Another essential in the estimate of the religious progress of the Negro is the work done by the churches for their expansion into neglected parts. It has been said that the Negroes of the United States annually contribute more than $125,000 to home missions, supporting about 250 home missionaries and aiding more than 400 churches in backward districts. Owing to the recent migration resulting in all but the depletion of many churches in the South, and the necessity for others in the North, there has been much stimulus from without in some centers where churches have had little support from those migrants primarily interested in economic gain. Ever alive to the situation, however, the various Negro denominations have raised large sums to organize and maintain new churches wherever these migrants of color have settled in large numbers.
In foreign missions the Negro denominations have done almost as well. They annually contribute to this work more than $150,000. While some of this sum has been expended in promoting this cause in various foreign fields, the larger portion of it, by special designation, has been used in countries having a preponderance of Negro population, especially in Africa. The Negro Baptists, through the Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention, the work of which is directed by that untiring apostle to the lowly, Dr. L. G. Jordan, carries on missionary work in five foreign countries. This body has established 61 stations, 83 out-stations, and 43 churches, having altogether 14,700 communicants, among whom are 43 native workers and 451 assistants. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, having organized their mission work earlier than the Baptists—that is, in 1844, whereas the Baptists did not organize theirs until 1880—have been more successful abroad. This denomination has invaded as many as eight foreign countries. Most of its efforts, however, have been restricted to Africa, where this denomination has two bishops reaching 17,178 members through 118 ordained ministers and 479 local preachers and teachers. This work in Africa was promoted largely through Bishops Levi J. Coppin and J. Albert Johnson, who, transferred to districts in this country, are still rendering their denomination valuable service. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, which did not organize its foreign mission work until 1892, has established three foreign mission stations, five out-stations, and eleven churches. Other denominations have also done much to support missionary effort in foreign parts.
To promote Christian education both at home and in foreign fields these denominations have well supported publishing houses. The Colored Methodists have for a number of years had a successful plant for this work, which reached a stage of progress under its efficient agent, Dr. J. C. Martin. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was earlier in the field and saw the work recently expanded under the well-known Dr. J. W. Crockett. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, a pioneer in this enterprise, has easily taken the lead in this work among the Negro churches, especially under such efficient managers as Dr. R. R. Wright, in charge of the Publishing House and editor of The Christian Recorder in Philadelphia, under Dr. R. C. Ransom, the brilliant editor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, and under the progressive Ira T. Bryant, the director of the publications of the Sunday School Union in Nashville, founded by Bishop C. S. Smith. The Negro Baptists, having become enraged at the refusal of the white Baptists to recognize them as constituents of an all comprehending denomination, organized the National Baptist Convention, which accepted as one of its most important concerns the establishment of The National Baptist Publishing House. After attaining a high degree of success under the efficient Dr. R. H. Boyd, however, this establishment became the business of only that portion of the Baptists who supported Dr. Boyd in his efforts to direct the work on what his opponents called a private basis. The other Baptist faction has established another publishing house in Nashville.
Still another idea of the growth of the Negro church may be obtained from the statistics as to their administrative officers. The work of the Negro denominations has grown to the extent that the African Methodist Episcopal Church has fifteen bishops and nine other administrative officers, the Colored Methodists seven bishops and eleven other administrative officers, and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church ten bishops and fifteen other administrative officers. The affairs of the National Baptist Convention, incorporated, are administered by thirteen officers, and the National Baptist Convention, unincorporated, by an equal number of functionaries. These, however, are not all regularly engaged in administrative work as in most of the Methodist denominations. The smaller groups of Baptists and Methodists show here and there top-heavy administrative staffs, whereas very large groups of Negro members in white churches have fewer supervisors. The Methodist Episcopal Church, however, has for some years maintained for the Negroes abroad a missionary bishop, in the capacity of whom Bishops Alexander P. Camphor and Isaiah B. Scott have served. The noble fight as indicated by favorable ballots taken in various conferences, moreover, all but resulted in the election of the eloquent Dr. J. W. E. Bowen as a regular bishop. Becoming sufficiently liberal, however, to override race prejudice, the Conference of 1920 not only chose as bishop for Africa that pleasing preacher and successful pastor, Dr. M. W. Clair, but at the same time set apart for the New Orleans diocese the scholarly and brilliant editor of the Southwestern Christian Advocate, Dr. R. E. Jones.
BISHOP ALEXANDER WALTERS
CHAPTER XV THE NEGRO CHURCH OF TO-DAY
THESE new developments have kept the Negro ministry still attractive, but because of many undesirable situations here and there in the church comparatively few young men have, during the last decade or so, aspired to this work. Some young Negroes have learned to look upon the calling as a necessary nuisance. Except in church schools where the preparation for the ministry is an objective, it has often been unusual to find one Negro student out of a hundred aspiring to the ministry, and too often those who have such aspirations represent the inferior intellect of the group, as it happened in the church during the middle ages. So rapidly did the ministry fall into discredit in many quarters a few years ago that most women of promise would not dare to engage themselves to men who thought of becoming clergymen; and, if the marital connection happened to be effected before the lot of the bride was known, it was in many cases considered a calamity. Because Negroes now realize how limited the opportunity for the race is in politics and some of the professions, however, the ministry will doubtless continue, as it has since the Reconstruction, a sort of avenue through which the ambitious youth must pass to secure a hearing and become a man of influence among his people. This does not mean that irreligious men will masquerade as spiritual advisers but that, inasmuch as the church as an institution is considered a welfare agency as well as a spiritual body to edify souls, some Negroes, interested in the social uplift of the race, are learning to accomplish this task by accepting leadership in the church.
Negroes see in the ministry, moreover, a new mission. The world, having now gone mad after the trifles of this life, is sadly in need of a redeemer to save men from themselves. In the contest between selfishness and godliness the former has been victor in the soul of the American and European. There are those like Bishop John Hurst believing that the Negro church must play the rôle of keeping the fire burning on the altar until the day when men again become reverent, and that the Negro's liberal interpretation of the Christian religion, based upon the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, must gain ascendancy and be accepted by a regenerated world of to-morrow.