THE
American Missionary.

American Missionary Association,

56 READE STREET, N.Y.

PRESIDENT.

Hon. E. S. TOBEY, Boston.

VICE-PRESIDENTS.

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

Rev. M. E. STRIEBY, D.D., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.

DISTRICT SECRETARIES.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

COMMUNICATIONS

relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to the Corresponding Secretary; those relating to the collecting fields to the District Secretaries; letters for the Editor of the “American Missionary,” to Rev. G. D. Pike, D.D., at the New York Office.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

may be sent to H. W. Hubbard, Treasurer, 56 Reade Street, New York, or when more convenient, to either of the Branch Offices, 21 Congregational House, Boston, Mass., or 112 West Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member.

THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

American Missionary Association.

OUR ANNUAL MEETING.

The Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association will be held in Plymouth Church (Rev. G. W. Phillips’), Worcester, Mass., commencing November 1st, at 3 P.M., at which time the report of the Executive Committee will be read. The Annual Sermon will be preached Tuesday evening by Rev. C. D. Hartranft, D.D. Wednesday and Thursday will be occupied by reading of papers, reports, discussions, business, etc. The following persons with others have promised to be present and participate in the exercises: Presidents Fairchild, Ware, Hamlin, Chamberlain, Buckham; Gen’ls O. O. Howard, S. C. Armstrong; Col. H. G. Prout, late of the Khedive’s staff, Egypt; Capt. R. H. Pratt, of Carlisle, Pa.; U.S. Senator G. F. Hoar, Prof. Cyrus Northrop, Hon. J. J. H. Gregory, John B. Gough, and Rev. Drs. Herrick, Duryea and Mayo.

The following railroads have agreed to furnish free return tickets to persons attending the meeting: New York and New England; Worcester and Nashua to Portland, Me.; Boston, Barre and Gardner and Cheshire; Providence and Worcester to Whitin’s and stations south. The N.Y., N.H. and H. R. R. offers tickets to Worcester and return at the following rates: from New York $5.60, Stamford $4.70, South Norwalk $4.45, Bridgeport $4, New Haven $3.50, Meriden $2.75, Middletown $2.75, Hartford $2.

The receipts of the Association for the month of Sept. were $30,417.94. For the financial year, which closed with that month, the receipts were, with balance, $244,578.96. One year ago the Association asked for an advance of 25 per cent., and its friends have made it 30 per cent. The year has been closed without any debt upon the treasury, and with a balance in hand of $518.85. In addition to this, the Association has used during the year $77,131.97 of the Stone Fund toward the erection of the buildings for which it was given. This makes a grand total for the year of $321,710.93. This enlargement of the capital by the addition of the Stone buildings will require a corresponding increase of funds to carry on the business. The advance of the past year is an occasion for profound gratitude, and inspires hope for the needed increase of the coming year.

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We are happy to furnish our readers in this number with a few reports of the successful openings of our schools South. We give also a few brief accounts of summer revivals. Such times of refreshing are quite as frequent among the colored people in summer as in winter.

Rev. Hamilton W. Pierson, D.D., formerly missionary of this Association at Andersonville, Ga., has written a very readable book on the old time social, political and religious life in the South-west. In it he has garnered up many valuable remembrances of the condition of both whites and blacks before the war, special reference being made to their religious experiences, which he had the privilege of observing during many years of service as agent of the American Bible Society. He calls his book “In the Brush.” It is published by D. Appleton & Company, New York.

JOHN BROWN MEMORIAL STEAMER FOR THE MENDI MISSION.

The Mendi Mission was organized in 1842, in about 7 deg. north latitude, West Central Africa. It was primarily a mission for the Amistad captives, freed slaves who had escaped from bondage by the incidents following their mysterious appearance in Long Island Sound, and their subsequent imprisonment in New Haven, Connecticut. The men who, by their charitable forethought, provided for their defense in the U.S. Supreme Court by John Quincy Adams, and for their education while in New England as well as their return to Africa, were most active in founding the A. M. A., which has sustained the mission since 1846.

The fact that there are no roads or domestic animals for carrying burdens in the Mendi country, renders the use of boats a necessity as a means for transportation. The interests of the mission have suffered for the want of a steamer to facilitate the work at the saw-mill and to carry the missionaries back and forth up the river, thereby avoiding the exposure to disease by long delays in the marshy regions.

The proper persons are already provided to have the steamer in charge, and we only wait for the little rills and large streams of benevolence to flow in and float it. About $10,000 are needed.

In order that old and young may have a part in this work, we have arranged to issue two grades of shares as follows: First Grade, $100; Second Grade, $10. The certificates of shares will be issued on heavy calendered paper, size about 8 by 10 inches, in two colors; the First Grade Certificates green and black, and the Second Grade black and brown.

We cordially invite all friends of African missions, whether pastors, Sunday-school superintendents, heads of families or others, to assist us in providing, at an early date, this much-needed agency for the development of Christian civilization in the dark continent.

All communications should be forwarded to H. W. Hubbard, Treasurer of the American Missionary Association, 56 Reade Street, New York.

The progress of educational work in Mississippi, according to the published statement of Gen. J. A. Smith, Sup’t of Public Instruction for the State, is of a hopeful character. The number of white children in public schools for the year 1880 was greater by 7,037 than in 1879, and the number of colored children 12,914. The average daily attendance shows an increase of 6,500 white children and 11,288 colored. The number of teachers employed was 202 over that of the preceding year, the increase being confined to the colored teachers. The total number of pupils enrolled for 1880 was 112,994 whites and 123,710 colored. The total disbursements were $830,704.79.

Upon the invitation of the Congregational Union of England and Wales at the hand of Rev. Dr. Alexander Hannay, of London, and by the appointment of the National Council and of this Association, our Secretary, Dr. M. E. Strieby, went over to represent both of these bodies at the Jubilee of that Union, which was held at Manchester in Free Trade Hall, October 4th to the 10th. We learned by cablegram that Rev. Henry Allon, D.D., was made chairman, and that Dr. Strieby, with other foreign delegates, was heard on the 6th. It was fitting that the English people, who had done so much through this Association in the way of aiding students in our Southern institutions, and of raising the fund for the Arthington Mission in the basin of the Upper Nile, should seek and secure a report from our Secretary-in-Chief, of the processes and results of this missionary organization. Great Britain and America both owe a common debt to our Freedmen and to the land of their ancestors. Dr. Strieby is expected to return in season to participate in our Annual Meeting, making report of English public sentiment in respect to this great international missionary enterprise. During his absence, his place has been filled by Rev. Jos. E. Roy, D.D., the Field Superintendent of our Southern work.

It was a happy thought of Prof. Henry Cowles, after he had completed his set of sixteen volumes of Commentaries on the Bible, that he would assign the property of the stereotype plates, the copyrights, and the contract with the publishers, D. Appleton & Co., to the American Board, the Home Missionary Society and this Association. His generous devising took in also the missionaries themselves, and provides that the fifteen per cent. of royalty on all books sold shall be applied, at the discretion of the Secretaries of the several societies, in supplying with the commentaries such of them as may not be well able to buy them. When our Executive Committee, in September, passed its vote of thanks for this testimony of love, they did not know that a few days before, this John-like disciple had been called up to lean upon the bosom of his Master, who had already given him a better “well-done.”

These notes, giving the latest results of Biblical scholarship, without the tedious processes of the same and applying a sanctified common sense[325] in interpreting the Divine Word, will stand for a long time as a fountain of instruction and of comfort to Bible students. The question is often asked, What one set of commentaries on the whole Bible can be recommended to people who do not wish to go into the extended works of Biblical exegesis? We do not know of any better one to name than this.

PRESIDENT GARFIELD AND THE NEGRO.

The mind of President Garfield was too broad and generous, his nature too honest and sincere, for him not to take at once and forever the part of the wronged, however humble, as against the wrong-doer, however powerful. He knew too well the value of education to one who was compelled to struggle up from the depths of poverty for place and power not to emphasize the duty of putting the opportunity and facilities for education within reach of all the ignorant.

He first knew of the Congressional Record when he saw it in the hands of an opponent in a discussion of the slavery question. He began his political life in the days when the Supreme Court of the United States, in the Dred Scott decision, had asserted that slavery was the genius of our Constitution, and liberty the child only of local and state regulations. With clearest vision he saw when the war began that the real issue was the death or the supremacy of slavery, and threw his whole soul into that conflict. He was selected by the constituents of Giddings, as the one most worthy to succeed that veteran opponent of slavery in Congress.

After his nomination to the Presidency, in his first regular speech, made in response to a serenade in New York City by the Boys in Blue, he said, speaking of the Freedmen: “We will stand by them until the sun of liberty, fixed in the firmament of the Constitution, shall shine with equal ray upon every man, white or black, throughout the Union. Fellow-citizens, fellow-soldiers, in this there is all the beneficence of eternal justice, and by this we will stand forever.” A noble sentiment, which must become a fact established beyond the possibility of successful assault before the nation can enter upon the path of peace or safety.

In reply to an address by a delegation of colored men who visited him in Mentor, just before he left home to assume the duties of his high office, he said, in effect, that it was not within the power of the President by appointments and official recognitions to raise the colored people to the level of social recognition and honor. The path to this leads through education and thrift. The negro, like every one else, must be the architect of his own fortunes, and compel by worth the respect he seeks. But turning from the negro who would have appointment to the nation which he held responsible for his condition—to the nation endangered by that condition—he said in his inaugural address, which his successor, nor Congress, nor the people should neither forget nor fail to heed: “The census has already sounded the alarm in the appalling figures which mark how dangerously[326] high the tide of illiteracy has risen among our voters and their children. To the South this question is one of supreme importance. But the responsibility for the existence of slavery did not rest upon the South alone. The nation itself is responsible for the extension of the suffrage, and is under special obligation to aid in removing the illiteracy which it has added to the voting population. For the North and South alike there is but one remedy. All the constitutional power of the nation and of the states, and all the volunteer forces of the people, should be summoned to meet this danger by the saving influence of universal education. It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their successors and fit them by intelligence and virtue for the inheritance which awaits them. In this beneficent work sections and races should be forgotten, and partisanship should be unknown.”

He also at the same time gave due recognition to the efforts made by the Freedmen: “The emancipated race have already made remarkable progress. With unquestioning devotion to the Union, with a patience and gentleness not born of fear, they have ‘followed the light as God has given them to see light.’ They are rapidly laying the material foundations of self-support, widening the circle of intelligence, and beginning to enjoy the blessings that gather around the homes of the industrious poor. They deserve the generous encouragement of all good men. So far as my authority can lawfully extend, they shall enjoy the full and equal protection of the Constitution and laws.”

He said to the Fisk University Jubilee Singers, who at his invitation visited him at Mentor, on the 30th of September, 1880: “Now, friends, the earthly saviour of your people must be universal education, and I believe your voices are preparing the way for the coming of that blessing. You have sung a great University into being. I hope your voices are heralding the great liberation which education will bring to your lately enslaved brethren. You are fighting for light and for the freedom it brings, and in that contest I would rather be defeated with you than to be victorious against you. In the language of the song you have just sung, I say to you, ‘March on, and you shall win the victory—you shall gain the day.’”

His indignation because of the injustice done this people flashed out just before his assassination, when learning that this band of singers had been refused admission to the hotels in Springfield, Ill., he caused a telegram to be sent to them saying, that if they received similar treatment when they came to Washington, he would be glad to receive them as his own guests at the White House.

It would be unjust to the memory of this great and good man to leave at least this much unsaid of his interest in the race whose wrongs appealed so strongly to his sympathies, and whose fate he saw to be so intimately and indissolubly linked with that of the nation; and whatever in his life and character may be celebrated and memorialized, justice will not have been done him until suitable commemoration is made of this interest.

BENEFACTIONS.

—Hon. H. B. Curtis has given Kenyon College $15,000.

—Judge Hoadley has purchased for the Cincinnati Art Museum, treasures worth $30,000.

—Mr. Ahok, a Chinese gentleman, has given $10,000 toward the new College at Foochow, China.

—The endowment of Washington and Lee University, mostly from Northern men, has reached $431,500.

—A gift of $10,000 has recently been made to the Boston University, to be devoted to the scholarship fund of that institution.

—One donor has given $100,000, and another $250,000, towards the erection of the new law school building and the physical laboratory of Harvard College.

—Rev. Dr. Alva Woods of Providence, R.I., gives the Vermont Academy at Saxton’s River another $1,000 to be used in supporting embryo ministers.

—The venerable John Baldwin, founder of Baldwin University, Berea, O., has given $3,000 to establish a school at Bangalore, India, in the Rev. William Taylor’s work.

—Mrs. Noah Woods of Bangor bequeathed $5,000 to Bowdoin College for a scholarship, to be called the Blake scholarship, in memory of her son, who was a graduate of that institution.

—Talladega College, Talladega, Ala., is erecting Stone Hall by the gift of Mrs. Stone—the fourth College building. Endowments now are the great necessity. $25,000 will provide for a Professorship, and there are four such needing endowments; one of these a Theological Professorship.

GENERAL NOTES.

AFRICA.

—The French Chamber has voted a sum of fifty million francs to be expended in the purchase of land, and in colonizing Algeria.

—Two Societies of Geography have been founded in the Portuguese African colonies, the one at Mozambique, the other at Loanda.

—A French Society for the protection of the natives in the colonies, similar to the English Society of Exeter Hall, is to be formed at Paris.

—England contemplates sending two new Consuls to Souakim and to Khartoum to watch over the execution of the contracts relative to the treaty.

—A new expedition undertaken under the auspices of M. C. A. Verminck of Marseilles, and directed by M. Zweifel, will soon set out from Freetown for Timbo, Falaba and the sources of the Niger.

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—Major Mechow, who has explored Loanda, has arrived at Lisbon, bringing two young negroes belonging to the same tribe, but who are completely different as to the form of the head and the color of the skin.

—In his exploration in the country of the Soumalis, M. G. Revoil has found the vestiges of a Greek colony to which a Gallas white tribe had attached itself. The arms, the clothing, the idiom and the physiognomy of the people of the tribe confirm this opinion.

—Besides the two stations founded at Vivi and Isangila, Stanley has charged Lieut. Harron with the establishment of a third at Manyanga, where M. McCall has already installed the missionaries.

—A new International Belgian expedition is to be organized by Major Hanssens and Lieutenant Vandevelde. M. Popelin, who with M. Roger had left Karéma to found a station upon the west side of Tanganyika, has unfortunately succumbed to the fever and disease of the liver.

—The South African diamond fields have been wonderfully productive. In a single year, according to the testimony of Sir Bartle Frere, brilliants valued at over seventeen and a half million dollars passed through the Cape Town post-office.

—A missionary asked an old African woman what the earthquake was. “Me tink,” said she, “God Almighty pass by, and de world make him a courtesy.” This was a strange answer; but it was her way of saying, “The Lord reigneth; ... let the earth be moved.”

—They have found in the papers of the late Captain Phipson Wybrants, who died in the exploration of the country of Oumzila, a very minute statement concerning the Sabia, one of the great rivers of Southern Africa, which flows into the Channel of Mozambique. The upper part of its course has been little known. The outline of M. Wybrants will allow of the correction of the errors on the ancient maps.

—The complete success of the expedition sent out by the Royal Geographical Society of Rome in charge of Signori Matteucci and Massari is likely to cause a disturbance among map makers. These parties have found their way from Egypt across the continent to the Gulf of Guinea, exploring many hitherto unknown regions in the dark continent. A full account of their journey and the country and people along their way will be looked for with intense interest.

—The conquest of Algeria by the French, in 1830, restored to Christianity that portion of African soil, but for prudential reasons, no missionary enterprises were permitted. But in 1868 a famine occurred which destroyed in some districts of Algeria a fifth of the population, leaving thousands of native children in utter destitution. Nine thousand of these were gathered by the Archbishop of Algiers, and cared for during their youth. In this way the Catholic church has extended its influence and fame far and wide through the back country. A hospital has been provided by the charity of the natives in the village of St. Cyprien where the sick are gratuitously attended.

THE INDIANS.

—Captain Pratt of the Indian Training School at Carlisle Barracks, has persuaded the apprentice boys who are earning money to deposit it in the bank, and forty-seven of them have opened an account. An excellent suggestion for pale faces as well.

—More than nine-tenths of the Indians in the United States are peaceably cultivating their farms, and sending their sons and daughters to the Government schools, East and West. The disturbance, therefore, made by one tribe of the most wild and untamed Indians in the country will not particularly discourage or alarm those who have been watching the admirable Peace Policy of the Government. A little more patience and perseverance in the right direction would soon overcome what remains of hostility among these wards of the Nation.

—The liberality of the Indians at White Earth Reservation is testified to by Bishop Whipple, who recently visited the Episcopal mission at that point. He says that in taking the offerings, every man, woman and child came up and deposited the gift in the alms basin. The Bishop also speaks encouragingly of the religious work carried on at Red Lake, where there is a flourishing Indian church, whereas three years ago there was not a single member. Five miles farther up the Lake, more than half the Indians are Christians, and these have been baptized within the past three years. The Indian chief, who is an exemplary Christian and one of the noblest specimens of his race, has had much to do in bringing about this wonderful change.

THE CHINESE.

—The Japanese colony in Paris are about to erect a pagoda for their religious devotions.

—The Governor of Foo Chow has issued a proclamation calling upon the people not to molest the missionaries or the converts who follow them, either at their chapels or school-houses.

—Out of one party of twenty-five Chinese students, who are returning to their homes, it is said that nine have changed their religious faith since they came to this country.

—It is reported that as fifty of the Chinese students ordered home by their Government were leaving the San Francisco wharf, September 6th, they joined in singing our National hymn, “My country, ’tis of thee.”

—The American Board has published a new map of Japan about 2½ by 4½ feet in size, which will be found a valuable aid in missionary concerts. The price of the map on fine paper is 40 cents, and on cloth 70 cents.

—It is reported that the high Chinese authorities are in favor of an International Exhibition at Shanghai in 1882. Twenty-two thousand applications for space have been received from American and European manufacturers, and if the Exhibition is determined upon, there is little doubt of its success, both in a political and an industrial point of view.

THE FREEDMEN.

REV. JOSEPH E. ROY, D.D., Field Superintendent, Atlanta, Ga.

SUMMER REVIVALS.

McLEANSVILLE, N.C.

The first Sabbath of September we began a series of meetings, assisted by Rev. Geo. S. Smith and Rev. Mr. Turner, of Raleigh. On the Sabbath the house would not hold the congregation. Quite a number came from ten to twelve miles, a few from twenty to twenty-five miles.

Many white people attended every night meeting. Indeed, more white people attended the services than had ever attended any one meeting here since the church was built. A number of them have expressed themselves well pleased with the preaching.

Seven persons, two of them pupils in our Normal School, professed faith in Christ. We think the influence on the community, both white and colored, has been good.

SAVANNAH, GA.

My work in Savannah, as supply, during the summer, was greatly blessed of the Lord. For nearly two months my efforts were to become acquainted with the church and people in general, and in the meantime we were preparing our hearts for the ingathering of precious souls. On Monday night, July 18th, we began a series of meetings for the unconverted. They continued about three weeks, during which time thirty confessed Christ. Most of these, we believe, were hopefully converted. Three or four of those who sought Christ in the meetings have been brought out into the light of a dear Saviour since the meetings closed; thus making the number more than thirty. Seventeen united with us, and a few more will come in at the next communion. Some, of course, joined other churches with their parents or friends. We held a young convert’s meeting each week from the close of the protracted meeting to the last of September, when I left for school. There was nothing to me more cheering than to listen to the simple child-like prayers and talks of the young converts in their meetings. The youngest are three little girls who are respectively about nine, eleven and twelve years old. They are always at their post, and it is hoped that their Christian lives will be long and active.

McINTOSH, CYPRESS SLASH, GA.

In my last letter I informed you of the extra series of meetings we were having. We continued our protracted efforts for two weeks. Now we have the grand result. On last Sabbath I baptized twelve hopeful converts, and four were added on profession; all of these are adults. Sixteen hopeful young men and women have been added to the church within the last two weeks. God has greatly blessed us in our efforts to build up His kingdom, for which we give many thanks, and are very greatly encouraged. Pray for us that others may be added, such as shall be saved.

TALLADEGA, ALA.

Our series of meetings began on the first Sabbath in September, and at the first invitation offered to the unconverted, at the 11 o’clock service, five came forward inquiring the way of life, and strange to say, each of that five was hopefully converted before the next Sabbath. There were several other inquirers during that week, but on account of repairs to the chapel, we were obliged to close our meetings on Tuesday of the[331] next week. Eleven united with our church—six on profession, and five by letter. Not being ordained, it was necessary that I should get some other minister to perform the baptism and administer the Lord’s Supper. Elder Shuford, in charge of the Methodist church in this place, aided me, and the work was accomplished.

ANNISTON, ALA.

The revival work commenced in our county the middle of July. Since that date several churches of different denominations have been carrying on revival meetings. All, more or less, have rejoiced over the ingathering of souls.

Even our own little church has felt the visitation of the Holy Ghost and witnessed the gathering in of the sheaves into the Master’s store-house. We began our meetings two weeks ago. The first week we carried on a woman’s prayer meeting. The subject was, “That the church might lay aside every weight and sin, which doth so easily beset, and labor for the conversion of souls.” These meetings did a great deal of good, for when the meetings proper began, the church was ready to enter upon the Master’s work, which it did with great earnestness. The meetings closed with eight conversions. All united with us save one. Others are anxiously seeking for the blessed Master. There was an expression of great joy among my people to know that they had seven more to come around the Lord’s table and take with us the emblems of our Lord’s broken body and shed blood.

LAWSONVILLE AND THE COVE.

The church at Lawsonville has been blessed with a revival. There were seven conversions and four accessions to the church. At the Cove we enjoyed a revival season in which there were seven conversions and three accessions. The meetings did great good in reviving professed Christians, and bringing parties out of the path of the church to a realization of their responsibilities to God and society. I visited and assisted Bro. Snell at Kingston during a revival at that place, in which there were several conversions prior to my leaving, among which were four white men of respectability in that community. I have just returned home from a revival at my former station, Anniston, where much good was done in reviving the church, and turning some seven or eight souls from the error of their ways.

CHILDERSBURG, ALA.

We commenced our summer series of meetings on the fourth Wednesday night in July. On the Sabbath we had a great gathering. In the afternoon prayer meeting, every body seemed to be deeply impressed with the spirit of the Lord, and at night many came forward for prayers. The house was full all day and at night. About two o’clock I was awakened by the alarm of fire, and one of my members rapped at the door and said, “Our church is on fire!” I rose to my feet and reached the church just as it was falling in.

We came down to the Baptist church and continued our meetings. Many took a stand for the Lord and joined our church. After my meetings were over, I helped others. At Shelby Iron Works twelve or fifteen gave their hearts to the Lord, and at Talladega the meetings were very interesting and profitable.

NASHVILLE, TENN.

On the first Sabbath of the month a revival began and continued for two weeks. Our meetings were large and spirited, and all of us have been benefited by them, some of us in a special manner.

The little flock is greatly strengthened and revived, and is in a better[332] working condition. All little jealousies and acrimonies have been buried (I trust never to rise again), and a kindly feeling pervades the entire atmosphere of our church circle. As a result of the revival, five persons have been added to our church, and these five are live and not dead Christians.

PARIS, TEXAS.

Our protracted meetings began here the fourth Sunday in June and continued two weeks. We had no conversions, but the church was revived. During these meetings many persons came forward to be prayed for. Two weeks later the fire of the Holy Ghost which was kindled here broke out at Pattonville. We joined our brethren out there in a week and a half meeting. Before the meetings broke up we had thirteen to come out on the Lord’s side; six joined our church, and the rest went into other churches. Bro. Jordan Carter, a worthy young member of my church, keeps up this work here and at New Hope. The spiritual condition of these churches in the country is good. Pattonville church has 30 or more members, and New Hope and Paradise 43. These churches meet with us in a quarterly conference regularly.

Our white brethren of the various denominations invited us colored brethren to organize with them in a minister’s meeting which meets every Monday at 3 P.M. We are discussing some very vital questions in these meetings.

OPENING OF SCHOOLS.

BEREA, KY.

The Fall term of Berea College opens with greater promise than ever before. There are more students, and they bring more money. Two-thirds are colored, if the slightest shade of black is reckoned negro; but, if divided according to predominance of color, fully half are white.

McLEANSVILLE, N.C.

On the 16th of September we closed a two months Normal school, the first ever attempted here. We enrolled 20 pupils, six of whom had taught school, and four were preparing to teach next winter. Most of the others were primary scholars.

Our pupils did good work. Since the school closed, some of our pupils have attended a Teacher’s Institute in an adjoining county, lasting a week. One of them proved to be one of the best scholars present, was commended by the county superintendent of instruction, who conducted the institute, and by him urged to attend the public examination of teachers in October.

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Swayne School opened last year with 300 pupils, this year with 400, showing an encouraging increase of 100.

We are securing student aid from friends at the North for several students who have gone from here to the higher institutions. Most of our best students are quite young and can do as well here at present, except that it is better for them to be in an institution where they can be under proper control twenty-four hours in the day. The social and church life of these people is so bad that we advise all to leave for boarding-schools and colleges as soon as they can.

EMERSON INSTITUTE, MOBILE, ALA.

The institute opened its doors on the 3d inst. The full corps of seven teachers, including music teacher, were present. In the two lower grades the attendance of pupils somewhat exceeded that of last year; in the higher grades it was less. The total was 52.[333] At the end of four days it has increased to 75. This dilatory entrance will probably continue until the total will run up to 300, or thereabouts. Some of our students residing at remote points wrote that many new ones would come; but the drought has delayed, perhaps prevented them. The uncommon heat of the summer has cut off the expected means of some. Poverty is keeping a considerable number of our former Normal pupils at work for the present. The outlook presents many hopeful points.

HOWARD UNIVERSITY.

REV. W. W. PATTON, D.D., WASHINGTON, D.C.

Our new year has opened at Howard University with great promise of good. A remarkably large attendance at prayers, the first day, showed an increase of punctuality in the return of the old students, and an influx of new ones. Thus far 80 new students have joined the Normal Department and about 30 the Preparatory. The incoming Freshman Class of College numbers 8. Already 13 new ones have joined the Theological Department and others are expected. Many more would have come to it, but the standard of admission is now much higher than it used to be, and will be gradually raised as better and better material will be furnished. We discourage and often reject poorly qualified applicants. The Medical and Law courses are just commencing their term, and with bright prospects. The medical faculty is one of eminence, three of its members having been connected with the illness of President Garfield; Dr. Purvis being the first to prescribe for him after the shooting; Dr. Reyburn having been one of the six physicians in regular attendance; and Dr. Lamb having performed the operation at the autopsy. Last year this department had 81 students (a majority being white), and this year the number will sum up to nearly quite a hundred. It is open to ladies as well as gentlemen. All the law graduates of last year (5 in number) have come back to take the post-graduate course. The law students this year will number twenty or more.

The University students, through poverty, are compelled to spend the vacation in earning money (for which they find many opportunities to the north of us), and have been acting as waiters at the springs and the seaside resorts, where their good behavior makes many friends and often secures benefactors. Eight of the theological students gave themselves to missionary work with great success during the summer. One received twenty converts to the church, the Sabbath before he came back to resume study. The others were in the rural district of Southern Virginia, dark with ignorance, where they established day-schools as well as Sunday-schools, aided in a very interesting Sunday-school convention of that region, visited the families and preached the Gospel. It is thought that several new churches will soon result from these efforts, and one such was organized last month. They gave special attention to encouraging young men to prepare for usefulness as teachers and ministers, but hardly any proper facilities exist there, and poverty prevents them from going elsewhere to obtain education. We are continually tried by not having the means to aid those seeking the higher education, as the number increases and their literary character improves, while the colored people must have educated leaders in church and state.

HAMPTON, VA.

MISS HELEN W. LUDLOW.

Hampton begins the year with a large influx of students. They have come in much faster and more promptly than ever before. Last year, our largest number was 385, including 70 Indians; now, on the sixth day of school, we have 385, only 40 of whom are Indians. They[334] appear to be a good set—hopeful material—on the whole, in advance of former years. Indeed, so many more have applied than it is possible to accommodate, that it has been our duty, of course, to select the best, and examinations have been more severe. Our quarters are full to overflowing, especially the girls’. There is a larger proportion of these than ever. Seven of our returning students report that they have taught schools this vacation. A few more who will return are still out teaching. Of the few students, sixty-one reported having come through the agency of our graduate teachers, and fourteen more through that of undergraduates. One girl brought nine. Several of our graduate teachers came in person to bring their students.

Forty-seven students reported as having worked as Sunday-school teachers this summer. Some have been active in temperance work, and give interesting account of their efforts, especially among the young. They find the old people hard to touch. They are, of course, most of them too young themselves to do as effective work as our graduate teachers. A revival has been in progress through the summer in some of the colored churches of Hampton, and our students who stayed at the school to work through vacation, took part in the meetings to some extent. Our own Sunday-school organization was kept up under our resident graduates. In the course of the summer our students here also interested themselves in an effort to aid the Tuskegee Normal School, Alabama, taught by our two graduates, Mr. Booker Washington and Miss Olivia Davidson; and succeeded by their own exertions in raising by a festival and otherwise, $75 towards the payment of a small farm (already half paid for), by the purchase of which Mr. Washington is trying to put his school on a manual labor basis.

The Hampton School Mission Association, organized last year, will continue its work by helping in the Sunday-schools in the town, Bible reading in the jail and poor-house, and among the aged poor, and aiding them in other ways within their power. Our young men have taken a great pleasure in giving a day’s work now and then to patch up some poor old cabin against the severity of the winter, or to supply some poor old aunty with food and fire.

As to your inquiry for the number, condition and wants of students seeking a higher education, I suppose if the question were put to the school, how many would like to pursue a higher education, they would rise en masse, without always much appreciation of the labor or the value in it; but the Hampton School is so well-known to be established on the basis of self-help, and for the purpose of immediate helpfulness, that it draws to it chiefly the class who are glad of a chance to work their way through school, and are seeking to fit themselves as promptly as possible for the work of life. The opportunities for this, in learning trades and in Normal training, are greater this year than ever.

General Armstrong left on September 27th for Dakota, with 30 Indian students, 23 boys and 7 girls, who having been with us three years, are now returning to their homes. The morning they started, the last three of them were received into the church by baptism. We feel hopeful for all, believing in the sincerity of their purpose, as shown in their lives, to “walk the good road by the help of Jesus.” Every boy and young man took with him from $15 to $25 worth of tools of his trade, which he had earned here by his own labor. The girls had corresponding working implements. Provision has been made ahead for their regular employment as soon as they get to their homes, and Gen. Armstrong goes with them there, with two ladies to take care of the girls, to get them settled, to visit their agencies, and see their parents. He is expected back[335] by the 15th, and has Government authority to bring back 42 new students, including both sexes, 25 boys and 17 girls.

Forty Indian students are still in the school, and looking forward with interest to having some new comrades to initiate into the mysteries of civilization they have themselves so lately acquired. They are about half of them Arizonas, some of them Apaches, bright, docile and earnest. We only wish that those of their tribe now on the war-path could join them here. After what experience we have had, we should not be afraid to try them. It has led us to the conclusion that the Indian is a human being, and susceptible of development in the right direction, as well as “our brother in black” or in white.

BEACH INSTITUTE.

PROF. H. H. WRIGHT, SAVANNAH, GA.

The fall term of Beach Institute has opened with a marked improvement over the opening of a year ago. The pupils of the previous year have returned with an earnestness for work, and their deportment has been marked with a degree of quiet and manliness which is very gratifying to their teachers. The new pupils who have entered have fallen in with the current without creating the least disturbance. The opening weeks of 1880 were marred by continual quarreling and even fighting upon the play-ground. This year there has been none. Quite a number of the advanced pupils were hopefully converted during the summer, and are showing the fruits of the Spirit in their lives in school. We have great hopes of a continued outpouring of the Spirit upon the school.

During the recent cyclone the school-house remained comparatively uninjured, but the “Home” was rendered roofless and floods of water poured through the building. The colored people in this vicinity suffered extremely. Hundreds who lived on the low islands or rice islands, which are scarce ever covered with tidal waters, were overwhelmed, their houses destroyed and large numbers drowned. Even yet, a month since the storm, bodies of the dead negroes are being found in out-of-the-way places. A planter told me today of two such found a few days ago by his reapers in the middle of his rice fields.

ATLANTA UNIVERSITY.

REV. C. W. FRANCIS, ATLANTA, GA.

We find on this second day of our school session a fair attendance and good prospects for a prosperous year. The number registered thus far is 125, of whom 82 are boarders, the number a little larger than that of last year at the opening.

The proportion of new pupils is also a little larger, and in most cases they come under the care and persuasion of older pupils who have been teaching them during the vacation weeks. This mode of recruiting has always been effective, and as our accommodations have been used to their utmost capacity every season, we have never ventured to employ any other means to secure attendance lest we be overwhelmed. A most hopeful feature in the case of the incoming students is the large preponderance of girls who come without any special solicitation, which indicates a greatly improved sentiment in regard to their education and position in the community, and gives it abundant material for the most effective work in behalf of the elevation of the people.

There has been little opportunity thus far to learn save from letters as to the character of the missionary work done by the pupils during their vacation, but we have good reason to know that it has been more abundant and effective than in any season before. A larger share of the pupils went out as followers of Christ than heretofore, and a larger supply of temperance literature was put into their hands, and[336] the sentiment of the people toward them and their work is increasingly favorable. It seems probable that the appeals for assistance on the part of worthy pupils will be greater than usual on account of the smaller returns their best endeavors to help themselves have secured.

A severe and protracted drought has affected all this region, so that the cotton crop was small and required early attention, and pupils were taken out of school and attendance and pay were rendered small. We meet under the shadow of sorrow, having lost five students by death during the vacation, one of them a beloved member of the senior class. We hope that the tender and thoughtful feeling which manifestly prevails thus far may lead ere long to great and blessed results.

LEWIS HIGH SCHOOL.

REV. S. E. LATHROP, MACON, GA.

Our school opened on the 3d of October with 64 scholars present. This number was increased to nearly 90 during the first week, and there will be constant additions until Christmas. Many of the poorest pupils are busily picking cotton, to earn something for school expenses, and will arrive within a month. Ten or twelve of the older scholars of last year have now gone to Atlanta University, so that there are not yet as many grown pupils as there will be after cotton picking is over. Among the new students is a young Methodist preacher, in charge of a circuit in an adjoining county. He seems quite in earnest to learn. Another of our excellent young men was converted while teaching during the summer, and has done good work in Sunday-school, temperance and revival meetings. Another taught school in the same county, and both labored earnestly in the temperance cause. A bill was passed by the legislature this summer, allowing the people of that county to vote on the question of prohibiting the sale of liquor within their own limits. These two young teachers, aided by another former pupil teaching in an adjoining county, who has considerable talent for public speaking, worked hard for prohibition. The result is seen in the news that comes this morning, that prohibition carried the day by a majority of nineteen votes.

Several new scholars have come into our school, and a larger number will yet come through the efforts of these young teachers. The attendance at opening is larger than for several preceding years, and indications point toward a steady increase. Atlanta University being within one hundred miles, draws off many of the older students, but what is our loss is their gain. The dark and ignorant communities of our common-wealth are being enlightened slowly but surely, by the earnest young teachers from this and other schools, and their influence is not small on the side of morality, religion and progress.

The school opens more favorably than for several years before, with an increase in the corps of teachers, and general prospects for extended usefulness. There is a growing number of those who desire advanced education, whose purpose it is to fit themselves to enter some of the higher institutions. Their greatest hindrance is their poverty; but the pay for school teaching is improving somewhat, although most have to wait six or eight months before receiving what they earn. There is, however, general progress in most localities, and we are glad to believe that the Lewis High School is doing its share, reaching out to uplift this whole region of country.

BURRELL SCHOOL.

MR. E. C. SILSBY, SELMA, ALA.

We had feared that the effect of a prolonged season of drought, occasioning small crops and high prices, would[337] be to lessen the attendance considerably. In this, however, an agreeable disappointment was in store, as the number present upon the opening day was four larger than the preceding year, and nearly twice that for 1879. We opened with an attendance of 153, 19 of which number are members of the advanced grammar and high school departments. A number of last year’s advanced pupils have indicated their intention to re-enter shortly. As yet, last year’s scholars who have been employed in teaching have not returned. From a number of these we have received word with reference to their work, and learned of their expectations to be with us again.

One young man wrote of establishing a temperance society, and laboring in a revival in the local church. He had a good Sunday-school which he had supplied with “Quarterlies” containing notes on the lessons, and he seemed to be accomplishing much good. His location is one where for many years he has taught school. He writes that he expects to return to Burrell.

Another young man, who says that he will re-enter, was last year in school here for the first time, and was brought through the agency of the former. He has written intelligently of his Sunday-school, and has also sent on funds to me to be expended in papers.

Twin brothers from a town in an adjoining county, and last year’s pupils, were converted at a special revival season in the Congregational church here during the winter. To one of the teachers, one brother wrote that he was “doing the best he could teaching in the Sunday-school.” The other said that “the people out there did not know much about managing a Sunday-school properly, but he was working in it, and lent his “Quarterly” around among others, showing them how to study their lessons from it.” These brothers are about 15 years old.

We learn of the expected return of a pupil of ’79 who has been laboring very acceptably for some time in Louisiana in Sunday-school, church and temperance work. He brings a recruit for Burrell also. Another last year’s pupil of ours, from the High school grade, leaves the scholar’s seat to occupy a position behind the teacher’s desk, in the building where for years she has been a studious learner. She is a teacher in the A. M. E. Sunday-school of this place, and a member of the choir. Two other young ladies, former classmates of hers in Burrell, are, for the second year, teaching with us also.

The nature of our school being, as it is, a city school, we have not tried to crowd our work upon the attention of non-residents. We have had, however, pupils from the country and adjoining counties, every year for some time, with rare exceptions. New pupils from elsewhere, brought through the agency of others, have been referred to above. A very promising young man entered this year from a county adjoining this one on the east, who had heard of the school from former pupils. Three persons from a northern county are, I am informed, to come in company with a last year’s pupil. The condition of the cotton crop is such, that some are probably remaining away to assist in gathering and storing the same. This is often the case with country scholars.

The second day of the present session, one came to us as a pupil who has sat in the legislative hall of this State as one of our county’s representatives. He has been a teacher since then, and realizing his deficiency, comes to learn along with children. We think he shows a commendable spirit, and judging from his persistency, predict his success.

TOUGALOO, MISS.

MISS K. K. KOONS.

The year opens full of promise to us. The school is not only much larger than at the same time last year, but larger than at the same time in any previous year except the first few, before the zeal of this people on the subject of education had had time to abate. Though Strieby Hall is not yet finished, the lower floor, chapel and recitation rooms lack but the finishing touches and furniture, the first of which it is rapidly receiving, the last of which we look for daily.

We held our opening exercises in the chapel, fitted up with temporary seats. Our overcrowded Girl’s Hall and dining-room of last year prepared us thoroughly to enjoy the room which the enlargement to the building affords. Though neither building is completed, the work is being rapidly pushed forward. A number of our students, who came expecting to enter school at once, were glad of the opportunity to help themselves, and are putting in a month of work upon the buildings before entering, thus somewhat lessening the number enrolled at the opening.

Reports of the summer’s work given by our student teachers at our weekly prayer meeting were very encouraging indeed. It has been an unusually hard summer for many of them. Delay in finding vacant schools, the failure of people to keep engagements made with teachers, and hard fare, were very common. But though these things came to us in our letters from them during the summer, they were scarcely referred to in their reports. Interest in their work and the people with whom they labored entirely overshadowed the hardships. The disposition to take a cheerful view of things, and cheerfully and earnestly to meet and work against difficulties and discouragements, is becoming more manifest. Perhaps this is one of the good results to be wrought in them by the sacrifice and self-denial so bravely made after the burning of our chapel last spring.

The interest in the Sabbath-school work is greater. Fewer signers to the pledge are reported than in previous years. The temperance work is the “pons asinorum” of our young people. And well may it be, in view of the almost universal habit of drinking and using snuff and tobacco. In this work they do grow greatly “disencouraged.” But the number of signers to the pledge is, after all, no criterion by which to measure the quiet work done in the line of temperance.

The number enrolled at the opening last year was 46, this year 74. The number of day scholars taught by our twenty student teachers was 1,539; Sabbath-school scholars, 795; signers to pledge, 160; conversions, 32.

FISK UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TENN.

BY REV. H. S. BENNETT.

Fisk University has opened this year with unusual prosperity. There are at this early date in the year 285 pupils in the entire school. There are in Jubilee Hall 121 boarders, which is within 30 as many as have ever boarded in the hall. Judging from applications which have been made, there will be by the middle of January next 75 more. Last night, at the faculty meeting, the question was earnestly discussed, “What shall we do with those who apply, when the hall is full?” as it is likely to be within a very few weeks. It is felt by all of the faculty that if the crops had not been cut short by the drought we should have had a rush of students altogether unprecedented in the history of the University.

It is felt by those who have known the students for a number of years that those of this year are a superior class. The quality of the students improves with every year, showing that others are at work elsewhere. We have received[339] already this year several students of advanced grade, who have come prepared to enter the college classes. At this time we are negotiating with one who desires to enter the senior college class and graduate next commencement. We expect him in a few days.

The past years of schooling are beginning to tell upon the higher training of the colored youth, and those who come to Fisk for the first time take much higher grades than new students were wont to do a few years ago. Most of the old students have been engaged in teaching during the summer vacation. It is estimated that of 85 in the collegiate department, 60 or 65 taught school during the summer. Wherever these teachers go, they secure a good name for industry, conscientiousness, ability and energy. We are constantly getting good words from white people, directors, superintendents and private citizens in regard to the faithfulness and acceptance with which our students discharge their duties. Almost all those who teach are Christians and engage in Christian work, as a matter of course, when they begin their day schools. As a general thing, they enter at once into the Sabbath-school if there is one, and start one if there is not, and generally get the entire neighborhood enlisted.

There are two interesting features in relation to the students, the like of which we have never had before. During the past few years the trustees of the Peabody fund have sustained a Normal school for white pupils. The effort has been made to secure an appropriation from the State for this school in the years that are past. At the last session of the Legislature an appropriation of $10,000 was made for Normal schools, $2,500 for the colored children of the State, that being their relative share. The Board of Education for the State, to whom the disbursement of this fund was left, decided that the fund for the colored students should be divided among 50 pupils, and that they should have the privilege of choosing between five schools to which they should go. Each pupil would thus be entitled to $50, and each school would receive on an average 10 students. Up to the present time Fisk has received 18 out of the 50, and it is well known that many of the Senators who had the power of appointment had not taken action. We have no doubt that others will come as the year passes by.

The other feature is this. Several colored men were elected to the last Legislature, and as members had the right to appoint cadets to the East Tennessee University, of course they all appointed colored cadets. Some other republican members also appointed colored cadets. This threw the trustees of the East Tennessee University into great perplexity. It is against the law of the State to educate white and colored pupils in the same institution: it is also very much against the traditional prejudices not only of the trustees of the University, but also of the people of the State. The trustees met, and after a thorough discussion determined to make arrangements with Fisk University if possible, to take their colored cadets at $30 apiece. Fisk University was not averse to the arrangement, and so the question was settled. We have now in the University seven cadets, students of the East Tennessee University.

It is accepted by all here as an important truth, that the longer we can keep a student the better it will be for him and the institution and the work. The students in the collegiate department give tone to the whole institution. Every department is lifted to a higher standard by the high standard of the college department. As the college graduates go out into the world, they have, without an exception, taken advanced positions as teachers or other professional men.

[340]

Livingstone Hall is now having its roof put on, and all are watching its progress with the greatest interest, as promising a time when the facilities of the institution will be almost doubled. What we shall next need will be an ample endowment. Who will provide this for us?

OBITUARY.

DEATH OF MRS. T. C. STEWARD.

On the 3d of July last Mrs. T. C. Palmer Steward passed away to her rest, leaving behind a devoted husband and three young children. She was born in Windham, Portage Co., Ohio, August 10th, 1839. She commenced teaching school when fourteen years of age and was graduated from Lake Erie Female Seminary, Painesville, Ohio, July, 1862, having secured her education largely through her own efforts. In October, 1866, she was commissioned by the A. M. A. as a teacher among the Freedmen, and for ten years continued to labor in the South under its direction, being at Chattanooga two years, at Marion four years and at Fisk University four years. In 1868 she was married to Hon. T. C. Steward, who was stationed at Marion, Ala., in charge of the work of the Association. Mr. Steward took an active part in the work of reconstruction in Alabama, and in the most trying and dangerous period in the political history of the State, after the war, represented his district in the legislature. In those times of imminent peril Mrs. Steward stood unflinchingly by her husband’s side and manifested the highest qualities of true Christian heroism. In 1876 Mr. and Mrs. Steward retired from the service of the A. M. A. and moved to Chattanooga, Tenn., where Mrs. Steward’s death occurred in their new and pleasant home on the crest of Missionary Ridge.

Mrs. Steward was a remarkably efficient and successful teacher, and a most devoted and earnest Christian worker.

DEATH OF REV. G. W. WALKER.

Died.—At Centreville, Pa., August 23, 1881, Rev. G. W. Walker, formerly a teacher at Atlanta University, aged 46 years. He was a graduate of Oberlin College and Theological Seminary. Of Mr. Walker it may be said, without biographical exaggeration, “A good man has fallen in Israel.” As a man, he was quiet, modest, unostentatious, affable and gentlemanly. Sustaining to him the close relation of class-mate for three years, the writer cannot remember a harsh or unkind word as ever having fallen from his lips. As a Christian, he was always calm, serene, happy. His piety seemed like the flow of some sweet, peaceful river. The same traits of character he carried into the ministry. As a preacher, he was Scriptural, earnest and impressive. He was true and faithful to his trust, no flatterer, but outspoken. As a pastor, he endeared himself to all by his gentle manner and lively sympathy. He labored very successfully for a few years in the service of the American Missionary Association. In lowliness and self-abnegation he toiled faithfully, earnestly, for souls wherever the Master placed him, and his memory will not soon be forgotten by his intimate friends, and especially by those who were hopefully saved through his instrumentality. He bore his sickness with a sweet, Christian patience, his greatest trial being that he was deprived of working in the service of Him whom he loved. Through a long and tedious decline, covering nearly two years of painful struggle for life, he found the God he served able to comfort and sustain him and give him at last the victory. He leaves a fond wife and son, who have met with a loss that cannot be measured, and who share the sympathies of a multitude of friends.

May the precious Saviour, whom he served, remember the widow and the fatherless.

EXTRACTS FROM MINUTES OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

September 13th, 1881.

Rev. Henry M. Ladd and Dr. E. E. Snow, who were about to proceed up the Nile for locating the Arthington Mission, were brought before the Committee and instructed as follows:

The Executive Committee of the American Missionary Association, which has commissioned you to explore the basin of the Upper Nile in Africa, with reference to the locating and the working of the Arthington Mission, would give you these few words of God-speed and of instruction.

We furnish you a letter from the U.S. Secretary of State, which in response to a request from this office, assures you that upon arriving at Cairo, you will find the U.S. Consul General stationed there, Mr. Simon Wolf, instructed to facilitate the labors of your expedition and to protect your rights as American citizens in such ways as are consistent with his duties and with due regard to local laws. With his assistance and your English endorsement you will seek from the Khedive of Egypt the essential protection of his authority.

It is our impression that near the mouth of the Sobat, where the Nile comes in from its great western bend, within the Arthington district, and perhaps upon the very spot where Sir Samuel Baker had his camp, you will locate the headquarters of the mission, whose stations in time will be extended into the country beyond; but we leave this matter of location to your discretion. In determining it you will consider the navigability of the river, the elevation and healthfulness of the site, and the friendliness and condition of the people. You will negotiate with the heads of the people, among whom you locate, for the use of land needed by the mission. You will investigate the feasibility of our owning and running a small steamer between Berber and Sobat.

Upon all these matters you will report as frequently as possible to this office. A journal, kept and furnished us, such as that reported by Sup’t Ladd, in regard to the visit to the Mendi Mission, will be greatly helpful.

Returning, Dr. Snow will stop in England to superintend the construction of a steamer for the Nile service, provided your reports shall warrant the Committee in ordering such an expenditure, and Sup’t Ladd will come back to this country to report in person and to secure colored missionaries to go back with you in the early autumn of 1882.

If the way shall not appear closed up, the plan for the second expedition will be that, with your recruits, you take along your steamer as freight to Berber, where you will put it together and launch it to carry your party and materials for building and for subsistence to the chosen site, upon which you will set up the house of the mission.

While the Superintendent, like the Apostle Paul, will have his “beloved physician” to travel with him as associate missionary, in our prayerful solicitude for your health and safety, we wish to enjoin upon you the utmost diligence in seeking to preserve yourselves from sickness, and in keeping yourselves in that enervating climate from overstrain in travel and work.

We bless God that he has given you a heart to assume this great undertaking in the name of His dear Son. We commend you now to the Divine care, and shall ever pray that you may be preserved in health and in life, and prospered in your mission, until you shall see that heathen people coming to the standard of the Cross which you shall have set up in equatorial Africa.

WOMAN’S HOME MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

Room 20, Congregational House, Beacon St., Boston.

Miss Nathalie Lord, Secretary. Miss Abby W. Pearson, Treasurer.

MONTHLY REPORT.

When Livingstone, at the age of twenty-seven, had accomplished his task of fitting himself for a missionary, had taken his medical diploma, and was ready to start for Africa, “a single night,” says his biographer, “was all that he could spend with his family, and they had so much to speak of that David proposed they should sit up all night. This, however, his mother would not hear of. ‘I remember my father and him,’ writes his sister, ‘talking over the prospects of Christian missions. They agreed that the time would come when rich and great men would think it an honor to support whole stations of missionaries, instead of spending their money on hounds and horses. On November 17th we got up at five o’clock. My mother made coffee. David read the 121st and 135th Psalms, and prayed. My father and he walked to Glasgow to catch the Liverpool steamer.’”

How fitting the setting of this prophetic talk of David and his father—the completed hard labor and sterner sacrifice of preparation, the hurried visit by night, and the long walk in the November dawn! No wonder, with their inspiration, that these two “agreed that the time would come when rich and great men would think it an honor to support whole stations of missionaries.”

The autumn is here and a new year of work begins. We are all promising ourselves redoubled efforts and larger success, each in his sphere, for the coming season. But what can we do new, what can we do more, what fresh successes can we plan for missions, and for home missions? This is one of the questions for us all to ask. Can I start a new auxiliary? I will not neglect the opportunity nor lose time. Can I myself make a larger contribution to the funds this year than last? Then I will, and if I have to give something of less value in exchange for the privilege, so much the better. Shall I read more regularly the news that comes from missions, and so help myself and others to become more interested in the work by the knowledge of what is being done? Yes, I will make a point of this. Can I pray more sincerely for the progress of the cause, remembering with affection and sympathy those who labor in the Lord in the more toilsome parts of the vineyard?

Are not these questions which we may ask and answer in the interest of our W. H. M. A.? We are anxious to do a much larger work this year than last. Would that we might multiply it tenfold! So we must have corresponding purpose and energy in each spoke of the wheel. Our missionaries already in the field have resumed their labors after their summer’s rest. Mrs. Babcock has returned to her work in Washington; Mrs. Steele begins anew in Chattanooga, Tenn.; Miss Rose M. Kinney is to be supported by our Association in Dorchester Academy, McIntosh, Ga.; Miss Sarah E. Tichenor, sister of Miss Lydia M. Tichenor, who has been in Hooper, Utah, has begun her teaching among the “poor whites” in Greenbrier, Tenn. She writes: “I think the prospects are that we shall have a pleasant opening, as they are anxious to have school. I would like a globe and charts very much, and we shall need text books for some who are not able to buy.” Miss Alice E. Carter, who has been our missionary[343] in Nashville, Tenn., this last year, has been detailed from that work to present the cause of the W. H. M. A. to the churches. Auxiliaries wishing to have her address them can make application to the Home Secretary. Under the New West Commission we send out Miss Snyder again to Albuquerque; Miss Elizabeth Keyes to Bingham; Miss Emily S. Robinson to Stockton; and Miss Annie E. Shepardson to Salt Lake City, (the three last named places in Utah).

We are ready to send out more, to double the number of missionaries at once, and the fields are standing ripe. Does not some one desire the “honor” of supporting, not “whole stations of missionaries,” but—a whole mission station? Does not some new auxiliary desire to undertake the support of a new mission?

The annual meeting of the Association will be held in Boston, October 26. We expect the cause of the New West and that of the South to be presented by those personally acquainted with the matter, and we hope for a large attendance.

Receipts of W. H. M. A. from August 27 to September 26, 1881:

Boxes sent:

Correction.—In report of W. H. M. A. for September. In Miss Wilson’s diary read, “2d, sent soup,” not soap; and in the last part of the same paragraph read “lunch,” not land, given.

CHILDREN’S PAGE.

THOMAS CHATHAM.

BY MRS. THOS. N. CHASE.

About fifteen years ago, a colored boy whom we will call Thomas Chatham helped to swell the flock that followed their white teacher to some tumble-down buildings in Atlanta, Ga.

There is a kind of wild delight about the memory of those days, “just after freedom,” when the “old uncles and aunties” as well as the boys and girls endured heat and cold, hunger and rags, inspired by the blissful idea of getting “larnin’” about as they had gotten freedom, “kind o’ sudden like.” When they found their mistake, of course thousands dropped out by the way, but Thomas Chatham was not one of them.

When we went South in 1869, he had gotten quite a start. I first saw him in the Congregational Sunday-school at Storrs Chapel, and noticed that whenever the Superintendent asked a question that nobody else could answer, a queer-looking fellow with a very thick tongue usually answered it. In two or three years he was admitted to the preparatory department of Atlanta University. But how the boys did laugh at him! How shocking! some tender-hearted child says. So it is. Many a time my heart has ached for poor Chatham. But you must remember that colored children are no better than white ones, and I am sure you have seen some poor awkward white boy laughed at till perhaps your kind eyes filled with tears. Then I suppose I don’t see the funny side of comical sights so quickly as some, and Thomas Chatham did look queer. Although he is quite short, he has very large feet and broad shoulders, with a[344] big head set nearly flat upon the latter. Then he was very poor, and did not know how to make the best of the poor clothes he had. His shoes were run down at the heel, so that when he walked he shuffled along, lest, I suppose, his shoes should fall off. He learned with great difficulty and made very droll blunders, but he never lost his temper or got out of patience. At the beginning of each year a new set of thoughtless scholars would make fun of his looks and his blunders, till his calm dignity told louder than words that he lived in an atmosphere far above that level where the taunts or esteem of his fellows had much weight.

His home was two or three miles from school, yet he trudged on year after year, often drenched with rain and chilled into ague, hoping that some time he would know enough to serve his people as a teacher in a country school. Several of his teachers advised him to learn a trade, judging that from all human appearances he could never teach or control a school. Others who knew more of his Bible knowledge and sublime faith thought that, perhaps, God could find a place for him somewhere; and He has.

Every summer vacation now he goes out into some obscure corner to teach, and reports come back to us that our best students are not so successful as he in leading their pupils to that beginning of all wisdom, the fear of the Lord.

Chatham’s success is to me a living sermon from the text, “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.” And why that Spirit helps him seems to be because he is willing to do anything, to go anywhere, to be only a sower, and let another be the reaper; in short, while he is weak, yet is he strong, because of that most beautiful of all graces, humility. How slow I have been learning the hard lesson, that God passes by the learned, the brilliant and the talented until they are thoroughly humbled, and, to our surprise, honors some lowly one who is willing to give God the glory and not beg back any share of it.

“For thus saith the High and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.”

LETTERS TO THE TREASURER.

The pastor of the church at Rehoboth, Mass., writes as follows: “The enclosed five dollars was handed me after our missionary concert last evening by a young brother who told me that he had set apart a small piece of ground on his farm, resolving to cultivate it for the Arthington Mission in Central Africa. This five dollars is the first proceeds.”

SAMUEL GORDON HALEY.

Our Treasurer received recently two thousand dollars for a scholarship endowment fund for the Fisk University, which was from Mrs. A. M. Haley, widow of Samuel Gordon Haley, and was acknowledged in the September American Missionary. We publish the following obituary notice of Mr. Haley as an illustration not only of the excellent character of the man, but also as a testimonial to the conscientious act of his widow, who is a worthy Baptist lady, in bestowing in honor of his memory this amount to promote educational work under the auspices of our Association, which was dear to him.

Samuel Gordon Haley, son of Dea. Thos. Haley and Eliza Whicher, was born in Charlestown, Mass., May 7, 1832. He died in Oshtemo, Mich., January 14, 1881. At the time of his birth his parents were not Christians, but they so earnestly desired that Samuel, their first-born, should have eternal life that they prayed that God would early bring him into His kingdom. Mr. Haley was well known as a successful educator[345] and genealogist; he was also deeply interested in historical research. In 1836 his father moved to East Andover, New Hampshire. There in the picturesque Switzerland of America, with its skies filled with light, its green plains and valleys, its bold and its undulating hills, its grand old pines and their dark mossy retreats, its bald-headed Kearsarge in the near distance, in full view of a quiet N.E. village, with its church spires and school-houses, nestling close at the side of Highland Lake, childhood merged into boyhood, and boyhood into early manhood. We may well suppose that such scenes would awaken the imagination of a mind formed by nature to appreciate and sympathize with the truly grand and sublime in the external world, and would help to impart to that mind a loftiness of purpose and purity of thought not otherwise, perhaps, attained. And now, amid those scenes so loved in childhood and admired in maturity, near the revered one who bore him, lies his noble form awaiting the resurrection morn. His paternal home was one of singular good sense and piety; it was sincere, unworldly, unartificial. Tender deference was taught toward the aged, and thoughtful regard toward childhood, the unfortunate, the afflicted. He loved to dwell on the tender recollections, kindred ties, early affections and hallowed associations connected with his home; he eagerly sought every historical incident of his family; and to his father, the aged sire, who still lives to bless, was he indebted for many incidents relating to his predecessors. Mr. Haley graduated from Meriden Academy, Meriden, New Hampshire, in 1856.

He graduated from Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., in 1860. Having chosen teaching as a profession, he at once entered upon that work, and for ten years his labors were in academies and high schools in N.H. During the war he spent his summer vacations in Washington, D.C., and vicinity, in the benevolent work of the U.S. Christian Commission. And as we turn the pages of his private writings, and learn of the spirit which actuated him during those dark, bloody hours of our nation’s history, we find renewed proofs of the true greatness of his soul. In 1870 he found work in the public schools in Illinois, where he labored till a short time before his death.

As a teacher, his life was one of untold usefulness. The moral and religious development of his pupils was of first importance. He regarded our schools as a place, not so much of learning, as of preparation for learning; a course of discipline to draw out and sharpen faculties; a means to bring the student up to manhood with ability to perform thenceforth the hard work of a man in his allotted sphere. To that end no part of fundamental study could be spared. A thorough, exact scholar himself, he was satisfied with nothing less than thoroughness and exactness in those whom he taught. Patient, forbearing, forgiving, he held a high place in the hearts of his pupils, and with all his gentleness of spirit he ever maintained a purity of discipline.

Mr. Haley first made a public profession of religion and united with the Congregational church while at Meriden Academy. But so true and pure had been his life that little change could be seen in him after this profession. He subsequently became a member at Hopkinton, N.H., then at Dover, N.H. He united with the church at Providence, Ill., in 1872, and was a member of that church at the time of his death.

As a Christian, he was undemonstrative, but he was faithfulness itself. In all his relations of life did he sow the seeds of love to his Master. He was unsuspicious, resented no evil, indulged in no gossip, perpetrated no slander, exaggerated not his statements, never[346] wore two faces, nor spoke with two tongues. He was guileless. A sectarian, a partisan, a demagogue, a sycophant, a hypocrite, he abhorred. He would do nothing with them but in matters of necessary business. His finer sentiments were not projected. He restrained them through natural diffidence, but when reached they were responsive, pure, refreshing, tempered with Christian meekness and sobriety.

As he approached the realities of that world for which he had lived, he seemed to enter into them as much as man ever can until he has passed within its portals. His spirit gave utterance to expressions which indicated how bright was the source from which had sprung the power and preciousness of his life.

Those who mourn his loss have consolation, not only in the remembrance of those sterling virtues which gave him professional dignity and power, but in that great, tender and noble nature which made those virtues subservient to the familiar every-day enjoyments in a Christian life. They will love to keep in memory his play equally with his work; his genial, frank and sometimes sportive intercourse not less than his graver counsels which instructed them.

The whole example and image which ever lives in their hearts, of sanctified intellect, sentiment and affection, constituting his well adjusted and honorable manhood, will be their best earthly incentive to imitate his virtues and partake of his reward.

Mrs. Annie M. Haley.

Buda, Ill., August 25, 1881.

RECEIPTS FOR SEPTEMBER, 1881.

Constitution of the American Missionary Association.

INCORPORATED JANUARY 30, 1849.

Art. I. This Society shall be called “The American Missionary Association.”

Art. II. The object of this Association shall be to conduct Christian missionary and educational operations, and diffuse a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures in our own and other countries which are destitute of them, or which present open and urgent fields of effort.

Art. III. Any person of evangelical sentiments,[A] who professes faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is not a slaveholder, or in the practice of other immoralities, and who contributes to the funds, may become a member of the Society; and by the payment of thirty dollars, a life member; provided that children and others who have not professed their faith may be constituted life members without the privilege of voting.

Art. IV. This Society shall meet annually, in the month of September, October or November, for the election of officers and the transaction of other business, at such time and place as shall be designated by the Executive Committee.

Art. V. The annual meeting shall be constituted of the regular officers and members of the Society at the time of such meeting, and of delegates from churches, local missionary societies, and other co-operating bodies, each body being entitled to one representative.

Art. VI. The officers of the Society shall be a President, Vice-Presidents, a Recording Secretary, Corresponding Secretaries, Treasurer, two Auditors, and an Executive Committee of not less than twelve, of which the Corresponding Secretaries shall be advisory, and the Treasurer ex-officio, members.

Art. VII. To the Executive Committee shall belong the collecting and disbursing of funds; the appointing, counseling, sustaining and dismissing (for just and sufficient reasons) missionaries and agents; the selection of missionary fields; and, in general, the transaction of all such business as usually appertains to the executive committees of missionary and other benevolent societies; the Committee to exercise no ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the missionaries; and its doings to be subject always to the revision of the annual meeting, which shall, by a reference mutually chosen, always entertain the complaints of any aggrieved agent or missionary; and the decision of such reference shall be final.

The Executive Committee shall have authority to fill all vacancies occurring among the officers between the regular annual meetings; to apply, if they see fit, to any State Legislature for acts of incorporation; to fix the compensation, where any is given, of all officers, agents, missionaries, or others in the employment of the Society; to make provision, if any, for disabled missionaries, and for the widows and children of such as are deceased; and to call, in all parts of the country, at their discretion, special and general conventions of the friends of missions, with a view to the diffusion of the missionary spirit, and the general and vigorous promotion of the missionary work.

Five members of the Committee shall constitute a quorum for transacting business.

Art. VIII. This society, in collecting funds, in appointing officers, agents and missionaries, and in selecting fields of labor and conducting the missionary work, will endeavor particularly to discountenance slavery, by refusing to receive the known fruits of unrequited labor, or to welcome to its employment those who hold their fellow-beings as slaves.

Art. IX. Missionary bodies, churches or individuals agreeing to the principles of this society, and wishing to appoint and sustain missionaries of their own, shall be entitled to do so through the agency of the Executive Committee, on terms mutually agreed upon.

Art. X. No amendment shall be made to this Constitution without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present at a regular annual meeting; nor unless the proposed amendment has been submitted to a previous meeting, or to the Executive Committee in season to be published by them (as it shall be their duty to do, if so submitted) in the regular official notifications of the meeting.

FOOTNOTE:

[352]

The American Missionary Association.

AIM AND WORK.

To preach the Gospel to the poor. It originated in a sympathy with the almost friendless slaves. Since Emancipation it has devoted its main efforts to preparing the Freedmen for their duties as citizens and Christians in America, and as missionaries in Africa. As closely related to this, it seeks to benefit the caste-persecuted Chinese in America, and to co-operate with the Government in its humane and Christian policy toward the Indians. It has also a mission in Africa.

STATISTICS.

Churches: In the South—In Virginia, 1; North Carolina, 6; South Carolina, 2; Georgia, 13; Kentucky, 6; Tennessee, 4; Alabama, 14; Louisiana, 17; Mississippi, 4; Texas, 6. Africa, 2. Among the Indians, 1. Total 76.

Institutions Founded, Fostered or Sustained in the South.—Chartered: Hampton, Va.; Berea, Ky.; Talladega, Ala.; Atlanta, Ga.; Nashville, Tenn.; Tougaloo, Miss.; New Orleans, La.; and Austin, Texas—8. Graded or Normal Schools: at Wilmington, Raleigh, N.C.; Charleston, Greenwood, S.C.; Savannah, Macon, Atlanta, Ga.; Montgomery, Mobile, Athens, Selma, Ala.; Memphis, Tenn.—12. Other Schools, 31. Total 51.

Teachers, Missionaries and Assistants.—Among the Freedmen, 284; among the Chinese, 22; among the Indians, 11; in Africa, 13. Total, 330. Students—In Theology, 102; Law, 23; in College Course, 75; in other studies, 7,852. Total, 8,052. Scholars taught by former pupils of our schools, estimated at 150,000. Indians under the care of the Association, 13,000.

WANTS.

1. A steady INCREASE of regular income to keep pace with the growing work. This increase can only be reached by regular and larger contributions from the churches, the feeble as well as the strong.

2. Additional Buildings for our higher educational institutions, to accommodate the increasing numbers of students; Meeting Houses for the new churches we are organizing; more Ministers, cultured and pious, for these churches.

3. Help for Young Men, to be educated as ministers here and missionaries to Africa—a pressing want.

Before sending boxes, always correspond with the nearest A. M. A. office as below:

MAGAZINE.

This Magazine will be sent gratuitously, if desired, to the Missionaries of the Association; to Life Members; to all Clergymen who take up collections for the Association; to Superintendents of Sabbath-schools; to College Libraries; to Theological Seminaries; to Societies of Inquiry on Missions; and to every donor who does not prefer to take it as a subscriber, and contributes in a year not less than five dollars.

Those who wish to remember the American Missionary Association in their last Will and Testament are earnestly requested to use the following

FORM OF A BEQUEST.

"I bequeath to my executor (or executors) the sum of —— dollars, in trust, to pay the same in —— days after my decease to the person who, when the same is payable, shall act as Treasurer of the 'American Missionary Association' of New York City, to be applied, under the direction of the Executive Committee of the Association, to its charitable uses and purposes."

The Will should be attested by three witnesses (in some States three are required, in other States only two), who should write against their names their places of residence (if in cities, their street and number). The following form of attestation will answer for every State in the Union: "Signed, sealed, published and declared by the said (A. B.) as his last Will and Testament, in presence of us, who, at the request of the said A. B., and in his presence, and in the presence of each other, have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses." In some States it is required that the Will should be made at least two months before the death of the testator.