This is my deliberate conviction, based upon such knowledge of the Southern People as comes from the fact of having been born and bred among them, and from my observation among the more cultivated families that go there from this region.
You will permit me to say, therefore, that in my judgment the proposed policy of our societies is a mistaken one. Most of the reasons that influence our brethren who guide the policies of these missionary organizations I have considered, and largely sympathize with their spirit; and if the plan were practicable, I would see no Christian reason why it should not be carried out. But if we desire to secure a foothold for Congregationalism among the respectable white people of the South, and enlarge our borders in that direction, we must adopt the only policy that will gain this end, and have churches composed predominantly, if not exclusively, of white people, as well as churches composed mainly of black people for the blacks.
We may argue against caste in the churches of Jesus Christ, and resolve that we will not be a party to its perpetuation anywhere under the sun. Very well, then we must not hope for a successful propagation of our denominational principles among the ruling classes of the South, for they will not enter into church relations with the colored people. After the churches are separately organized, and while they are separately maintained, they will affiliate in associations and conventions, but the limit will be drawn at the line of the church. However unrighteous, this is a stubborn fact—and anybody who has good knowledge of the Southern character will know that it is to remain as stubborn for all time to come.
Mixed churches among us, where colored people are comparatively few, and in the South, where colored people are so numerous, are very different things. For among us the predominant element in the churches will remain predominant, and it is an easy matter for 500 white Christians to associate with five of another race and color. But for 250 white Christians to associate in churches on equal terms with 250 “colored” Christians is another, and by no means a comfortable thing. Before the war, negroes and their masters were in the same churches and enjoyed the association, but the negroes sat in the galleries, and in other ways were not put upon an equality.
WHO SHALL WORK SOUTH?—THE QUESTION STATED.
BY REV. L. W. BACON, D.D.
A gravely important and difficult question as to the future policy of the Society (A. H. M. S.) was submitted in behalf of the executive. It was one technically within the competency of the executive to decide, but too important to be so decided, without larger counsel: Shall the Society’s system of operations with missions and superintendencies be extended over the Southern States? In favor of this measure are urged (1) the desire to make the field of the Society’s work co-extensive with the nation; (2) the duty we owe to white people, as well as black, at the South; (3) the alleged demand for the Society’s aid to communities of Congregationalists who have moved to the South. Against it are (1) the measureless inadequacy of the Society’s present or probable resources for the urgent instant demands of its present field; (2) the wastefulness of organizing and supporting a second system of superintendencies over the field already occupied by the superintendencies of the American Missionary Association, and the chances of friction or collision between the two systems; (3) the impossibility of drawing any line of demarkation between the two systems of missions on the same ground, except a color line: the emphasizing of the color line, in the most obtrusive and offensive manner, not only by two orders of missionaries, one to whites and one to blacks, but by two orders of mission churches, one for black people in which whites shall be tolerated, and one for white people where blacks shall be tolerated with not so much as a common superintendency to co-ordinate them; and thus the danger of indelibly fixing the color line, fortifying it by new vested interests, and defeating any kindly tendency toward the effacing of it from the Christian Church. Such considerations as these led the congregation (we can hardly say the Society), after deliberation and debate, and especially after the very able speech of Mr. Blakeslee, to decline committing itself to this great and not easily revocable step, and to leave it for a year’s consideration, and though a later and less considerate vote was obtained in a form which seemed to throw doubt upon this decision, nevertheless the reluctance toward the new policy was of such a weight and character that a prudent executive may be trusted to keep it in view and move with caution, in a matter that does not press for instant action.
The Advance.
A QUESTIONABLE PROCEDURE.
BY REV. HORACE BUMSTEAD, D.D.