Has blindness happened to our churches that they do not see the meaning of the presence of these races here, and that they look with such apparent indifference, not only upon questions of the gravest political import in connection with them, but questions involving the regeneration of continents? These populations are in our hands, and will be what we make them. We may train them to be the World’s teachers and leaders, or we may leave them and their races to the old night of heathenism. It is such an opportunity to do a magnificent Christian work for the human race as was never before offered to man. To take advantage of this opportunity is the special work of the American Missionary Association. And to no society in this or in any land is there entrusted a work broader in the possibilities of its influence, or mightier in the sources of its power.
C. L. WOODWORTH.
PLYMOUTH CHURCH, MINNEAPOLIS, ONCE A BENEFICIARY OF THE A. M. A.
Dist. Sec. Roy, in his address before the General Association of Minnesota, at Minneapolis, reported from official documents the early beneficiary relation between the Plymouth Church of that city and this Association. It appears that the Church, having been organized in 1857, had Rev. Norman McLeod commissioned as acting pastor in 1858, with $200 a year pledged. Under him the first church edifice was erected. It was a frame structure, 32×62, that cost $2,300, of which $300 was furnished by the “Building Fund.” The Church had then fifty members. In 1860 Rev. H. M. Nichols was commissioned at the same rate for the same Church. During his first year of service that new meeting-house was burned by the incendiarism of the saloon interest. A young man from New England in three years had run down to delirium tremens. Mr. Nichols was with him at his death, and on the Sabbath, referring to this affair in a temperance sermon, charged the murder upon the liquor traffic of the town. The liquor sellers were present, and “were infuriated like mad hounds.” Fifty ladies of the town waited upon the rum-sellers, begging them to abandon their traffic. They were answered by a flow of free rum that fired the crowd to do their desperate work of burning the church by using kerosene and burning fluid for kindling. An indignation mass meeting was held and a vigilance committee of fifty was appointed to act. “The town,” says Mr. Nichols, “will be cleared of liquor.” A revival was also reported for that same year. But just as Mr. Nichols was about to start east to solicit aid in rebuilding, he and his two children and a brother-in-law, with his two children, were drowned in Lake Calhoun.
In 1861 Rev. W. B. Dada was commissioned. The A. M. A. report speaks of the place as an “important field,” and mentions another revival as enjoyed there. The first man labored eight months; the second, seven months; the third, nine. This has proven a good investment, as the contribution of this Church the last year to the A. M. A. was $508, and this is about the annual offering, and its total of church benefaction the last year was $35,263. In these years it has been a very mother of churches. It was this Church that, in 1873, entertained the meeting of the American Board, which had come to hold its anniversary upon the field of its first mission among the Sioux Indians.
At that time, 1860, there were also two other churches in Minnesota under the A. M. A., those of Traverse de Sioux and Brooklyn; and in the West there were seventy white churches under the commission of this Association. Among them, those of Charlotte, Mich., Sandwich, Ill., and Waterloo, Iowa.
We take the following from the Atlanta Constitution. We publish the whole of the article, from beginning to end, in order that there may be no opportunity for drawing wrong inferences. The Constitution is edited by Mr. Grady. We consulted the editorial columns to see if any editorial remarks had been made upon the incident. We did not find any. Surely the man who made that famous speech at the New England Dinner recently in New York could not have been in his office. If he were, and allowed such an incident as this to go unnoticed, very ugly inferences indeed must be drawn in reference to that New England Dinner speech. Just what is the New South, anyway?
“Something of a sensation was created at Tillman’s tent service, corner Hunter and Lloyd streets, yesterday afternoon. Early in the afternoon two white teachers in the Clark University entered the tent with eight or ten negro girls, who are students at the school, and seated themselves. Soon after the party entered the tent, ladies and gentlemen began arriving and in a short time the tent was crowded. Every seat except those reserved for the colored people was taken and many persons were standing up. One of the ushers, with a view to supplying seats for some who were standing, went to the negro girls and asked them to move to the seats set apart for their race. The girl to whom the usher spoke referred him to one of the teachers. Up to that time the usher did not know that the negroes and the two white women were together, but turning to one of them he asked her to have the negro women move to the seats provided for their race.