American Missionary Association,

56 READE STREET, N. Y.

PRESIDENT.

Hon. E. S. TOBEY, Boston.

VICE PRESIDENTS.

Hon. F. D. Parish, Ohio. Rev. Jonathan Blanchard, Ill. Hon. E. D. Holton, Wis. Hon. William Claflin, Mass. Rev. Stephen Thurston, D. D., Me. Rev. Samuel Harris, D. D., Ct. Rev. Silas McKeen, D. D., Vt. Wm. C. Chapin, Esq., R. I. Rev. W. T. Eustis, Mass. Hon. A. C. Barstow, R. I. Rev. Thatcher Thayer, D. D., R. I. Rev. Ray Palmer, D. D., N. Y. Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, D. D., Ill. Rev. W. W. Patton, D. D., D. C. Hon. Seymour Straight, La. Rev. D. M. Graham, D. D., Mich. Horace Hallock, Esq., Mich. Rev. Cyrus W. Wallace, D. D., N. H. Rev. Edward Hawes, Ct. Douglas Putnam, Esq., Ohio. Hon. Thaddeus Fairbanks, Vt. Samuel D. Porter, Esq., N. Y. Rev. M. M. G. Dana, D. D., Ct. Rev. H. W. Beecher, N. Y. Gen. O. O. Howard, Oregon. Rev. Edward L. Clark, N. Y. Rev. G. F. Magoun, D. D., Iowa. Col. C. G. Hammond, Ill. Edward Spaulding, M. D., N. H. David Ripley, Esq., N. J. Rev. Wm. M. Barbour, D. D., Ct. Rev. W. L. Gage, Ct. A. S. Hatch, Esq., N. Y. Rev. J. H. Fairchild, D. D., Ohio. Rev. H. A. Stimson, Minn. Rev. J. W. Strong, D. D., Minn. Rev. George Thacher, LL. D., Iowa. Rev. A. L. Stone, D. D., California. Rev. G. H. Atkinson, D. D., Oregon. Rev. J. E. Rankin, D. D., D. C. Rev. A. L. Chapin, D. D., Wis. S. D. Smith, Esq., Mass. Rev. H. M. Parsons, N. Y. Peter Smith, Esq., Mass. Dea. John Whiting, Mass. Rev. Wm. Patton, D. D., Ct. Hon. J. B. Grinnell, Iowa. Rev. Wm. T. Carr, Ct. Rev. Horace Winslow, Ct. Sir Peter Coats, Scotland. Rev. Henry Allon, D. D., London, Eng. Wm. E. Whiting, Esq., N. Y.

J. M. Pinkerton, Esq., Mass.

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

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

DISTRICT SECRETARIES.

Rev. C. L. WOODWORTH, Boston. Rev. G. D. PIKE, New York. Rev. JAS. POWELL, Chicago, Ill. EDGAR KETCHUM, Esq., Treasurer, N. Y. H. W. HUBBARD, Esq., Assistant Treasurer, N. Y. Rev. M. E. STRIEBY, Recording Secretary.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

Alonzo S. Ball, A. S. Barnes, Edward Beecher, Geo. M. Boynton, Wm. B. Brown, Clinton B. Fisk, A. P. Foster, E. A. Graves, S. B. Halliday, Sam’l Holmes, S. S. Jocelyn, Andrew Lester, Chas. L. Mead, John H. Washburn, G. B. Willcox.

COMMUNICATIONS

relating to the business of the Association may be addressed to either of the Secretaries as above.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

may be sent to H. W. Hubbard, 56 Reade Street, New York, or, when more convenient, to either of the branch offices, 21 Congregational House, Boston, Mass., 112 West Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. Drafts or checks sent to Mr. Hubbard should be made payable to his order as Assistant Treasurer.

A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member.

Correspondents are specially requested to place at the head of each letter the name of their Post Office, and the County and State in which it is located.

THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

Vol. XXXII.

OCTOBER, 1878.

No. 10.

American Missionary Association.

FINANCIAL.

When this number of the Missionary reaches our readers, our fiscal year (closing Sept. 30) will be nearly ended. By careful economy for two years past, we kept our current expenses within our receipts, and we hope that the receipts of this month will make this the third year in which our expenditures will not add a dollar to our debt.

Our debt is now our great solicitude. Last year it was reduced, by the sale of stocks, etc., from $93,232.99 to $62,816.90. This year we have received to September 1, in cash, $14,108.22, and in pledges (partly conditioned) $7,550, making $21,658.22, thus reducing the amount—if the pledges are paid—to $41,158.68. Shall not an effort, so nobly begun, be pushed forward to completion?

We feel called upon, as never before, to urge the wiping out of this debt. We have retrenched in office expenses, and have been very guarded in annual appropriations, that it might be paid. Generous doners have given liberally—some of their abundance—more of their poverty—and the amount is reduced within grasp. We have rejoiced that the liberality of the churches and individuals have, in one month, by special efforts, well-nigh relieved a sister society—the honored American Board—of a balance on its annual appropriation of $80,000. A little more than half that amount, if given to the A. M. A., will pay off the remainder of a debt that has hung upon it as an incubus for ten years. The payment of that debt will honor the cause of the Master; it will unfetter our hands; it will cheer us and our friends for future work; it will be a boon to the ignorant and needy masses for whom we labor. We appeal to the wealthy, the liberal, the self-denying, to all who love God and His poor, to make a final effort, by special gifts, to reach an object so near at hand and so important.

Our books will be closed promptly Sept. 30, for current receipts and expenditures, but for receipts for debt they will be kept open till after the Annual Meeting; and we trust that meeting will have the joy and glory of announcing the complete extinction of the debt.

OUR ANNUAL MEETING.

The Thirty-second Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association will be held in the Broadway Congregational Church, Taunton, Mass., October 29–31. The meeting will be organized on Tuesday, at three o’clock P. M., and at half-past seven o’clock in the evening the annual sermon will be preached by Rev. S. E. Herrick, D. D., of Boston. On Wednesday, papers will be read by Rev. George Leon Walker, D. D., and others. Wednesday evening will be occupied with addresses and reminiscences by present and former missionaries of the A. M. A. Thursday will be devoted to reports of committees and discussions of the work.

The meeting will close Thursday evening, with addresses from able and distinguished speakers, to be named hereafter.

The people of Taunton will undertake to entertain all the friends who may attend the meetings. Those desiring hospitality can address Charles H. Atwood, Esq., until Sept. 20th. Return cards, assigning places, will be duly sent.

THE ROMAN CATHOLICS AMONG THE FREEDMEN.

The Independent closes a careful and, in the main, accurate summary of the work of Christian education among the negroes, with a view of what the Roman Catholics are doing. After speaking of the large estimates of money expended, and pupils taught by that church, it says:

“Nothing approaching a confirmation of these estimates has been brought to our notice. We have carefully examined the Roman Catholic papers with reference to this subject for a year past, and have been able to glean from them only the most barren record of facts and isolated movements.... We believe that, if the Roman Catholics really had facts to prove that they have made the progress they claim to have made, they would not hesitate to publish them conspicuously. As they fail to produce them, we are contented to believe, for the present, that they are doing no more than their fair share of the work, if so much, and receiving no more than their share of the conversions.”

In a later issue, the same paper says:

“We are glad to have been able to capture and expose the spectre which has been frightening Protestants so much. We mean the wholesale conversion of negroes to Catholicism. In a recent article in our ‘Religious Intelligence’ we gave all the information we could gather about the extent and results of Catholic missions among the freedmen, and there was nothing in it to alarm or annoy anybody. The Catholic Review quotes liberally from the article, and virtually concedes the accuracy of our statements in the following sentences:

“‘Like our contemporary, we have noticed the “extravagant estimates” to which it refers; but we never happened to notice their having been made by any Catholic authority whatever. They usually make their appearance in papers of the Christian Advocate stamp, and are employed as a stimulus to rouse missionary zeal in people who are much more readily moved to give money by their hatred of Popery than by their love for what they believe to be the truth taught by our Divine Lord. The Independent wants facts to substantiate these boastings. We suggest that it can always be accommodated with facts enough to substantiate the truth of whatever assertions are actually made by our missionaries. They can hardly be held responsible for any wild stories which other people may circulate at their expense.’

“Those who have been most troubled by reports of the gains of Catholicism among the negroes may give to the winds their fears.”

We, too, have been for more than a year making special inquiries. We have read the large estimates, which have been through the newspapers, of money expended, and pupils taught. The statement that $600,000 in gold (nearly one million dollars in our currency) was given to this work by the Propaganda at Rome, in 1867, and that, in the same year, sixty-six priests landed in New Orleans to undertake missionary work among the blacks, we trace to the Christian Intelligencer of that year.

The fact is, that it is extremely difficult to get at accurate and authorized statements in regard to all Roman Catholic missions. Their funds are not raised by appeals, based on special needs or special encouragements, or addressed to the general public; and their policy is one of quiet foundation-laying, rather than of demonstrative up-building. It is not an easy task, even, to secure reliable information of what they are doing here at our doors, or behind their own.

Recognizing this difficulty, we are not ready to agree with the Independent that, if the Roman Catholics had facts to prove, they would not hesitate to publish them conspicuously. Nor are we ready yet to congratulate ourselves that we “have been able to capture and expose the spectre,” while we are obliged to confess that we have not had it in our grasp sufficiently to take the measure of its outlines, or tell its height and girth.

A careful reading of the ‘virtual concession’ of the Catholic Review makes it amount to virtually nothing, except an ingenious evasion of responsibility for any statements which may have been made. It does not even say that the estimates have been extravagant, but uses that expression as a quotation from the Independent. It only suggests that assertions actually made by missionaries (who are careful not to make assertions) can always be substantiated.

We would merely caution the friend of the negro, and those who fear the influence of Romanism over him, that an argument based on ignorance is not very securely founded. And, while we would not have omne ignotum pro magnifico, or believe because the spectre is vague, it must be very large; on the other hand, we would not say of one whose wont is to hide itself, “Because we cannot dissect it, it is nothing.”

THE YELLOW FEVER.

The yellow fever, in its ravages in the South, pays no regard to race, color or previous condition. Whites and blacks alike have suffered from its sudden and malignant attacks. Death levels all distinctions. The statement which has been often made, that the negroes are proof against this pestilence, seems to have been ill-based, as intelligent observers of its ravages in former years utterly contradict it. At any rate, it is not true of this year’s scourge.

Quite opposite assertions have been made in regard to the conduct of the blacks during the panic which this deathly visitor has occasioned. So contradictory, in fact, that we suspect the truth to be that they have acted very much like white people of the same intelligence. Some have stood at their posts, and done noble work as nurses, as ministers, and in humbler stations. And some, doubtless, like those of other races, have been carried by their fears away from the most sacred of duties.

How has it affected our work? Of course, our schools in the South are closed during the hot months, and most of the teachers and white pastors are in the North. Straight University, at New Orleans, La., is closed, and Rev. Mr. Alexander, the pastor of the church, is at his New England home. At Grenada, Miss., which has been almost depopulated by the fever, we had a school. The two teachers, however, we believe went to the country before the pestilence reached that beautiful town. The only one of our workers whom we know to have been stricken down is Rev. W. W. Mallory, the colored pastor of the church at Memphis, Tenn., who was still sick at our last advices. We have reason to hope for his recovery and restoration to full health.

We have transmitted some sums of money which have been put into our hands for special relief to the suffering colored people of these infected districts, to which we have added what we felt justified in doing from the funds of the Association.

But the peril is not over yet. Many days must intervene before the thrice welcome frosts may be expected to kill the germs of this fell disease, and famine always comes in the train of continued pestilence. It is the Lord’s work to avert suffering and relieve physical want. May the fountains of charity, which have been opened so freely through the land, continue to flow increasingly until there shall be no more thirst.

A FOUL CHANCE AND A FAIR CHANCE.

A correspondent writes us upon the subject of how the freedman is getting on, as follows:

“On my way up the Mississippi, between the States of Arkansas and Mississippi, I fell into conversation with a planter living on the right bank of the river, and, after the manner of all Yankees, asked him how the negroes were getting on. He was a short, chunky, red-faced man, and his account was gloomy in the extreme. He said that he would not undertake to tell me all the trouble he had with his ‘help,’ for, if he did, I would not believe him at all. He said that he could not advance them anything at the beginning of the season, for fear of their running away and leaving him without hands in time of harvest; that they were so lazy that all they cared for was to get bread and meat for the least possible amount of work; that, although all his hands were deacons or preachers or ‘exalters,’ they stole so that he could not raise any pigs or chickens; that the members of the church were more licentious than the ‘world’s people’; that they got angry and burned his gin-house every year, etc., etc. He was the first man that I had met, during a residence of nine years at the South, who would admit that he was sorry the slaves had been made free.

“On my way down the river, at about the same point, I had a conversation upon the same subject with a man residing on the other bank. He was a tall gentleman of fine form, with an intellectual, genial, open face. In reply to my inquiries, he said the freedmen were doing first-rate; were industrious, honest, temperate and moral; were acquiring property in stock, tools and land; and he found free labor more easily managed and more profitable than slave labor. I referred to the conversation I had with his Mississippi neighbor on my way up, and asked him why their reports were so different. With a good deal of animation and emphasis, he replied: ‘I can tell you why it is: I just give my niggers a chance, and he doesn’t. He has always brought them out in debt to him at the end of every year, and has crushed out all their enterprise and ambition, so that, as he says, the problem with them is how to get a bare living with the least possible amount of work. All the nigger wants is a fair chance.’”

INDIAN AGENTS.

Under the Peace Policy, the Government has entrusted to the American Missionary Association the nomination of six Indian agents. Vacancies in these occur from time to time, and applications for nominations are desired. One vacancy now exists.

These Indian agencies afford an admirable opportunity for usefulness to the right persons; but they are not sinecures for incompetent men—whether laymen or ministers. It is desirable that the applicant have some knowledge of farming and the simpler mechanic arts, but it is essential that he present the best of credentials as to piety, integrity, business capacity and experience, and ability to influence masses of men.

The salary ranges from $1,000 to $2,000 per annum, according to the responsibilities and duties of the agencies. Bonds for the faithful performance of duty will be required by the government, varying from $15,000 to $20,000.

Applications or inquiries may be addressed to Rev. M. E. Strieby, 56 Reade Street, New York.

“INDIAN WARS.”

And so the latest Indian War is over! It is absurd to call such chases and skirmishes by so dignified a name. Small bands of ten, twenty, sometimes a hundred or two outlaws in revolt, are hunted to death or surrender in the wildernesses of the Far West. We call them nations, and this undignified pursuit a war. It is, in reality, only the same thing which is continually being done in our great cities by the police. Law-breakers, and men who avenge their own wrongs, must be chased to their dens, and either caught and chained, or shot like dogs. Only that, on the frontier, the facilities for the violence, and then for the escape, are so much greater than in the city; and that we have to send generals and colonels in the army after them, instead of sergeants of police.

We pity the “braves” of the Territories more than we do the “roughs” of the bloody sixth ward, because they are more ignorant and more wronged, and because the hindrances to a better life are even greater for them. And we pity the gallant men of the army, who are compelled to do this police work, in dogging criminals to death.

Among the recent dispatches is one, telling of an encounter between six cow-boys and eight Indians on the Nueces River, in which four Indians were killed and one captured; one of the boys had a flesh-wound, and the others only wounds in their clothing. Generalship does not go for much in such guerrilla warfare. West Point tactics are not of much avail. Often, in the brooks of New England, the farmer’s boy, who goes fishing with a stick and a string, when it rains too hard to work out of doors, will bring home ten times as many trout as the city sportsman with eight-ounce rod, a Conroy reel and a choice assortment of flies. Perhaps a small army of cow-boys would serve us best on the frontier. It is not fit work for real soldiers. We do not mean a word of disrespect to them. They have our sympathy and admiration for their fidelity and obedience, and for not resigning when they are set to such work.

But how much better it would be if, by fair treatment and honestly-fulfilled pledges, we had made these Indians both friendly and law-abiding—or, even, if now, with patience and forbearance, we should be persistently kind and true, and see how long it would be before we and they should find each in the other, “a man and a brother.”

The difference between equal and identical rights is well illustrated by the action of the Georgia Central Railroad officials. Travel between Macon and Savannah is so light that only one passenger coach is run. By a partition this is divided into two parts, furnished exactly alike, one for white and the other for colored passengers. The colored end being nearly empty one day, a white man took a seat, or rather four seats, in it, upon which the conductor told him that he was in the wrong end of the car, and that the vice-president was very particular that no white persons be allowed to ride in the apartment for colored people.

A similar arrangement formerly prevailed on the street-cars in Mobile, and some of the old partitioned cars are still in use. It is to be hoped that, in the course of human events, identical rights on steam-cars will not be considered any worse than on horse cars by the constituents of Georgia’s good Governor Colquitt.

AN INDIAN HYMN-BOOK.

We have just received a copy of the Hymns in the Chinook Jargon Language, compiled by Rev. Mr. Eells, missionary of the American Missionary Association. It is not a ponderous volume like those in use in our American churches, with twelve or fifteen hundred hymns, but a modest pamphlet of thirty pages, containing both the Indian originals and the English translations. The tunes include, among others, “Happy Land,” “Greenville,” “Bounding Billow,” “John Brown,” and the “Hebrew Children.” The hymns are very simple, and often repeat all but the first line. The translations show the poverty of the language to convey religious ideas.

One hymn reads—

Another we give in full, and in both original and translation, as part of the words of the Jargon will be seen to be English:

We only extract, further, the literal translation of the Lord’s Prayer, some of the petitions of which seem to find admirable expression in this version, especially the “lead us not into temptation,” etc.:

“Our Father who lives in the Above, good thy name over everywhere. Good if thou become true Chief over all people. Good if thy mind is on the earth, as in the Above. Give to us during this day our food. Pity us for our wickedness, as we pity any man if he does evil to us. Not thou carry us to where evil is; but if evil find us, good thou help us conquer that evil. Truly all earth thy earth, and thou very strong, and thou truly very good, so we wish all this. Good so.”

It is no little task to make hymns for such a people out of such poor materials. Let it be understood that these are only hymns for the transition state, for Indians who can only remember a little, and who sing in English as soon as they have learned to read.

This little book is an interesting monument of missionary labor, and full of suggestion as to the manifold difficulties to be encountered in the attempt to Christianize the Indians of America.

INDIAN STUDENTS.

The fifteen Indian students who have been studying at Hampton remain there through the summer. Many of our readers will look with interest for some news of them, and be glad to hear of their continued progress and content. Like the other students who remain, they work through the summer, chiefly on the farm, thus earning money for their clothing and support. They are allowed a day and a half in school each week, and thus, under a regular teacher, their instruction is kept up in the English language, with object lessons, and phonetic practice, writing, arithmetic and geography. They also meet for an hour every evening, from eight to nine, with a few of the other students, under the care of a teacher, for conversation, and games that are exercises in talking. This conversation class is thus far a great success, enjoyed by the Indians and the other students who take pleasure in helping them.

They also have their Sunday-school class, and a prayer-meeting, in which most of them are very constant and devoted attendants. The devoutness of their simple prayers in Cheyenne and Kiowa cannot be doubted by a listener, though understood only by the Great Spirit to whom they are addressed.

At their first meeting, a gentleman present spelled out the question with the card letters for one of the young men to answer: Why do you like to learn? Letter by letter the startlingly impressive answer followed, “Because it makes me a man!”

THE WET SEASON ON THE WEST COAST.

It will be borne in mind by those who have special interest in our Mendi Mission that it is still the rainy season, to which all the peculiar perils of the West Coast of Africa are to be encountered, and with great risk to the health and life of those who are not fully acclimated. We have had weekly letters from our colored missionaries there, to as late a date as Aug. 13th, who have been passing the first test of their ability to endure the climate and resist the African fever. None of them have entirely escaped the touch of its hot breath and icy hand, and yet it seems to have for the most part passed them lightly by. Two of the female missionaries have been very sick. One, Mrs. Dr. James, died early in the season.

Thus far, then, we are encouraged to believe that, as we hoped it would prove, men and women of African descent endure the risks of transplanting and of naturalization far better than those who have neither themselves nor their ancestors been “to the manner born.” And, if these perils at the threshold can be encountered better by them than by others, we may surely hope that the less malignant influences which pervade the atmosphere will not undermine their strength, as it does with those who are foreigners by both blood and birth.

It behooves their friends on this side the ocean, who believe in the power of prayer, to keep these missionaries constantly in their minds and in their hearts, and to pray the Lord of the harvest, who has already raised up and sent forth these laborers into the field, that He will enable them to bear the heat and burden of the day.

They are doing well in their work. The schools are growing and gaining in every way. A lack of proper text-books has hampered the teachers, and an unfortunate delay has occurred by the loss of a box containing a supply, which, with the boat which was conveying it from Freetown to Good Hope, failed to reach its destination. The church has received valuable accessions since Mr. Snelson and his co-laborers reached the field. We hope to have more regular and full correspondence to lay before our readers in future, from month to month.

An honored New Hampshire pastor writes: “I should be glad to see the A. M. A’s debt removed, and I am in hearty sympathy with the Society. It seems to me to combine, in the persons of the freedmen—to say nothing of the Chinese, etc.—the claims of Home and Foreign Missions in a remarkable degree. Patriotism and philanthropy meet and blend in its work.”

The same friend says: “Communism, so much, and thus far, perhaps, so extravagantly dreaded, will find friends among the black race at a future day, to an extent unexpected now, if we are not prompt to enlighten and Christianize that vast army of ignorant and voting laborers.”

When, at the opening of the war, the life of the infant Berea College was sought, the Angel of Providence said: “Arise, and take the young child and flee into the Egypt of Safety, and be thou there until I bring thee word; for the Herod of Slavery will seek the young child, to destroy him.” But, when Herod was dead, behold, the angel appeared, saying: “Arise, and take the young child and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead which sought the young child’s life.” And they arose and took the young child Berea, and went back into their own land. And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit. And other children were born to this household of faith—Howard and Hampton, and Fisk and Atlanta, and Talladega and Straight and Tougaloo, and several more. These do not have to flee for their life; but they need to be nourished into maturity, that they may do the mighty work assigned them in this and in coming generations, here and in other lands.

Apropos—A judge from a Western city told us, the other day, that, having had a black man to testify in his court, he turned and complimented him from the bench as the most intelligent witness he had ever had in that box.

He had been a colonel in the war. Since the coming of peace he had remained in the South, to engage in the process of the social and political reconstruction. He felt the desperateness of the case, and yet was hopeful. In our office, he was setting forth the Southern status, and arguing for patient endurance and vigorous endeavor when, in his military phrase, he broke forth: “It is only one shot in five hundred that hits.” Fire away, then, ye soldiers of the Cross! Some of the shots will hit.

It was the Christmas of the year 1865. It was in a Southern city. The preacher, though black, had the frosts of seventy winters on his head. His text was the parable of the vine and the branches. In the sermon of singular unction, he said: “My brethren, we has the advantage of the vine and the branches. They get the sap only in the spring and thro’ the season, but the Christian has the sap all the year ’round.”

Old Whitey.—Lewis Tappan had nothing too good to be used for the benefit of the colored people. While our new Field Superintendent was in the last six months of his course at the Union Theological Seminary, with aid from the American Home Missionary Society, he preached back of Brooklyn for a Presbyterian church of “Americans, falsely called Africans,” as Mr. Tappan was fond of styling that people. His own family carriage and horse he furnished the young preacher all that time for riding out and back. Storms and mud did not prevent the cheerful bringing out of the rig. In later years, upon meeting the preacher, he would always speak with pleasure of the service of Old Whitey. In those days, or even now, how few men would furnish their family turnout for such a purpose!

ITEMS FROM CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS.

Hampton, Va.—The Trustees of the Normal Institute have decided to uniform the male students. A plain sack-coat, pantaloons and cap of bluish-gray cloth have been selected. The suit will cost about ten dollars.

—Seventy young men and twenty-two young women remain at Hampton Institute this summer—a larger number than in any previous year—finding employment on the school-farm, in the shops, knitting-room, laundry, and at housework. The young people are under watchful care and supervision; the family life of the school is kept up, and regular Bible-class instruction on Sundays.

Byron, Ga.—Two united with the church during the month of August; two infants baptised. Still, many are asking what must they do to be saved.

Talladega, Ala.—A professor writes: “Never before were our young ministers, as a body, so much in earnest as now, or more successful than this summer in their Christian work. They evince more tact in overcoming difficulties, and show more power in removing obstacles than I have ever seen in them before. The last two years have told powerfully on their mental and Christian development.”

—Rev. Mr. Hill writes; “At the church prayer-meeting in the chapel, September 3d, three girls, pupils in the college, rose and expressed a hope in Christ. Two of them are in the family at Foster Hall, for whom we have felt anxious, and have been praying all summer. They seem now very decided and very happy. I have been much impressed with the deep spiritual tone of the teachers here, and their entire consecration to the work.”

—The Talladega College Industrial Department will hold a State Industrial Fair at the grounds of the College, in Talladega, Ala., in November, 1878. This fair is intended as an exhibition of what the colored people are able to do, as farmers, carpenters, printers, manufacturers, musicians, housewives, etc. Any one who has produced, or made, or who owns anything he considers especially fine, is invited to exhibit. Three hundred dollars or more are promised, and it is hoped the sum may be increased to one thousand dollars, to be given as prizes.

Childersburg, Ala.—Rev. Mr. Jones was ordained here in June. Between twenty and thirty have recently come out on the Lord’s side.

Alabama Furnace, Ala.—A protracted meeting is now in progress, with decided indications of good results; and also at the “Cove,” there have been several marked conversions.

New Orleans, La.—A gentleman of high standing, in New Orleans, writes to Mr. Alexander, the pastor of the Central Congregational Church, who is now in the North: “Notwithstanding the intense heat, and the excitement that prevails because of the yellow-fever here, the congregation at Central Church have not abated their interest, and, both on Thursday evenings and on Sundays, they manifest by their presence that they will ‘not forsake the assembling of themselves together as the manner of some is.’ The good Lord is present to bless at every service, and the faithful people are, as far as I know, conscientiously discharging every known duty. They display a zeal that is truly commendable, and must certainly meet your approbation and esteem.”

GENERAL NOTES.

The Freedmen.

—The Trustees of the Peabody Fund have just sent $1,200 to aid schools in North Carolina. One thousand dollars of this amount is to be used in Raleigh alone—$600 for a white graded school, and $400 for the two colored graded schools. Dr. Sears, agent of the fund, said that the Trustees would have sent more money, but that the income from it had recently fallen off 40 per cent.

—The North Carolina Legislature of 1876–77 provided for two Normal schools—one for white persons and one for black persons. The latter offers continuous instruction throughout the year at Fayetteville. It is under the care of Mr. Harris, a colored man, who was prepared for the work, which he does well, in Ohio.

—The Board of Education at San José, Cal., has abolished the colored school, and the former pupils have been permitted to enter the other schools.

—At Memphis, a telegram says the colored population are acting well in the emergency, and heartily co-operating with the whites, and adds:

“A meeting has been called by prominent colored men for the purpose of organization, to assist the whites in relieving distress and guarding the property, which the people, in the panic of last week, left unguarded. Their action in the present emergency speaks volumes, and has greatly increased the confidence reposed in them by those who were their masters. Among the most efficient on the police force now are the negroes.”

—When the better people of the North come to be understood by the right-thinking people of the South, we shall have hearty co-operation in the education of the negro.—Rev. Robert West.

—To “remove the colored man from politics”—in the sense of taking him out of such an absorption in politics, and such a misuse of them as does injury to himself and to others—it is only necessary to put him into education and industry.—The Advance.

—No nation can possibly let twelve per cent. of its population grow up in ignorance, superstition and vice, without reaping a fearful harvest.

—Macaulay says: “The best remedy for the evils incident to newly-acquired freedom, is freedom.”

Africa.

From all the west coast of Africa, in 1874, there were imported 486,544 cwt. of palm oil and kernels, valued at £518,134, or over two-and-a-half million dollars; of India-rubber, 3,427 cwt. were imported, valued at £25,792; of coffee, 11,502 cwt., valued at £46,506; of spices and ginger, 8,803 cwt., valued at £20,908; and, noticeable fact to Americans, of raw cotton, 11,315 cwt., valued at £32,839.

The chief articles sent out to the islands and coasts were cottons, arms and ammunition, haberdashery, hardware and cutlery. Of these, cotton was king. The whole number of yards of cotton cloth, mostly prints, sold at these ports for that year, amounted to 47,217,966, or nearly forty-eight millions. Allowing thirty yards to a piece, and thirty pieces to a bale, there were over fifty thousand cases of calicoes, whose value was estimated at £745,179, or nearly four millions of dollars. Shall America utterly neglect so rich a field, with its hundreds of factories half idle, and not a few completely at rest?—African Repository.

—The colored Republic of Liberia has 3,500 voters, 116 officeholders, besides petty magistrates and constables, and taxes the people at the rate of twenty-nine dollars for every voter, besides the cost of maintaining schools and government buildings.

—Stanley is said to have agreed to make another exploring trip through the Continent of Africa, at the expense of the king of Belgium.

—Mr. Williams, who accompanied the Azor’s shipload of South Carolina negroes to Liberia, is unwilling to take the responsibility of advising the colored people of the United States to emigrate. It is a magnificent country, and money is to be made there; but the risks of fever and disease are great, and the climate is enervating. Thrift, patience and good management are essential to success. No emigrant should land at Monrovia without a six months’ stock of provisions, a supply of simple medicines, a little ready money, and all the bright calicoes, brass trinkets and notions he can lay his hands on. Salt is always valuable, too. In the interior, the natives lick visitors’ hands for the salty taste of the perspiration. Those who have from $200 to $300 over their passage-money will have a much better chance of becoming independent in Liberia than in America; but those who expect to find there a heaven on earth, where they will not have to work, and who are unprovided with means, will soon become disheartened, and be anxious to return to the United States.

The Indians.

—One fundamental principle in the management of the Indians should be, that they are not to be massed together, but separated in small communities, and as soon as may be, in homesteads. The more they mix with us the less they will disturb us.

—The solution of the Indian problem will be found whenever a policy founded upon justice shall be inaugurated, entrusted to a separate department of the Government, free from political or army interference, executed by men selected on account of fitness, who shall be exempt from the accursed political dogma, “that to the victors belong the spoils,” held to strictest accountability, and subject to removal only by impeachment. When this is done so that it cannot be undone, and the officers of the Department are clothed with power to protect the Indian under the civil law of the land, and the barriers to the citizenship of the Indian are removed, and he stands upon the same plane with every other man, alike responsible to law, and equally entitled to its protection, then, and not until then, may we hope for peace with our native tribes. When the army of the United States shall become what it ought ever to be, the executive servant of the people, called into requisition only when humane measures have failed, then it may fulfil its mission—never as a humane civilizing power.—Col. Meacham.

—The number of Roman Catholic missionaries and teachers among the Indian tribes in the United States is 117.

—Of the 8,000 youth of legal school age in the Indian Territory, over 5,000 are enrolled as attendants at the common schools, and an average daily attendance of over 3,000 is reported. There is a per capita expenditure upon the total school population of the Cherokees of twenty-five dollars, while New York State expends but six. The total expenditure in all the tribes is very nearly $200,000 a year. If money can make good schools, the Indians certainly ought to have them.

—The Bannock war is over, and the Snakes are scotched. If we may believe these last—though it was one of their tribe who deceived our first mother—in the division of labor, the Bannocks did the murdering, and the Snakes the stealing.

—The care of Spotted Tail agency was put into the hands of the Episcopal Church, under the administration of Secretary Delano, in the Interior Department. The present Commissioner of Indian Affairs decides that this means that no other missionary religious teachers shall go on this ground except Episcopalians. Consequently, three Catholic priests have just been banished from the Spotted Tail agency, against the wish and choice of that chief and his people. So says the Advance.

Chinese.

—The number of children in San Francisco between the ages of five and seventeen is 55,899, of whom 133 are negroes, and 4 Indians. The number under five years, of all classes, is 24,389, making a total under seventeen years, of 80,288, of whom 1,505 are Mongolians. Of the white children of school age, who have not attended any school during the past year, there are 16,147. The returns do not mention any Mongolian children as having attended school.

—The Chinese Consul, Lit-Mium Cook, who has recently arrived at the port of San Francisco, says that the Chinese Government has no desire to abrogate or modify the Burlingame Treaty, and also that it believes that the Government of the United States has both the power and the will to protect Chinamen in the enjoyment of their treaty rights in this country. Mr. Seward, United States Minister to China, who arrived at San Francisco in the same vessel, expresses himself as strongly opposed, on commercial and international grounds, to any change of the existing treaty with China. There is not the slightest danger, as he thinks, that Chinese immigration will ever be so great as to give that race any control in this country, or make it injurious to our industrial interests.

—Chinese labor is discountenanced by the Legislature of British Columbia. A resolution just passed declares that “Chinese laborers should not be employed upon the public works of the province, and that a clause should be inserted in specifications of all contracts awarded, to the effect that contractors will not be permitted to employ Chinese labor upon the works, and that, in event of their doing so, the government will not be responsible for payment of the contract.”

—Two Chinese young men are preparing themselves for the ministry of the Episcopal Church, in San Francisco, Cal.

—The Chinese Ambassador is credited with the statement that the Chinese will go to Ireland, as that is the only country that the Irish do not rule.

OUR QUERY COLUMN.

One of our most experienced and successful teachers writes to us: “Why not have a Query Column in the Missionary, which will bring us in contact oftener? Have questions practical, and answers concise, clear, and to the point.” To all which we say: Why not, indeed?

Answer: We will.

Here is, then, already the beginning—a query and an answer. The query practical, which is the only condition imposed by the writer. The answer, although our own, we are not afraid to measure by all the three conditions suggested. It is concise—not susceptible of any very great condensation; clear—no vagueness there; and to the point—indeed, a direct answer.

Our Query Column is, then, in its place. After the news and notes will be a place for the interrogation marks. Who will ask the questions? We suppose it will be he that wants to know. And who will answer them? We do not profess to know everything at the New York office; but we have a wise man in the East, at Boston, and one who may occidentally know a thing or two at Chicago, a royal correspondent in the South, who will be everywhere, and a whole corps of intelligent teachers and pastors on the field, who, best of all, can answer each other’s questions.

Seriously, then, we welcome the idea. We hereby open and inaugurate “Our Query Column,” for all our friends and co-workers. Let the questions be “practical,” germain to our distinctive work. Let them be the real questions on which you desire light for yourselves, and from some source we will try to secure you answers which shall be “concise, clear, and to the point.” Of course, we (for the editorial, like the kingly, “we” is a cover for much irresponsible authority) shall answer, or cause to be answered, only such queries as, in our judgment, will be helpful to the work we have in hand. Who asks first?