The character of the meetings may be inferred from the following sketch of the time devoted to the “Dark Continent,” in which we are especially interested. We copy from the correspondent of the Christian Union: “Two sessions on Tuesday were devoted to Africa and its many tribes. An Irish peer, the Earl of Cavan, presided, and the attendance of delegates and friends was large. Dr. Underhill, of the Baptist Missionary Society, discoursed on the benefits of emancipation, and showed what an important bearing the evangelizing of the negro race must have on the conversion of all West Africa. Sir Fowell Buxton, the son of the great advocate of emancipation forty years ago, described the three schemes now being carried out for planting new missions on the three great lakes of Central Africa. Dr. Stewart, of the Free Church Mission at Livingstonia, on Lake Nyassa, described the principle and the plan of the missionary institution at Lovedale, in the Cape Colony, which he has managed for several years. This is a model institution, with industrial as well as educational and theological departments; and is just the thing which the native tribes of South Africa need for their enlightenment. Dr. Lowe, the Secretary of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society, also read an admirable paper on the work, methods and usefulness of medical missions generally. Several of the medical missionaries who have recently gone out to Africa were Dr. Lowe’s pupils.
“Among the effective speakers on these African missions were Dr. Waugemann, of Berlin, who described the work of the Berlin Society, especially in the Transvaal; Dr. White, of the Freedmen’s Aid Mission; the Rev. E. Schrenck, of Basle, who spoke of work in Ashantee; and the Rev. Dr. Moffat, who told the Conference about his Bechuanas, and of course with his strong gray hair and his eighty-three years of age and sixty-two years of service for Christ, received an ovation at its hands. The noble presence and the stirring words of the grand old man on the African day were a striking feature in the meetings of the Conference.”
Such gatherings must help on the cause of Christian comity in missions, as well as broaden the views of all who are engaged in working the field under their hands. It is well to look up sometimes from our own furrow, even if we have to stop ploughing for a little, that we may realize that the field is the world, and that the harvest belongs to one Master.
THE POLITICAL PROGRESS OF THE FREEDMEN.
BY REV. M. E. STRIEBY.
Was it wise to give the ballot to the ex-slaves? The answer that came in the hour it was given, from the Congress that gave it, from the Northern people that sustained it, and from the colored people that enjoyed it, was an emphatic and enthusiastic “Yes!” The answer that came at that hour from the Southern white man was in a suppressed voice, and was an execration hissed out between grinding teeth. Since that hour the voice of the Southern white man has grown firmer, and, as it came up from misgoverned South Carolina and Louisiana, has rounded out into a full-toned “No!” Nay, more, it has been re-echoed from the North, and recently with special emphasis from the lips of one of the purest Christian scholars on the heights of Christian learning in New England. What answer do I give? Unhesitatingly, “Yes!” I say nothing about the mere party reason given either then or since, for I do not write as a partisan. I put the wisdom of the ballot on more substantial grounds.
1. It saved the Freedmen from being again reduced to slavery. Vagrant laws were passed, which confined them to the plantations on which they had engaged to work, the end of which would have been a serfdom attaching them to the soil. The ballot saved them from this.
2. It gave the Freedmen and the South a free school system—a greater boon than Southern legislation ever gave them before—a boon without which all else would have been well-nigh in vain. That system was modeled after the best patterns at the North, and although it has been somewhat modified and enfeebled in practical operation, is yet a solid corner-stone in the foundation of the new superstructure which the South is rearing.