The flourishing little church at Orange Park is pushing energetically towards the completion of its building. It now ranks in its membership the fourth Congregational church in Florida.
Are the colored people accumulating property? This is a question often asked by the interested friends of the A. M. A. work. Let two facts emphasize the affirmative to this question. In Oaks, N. C., the colored people have purchased more than five hundred acres of land and built their comfortable cottages around the A. M. A. school and church. When we remember that the average wages of a working man in that region is not above ten dollars a month, and that the average colored family is not fashionably small, the purchase of this real estate proves that they have carefully economized their scanty earnings. Take another fact: In Thomasville, Ga., the colored people paid taxes on three thousand one hundred dollars worth of property in 1880. In 1885, this same people paid taxes on ninety-five thousand six hundred and six dollars worth of property. In five years they had multiplied their taxable property more than thirty times. This represents no unhealthy “boom” in real estate, but an actual increase in the accumulations of the colored citizens of this flourishing and beautiful Southern city. The colored people have been given a fair chance in Thomasville, and this is the use they have made of it. The readers of this magazine will remember the generous gift of Judge H. W. Hopkins, Mayor of Thomasville, of a beautiful site for buildings of the Conn. Industrial School. A fine building has been erected upon this site and in a few weeks it will be ready for occupancy. There is intense interest in the community and surrounding neighborhood in this new school. It will doubtless be crowded as soon as opened. It is to be an industrial school for girls.
“Far removed from arts æsthetic,
Crewel-work and peacock fans,
Are the studies dietetic
Carried on mid pots and pans.”
A trustworthy friend overheard the following remark, made by a lawyer in the office of a Southern hotel: “I have seen a miracle to-day,” said this lawyer. “I have actually seen a white man convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged for killing a nigger. I never expected to witness such a thing in this State.” What a fearful comment on the injustice of these courts of justice in the past! What horrible suggestiveness of unpunished crimes! But there is in it, too, hopefulness for the future.
At Lewis Normal Institute, Macon, and at Storrs School, in Atlanta, the number of pupils is limited only by the capacity of the school-rooms to hold them. In Macon, Bro. Wharton, whom I left in Savannah, when I pushed southward into Florida, was holding special services under the direction of the pastor. God’s spirit was blessing his efforts and many were daily seeking the way of life. It has been a year of great religious awakening throughout our entire field.
A beautiful gold locket was put into my hands by an earnest Christian woman, a very saint of God, as her gift to the work of the A. M. A. Blindness had come upon her slowly, month after month, and she could no longer see the picture-faces in the locket, so she had them removed, and gives the locket into our treasury. Who will redeem it, that this touching sacrifice may accomplish for God’s poor that which she who made it prayed it might?