Besides what is being done by the several denominations in their respective way, the American Sunday-school Union has in the South twelve of its missionaries. I met one of them the other day, Rev. J. J. Strong, whose field is the State of Alabama. In five years he had organized 157 schools, of which 37 were colored. Of the 142 schools aided by him, 58 were colored. He finds much aid and comfort at the home of Judge Thornton, in the northern part of the State. As he was about to start out on foot for the tour of the county, the judge said: “You must take my pony.” As the pony was known all over the county, he served as an introduction from the judge. This missionary is one of two who are sustained by one of those “unabridged” Christian men in the North. The other one works among the Swedes in Wisconsin. The salary and traveling expenses, and $100 to be given away by this worker in Alabama, uses up $1,100 a year in this excellent work of Christian philanthropy.
Besides all this at the South in this line, the American Missionary Association reports for the last year 5,894 Sunday-school scholars connected with its sixty-four churches. Then there is a vast amount of such work done every year that does not come into these statistics. During the last summer vacation Atlanta University sent out 150 day-school teachers, and Fisk as many more, and all our institutions furnish more or less of them. Nearly all of these also run for the time their own Sunday-schools, thus reaching many thousand children with the truth of God’s word. It is known that up to this time our colored teachers have reached 100,000 of these day scholars, a multitude of whom have been taught in Sunday-schools.
Talladega College, the last year, by its students, reached 1,200 Sunday-school scholars. In the past years they have reached, in all, 20,000. Out of these schools six Congregational churches have grown up. Rev. G. W. Andrews, the instructor in theology, has been accustomed to take his class on Saturday morning over the lesson of the next day, thus training them in a normal way as well as in the way of the truth.
I had the pleasure of attending, in the month of February, the convention held in New Orleans for organizing the State Sunday-school Association for Louisiana. Florida was organized the week after, which leaves only three State associations yet to be set up. At Atlanta, the delegates from the South reported their purpose to go home and organize every State. At New Orleans it was reported that Louisiana had already 96,000 children in Sunday-schools, and this is nearly one-seventh of the entire population of the State. With an association under the vigorous administration of its president, Mr. W. R. Lyman, and his live executive committee, it is hoped that all the parishes (counties) of the State will soon be organized, and the work greatly set forward. In that convention, colored delegates were present, participating. The resolution of the Atlanta convention quoted above, upon introduction by the man who was elected president, was unanimously adopted. Upon taking the chair, he assured colored people of sympathy and co-operation. Rev. W. S. Alexander, our president and pastor in New Orleans, who was made officially prominent in the convention, was also put on as one of the vice-presidents and one of the members of the executive committee of the State association. Two colored pastors were also put upon that committee. More and more the heart of the good people of the South is turning toward the colored children.
VIRGINIA.
The Work at Hampton, from a Three Months’ Observation.
REV. JOHN H. DENISON
“Arbores seret, diligens Agricola, quarum adspiciet baccam ipse nunquam.” A diligent husbandman plants trees, the fruit of which he himself shall never behold. With such sentiments did our excellent Arnold support us in the arduous pursuit of Latin prose composition. It is evident, however, that there is a difference in trees, if not in diligent husbandmen.
“Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute” is a tree whose fruit may be speedily beheld, not only by those who planted it, but by those also who cultivate or enrich it. It is a paying investment. Every year it sends its roots deeper and stretches its boughs out farther. It commends itself to the practical Christian sentiment of the South. It is a peace-making force throughout this section. Its attitude towards all Southern questions is intelligent, considerate and just; it gives no sympathy to fanaticism on either side, and nothing but discouragement to political schemers. It sends out every summer the wholesome leaven of a class of young men and women who have been trained to teach intelligently; to use their hands as well as their heads; to see the dignity of labor; to accept the situation, and not to be ashamed of their color. In short, they are trained to the work that lies before them, and not trained away from it.