BY REV. W. S. ALEXANDER.
The work of education and evangelization among the Freedmen in this State was never more hopeful. By the provisions of the new constitution which was adopted at the recent election, the rate of taxation has been greatly reduced, and as a direct consequence, the appropriation for school purposes will be correspondingly cut down. The free colored schools will be the first to be struck by this wave of retrenchment. Many schools, especially in the country parishes, will be closed, or, at the best, be maintained for a very brief period in the year. New Orleans will feel this matter as keenly as the country, for the amount of taxation is strictly regulated by the new constitution. Only special gifts can possibly keep the schools up to the present standard. One of the most prominent educators in the city said to me, “I would not raise unnecessarily the cry of alarm, but a crisis is surely near at hand with our public schools.” The colored Normal School will certainly be discontinued. The Peabody fund will probably not be available for Louisiana another year. All these events, so unpropitious to the free school system of Louisiana, and so deeply to be deplored, render our work all the more necessary, and our prospect of enlarged usefulness the brighter.
When we see the grand opportunity opening before our beloved University—an opportunity which has not the remotest resemblance to the fictitious and dreamy—we try to forget the plaintive words, “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick,” and rally our courage by the more inspiring prophecy, “The morning light is breaking.”
When the glorious work of enlargement begins, will it not be in order to start at the Gulf of Mexico and gradually work up? We rather approve of that plan and are quite ready for it.
CHURCH WORK IN LOUISIANA.
“We hold our own, and something more,” is the word that comes up from the churches of our Association. Our annual meeting will be held at Terrebonne, the first Wednesday in April, and the brethren are eagerly anticipating it. Congregationalism is a plant of slow growth among the colored people, not from want of adaptation, but from lack of money to push it into fields now unoccupied or uncultivated. Money is needed to give new enterprises substantial encouragement in their difficult “beginnings”—to tide the pastors past the starvation point—to give them “foothold” till strength comes to them in the natural growth of a good enterprise.
The church at New Iberia, which welcomed our last annual conference, and which is memorable as the scene of a most precious revival, and suffered seriously in the loss, by a furious wind storm in September, of their tasteful and commodious chapel, is rallying grandly from the shock. By liberal subscriptions, by mortgaging their property, and by personal labor, they have put up and covered the frame of a larger building, and have stopped before finishing, simply because they could do no more. Two hundred dollars will put the new chapel in order for dedication. Shall they appeal in vain? We cannot afford to lose or to cripple this church. It has been a bright light on the prairie, and though the tempest levelled the building, it cannot—it must not—extinguish the light.
Our own, the Central Church, sends greeting to all kind, sympathizing and praying friends in the North. All summer long, the members of the church have prayed in public and in private for a gracious out-pouring of the Divine Spirit. I found the church in an earnest, praying state. A greater degree of unity and cordial Christian fellowship prevails than I have ever before seen. To-morrow (Sunday, Jan. 4,) begins the “Week of Prayer.” If, in its results, it shall fulfil the longings and faith of this people, then will it indeed be the “Week of Weeks” to us in Central Church. Last night, at our preparatory service, seventy-five were present; five new members were received, of whom three came on profession of faith. It was a meeting of peculiar tenderness and spiritual power. After a brief lecture by the pastor, forty-two Christians spoke tender, earnest words of love to God, and devotion to His service. God grant I may have good tidings to send you in my next letter.