—In seven years the students of Talladega College alone have organized Sunday-schools in which have been taught over 20,000 scholars.
—Dr. Sears, agent of the Peabody Fund, says that in all the States where there has been a re-action against education, it has been followed by a return to better measures than ever. Thus, through local actions and re-actions, the general forward movement is assured.
—One morning, in our school in Augusta, on calling for the First Commandment with Promise, a little girl, hardly six years old, said: “Honor thy father and mother, that thy days may be long in the land of liberty.” That wasn’t very bad.
—A colored Tennesseean says: “When I want to hear preaching, I go to the Congregational Church; when I want to have a good time I go to these other places.”
—One of our faithful ministers in Georgia grieves over a recent restoration to his pulpit of a neighboring colored pastor. He says the white people wanted it, because (1) the man’s politics suit them, (2) he is ignorant, and (3) he gets drunk. The colored members of his church know nothing of Bible religion, and are like their priest. On a recent Communion Sunday seven of them were seen returning to their homes drunk—three just able to stagger on, and four “being hauled out in a cart, not able to sit up.” The writer says such churches cannot save these people, and mere secular instruction will not cure such evils. The Christian school is the only hope.
—In another case, in the same State, a minister, going into a church shortly after the close of a communion service, found the deacons and a few of the members “eating and drinking and carrying on as if they were in a bar-room.” Being expostulated with, they said they did not feel at liberty to throw any of the bread and wine away. It was evidently, however, a renewal of the old excesses for which Paul so sharply rebuked the Church at Corinth.
—A woman in one of the old-style churches, not far from one of our best schools, “came through with religion” one night, and in telling her wonderful “experience,” said she went to heaven, and from there she saw this whole school “marching down to hell with their Bibles in their hands.”
INDIAN NOTES.
—The House Committee on Indian Affairs has reported in favor of the transfer of the Indian Bureau from the Interior to the War Department. Its grounds are (1) the failure of the attempts to civilize; (2) the divided responsibility between Secretary and Commissioner—between civil and military officers; (3) the corruption of the present Indian service; (4) the economy of the change, which will furnish employment for retired and idle army officers who receive pay.