“These children of the dispersion,” peeled and torn, stretch out their hands to us again! Shall we not hear in their cry the pleadings of the Saviour for these, the weakest of his suffering children, and account this extra gift as but a small portion of the double recompense due them for their redoubled wrongs?
NOVEMBER REPORT TO THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
REV. J. E. ROY, D. D.
On the day after the election, I left my home at Atlanta to attend in Memphis the Central South Conference and the Council for the installation of a pastor, Mr. B. A. Imes, of Oberlin Seminary. In the Conference I drew up the memorial which was presented to the National Council in behalf of a re-statement of our Creed and Catechism, urging the peculiar need of our Southern work, and preached on the Lord’s day, once in our Second church and once in the Second Presbyterian, lately that of Dr. Boggs. As moderator of the installing council, I led in the examination and delivered the charge to the people. Both bodies I reported daily in the Memphis Appeal; wrote them up in a “Pilgrim” letter to the Congregationalist, and gave their items to the Advance and Christian Union.
As a delegate from Georgia in the National Council at St. Louis, your field superintendent nominated as assistant moderator Rev. J. D. Smith (colored), of Alabama, who was elected on the first ballot, and secured the appointment of Rev. Drs. Sturtevant and Goodell to offer fellowship to the Presbyterian General Assembly South, hoping for some incidental benefit to our work.
At Dr. Strieby’s request I went on with him to Kansas for the purpose of initiating our Refugee mission, for which a lot was bought and a house contracted for at Topeka.
Thence I went down to Paris, in Texas, to assist in the ordination of two of our Talladega men, J. W. Roberts as pastor in that city, and J. W. Strong to take the pastorate in Corpus Christi. Spending five days there, I preached for our church in Paris, also for the white Congregational church which I had organized six years ago, planned for a new church site and building, and visited and preached for our country church at Pattonville, twelve miles out, arranging for the supply of this and two other little churches by local preachers.
At Little Rock, Ark., I explored and found the fit material for a Congregational church to be organized as soon as we can have the money. In time we must have for Arkansas one of our first-class institutions at this beautiful capital, which has seven or eight thousand colored people, and which is the centre of a large population of Freedmen.