“Once at Clifton Springs, always there.” That is the proverb. Well, why not? Dr. Cuyler boasts of his thirty years at Saratoga Springs; and he has been a tolerably healthy man, able to do some work in preaching and writing for the newspapers. Multitudes of other people go to the same place year after year for rest and recuperation; and so do many find it to their inclination and profit to come to these springs, season after season. The make-up of Dr. Foster’s Sanitarium develops a peculiar home feeling. The judicious medical treatment, if needed, is an attraction. The water, with, its sulphates of lime and magnesia and soda, has in many cases a remedial quality. I think that within the time I get more of revivification here than I could get anywhere else, and so I am now on my fourth summer at Clifton.
Nor can I refrain from saying that I find a peculiar pleasure in coming back to this place, where, during two years of enforced respite from labor, God was preparing my mind for the transition in His life-plan for me, by which I was to be taken from my own dear West and set to doing much the same work at the South, which I have already learned to love. Here I told the Lord that if He would only let me up so that I could again preach the Gospel of His dear Son, I would go anywhere, even to the ends of the earth. But I may as well confess that when He took me at my word and pointed out the field, it did cost a struggle, a night without sleep. Up North to have been a good friend of the slave was one thing; to go down and put one’s self by the side of the depressed ex-bondsman, to take chances with him, to try to lift him up, that was another. Now I bless God for the joy of the work. It is a missionary service without the labor of acquiring and using a strange language. It is in some sense the work of a foreign missionary without going from under the flag of my own country. I feel unworthy of the gratitude of these people, of whom the Master speaks as “these my brethren.” These two years I have gone everywhere from Virginia to Texas, without receiving one word or act of discourtesy, but with many tokens of approbation, from my white fellow-citizens.
I find this also a good stand-point from which to look back upon my field, to review the work of the year gone by, to devise for the next, and also to catch the inspiration of Northern interest in this work. Here are Christian and patriotic people from all parts of our country and from all branches of the Church of Christ. A single address before them in the chapel, in behalf of Christian education among the Freedmen, elicits a gratifying expression of sympathy, and imparts an impulse to the cause through several denominational lines.
In the review, this seems yet the exigent work of the time. It is not the caring for one, two or three new Territories or States at a time, but for five millions of people scattered over fifteen States, who are needing, all at once, the helping hand. This going back and forth makes one realize that this is all one country, with one language, with one history, with one Christian religion, with one interblended destiny; that the comfort of the whole body must depend upon the welfare of every member; and that so our common patriotism requires the uplifting of these lowly poor. This glance back over the field brings immense encouragement as to the results of this evangelizing process; brings assurance that, if it is only prosecuted with vigor, there need be no fear as to the outcome of the great act of emancipation; and brings evidence of cheerfulness and happiness among the hundreds of workers, Northern and native, male and female.
As my eye takes its usual course and sweeps around the coast from the point where the old Mason & Dixon’s line struck the Atlantic to the boundary of Mexico, all the way it brings up colleges and professional departments, and normal institutes and high schools, which, under the management of this Association, are sources of light, fountains of blessing. It brings up the hundreds upon hundreds of primary schools, in which, during the last year, the native teachers of our own training were instructing their one hundred and fifty thousand pupils. It brings up the seventy churches of the primitive faith, which are the outgrowth of that educational scheme, and which as to their influence for good, by their character are multiplying their number many times. It brings up the multitudes of youth in those higher schools, who are ambitiously taking on a Christian cultivation that they may use it for the good of their people. It brings up those Christian congregations so hungry for the word of God, so anxious for the best things in church-life. It brings up, too, those masses, beset with ignorance and superstition and unthrift, who need to be rallied by some worthy aspiration. And then it turns with all hope to that corps of men and women, who, under God, have wrought such great things already, whose excelling in the passive virtues has commanded respect, and made it so comfortable for those of us who come to join them now, and whose service for the Republic and the Kingdom makes them high benefactors in our time and land.
Clifton Springs, N. Y.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
Lincoln Mission.
REV. S. P. SMITH, WASHINGTON.
One of the most beautiful sights on the streets of Washington, on the 5th of July morning, was the colored Sunday-schools coming out from different churches, going to Howard Park, Vaness Garden and other places to pass the day. The little ones seemed to be in a delirium of happiness while marching on the street, keeping step with the music, as their banners floated in the air.
But we felt very sad to think that our poor children at the Lincoln Mission did not have this privilege. They could not go because we have not enough teachers now to look after them. All the teachers who taught here during the winter, left on the thirteenth of June and will not be back until September. Some thought that it would be well to close the school during the summer; but others thought that we had better continue it, if we could have only five teachers and fifty scholars. We do not expect to have so many scholars in the summer as in the winter; but what we lose in quantity we hope to gain in quality. Moreover, to keep up the school through the summer, will aid us in our church-work.