Church Work.
At the first some of our best friends thought that the Association was too slow in its church work; but all now, we think, agree that the wisdom of experience justifies the process which mainly through our schools grows its own timber, out of which to build its churches, taking the young people thus trained and the adults who are converted to the standard of Christian living and away from the superstitions and immoralities of the old time. At first view this would seem to be a tedious process. But it is surprising how soon the youth run up to maturity and to become the leaders of churches, the best of which have come on by this nurture. Then there are some adult people, noble natures, of a childlike spirit, who gain by absorption and take on the ideas of the younger folks. In this way, through these seventeen years since the war, our churches have come on from two or three to number 83, which is an average of five a year. Nor are these merely skeleton churches. Every one of these 83 has a pastor, except one whose minister died a short time ago. Of the 73 ministers who serve these 83 churches, 22 are from the North, and 51 are native preachers. Every one of these churches except seven has its own house of worship, or chapel, and there are only four of these that depend upon the college chapels for their places of religious assembly. Some of these are rude in structure; the most are plain but comely; four or five are of brick and of commanding appearance; all are blessed sanctuaries. Many friends, in going through the South, are pleasantly disappointed in finding these churches so well housed. Nor, for young churches, are these deficient in encouraging numbers. They have a total of 5,641 members, an average of 68, while the average membership of the Congregational churches west of the Mississippi River is only 45, and of all west of Pennsylvania, 63. The additions on profession were 709; the Sunday-school scholars numbered 1,835; the amount raised for church purposes $9,306, and the benevolent contributions reached $1,496.50.
It is beautiful to see how readily these plain people take up the New Testament idea of church government, and how this natural process tends to their education and discipline of character. Herein we find confirmation that the Apostle made no mistake in setting up such churches among the Christians of his day who had not been trained in New England. These churches in the South are known everywhere as insisting upon a high standard of ethics. Their example, their methods, their influence, are greatly stimulating to the churches round about them, so that by quality they make up in part for want of quantity. These churches are organized into seven conferences. Many persons have smiled upon reading the reports of these convocations, and have wondered how such an ecclesiastical body would seem, whether its members were not simply playing at an ecclesiastical parliament. Our suggestion is, come and see. If you were to come, you would find a fulfillment of the Saviour’s words, “All ye are brethren,” the white and the colored being members of the same body. You would find a rigidity of parliamentary usage. You would find literary exercises, discussions, reports, Sunday-school assemblies, devotional services going on after the manner of those with which you are familiar. Some of our brethren testify that these meetings seemed to afford as much intellectual and spiritual stimulus as those which they were accustomed to attend before going South. An additional feature of these gatherings is the presence and participation of the lady missionaries and teachers, whose reports are greatly interesting. In Alabama the conference has associated with it a Ladies’ Missionary Society with auxiliaries in different parts of the State. The exercises of these women’s meetings are not only to cultivate the missionary spirit, but to help the wives, mothers and daughters of this people to be missionaries of sweetness and light, of order and comfort, in their own homes. These ecclesiastical assemblies become not only a representative of our work in its spirit and extent, but they become occasions for drawing out the fellowship of the pastors and churches, white and colored, where they meet. At first these bodies were ignored. Now it is a common thing for the local pastors to drop in upon them, to participate in the exercises and to offer their pulpits for supply. This has been done at Wilmington, Macon, Mobile, Marion and Selma.
During the last year, six new churches have been organized, those at Williamsburg, Ky.; Cedar Cliff, N.C.; Athens, Ga.; Meridian, Miss.; Eureka and Topeka, Kan. All of these are supplied with pastors. Athens uses the assembly-room of our Knox Institute; Meridian for the present rents rooms for the church and school; Eureka and Topeka have both built houses of worship. New meeting-houses have also been built at Caledonia, Miss.; Fausse Point, La., and Luling, Tex. Paris, Tex., has replaced its big shanty by a fine church edifice. Childersburg, Ala., burnt out, has rebuilt with great self-denial on the part of the people. Mobile, burnt out, is to be accommodated for a time in the assembly-room of the Emerson Institute, rebuilt since the fire. The church at East Savannah, blown down, has been rebuilt. The suburban church at Louisville, Ga., also blown down, is still in its ruins. At Five Mile, out from the city, a mission house has been built. By the wonderful enterprise of their pastor, Rev. A. A. Myers, the people have put up a commodious house at Williamsburg, Ky., in the mountain country. The town is sixty years old, and this is the first church brought to completion, three others having rotted down during the process of building. The church at Clover Bottom, Ky., has been supplied with a school-house sanctuary through the aid secured by President Fairchild, of Berea. The great church at Midway, Ga., has been finished up. The church at Anniston, Ala., has been enlarged. So during the year ten churches have been erected.
The closing year has not been without its comforting measure of spiritual influence. The dew has been in the fleece of most of our churches and schools. In some of them individual cases of conversion have been the reward of large faith and zeal. In others, clusters of souls have been won to Christ. Distinctive revivals have been enjoyed at Chattanooga and Memphis, Tenn.; McIntosh and Macon, Ga.; Marion, Ala.; New Orleans, Talladega College, and in the Fisk, Atlanta and Tougaloo Universities. The total number of additions to our Southern churches on profession is 709. Those who in our missions have been led to Christ but who have gone to other churches would nearly double that number. The total number of members in all our Southern churches is 5,641.
AFRICA.
When our last annual meeting was in session we had two parties upon the ocean on their way to Africa. Mr. I. J. St. John and Rev. J. M. Hall were going to reinforce the Mendi Mission, and Superintendent Ladd and Dr. Snow were going to explore the Upper Nile with reference to locating the Arthington Mission if the project should prove feasible. Mr. St. John was to be the business manager and to have charge of the John Brown steamer which was to be built. Mr. Hall, from the theological department of the Howard University, was to take charge of the Good Hope Station. He readily got hold of the work and proved himself an acceptable and successful missionary. He has the church, and a native teacher has the school under his supervision. Mr. Hall, being of the sturdy mountain stock of East Tennessee, has endured the climate well, and we can but hope that an extended career of usefulness is before him. Mr. St. John, by his own unavoidable exposure on his voyages between Freetown and Mendi, and up the rivers to our stations, was himself made sick, and so was confirmed in the judgment that called for the steamer as a means of preserving the health of our missionaries. The English Governor-General of the West Coast agreed with Mr. St. John to give the steamer the carrying of the mail and of all Government freight between Freetown and Mendi, which is an English dependency. The transportation of supplies for the Mission and the marketing of the lumber of our mill, the only one on the West Coast, call for this steam craft. All views conspire to put down the “John Brown” as one of the most effective missionaries to be introduced to that region, where there are no roads nor beasts of burden and where the water highway is the main reliance. It was thought best that Mr. St. John should not take the risk of the first wet season at the Mission, and so he returned to this country, coming over by a sailing vessel to save expense. He makes the gratifying report that in his intercourse along the coast he found many evidences of the good influence of the Mendi Mission in its training of men who have gone out into the ways of business, and who retain their integrity of character. He named the noble chief of a tribe where is located the vigorous Shengay Mission, who, with his son, had been educated at our Good Hope Station. Rev. A. E. Jackson has continued in charge of the Avery Station and boarding-school. During the year the Mission was afflicted in the death of Rev. J. M. Williams, of the Kaw Mendi Station, who, after having endured fifteen years of service in Africa, succumbed to the disease of diabetes. Rev. Mr. Jowett, one of the native preachers, is acceptably supplying Mr. Williams’ place at Kaw Mendi. Mr. Jowett has a son now in the Fisk University, who gives promise of making himself a useful man in his native land. The other three lads from the Mendi Mission at school at Hampton and at Atlanta, are doing well. The Debia Station is under the care of Mr. and Mrs. Goodman.
Dr. Ladd and Dr. Snow, having made their long and perilous tour, which took them up the Nile 2,500 miles, have returned. They report no sufficiently inviting location for a mission in the region of the Sobat. They recommend that Khartoum be occupied as a base of operations, and that a school be established on the east bank of the river opposite the city, which lies in the junction of the Blue and White Niles. That site is quite healthy. They would have a steamer by which to communicate with the Arthington district of the Upper Nile. The Executive Committee, of course, had to submit to the inevitable, as indicated by the double revolt, and voted to put the mission into complete abeyance for the time.
THE INDIANS.
Though the Indian once had the continent to himself, he yet seems to be “the man without a country.” And the Christian missions which have sought to identify him with his native land have with him been driven along before the advancing tide of the white man’s migration. So has it been from the days of Jonathan Edwards, John Eliot and David Brainard down to these times of the Riggses and Williamsons. The Indian missions of this Association have fared in the same way, those at Northfield, Mich., and those at Cass Lake and Red Lake, Minn., which were served by some fifteen missionaries, among them Revs. S. G. Wright, J. B. Bardwell and A. Barnard. Of these the venerable Mr. Wright still abides in the service, being now at Leech Lake. Returning this year to his field, he writes: “We were very happy to find the little company of earnest, devoted Christians, whom we left two years before, still faithfully pursuing their work for God. They are truly the salt of the earth, burning lights in this great darkness, the spiritual power in the place.” Again he says: “I wish I could attend the annual meeting. I should love to give the friends a short history of the conversion and rich Christian experience of numbers of those around us.” Our church at S’Kokomish, Washington Territory, Rev. Myron Eells, pastor, during the year has swarmed, seven of its members having taken letters to unite with four other Christians of the Clallam Indians to form a Congregational Church at Jamestown. One infant was baptized. A half-dozen white neighbors came in and communed with them. Mr. Eells says that the services were held in Chinook, Clallam, English, Chinook translated into Clallam, and English translated into Clallam, a Pentecostal gift of tongues. The work of the mother church has been more encouraging this year than the last. Five have united with the church on profession of faith. The service of the agents at the S’Kokomish, Fort Berthold and Sisseton agencies has been about as usual in routine and outcome. The work that is now going on at the Hampton Institute in the educational and industrial training of 89 young Indians of both sexes is truly encouraging; not only as to its immediate accomplishment, but as to its future bearings upon the welfare of the Indians, and upon the Indian question itself. At the last commencement, the Indian classes claimed their full share of attention, and showed an improvement in the general character of the pupils over last year. One noted speech was made by an Indian youth. Rev. Dr. Bartend, referring to that speech in his address, said: “Two hundred and fifty years ago there came floating into this beautiful harbor vessels from the old country. What was their object? What was their hope? The prayer that arose from their decks was this: ‘God give us strength that we may educate and Christianize the Indian.’ William and Mary College, now almost ready to perish, is the monument of their endeavor. They did not see the answer to their prayer. God works in His own way, in His own time, with His own men. Could they see what we to-day behold, they would say, as do we, Speed on. God speed this glorious school.” Although the Association, which founded and developed the Hampton, has surrendered its control to a Board, yet besides aiding in the support of the pastor, who cares for the three races, associated in the one church of the place, it also makes a special appropriation toward the Indian department of the Institute. The Association will be ready to co-operate with the Government under its new appropriation, using some of its own institutions for the instruction and training of Indian youth. It has been proposed that the Association take up a new mission among a neglected tribe in the deep Northwest. Gen. Armstrong, by his recent tour among the several Indian tribes of that region, has been able to make judicious suggestions which will be duly considered.