PART OF A TOUR THROUGH THE CAROLINAS.
A new administration was to be inaugurated in the Avery Institute. The way was found open, and the new Principal, Rev. S. D. Gaylord, one of the foremost educational managers of the interior, was greeted on the first day, the 29th of September, with an attendance of 258, which was an advance of 40 or 50 upon former opening days. The prospect was for a continued accession through the month. The News and Courier gave a handsome notice. I found that the Avery was an occasion of city pride, not only on the part of colored but of white citizens. The authorities of Claflin University, at Orangeburg, S. C., have visited and complimented the institute, seeking to pattern after some of the methods. Prof. A. W. Farnham, who has been at the head of the Avery for four years, bringing it up to its high standard, will do a like work on a more general scale in the Normal department of Atlanta University. The Plymouth church, during the Summer, under the care of the pastor’s assistant, Rev. Mr. Birney, a former fellow-servant with the members, had been prospering. Under the lead of Rev. Temple Cutler, the church will enter upon a career of enlargement. The new principal and the Field Superintendent preached in the Centennial M. E. and the Zion Southern Presbyterian churches, the largest for the colored people of the city, as well as in the Plymouth. These three churches form the bulk of the constituency of the Avery.
At Orangeburg a repeated visit and a preaching service prepared the way for the coming of the new pastor, Rev. T. T. Benson, a graduate of the Talladega theological department. A pleasant church and a rallying people were ready to greet him.
On the way I stopped off at Chester, S. C., to visit my seminary classmate, Rev. Samuel Loomis, who, in ten and a half years, has gotten under way his “Brainerd Institute,” and has helped to plant nine Presbyterian churches within that county. Blessed is the man who is permitted to lay foundations in that way. At Charlotte, N. C., I ran out to visit the Biddle University, which is the principal collegiate and theological institution of our Northern Presbyterian brethren in the South. Rev. D. S. Mattoon, the president, is supported by Rev. Messrs. R. M. Hall and S. J. Beatty. Rev. Thomas Lawrence, of Penn., is to take the place of Rev. Dr. John H. Shedd, who has returned to his mission work among the Nestorians. The current catalogue shows eight students in theology, twenty-one in the college classes, and a total of 155. This institution is for males alone. Its mate, for females, is Scotia Seminary, at Concord. The glory of the Biddle is, that in these ten years it has planted a whole Presbytery of thirty churches in the region round about, besides raising up teachers and preachers for the regions beyond.
In the back country of Randolph County, N. C., twenty-five miles away from the railroad, I looked up Rev. Islay Walden, a former slave in that region, a recent graduate of New Brunswick Seminary, N. J., who had been ordained by the classis of New Brunswick. The A. M. A. had sent him down to make a field in his native State. The Field Superintendent assisted him in organizing a Congregational Church of thirty members. The ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper were administered. This is in the neighborhood of one of the churches of our antebellum missionary, Rev. Daniel Worth, whom all our colored friends and some of the whites remembered affectionately. His church, a former Wesleyan, has been taken up by the M. E. Church, so that they are well cared for.
We were waited upon by two committees, one from Hill Town, seven miles away, and one from Troy, the county seat of Montgomery, thirty miles off. The former had one man to offer three acres of land and timber in the tree for all the lumber needed for a church school-house, and that man was an ex-slave. The latter committee consisted of three men, who were the trustees of the “Peabody Academy,” whose erection they had secured at Troy. They wanted a teacher and a preacher. Living twelve or eighteen miles away from Troy, they intended to send in their children and have them cared for in a boarding club by an “Aunty.” In token of their good faith, all of them interesting men, they united with our new church, intending to transfer their membership to their own localities when we get ready to organize there. Who could forbid that their requests should be granted? So we organized a circuit for Brother Walden, one Sabbath at Troy, and the other at Salem Church and Hill Town, with one sermon at each place. The Quakers promise a school at Salem. A public school will serve Hill Town for the present, and a competent teacher must be secured for the Academy. It was a delight to witness the pride of the people in their educated fellow-servant. Even the old master gloated over the diploma of his “boy.”
Running into McLeansville early this Monday morning, thinking to make it a minister’s rest-day, with only this article and other letters and a sermon for the night on hand, I found the church at the opening of a protracted meeting with the visiting preacher announced for forenoon, afternoon and evening; house crowded all day, with two hundred people in it by count; all remaining with lunch in hand, between the first and second services, and many holding over between the second and third. And this is the habit of the people at such a time. All unnecessary work is put aside and the entire time given up to religious service. This habit they take from that of the white churches, with the exception that the colored people have added the third service. Pastor Connet had held a similar meeting in another part of his field this fall, and yesterday, as a result of it, twelve members were added to this church. One of those converts, an old man, testified, bearing himself with the air of a conqueror: “I have fought the devil, and I’ve got the victory. Jesus helped me. I have fought the devil, and I’ve got the victory.” The meetings are orderly and solemn—congregational, only warmed up by the African glow. The membership now numbers one hundred and fifty-six. Pastor Connet is also superintendent of the school, which is doing a good work in raising up teachers.