THE FREEDMEN.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

Revival in Howard University.

Rev. Wm. W. Patton, D.D., President.

You will be glad to hear that there is much religious interest in our institution at the present time. It has been gradually coming on all the autumn, but was greatly aided by the week of prayer held by the Young Men’s Christian Association of the University in concert with other Associations. Some ten or twelve of the students think that they have begun the new life lately, and we look for further good results. This is highly encouraging, as showing that in addition to the educational advantages which gather around our location, spiritual blessings may also be received. We desire the prayers of all Christians that the work may be continued with power. Our theological students have been deeply interested in the meetings for prayer, and have rendered valuable aid.

VIRGINIA.

A Destitute County.

The following extract from a letter by an esteemed friend in a central county in Virginia is suggestive of the many dark places throughout the South yet unreached by the school or the church:

The field in this county alone is an ample one. The colored population of the county largely exceeds the white, and the yearly ratio of increase is in excess of the white. A half generation has passed since the era of emancipation, and it is melancholy, indeed, to any Christian mind and heart, to contemplate how rapidly this portion of the population, in the very heart of one of the oldest States in the Union, is crowding the broad road to perdition; how, in the entire absence of all organized efforts for elemental education and proper religious instruction, they are relapsing into semi-heathenism. There is not to-day a single school of any kind or character for them within the limits of the county (which may be safely estimated to contain five thousand souls of all ages and sexes of the colored race), except the Sabbath-school which has been taught by the writer.

ALABAMA.

New Church at Shelby Iron Works—Talladega a Missionary Centre.

Rev. G. W. Andrews, Talladega.

A Congregational church of twenty-one members was organized Oct. 10th, at Shelby Iron Works, Alabama. This is the fifteenth Congregational church planted by the A. M. A. in this State. Eight of them are in the vicinity of Talladega College, the most distant being forty miles away. They are the out-growth of the mission work carried on by the teachers and pupils of the college.

This new church at Shelby begins its existence under most favorable circumstances, most of its members being present or former pupils of the college. All are colored people; two are preparing for the ministry; one has been a student at Oberlin, Ohio; one was for some time a resident of Hartford, Ct., and more recently of Columbus, Ohio, a graduate of the high school there and a former pupil here; one is principal of an academy of ten years’ standing at Shelby and a graduate from Talladega. With two or three exceptions, all of them have for some years been trained in our Sunday-schools. The Shelby Iron Company is in hearty sympathy with the movement; the Superintendent, himself a Methodist, coming into the preliminary meeting and saying publicly that the Iron Company would look with peculiar favor on this church should it be organized, recognizing as it did the necessity for more intelligent Christian instruction for the colored people.

The sectarian walls, which in the South are built heaven-high, have in this particular place been badly shattered. There is no outspoken opposition on the part of the colored people, as in every other place known to me. The different denominations worship in the same building, the lower story being devoted to the school and the upper one to the churches. The Iron Company own about two-thirds of the building, the original cost being three thousand dollars.

I suppose there are a million of dollars invested by the Shelby Iron Company at this place, mostly owned in the North. One owner is an honored member of the Centre Church, Hartford, Ct.; another, of the Park St. Church, Boston; another is a Massachusetts man well known among “iron men” both in this country and abroad. The Superintendent is a noble Christian man from Illinois, and was a colonel in the recent war. Several of the local managers are from the North, some are from the South. Most of the workmen, white and colored, who stand all day side by side, are gathered from the surrounding region. Here the North and South meet and learn to know and love each other. The Iron Company is helping to solve the great national problem no less truly than missionary schools and churches. It seems to me sometimes that its entire business is carried on as a kind of missionary enterprise on the broadest basis. Owning thirty thousand acres of land immediately about the “Iron Works,” it exercises wholesome restraint over all classes. Nothing seems to be overlooked; the church, the school, the home, the village morals, the town adornments and the State, are all cared for.

Talladega College, a college only in name yet, is the rallying point for our missionary work in this State. It is just such a college as a missionary college should be, its whole work as a school being subordinate to the church. It is a training school, patterned after the missionary colleges of the American Board. Its grand aim is to raise up a native ministry so as to plant churches, and through them carry an intelligent gospel to the masses. We are not especially afraid that there will be any lack of school-teachers. With our eye fixed steadily on our missionary work, enough who cannot attain to the Christian ministry will become teachers, and they, catching the spirit of the institution, will become missionary teachers. It is surprising to see how this spirit has taken possession of our pupils. There is scarcely one who goes into the country to teach who does not organize his Sabbath-school as promptly as his day-school, and pursue it with even more interest. It is the first thing he reports on his return. Hundreds are converted by this means; Bibles, tracts, religious literature, and light are spread in all directions; thus are constantly carried forward many Sabbath-schools, and through them a glorious pioneer Christian work. Out of this work have grown eight churches, so near to the college as to be its special care, and in which a hundred conversions are reported for the summer just ended.

Of the twenty pupils in the Theological department, all have been reaping in this missionary field during the summer vacation, about one-half as preachers. The home church takes a lively interest in them during their absence. Prayer is made to God without ceasing in their behalf, and often interested members go out to aid them in their revival meetings. Letters are constantly received from them to be read at the monthly missionary concert, and public thanksgiving is rendered for the good work they report. Thus is maintained a lively interest in Christian missions and Christian work.

There has been an evident increase of interest in our mission churches about the college this summer; all but one report revivals of greater or less power; one reports thirty-two additions by confession; four report the completion of their houses of worship, free of debt—houses hitherto unplastered and otherwise much exposed, but now neat and comfortable, and everybody is happy over it. One is building a new house of worship unlike any of the others; it is built of logs, large and commodious. One poor fellow was so intent on pushing forward to completion his house of worship, that he expended all his salary for the summer, and then pawned his Sunday clothes. On his return to school he reports twenty-three conversions, his house of worship completed, but no money in his pocket. If ever there was a man worthy of aid, he is. He is now in my back-yard sawing wood. You will hear from him some day. These young prophets of the Lord are making rapid progress in the knowledge of the Bible and the system of theology, and wherever they go, are beginning to be recognized by all classes as well qualified to break the Bread of Life to their people.

I am glad to report that the white people, seeing the character and efficiency of these young men, are coming to understand and appreciate our work. I believe they heartily approve what we are doing. I have repeatedly experienced their hospitality this summer, and had many conversations with them relating to our mission here. From the president of a well-known college, down to the poor man who did not know his letters, I have found nothing but approval. The time is not far distant when this approval will be more outspoken and pronounced. When the Christian men of the South and your missionary workers from the North understand each other, from that day they are one in Christian work. We bless God for this new feast of love. Pray that no political excitement may interrupt the growing good feeling.

The Thin End of the Wedge—A First Thanksgiving Service.

REV. WILLIAM H. ASH, FLORENCE.

Our work here in Florence is the “thin end of the wedge,” and with sufficient facilities, the smiles of the Master, and patience in its workers, great good will result. The services are well attended, and sometimes the house is disagreeably filled, and we are without the proper means of ventilation. The members of the church begged me to express for them to the Association their sincere and heartfelt gratitude for the new organ sent them; it has increased the interest of our services greatly. Last Thursday, Nov. 28, the first Thanksgiving service ever held in this place among the colored people was observed in our church; therefore it has a history in connection with our work here. I made it a union service, inviting the Baptists and Methodists to worship with us. This congregation of Baptists, Methodists, and Congregationalists worshipped as though Christ was the Head of the Church, instead of any one of the denominations present. The service was solemn and intelligent. It truly seemed that the Lord was in His holy temple. After service a gentleman of about sixty or seventy years of age said, “I have been here forty years, but I never heard of such a thing as a Thanksgiving service among the colored people.” This is the “dawn of a new age.” Pray for us.

MISSOURI.

Free Schools in the State.

REV. J. E. Roy, D. D., Field Superintendent.

This noble Western State, plowed by war and sowed to freedom, is now coming on with harvests of temporal and moral prosperity. As I have been going over its territory, looking after the five school-houses of the Association, I have been delighted with the evidences of progress in the free school system. It is a great joy to see in these cities and towns the new, large, two-story brick school-houses of modern style and furnishing. The system works more slowly into the back settlements. But in a Kansas City paper I see it stated that in the country places of Jackson County there are one hundred and fifty of these schools. At Warrensburg I saw the imposing three-story stone edifice of the State Normal School, built by that town and its county of Johnson, and now occupied by four hundred pupils from every part of the State.

Special provision is made in the law for its enforcement in behalf of free schools for the colored children. These are managed by the same school board and are supported from the same tax fund. These officers are compelled to provide schools wherever there are fifteen of such scholars in the district. If they fail to do it, it is the duty of the Superintendent to require it to be done. I met one case where the out-districts declined to co-operate with the Board in this matter, when only a threatened appeal to the Superintendent brought them to terms. I have been gratified to see the heartiness with which the five boards I have dealt with are pushing the free school system in behalf of blacks as well as whites. Nor have I been deceived, as some may imagine.

The Lincoln Institute at the Capitol, as a Normal School for colored teachers, receives an annual appropriation from the State of $5,000. A democratic editor told me that that was considered as a matter of honor, and that so there was no danger of its being discontinued. This institution of sacred name had also a sacred origin. For its founding, the 62d and 65th Regiments of U. S. colored infantry, when discharged from service in January, 1866, contributed a fund of $6,379. The Freedmen’s Bureau furnished $8,000; the Western Sanitary Commission, $2,000; and agents Beal and Lane raised $2,000. The building is of brick, 60×70 feet, three stories high, a comely structure crowning a hill just out of Jefferson City. Its current catalogue enrolls 123 students. It is controlled by a local board, of which the Governor and State Superintendent are ex-officio members. Revs. R. D. Foster and M. Henry Smith have served as principals the most of the time since it was opened in 1871.

The Association has its five school houses at Troy, Fulton, Westport, Warrensburg and Lebanon. These were procured in part by aid from the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1867–9. They were at first run by teachers sent from the North, but were gradually taken up by the local school boards. I find them all in such use now. Three will probably be sold to those boards at their present low valuation. Two will be sold to local colored Methodist churches, as the schools require larger and better houses, which the authorities intend to build. These houses have also been used all the time as places of worship by the colored people. The seven or eight colored teachers in these schools were educated in Lincoln, Fisk, and kindred institutions. I have found them young people of character, and of tact in handling their schools. They have to be examined. They receive from $35 to $45 a month, about the same as white common-school teachers.

The A. M. A. has done the work of initiation. By this tour of inspection I am deeply convinced of the wisdom of the A. M. A. in putting its strength upon Normal and Collegiate institutions, and so doing a wholesale business. Raise up teachers and send them back into the country. Raise up the men and women for the professions and for the higher walks of social life. That is the work.