work done by missionaries. Such men gradually realize, as I have realized, that the missionaries do really represent the spiritual side of the new civilization, and of the new life which we are introducing into India."
Names and places being changed, it is coming to appear that the whole of this can be said of the Christian workers from the North among the colored people of the South. Besides all of their work that can be told by statistics, and besides all of that in building up character among the Negroes and awakening their intellect and their aspiration for thrift in every sense, they have exerted a profound unconscious influence upon the white people of that Southland. They, too, have built up among the whites a confidence in the purity and unselfishness of their motives. At first they were suspected as emissaries of a political party. By many even of the best people there they were held as necessarily persons of low-down condition and character to be willing to do that "low-down work." "With our views of the case, how [pg 276] could we believe anything else?" was the answer to the remonstrance against the current mode of treatment. Gradually this feeling has been giving way to one of growing confidence, until for several years such men as Rev. Dr. A.G. Haygood and Mr. G.W. Cable, and such papers as the Memphis Appeal, and such a State Board of Examiners as that of the Atlanta University have been publicly declaring the high intellectual quality and moral standing of these once despised teachers, while many of the most respectable citizens are privately saying the same thing, and multitudes believe it, though making no announcement of the same.
By this crucifixion of feeling through which those workers have passed, and by their self-denying endurance of hardness, they too, in no small sense, have been making expiation for the wrongs done the slaves. Their missionary instinct also forms the necessary spiritual complement of the aggressive genius of the Puritan civilization which is now taking possession where its sword had cleared the way. Their advance in the good opinion of the best people of the South is also a striking evidence of their high character and intelligence. No class of Northern people going South have done so much to make the North respected as the missionaries, and none are doing more to lessen the danger of transition from the old state of things to the new. Going, not as "carpet-baggers," but as citizens, to be identified with the moral reconstruction of the South, they translate there the real spirit of the North, and represent the spiritual side of the new life which is going into that fair portion of our own dear country. By the peculiar people to whom they especially go, and who prove to have a natural affinity for Puritan ideas and institutions, they are doing more than any others to set up, not a New England in the South, but a New South, wherein shall be rejuviant the principles of that civilization which was planted at Plymouth Rock.
JOSEPH E. ROY.
EXPULSION OF NEGROES FROM MARION, ARKANSAS.
It is not our custom to publish details of alleged outrages upon the colored people at the South. We have no wish to stir up strife by recalling memories of the past, or by giving incidents of recent aggression against the helpless. But this case in Marion is free from bloody details and is a simple illustration of the determination of the white people to maintain their sway in the South.
The simple facts in the case are, that in Crittenden County, Arkansas, of which Marion is the county town, the population is chiefly colored, the ratio being seven negroes to one white man. For several years the office of Judge of the County and Probate Court, and the Clerk and under officers of the court, were colored men. The more important county offices were held by white men. On a given day, fifty or more heavily-armed white men appeared at the county seat and drove from their offices and homes the colored officers named above, together with the colored local doctor, the [pg 277] lawyer, the schoolmaster of the colored school, the editor of the colored newspaper and a number of other prominent colored citizens.
The farther details of the transaction are given in a thoughtful and calm article in a recent number of The Independent by Rev. B.A. Imes, the colored minister of the church at Memphis, Tenn., under the care of this Association. We give below all of the article that relates to the facts:
THE CRITTENDEN COUNTY OUTRAGE.
BY THE REV. B.A. IMES.
From the bluff at Memphis we look across the river, where along the western shore stretch the forests of Crittenden County, Arkansas, and Marion, about fourteen miles from Memphis, is the county-seat. The story of the recent banishment of fifteen prominent colored office-holders, professional men and farmers has gone to the world.
The whites, well armed, took their game by surprise, bagged and shipped it without bloodshed. Now the "empire is peace" they say, although for a time terror reigned among the startled colored people.
With a Negro population six or seven times as large as the white, it is not strange that the County Court Judge, the County Clerk and his deputy should be Negroes, nor that they should aspire to other places in public life.
Unfortunately, as all witnesses agree, Judge Lewis and Clerk Ferguson were given to drinking habits, which brought them under accusation before the courts for drunkenness. It was probable that they would have been convicted; but without awaiting the tardiness of the law, a shorter process was found.
In palliation of their hasty banishment it is claimed that anonymous letters were sent to some of the leading white citizens, warning them to leave the county. These letters it is asserted—not proved—must have proceeded from Clerk Ferguson's office, although not written by himself. The object was to intimidate those who would be most efficient in convicting and deposing the unworthy officials.
Furthermore, there are two opposing factions of colored Baptists at Marion, and it is surmised that one of these factions, regarding these prominent characters as their enemies, had something to do with the letter-writing in order to bring down wrath upon them. Still another theory is, that the whites have only been awaiting their chance, and taking advantage of favorable conditions, knew when and whence the said letters would be issued. It was all arranged beforehand. At all events, the time was very short, after the delivery of the letters, until Winchester rifles and shot-guns were in the hands of some scores of white citizens, and fifteen Negro men, including Lewis and Ferguson, York Byers, a deputy sheriff and well-to-do farmer, Dr. Stith, a successful young physician, and others, were speedily sent across the river to Memphis.
Clerk Ferguson found himself surrounded by a squad of these brave [pg 278] men, who, with rifles presented, demanded that he sign without ceremony a resignation. He signed. Byers escaped through the swamps, made his way to the river, and came to Memphis in a sorry plight. The other victims were put upon the train with orders to go and never return. Byers was to be violently dealt with, had they caught him.
Sandy S. Odom, living on his farm about six miles from Marion, I am informed, refused to leave his home, when waited upon and ordered to go. Said he. "All I have is here—wife, child and farm—I can't go away." For a time his pluck seemed to be respected. His fault was that of being a friend of the Marion officials. He had once served at Little Rock as a legislator from his district, but, like Cincinnatus, had since resumed the plow.
According to the latest by the Memphis Appeal, Odom has decided that discretion is the better part of valor, and will be off for a safer place as soon as his business affairs can be arranged.
The Governor of Arkansas has refused to interfere, because the Circuit Court Judge at Marion has solemnly charged the grand jury as to their duty toward the writers of threatening letters, and also toward those who unlawfully drove citizens from their homes, etc. But this solemn part of the proceeding was enacted, in spite of the fact that the sheriff of Crittenden County was one of the leading spirits in the outrage upon the defenceless black men, and the judge and grand jury and all Crittendon County are far from expecting to hear of any white man being arrested.
But last Sunday, Dr. Stith, one of the exiles, went back to Marion on the morning train. He had heard that his wife was sick, and he said: "If I am a man I must go to her." He was promptly arrested by the patrol force at Marion and lodged in jail, where he is likely to remain until next January meeting of court before he can have a trial. There is nothing brought against him aside from his having been once associated with the "offensive partisans." He had at one time been an active politician, but more recently has devoted himself to his profession, and was already known as a successful physician. Like Odom, his character is not assailed: but he was educated, and influential among the people.
Two young ladies, teachers from Memphis, one of whom had taught last year at Marion, went thither soon after Dr. Stith's arrest, to make inquiry about a situation for teaching.
They were closely watched, and in an interview were warned by a reporter of the Memphis Appeal that it was not safe for them to remain in Marion. They had reason to think that they were being watched as spies in the interest of the banished; hence their stay was very brief.
When the Clerk Ferguson had vacated, a "white citizen" was at once put into that office. It is a remarkable fact that, aside from a few hints about the necessity of maintaining order and proceeding according to law, the general tone of the press here is to the effect that this occurrence, though unfortunate on account of its effect at the North, was really justifiable.
[pg 279]
The cruel wrong inflicted upon those who have no crime laid to their charge, no personal reproach of character, is treated as though it were but little more than a joke. If the two officials were guilty of drunkenness no one doubts that they could have been legally removed from office. If the colored people at Marion are divided into factions, then the whites could the more easily combine forces against the officials in question, or any political ring which may have existed. But there was a general Negro uprising threatened, and in order to save their own lives the whites made haste to get into the field first. This is the avowed excuse. But it is certain that no one believes there was serious danger of a Negro uprising. The men arrested and banished were unarmed, and taken by surprise. If they were in any sense desperate or dangerous characters they turned cowards suddenly, making no resistance. Indeed, there is but one excuse for their bloodless surrender. They display to the world the utter groundlessness of the charge of a conspiracy. No dynamite bombs, no loaded weapons, no evidence of organized bands were discovered.
In all the history of the shot-gun policy and the unnumbered outrages committed, there are on record few, if any, cases of conspiracy against life and property on the part of the Negro. But the true animus of the Crittenden County affair, I think, is found in the current declaration which is used at Marion on the part of the brave men who drove out these exiles, viz.: "We don't want any educated niggers, and won't have 'em here, not even to teach school."
It should not be overlooked, that in this instance there is fully revealed that singular idea which so widely prevails at the South, viz.: A Negro is in his place only and always as a subordinate. It is assumed that to educate him unfits him for his mission in life, unless that education looks simply to some hand service.
With this fact before us, we can explain the dead silence of the pulpit and the press of the South as touching the first principles of justice.
The end justifies the means when "Negro rule" is to be prevented, and to protest against this bold subversion of the great principles of citizenship in the Republic, is to "wave the bloody shirt." We will admit that it is by no means desirable that a mass of illiterate people should hold sway, but we claim that the Southern white people can break the "color line" if they will, by admitting frankly the rights of the Negro, and by encouraging him to aspire to an intelligent and worthy manhood.
EXTRACTS.
Fifty years ago there was a boy in Africa who was taken prisoner in one of the fierce wars between the tribes, and was carried away from his home to be sold as a slave. First he was sold for a horse. Then his buyer thought him a bad exchange for the horse, and compelled his master to take him back. [pg 280] Then he was sold for so much rum. This was called another bad bargain by the man who had bought him, and again he was returned, to be sold for tobacco with the same result. Nobody wanted the poor, miserable slave-boy, who was on the point of committing suicide when he was bought by a Portuguese trader and carried away in a slave ship. How little that wretched boy knew what the future had in store for him as he lay chained in the hold of the crowded slave-ship! But one of England's war ships that were clearing the high seas of the slavers bore down upon the Portuguese vessel, rescued the captives, and the African boy was placed under Christian influences, baptized and educated, and to-day he is Bishop Crowther, England's black Bishop in Africa.—The Gospel in all Lands.
A very obliging Indian.—Dr. C.A. White, Professor of Paleontology in the Smithsonian Institution, relates this pleasing incident. Being in the Ute country a year or so ago, in pursuit of scientific facts, he found himself on one occasion encamped some fifty miles from Uintah Agency. Being desirous of sending a letter to his wife in Washington, he entrusted it to an Indian who, he learned by signs, was on his way to the agency. He was not sure that the Indian understood what he desired him to do with the letter, but took the risk of that. His wife received the letter and was surprised at finding it postmarked Salt Lake City. The Doctor afterward learned that the Indian arrived at the agency just after the mail had gone, and knowing that it would be a month before another mail would be sent out he actually carried the letter to Salt Lake City, a distance of 225 miles, for this white man whom he had never met before, and whose name he did not know. Doubtless the Indian thought the letter of great importance, but where is the white man who would have done as much for his best friend, without the hope of reward or even thanks?—Council Fire.
SCHOOL ECHOES.
In 1864 in Memphis, in a refugee school that I visited while chaplain in the army, the Bible lesson was John xv., "I am the vine and my father is the husbandman." One little fellow recited it thus: "I am the vine and my father is a married man."
What for we come to this school.—We come for to intelligent about the civilization ways, and we want to American write, we want to American home, and we want friendly each other with the white people. We are commence learning discretion and we are works our own hands. My conscience has cried because our Indian they can not do nothing with their hands and when I look back our old Indian ways I am great sorry, but when I looked future I have examined with careful attention, and I very great pleasure. Last summer I went home. I worked at harness, but I don't [pg 281] know some about measure length and wide, cut off I know but not perfectly, so I come back to school again, because I want to learn perfect all things about harness make without anybody help me.
ROME AND THE FREEDMEN.
We present below two articles on this subject. The first is from a London paper and the second is from one of the many able papers edited by colored men. As to the facts alleged we have no definite information. When the slaves were emancipated the Roman Catholics made very decided efforts to win them. It was supposed by Protestants that the grand ceremonials, the gaudy vestments, the music, and especially the welcome which the Papal Church was said to give to all men irrespective of riches, race or color, would attract the Freedmen. But the expectation was not met; the Freedmen were not attracted, and soon the special efforts seemed to cease. But Rome never surrenders, and those efforts may now be resumed. We invite attention to the two articles.
From "THE CHRISTIAN."
Romanism is spreading among the colored people of the American Continent, and it is said that several Negroes are now in training in Rome and elsewhere to become priests. The American Roman Catholic papers say that the cause is not far to seek, the Roman Catholic Church being 'the only one on this continent offering the Negro communion on terms of equality.' If this is not true all round, it certainly is the fact that outbreaks of the so-called 'color-prejudice' have been of but rare occurrence among the Romanists, and that they are apparently reaping the result in a large accession of numbers.
From "THE NEGRO AMERICAN."
Few persons are aware of the rapid spread of Catholicism among the colored people of this country. From the American Catholic Tribune, the organ of the colored Catholics of America, we obtain facts that are truly startling. Young colored men are now in Rome and in the Catholic schools and colleges of the United States, preparing for work among their people in America, and Africa as well, while to-day missionaries are everywhere busy, sowing the seeds of Catholic belief and worship. These teachings are eagerly accepted by the colored people. The cause of this success among them is not far to seek. The Catholic Church, of all which are ruled by whites on this continent, is the only one offering the Negro communion on terms of equality. While the Southern Protestants are setting up separate synods, councils, presbyteries and conferences for the Negro, and the Y.M.C.A., with the same narrow spirit, is refusing colored men seats in its councils, while Northern Protestants are either neutral in this matter of caste or only half-hearted [pg 282] in crying down upon the sin of it; the Catholics alone have accepted in a full and liberal sense the command, "preach my gospel to every creature," and have extended fellowship to all, regardless of race, color or condition. It matters not what their motive is. The fact stands boldly out. True, instances are occurring of outbreaks of color-prejudice among the Catholics, but the policy of the church is openly and boldly against discrimination of whatever sort among its members. The fear of "social equality," that shadow of a something that never did, and never can, exist, that bug-bear of illiberal minds and narrow culture, does not stand guard at the doors of this church to drive away the colored worshipper or compel him to sit at the second table at the Lord's feast. Is it to be wondered at, then, that the colored people are flocking to the Catholic fold? This they will continue to do, so long as the spirit of caste dictates the policy, and governs the action, of the white Protestants of the United States.