In these facts Brazil should read her warning. If her ex-slaves are left in ignorance and vice, she has her work only begun, and the last end may be worse than the beginning. The laws of Brazil have favored gradual emancipation. It was the work of a woman that completed it. In the absence of the Emperor, who was sick in Italy, his daughter, as Regent, issued the final decree.
May we not hope that the womanly wisdom and philanthropy which dictated the initial act may prompt to the persevering use of the means of the last great duty? And may we not hope that, as thousands of the educated women of the North devoted themselves to the uplifting of the blacks in the Southern States, so their sisters in Brazil may give the crowning glory to emancipation in Brazil?
INTER-BLENDING OF MISSIONARY WORK.
The great London Missionary Conference, recently held, awakened much enthusiasm on the spot in behalf of foreign missions, and we believe that the published records and addresses will intensify and perpetuate that salutary influence. The Christian world needs arousing to the great work of the church in heathen lands.
There is, however, an inter-blending in all parts of missionary work that should never be overlooked. The home field is the source of the means, and men, and prayers, that must energize the work in the foreign field. Dead churches at home cannot give life to mission work abroad.
There is another form in which the home and foreign fields are blended. The American Missionary Association is ranked, and properly, as a home missionary organization, but it has its relations to the foreign field.
1. It is called to train the Freedmen of America for mission work in Africa. White men meet a speedy death in malarial Africa, and they come to the natives as strangers. The Freedmen can better endure the climate of their fatherland and will be welcomed by the people as brothers. We believe that the great problem of African evangelization is destined, in the providence of God, to be largely solved by the ex-slaves of America.
2. The Indians of the United States have been ranked heretofore as coming under the work of foreign missions. At one time the American Board had the largest share of its work among these people. Other Christian denominations so classed their Indian missions, in part, at least—and all this properly, for the mass of the Indians are still heathen. The day will come when the Indian will be lost in the man, and then gospel work for him will be home or parish work. But at present the American Missionary Association is doing foreign mission work in the home field, among these Indians.
3. The Chinaman in America, like the Negro in America, is cultured and Christianized here very largely for the sake of China. He comes here not to stay, but to go back to the home of his fathers. Now, if we don’t stone him, or mob him, but imbue him with the gospel, he goes back home as a missionary. A specimen of the spirit in which he returns can be seen in the touching letter from a Chinese convert in another column of this magazine. The Hong Kong Mission, established under the auspices of the American Board, and to which our converted Chinamen on the Pacific Slope contributed both men and money, is an illustration of the way in which the American Missionary Association touches the foreign field in China.