“I wonder if all your stations have such increasing wants as this one has! We trust that our request for another teacher is honored by an appointment. We intimated that our wants would still increase. This is verified. The question now before us is this: How much enlargement of this work can you make? Are your means equal to the demand? Now, we wish that our building were larger by two rooms; especially so, since many tell us that a large number are planning to begin school after Christmas. We submit very earnestly the proposal that we be authorized to rent a building that is contiguous to our grounds, and that you send a sixth teacher to occupy it. If we do thorough work this year, the demand another year will require a permanent enlargement of room. We unite in the most earnest wish that you not only send us the fifth teacher, but also the sixth.”
We have already appropriated several thousand dollars more than in previous years upon the Southern field, and that mainly in the work of Christian education. If our readers only knew the many things we have not done, they would count the expansion to be very little. Among other things, as was indicated in the Annual Report, and as is set forth more explicitly elsewhere, we have enlarged our Indian work, not in the far West, but in Virginia. We have allowed something more for the foreign field, and added a few hundred dollars for the Chinese Mission in California.
Our friends will have the satisfaction this year of knowing that their gifts all go to do the work which presses now; no more is needed to fill up the hollows of the land through which we travelled long ago. They must not fail us, then, who have helped us in our distress; but much more, stand by us, now that they have enabled us to give ourselves wholly to the wants to be met and to the work in hand.
PROFESSOR CHASE IN AFRICA.
It has for some months seemed desirable to the Executive Committee that an experienced man, in the carefulness of whose inspection and the calmness of whose judgment they might fully rely, should go to see for them, with his own eyes, the field on the West Coast of Africa, the missionary band, and the work it is doing. The great difficulty has been to lay hands upon a man who should unite with the qualifications required the willingness and the ability to go. That obstacle has given way at last, and an embassy is on the way.
Prof. Thomas N. Chase had been detailed from his duties as an instructor in Greek at Atlanta, where his eminent abilities have been most fully proved by the annual examinations of his classes, and where his presence has been valued for his manifold service, for special duties in superintending the plans and erection of buildings in the Southern field. Some important preliminary work had been accomplished in that direction, when it was found that the money which was anticipated for this purpose would not be at the disposal of the Association for some months. Prof. Chase being thus open to our call, and being the man of all men we should have chosen for this post, the proposal was made to him that he should take this trip to the Mendi Mission, and inspect the work. After some hesitation, but with much less than was anticipated, and regarding the circumstances and the call as of the Lord, he consented, with the full agreement in his decision of his excellent and devoted wife.
On the sixth of December he sailed from New York for Liverpool, expecting to take the steamer thence to Freetown on the twentieth of December, and to be in the field at Good Hope by the middle of January. He is accompanied by the Rev. Joseph E. Smith, a graduate of Atlanta, who has been for three years in charge of important churches in the South, and in whom we have every reason to place the highest confidence. Mr. Smith will, we hope, conclude to remain with the mission, although that matter is left to his decision. We believe that he will do what he thinks the Master wishes. Meanwhile he will do good service as a companion of Prof. Chase, to care for him and aid him in the accomplishment of his work.
Important questions as to the permanent location of the stations, the distribution of the work among the missionaries, and their more complete equipment will be decided, and with the Lord’s blessing on them we hope for results of lasting value from this embassy.
It is just the time of the year when such a mission can most safely and effectively be prosecuted. They will reach the country and have three mouths of the dry season, if so long a time shall be needed, before it will be necessary that they should come away. They realize, as we do, that there is always some peril in going to the West Coast, especially for a white man; but the professor is in his prime, of sound health, and we believe will be so prudent in all matters of exposure and of living that we have no great fears for him. And yet, when we remember those who have fallen, we pray the Lord, and beg all the friends of Africa to join with us in the prayer, that He will keep these His servants from harm, will prosper them in their mission and bring them back in health.