CHURCH WORK.
We turn now to our Church Work.
In every school we have an incipient church; in many of these are organized churches. From all of them there is a continual going forth of a predisposition towards Congregational Churches, which will make for churches in the future.
The statistics are as follows:
| Number of Churches | South | 131 | Indian | 5 | 136 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Missionaries | South | 102 | Indian | 13 | 115 |
| Number of Church members | South | 8,065 | Indian | 397 | 8,452 |
| Added during the year | South | 937 | Indian | 35 | 972 |
| Added by profession of faith | South | 721 | Indian | 30 | 750 |
| Scholars in Sunday-schools | South | 16,023 | Indian | 1,091 | 17,114 |
Four new Churches have been organized during the year. These are at Decatur, Ala., Crossville, Deer Lodge and Pine Mountain, Tenn. A fine church edifice has also been erected in Ironaton, Ala., which is soon to be dedicated. The members have sacrificed nobly to secure it. The [pg 309] church at Meridian has united with the Association in the erection of a beautiful house of worship which, with the new school and the teachers' home, will be ready in a few weeks for occupancy. The church at Knoxville has been enlarged and is practically new. It will soon be re-dedicated. The church at Pine Mountain is a year old; is already the center of four Sunday-schools, with an attendance of 415 children, only 10 of whom had ever been in a Sunday-school before.
Revivals of religious interest have been reported from our churches in Washington, Wilmington, Charleston, Talladega, Mobile, Athens, Marion, Selma, Birmingham and New Orleans. Those of the churches which are side by side with our educational institutions are most hopeful; but wherever we have planted churches, they stand forth to represent the ethics of Christianity, the purity and truth of character which must be contained in a worthy discipleship. A large proportion of our pastors are children of the A.M.A. Parsonages have been built for our churches in Mobile, Ala., and in Dallas, Texas.
MOUNTAIN WORK.
This year has laid great emphasis on the fact that we have entered, in the Southern mountains, a missionary field of vast importance, pressing needs and unbounded hopefulness. We have in this region, where a few years ago there was nothing, two normal schools, two academies, five common schools, and twenty churches.
In a territory five hundred miles long, and more than two hundred miles broad—twice the size of all New England—are at least between three and four hundred counties with a population greater than that of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut combined, without schools worthy of the name, without Sunday-schools, without prayer meetings, without an educated, spiritual, or even moral ministry, without a weekly Sabbath religious service of any kind, or any of the institutions of the gospel which really elevate them. They have a religion which is not a pure Christianity and which does not even involve morality.