Popular virtue is spasmodic. It was a spasm of public righteousness that overthrew Wm. M. Tweed in New York. But the spasm soon passed and New York was again misgoverned. Sudden uprisings of enthusiasm in the temperance cause have given us prohibitory and other stringent laws, but soon again the tides of intemperance have swept onward. In missionary as well as reformatory work is the evil of these spasms felt. Some new developments of special need or of special encouragement arouse the churches, and unwonted streams of contributions pour into the treasuries of the Mission Boards. On the strength of these gifts the mission work is enlarged and new responsibilities are assumed, but ere long the decay of the special impulse leaves the Boards to face their newly-created obligations with an empty treasury.
This has been specially true in regard to the work among the Freedmen. On the proclamation of Emancipation, and the enactment of laws giving the ballot to the blacks, the popular enthusiasm knew no bounds. Liberal benefactions called into life the Freedmen’s Aid Societies and filled the treasury of this Association. At length, however, the Freedmen fell into the hands of the politicians, and the nation lost interest in the conflicts of parties and factions over them. The Aid Societies were abandoned and the A. M. A. with its vast machinery was left in debt. Now, again, within the last few years has the public attention been aroused to the education of the colored people as their only hope and the nation’s only safety. Presidents Hayes and Garfield have voiced the feelings of the North, and Senator Brown and Dr. Haygood have re-echoed the sentiment for the South. During these late years the treasury of the A. M. A. has felt the new impulse, and again it has ventured upon enlargement. Shall it once more be left on the sands of a retreating tide and the work for the Freedmen be again crippled? Nothing will avert such a result but conscience and Christian principle on the part of the friends of the colored race. If this work ought to be done, and what patriot or Christian doubts it, then the patriot and the Christian must give it their steady and generous support.
BENEFACTIONS.
Mr. Garry Brooks has given $30,000 to found a Brooks Professorship at Oberlin College.
The medical department of Dartmouth College receives $2,000 from the will of the late E. W. Stoughton, of New York.
Hon. Frederick Billings, of Woodstock, Vt., has given $5,000 to the fund now being raised for an additional gymnasium building at Amherst College.
Gen. James M. Coale, of Maryland, bequeathed $10,000 each to Georgetown College, D.C., and St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, Baltimore.
The Marquis of Bute offers to add £10,000 to the fund to the proposed University College of Wales, provided the institution be established at Cardiff.
Ex-Gov. Morgan, of New York, has given $100,000 to Williams College for a new dormitory building. The gifts of Gov. Morgan to Wells College amount in all to $275,000.