In the Missionary for October, 1880, an item appeared, copied mainly from an Atlanta paper, giving some statistics in regard to the colored people of that city. It named the amount of their taxable property, their industrial pursuits, and benevolent and charitable institutions—the Odd Fellows and Masonic lodges being mentioned among the number. Of all these institutions the article quoted said that they have encouraged the people “to form habits of sobriety and economy, and imbued them with feelings of charity and benevolence.”
It has been thought by some of our friends that quoting this remark was an endorsement by us of Masonry and Odd Fellowship. We wish explicitly to deny the correctness of such an inference. The executive officers of this Association have no sympathy with secret oath-bound Societies, and the Missionary, on fitting occasions, has spoken plainly on the subject. Thus in 1873, the present Secretary of the Association wrote, and, with the hearty concurrence of his fellow-officers, published, in the August number of that year, the following article:
“Attention has been called anew to this subject, by the refusal of an ecclesiastical council at the West to ordain a young man to the ministry, for what was regarded as a too tenacious adhesion to the Lodge. Of the merits of that case we are not well enough informed to pronounce a judgment, but it is clear to us that the growth and power of Masonry is no light matter. The principle of secret organization is unsuitable to a Republican government, and contrary to the open spirit of Christianity. Among the colored people the prevalence of Masonry would be a great evil—involving a waste of time and an expenditure of money they are little able to bear, as well as exposing them to undue political influences, and diverting their attention from an intelligent and pure Christianity—their only hope. Our teachers and ministers at the South already see these effects beginning to appear, and deprecate them.”
Nothing has occurred since that time to modify, except to intensify, these convictions, and the attitude and influence of our schools and churches in the South have been wholly and decidedly opposed to these secret societies, as many facts, if necessary, would testify.
NATIONAL EDUCATION—PREPARATION FOR IT.
In connection with the educational bill, which passed the Senate last week, a word concerning the American Missionary Association. Are we to have a national uprising of popular sentiment and legislative action with reference to the education of all peoples within our borders, but especially in the South? How signally, in the providence of God, did this Association forecast the need, and how wonderfully has it, these years past, been preparing the way. If it had done no more, it has proved to all the world, past all cavil, this—the cultivability of the negro, the practicability of education for the poor blacks and also for the “poor whites” of the South. Its Christian schools of all grades, planted here and there in all the States, have led the way and established beginnings of the utmost importance. These schools, by the sheer force of their own excellence, and results so signal as to arrest universal attention, have lived down the most desperate prejudices, and commanded the most emphatic testimonials from all classes and from those highest in authority. Never has a grand Christian enterprise shown itself more certain of good results; never did a benevolent undertaking more remarkably manifest its self-perpetuating, self-propagating force. It has given a new complexion to the entire “negro problem” in this country. It has successfully asserted the right of the lowliest of all citizens to share in the benefits and advantages of education. The Association, by the largeness of its plans, the boldness of its project, the manifestation on the spot of its work, by its public advocacy throughout the North, has served to press constantly upon the public attention the exact nature of the great emergency in the field of popular education. When were ever before the wisdom of a measureless benevolence and the audacity of a glorious faith more manifestly justified in their results?
But will not the new Congressional scheme for promoting popular education in the States of the South, render somewhat less urgent the work and the claim of the American Missionary Association? By no means! Just the reverse is true. Money alone will not educate anybody. If the first need be that of more money, at least the second necessity will be that of suitable teachers. Precisely here, to meet this necessity, is seen the almost prophetic, certainly the providential, anticipatory work of the Association, getting things ready for the great stroke of truly national statesmanship now proposed.
To say that the American Missionary Association should have, at once, placed at its disposal five times its present resources to meet the new exigency, would be to make a statement altogether temperate, considerate and reasonable. The opportunity is one that is transcendently inviting.—Rev. S. Gilbert in The Advance.