The American Missionary — Volume 34, No. 02, February, 1880

by Various

The fact that all of our fourteen churches except one, have been represented in this Conference by their ministers and delegates, reveals an interest in its meetings, and in the doctrine of the fellowship of the churches, that is truly delightful. In this connection we cannot refrain from noting the grace of God conferred upon the churches in their custom of providing the necessary traveling expenses of their delegates. We hope that such messengers of the churches will reciprocate this consideration, and magnify their office, by making a full report of this and all such convocations to their respective assemblies for worship.

We gratefully recognize the increase of our total membership by 354, making the present number 949. One new church has been organized, that of Cypress Slash, which reports to us a membership of 54; a temporary cabin, built as a place for church and school, with the purpose soon to erect a more comely and permanent sanctuary; and also a new young minister who, with his wife, is already reaping missionary fruit.

We note with gratification that every one of our churches is supplied with the ministry of the word, except that at Marietta, whose pastor, Rev. S. P. Smith, has been transferred to Washington City for the purpose of building up the 2d Congregational Church at the capital. So, with the same exception, every one of our churches has its own house of worship. Some of these are commodious and tasteful; others are very plain; but all are places of sanctuary comfort, and the worshippers are striving each year to increase their comeliness and convenience. During the year, three of these congregations have added to their meeting-houses the attraction of the church-going bell. Among a people, few of whom have clocks or watches, the church bell is their time-keeper, and the promoter of that promptness which adds a charm to the services of public worship.

The doctrine of church discipline as a means of grace has been illustrated by a heroic use of the pruning knife upon these vines, that they may bring forth more fruit. The seeking of a clean membership is essential to the healthfulness and well-being of the churches.

The cause of temperance has been kept near the heart of our members. One church, the Pilgrim, at Woodville, has a large and influential Band of Hope. All preach temperance and require its practice among their members. We are deeply convinced that the habit of intemperance is the devil’s best grip upon the poor and lowly people among whom we have our lot and our work, and that total abstinence is the only consistent rule for Christians. In a community where pastors and officers and members of Protestant churches indulge in the practice of drinking liquors, we feel called upon to bear an unremitting and uncompromising testimony against this violation of the spirit and the precept of the Gospel.

We are confirmed in the wisdom of the union of the school-work and the church-work in our evangelizing process. The school prepares the way for the church. It brings along the young and hopeful material for the church membership. The church garners up such fruit. It reacts upon the school and the community by its educating and elevating influence. In our ideal, both unite in the one purpose of saving and edifying the souls of men. We desire to express our sincere gratefulness in view of the devoted and self-denying labor of the teachers in the schools associated with our churches.

The higher schools and colleges within our bounds have gone along upon the plane of their former success. The Avery Institute, at Charleston, has passed through a change of administration without any diminution of its members or lowering of its high grade of scholarship. The Normal School at Greenwood, S. C., has held on in its beneficent way, enjoying the fine building and campus of an old time Baptist College. The Beach Institute in this city, with its cultivated and consecrated corps of seven teachers, with its fine body of pupils, with its thorough discipline and its decided moral and religious tone, is a power for good in this community and in this part of the State. The Dorchester Academy at Midway, the Lewis High School at Macon, and the Storrs School at Atlanta, have kept steadily upon the line of their extensive and beneficent influence. The Atlanta University maintains its high position as to classical and normal scholarship, and as to moral and religious tone, approved by the authorities of the Commonwealth and also by the favor of Heaven, in the enrolling during the year of a couple of score of its students among the disciples of the Great Master. Its independent Union Church, with 67 members, although not belonging to our body, is to us a sister in Christ, for whom our prayers and sympathies shall ever abound. Its Faculty consists of three graduates of Yale and one each of Harvard, Dartmouth and Amherst Colleges, and of half a dozen cultivated ladies. To these it has just added Prof. A. W. Farnham, who is introducing the most approved normal methods, not only for the benefit of the normal scholars but of all in the University. More than a dozen of its graduates are now teaching high schools in leading cities of the State of Georgia, and so starting from these centres, radiating influences that shall bless many more communities. We give thanks to God for the bequest of $50,000, by which the University will now be able to add still more to its spacious accommodations.

We greatly rejoice in the new feature of the work within our limits, that of lady missionaries. We have four of them. One of these has been located at Charleston, one at Miller’s Station, one at Macon, and one in Atlanta. Woman’s work for women and children in these communities, we consider a Christly service of the utmost value. Woman can enter the homes as the pastor cannot; and yet she will make work for him in following up her discoveries. Her ready sympathy and happy tact will help her in stimulating to greater domestic comfort, and will aid her in doing good through many ways that are peculiarly her own.

We are comforted by the educated young men who are coming forward to minister in our churches. Besides those who have been raised up in the “Beach” to minister to the churches that cluster about it, we are happy in the coming of four graduates of the Theological department of Talladega College in Alabama, three of whom are this week receiving ordination at the hands of our own church councils, and the other is the moderator of one of these Convocations. We are happy to express grateful obligation to that Christian institution in another State for this gift of her cultured sons, who are to us also a part of the ascension gift of our blessed Lord.

We are devoutly grateful to God for the spiritual refreshings that have been enjoyed this year in our churches and schools. Some have had special seasons of revival. Others have had the dew in the fleece. Many souls have been brought into fellowship with Christ, and Christians have, we trust, been advanced somewhat in the process of purification.