Writes a teacher in Georgia: “With the close of 1886 many left our school, some to teach in the public schools and others to engage in any work that they could find. Over thirty schools have been supplied with acceptable teachers from our schools.” We have here an illustration of what is taking place more or less in connection with all our schools. We are supplying teachers for the public schools of the South. Reports that tell only of what our missionaries are doing among those whom they personally reach, fall far short of that larger work, which, through their scholars, they are doing all over the South. Think of the difference between a school taught by a Christian teacher and one under the care of a godless teacher. The A. M. A. is sending out Christian teachers.
The Charleston News and Courier is authority for the statement that one thousand and fifty-seven colored people of that city have deposits in the local savings banks amounting to $124,936. The person who has the largest deposit, $6,747, to his credit, is a pure-blooded African, but a born financier. He has recently bought a valuable plantation for $10,000, and has paid $7,000 of the purchase-money. The News and Courier adds: “There are thousands of active and thrifty colored men in the State who have bought land since the war, and who are steadily collecting about them the comforts and many of the luxuries of life. Comparatively few of the colored people entertain decided notions of economy or have any faith in Government savings banks, but the wealth they have hidden away in old stockings and the money they are investing from year to year in lands and houses, if it could be rightly estimated, would prove a pleasing revelation.”
THE END OF A DISTINGUISHED LIFE.
The death of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher has evoked a widespread expression of interest. His funeral was more like that of some distinguished statesman, over whose bier all political and religious differences are forgotten and only the good connected with his life remembered. It was certainly a most remarkable demonstration.
And why all this? Because he had worked himself into the popular thought as the faithful champion of reforms and measures that touched the popular heart. His pulpit power, as an orator, made Brooklyn famous the world over. His splendid victory in turning the tide of British opinion on the side of the Union as against secession by his marvelous speeches in England, challenged and won the admiration of his countrymen who were loyal to the integrity of the republic. But what more than anything else created an affection that his death has resurrected, and that will make his name famous so long as its memory remains, was his fearless and uncompromising Abolitionism. Plymouth pulpit was a battery whose shot and shell made continuous breaches in the defenses of slavery during the days preceding the great conflict, and when the conflict came, it was heard as a voice in trumpet tones calling the people to battle and steadying them in courage and determination. The preacher saw with prophetic eye not only the preservation of the Union as the issue, but the emancipation and enfranchisement of the slaves. Mr. Beecher was, therefore, always the friend of the American Missionary Association. For eleven years he was one of its vice-presidents. At Lawrence, Mass., in 1870, he preached its annual sermon. Its representatives have always been welcome to his pulpit, and its work has always been sustained by the contributions of his people. It was fitting that the same man who had been the undertaker for John Brown and Owen Lovejoy should perform the same service, as he did, for Mr. Beecher. It was fitting that a Virginia Confederate general and former slave-holder, and a Massachusetts colored commander of the William Lloyd Garrison Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, should march arm in arm, as they did, at the head of the procession when the body was carried to Plymouth Church under escort of the 13th N. Y. Regiment, of which Mr. Beecher was the chaplain. It was fitting that the last letter Mr. Beecher wrote, and which he left unfinished, should be, as it is, about a colored man and the word of God.
And it is fitting that The American Missionary should join, as it does, with the tens of thousands who testify to the wonderful power, the marvelous achievements, the great value of the varied ministrations of this justly distinguished and remarkable man, and who thank God that the transcendent wealth of his great mind, and tender, sympathetic heart was consecrated to the service of the loving Father, who bestowed it, in behalf of liberty, justice, equity and right.