Palfrey says, “Faith in God, faith in man, and in work,” was the brief formula taught by the founders of New England. May we not, the children of the Pilgrims, have faith enough in God and in these men to give them the church polity of these founders?
We are encouraged to recommend the planting of Congregational churches among the blacks, because we have great advantages in so doing. The eager aspiration of the blacks to be men, will help. Congregationalism has a clean record South. Has any other of our leading denominations? There is no prejudice to be overcome by it, as a polity. In the competitions of the denominations on the ground, will not there be an advantage for us? Then, again, the colored people look upon this Association as a tried friend, and trust it. Is not this an advantage? And, further, has not Providence opened the South to our polity, as well as piety, in a marked manner? The work already accomplished has shown the tree to be good, and given it favor widely, even among the old masters. Hence the aid given to our institutions by several of the States. Hence the high hope of many whites, that our work will do much to tone up the blacks in all that belongs to good citizenship, good morality, and proper church discipline. As Mohammedan Turkey, and Pagan Hawaii and India, have welcomed the Christian homes planted among them by the missionaries, and as the mission churches have been a leaven of light in their social and political life, so it has been, and will more and more be, as you establish your church centres over the South.
In conclusion, then, we approve what seems to be the thought of the Executive Committee—to “advance its activities in the direction of saving souls at the South, and organize churches of our polity, as really missionary centres of leavening influence. Let the trial of our polity at the South be a fair and full one, carrying out our ideas of Christian doctrine and morality. Thus, as we pray and believe, will that wilderness the sooner bud and blossom like the rose.” We recommend, therefore, the adoption of the following resolution:
Resolved, That this Association approves the plan of its Executive Committee—to make a careful examination of the field at the South, and infuse new activity into its church work, organizing churches, where the way is open, on the principles of the Congregational order.
| Rev. Edward Strong, D. D. Rev. Wm. L. Gaylord. | Rev. A. H. Plumb. Rev. D. O. Mears. |
| Rev. O. T. Lanphear, D. D. | |
The resolution was adopted.
Rev. Edward S. Atwood, of Salem, presented the report of the committee upon the “Chinese in America,” as follows:
The Committee, to whom was referred that portion of the Annual Report which relates to mission work among the Chinese in America, would respectfully submit the following:
We recognize with satisfaction the positive and demonstrable success of the Association in this department of labor—a success emphatically evidenced by the 1,500 gathered into the day-schools; the increased usefulness of the Bethany Home; the seventy-five conversions during the year, and the ardent desire of these newly-born souls for the Gospel light to shine on their native and beloved land. Were we to stop here and content ourselves with the mere statistics of progress, we should have no hesitation in saying to the officers and the missionaries of the Association, “Servants of God, well done!”
But simple justice compels a larger view of the matter. There is something to be taken into account besides these nominal assets. The chief worth of the work done lies in the fact that, in the doing of it, the Association has been loyal to its old and fixed theory, that a man is a man everywhere and always, with a soul to be saved, and a Saviour sufficient for its needs. Questions of nationality are irrelevant. The simple fact of humanity is all that needs to be known in order to institute a legitimate claim for the giving of the Gospel, by those who have it in trust. In this department of work, loyalty has not been an easy matter. The rough, unreasoning passions of the mob have glanced fiercely against it. Iniquity, baptised with the name of legislation, has endeavored to thwart it. The conciliatory conservatism of timid, good men, has been eager to dispense its soporific platitudes, and generous in prescribing its universal panacea for all difficulties—“Let us have peace!” The unwarrantable enmity to the Mongolian on the Pacific Coast has been supplemented and reinforced by the unaccountable apathy on the Atlantic shore of the continent. Yet, undaunted by these accumulated obstacles, the Association has said, like the great Missionary Apostle; “None of these things move me.” “The waves of the Yellow Sea,” it has said, “break on a land peopled by men for whom Christ died. If we can reach them without crossing thousands of intervening leagues of ocean, so much the better.” In spite of hostility, often white-hot; in spite of statute books, whose leaves were blistered with iniquitous provisions; in spite of the furious rage of lawless crowds, the Association has passed through the thick and peril of opposition of every sort, and taken by the hand the despised Mongolian, against whom so many scowling faces were set, and so many angry hands raised, and called him “Brother,” claiming kinship, and tendering the richest offices of help. For this, especially, the constituency of this Association should say to its management: “Vastly well done.” The old banner under which the Society was organized is still “full high advanced.” It is no small honor in these degenerate times to find men who are faithful to their trust at any cost.