It has been demonstrated that Congregational churches can exist and thrive west of the Hudson and south of Mason and Dixon’s line.
The polity and faith of the Pilgrim Fathers is not for the elect few but the unsaved many. And if the methods, influence, and example of our churches in the South are greatly stimulating to the churches round about them, that is an additional argument for their multiplication.
It can hardly be doubted that the schools and universities, by their direct and indirect influence, have prepared sufficient material for more churches. What are eighty-three among the millions who sit in darkness? It must be kept distinctly in mind that educational facilities are multiplying in the South, and that to educate without Christianizing is possibly to augment the perils instead of the defenses of the Republic.
The sanctifying and consecrating forces must be held in close contact with the secular, so that education may be hallowed, or it will end in defeat. We must hold steadfastly to our fundamental principle that nothing but the gospel of Christ will uplift and save the South. And while our educational institutions are thoroughly Christian, yet the church must be the energizing and radiating centre of Christian influence and power. Brethren, does not the church work need and deserve a fresh impulse? Ought not the momentum gathered during the seventeen years to accelerate its progress very greatly now? Would not all hearts be gladdened, if the next annual report should bring tidings of twelve instead of six churches organized under the favoring auspices of this society? Opportunities are (I was about to say waiting, but they don’t wait) passing. Much has been irrevocably lost. Much yet remains. Ideas are changing rapidly. We had feared that crystallization would occur earlier than this, and society become so incrusted with prejudice and hardened by vice that the helpful activities of this and kindred societies would be hindered or defeated. But God is mercifully holding the elements still in solution that churches and schools, like ours, may become the dominating centres of the new civilization. Let these blessed centres of light, healing, influence, be multiplied, surcharged with transforming energy, with assimilating power. The multiplicand already exists; men and money must furnish, under God, the multiplier.
Arthur Little, Chairman.
REMARKS OF REV. C. O. BROWN.
Within the past two years it has been my privilege to look in upon three or four of the churches contemplated in this report. One year ago last August I found myself on the Sabbath day in the city of Chattanooga, and I started out at an early hour to find the Congregational church. I made several inquiries of the white people whom I met, but none of them seemed to know. I sauntered along until I was in front of the white Baptist church of the place, and found an aged colored gentleman ringing the bell preparatory to service. I asked him if he knew where the Congregational church was. “Oh yes,” he said, “I’se a member of dat church myself.” Then, having an opportunity, I chatted with him a few minutes, and asked him why they wanted to sustain a Congregational church in Chattanooga. “Oh,” he said among many other things, “we doesn’t believe in dese yer incitements dat de old churches has.” And then I asked him what they proposed to do in the future. “Look a heah, brudder,” he said, “we’s come heah to stay.” Presently I found myself in that Congregational church. I found an ordinarily good little structure, comfortably furnished for church purposes. When the congregation came in I saw decently clad people with hymn books and Bibles in their hands. Presently from the study door came the pastor, and with all dignity and order, took his place in the pulpit, and he preached a sermon in which, if my eyes had been closed, I should have found no evidence that he was a colored man. He was a graduate of Atlanta University. There was every evidence of order and system, of calm and deliberative religion, which we should find in this church on the next Sabbath day.
In the evening of that same day I had an opportunity for comparisons and contrasts. I went over to one of the old colored churches which stands diagonally across an open square or common. The scene was that of one billowy sea of emotion and excitement, of hallooing and amen-ing. Now, I said to myself, here is this pure church established in this community as a standing testimony against that sort of thing. I said, as I sat beneath the spell of emotions which found vent in tears, here in this Congregational church and on this ground are both prophecy and fulfillment. The Congregational church stands not more than six rods from where my tent was at one time pitched when I was a soldier; where the shells from Lookout mountain used to drop in the days of Thomas and Hood. Here, I said, in this scarred ground, is a prophecy which was uttered eighteen years ago, in the thunder of artillery and the clash of battle. It was a prophecy of liberty; and this church for colored people, for free colored people, our brothers and sisters, is the fulfillment of that prophecy. It was my privilege, only a few days later, to be present in the Storrs Congregational church of Atlanta. And it was a pleasure to be permitted to speak to those people. I saw there the same evidence of Christian order and propriety; everything which bore testimony to a high type of Christian life. I attended two of its prayer meetings. There was the calm, subdued temper which bore witness to the suppression of the animal nature and the development of the spiritual. And I want to say here, brethren, that if God in his providence should send me to Atlanta, I should cast in my lot with the Storrs Congregational church.
I wish to second what was said by Doctor Little with regard to the enlargement of our church work in the South. We feel that the time has come for broadening the boundaries of this distinctively religious work. Our churches are, and are to be, the conservators of the other work done in our educational institutions. None of our young people should be allowed, for want of a church home of our own polity, to escape from holy and pure influences. Nor should they be allowed to expend in other directions power and influence acquired in our schools which might be conserved in our churches. Let us not make the mistake south of the Ohio River which, thirty or forty years ago, was made west of the Hudson; but let us rather from this annual meeting look to the enlargement of this blessed part of our work, concerning which such glad harbingers are before us in the general survey presented by the Secretary.