THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

Vol. XXXIV.

JANUARY, 1880.

No. 1.

American Missionary Association.

SALUTATIONS.

We extend to our friends the salutations of the season, and rejoice that we can do it with more of gratitude and hopefulness than we have been privileged to do for many years. Like Bunyan’s Pilgrim, we have passed through the Slough of Despond, and the heavy load of Debt has fallen from our shoulders; but, as in the case of the Pilgrim, this is no signal to us, or our friends, for rest in the Arbor, but for addressing ourselves to the real Christian life-work before us.

1. In this we have many things to encourage us:

(1.) The renewed prosperity of the country puts it into the hands of our friends to aid us in the needed enlargement of the work before us. We are grateful for the help given in the dark days of business stagnation, and we hope that with the reviving industry and commercial activity, gratitude to God and love for His cause will stimulate the friends of the poor to increased liberality.

(2.) There is a more full realization of the importance of our work. Never before since the war has the North so well understood that the only real solution of the Southern problem is in the intelligence and real piety of the Freedmen. Every day’s developments make this the more plain. In like manner the rights and wrongs of the Indian never forced him upon public attention with a more imperative demand for answer. So, too, the right of the Chinaman to a home and legal protection on the Pacific coast, has never become more clearly defined or more intelligently recognized. Constitutional enactments and hoodlum mobs have only set forth his wrongs more sharply and made our duty more plain. Africa looms up with more distinctness as a field of Christian labor. Not only triumphant exploration and crowding missionary enterprises stir the Christian heart, but the very difficulties and disasters arouse new zeal. Our hopeful endeavors to introduce the colored man of America as a missionary to the land of his fathers adds a new element of hope and activity.

(3.) The most encouraging outlook before us, however, is in the deeper spiritual and prayerful interest which our work awakens. Among other signs of this fact are the aroused attention of the praying women of the North to the woes and wants of the colored women and girls in the South, the increasing volume of prayer going up from the churches of the North for Africa, and the prayer and consecration awakened in its behalf among the colored people of the South. But above all, we believe that the followers of Christ are coming to realize that in this whole range of work it is only in the Divine arm that effectual help can be found.

2. We have a great work before us.

(1.) In our own special field we have the urgent call to make the repairs and improvements which we were compelled to refuse when in our great struggle for the payment of the debt. These can no longer be denied, in some cases, without sacrificing the health of the missionaries and teachers, as well as the progress of the work.

(2.) The call for enlargement confronts us on all sides. We cannot meet the demand in the public mind at the North if we stand still, and still less can we meet that of overcrowded schools and for new churches in the South. We refer our readers to the following article for some stirring details on this subject.

(3.) Our friends need to be on their guard against one incidental drawback. The Presidential election occurs this year, and the experience of this, and all other missionary societies, shows that such years mark diminished receipts. We can only say to our friends: Do your duty at the ballot-box, but do not forget the contribution-box and the prayer for missions!

OUR ENLARGED WORK.

We have been saying for a long time, when we are free from debt we will do more work, and now that we are free, we have felt constrained at once to begin the fulfillment of that promise. The great question is to find the just mean between cowardice and rashness. No organization like ours can say, we will never spend a cent that we have not in our treasury, for we have to make engagements amounting to many times the sum at our present command. We must follow the leadings of Providence not only, but its indications, and rely on God’s people to sustain us in our anticipations of what they will do.

In our Salutation to our friends, we spoke of the call for the enlargement of our work that confronts us on all sides. During the struggle of the past few years for the payment of our debt, we could have but one answer for the pressing appeals that came to us for more room and better accommodations—an answer which was hard to give and hard to receive, for those who saw so clearly the great good that would result from a comparatively slight expenditure of money.

But now that the debt is paid, our friends must tell us whether we can venture to make a different and more cheering answer to our appeals. These appeals are coming to us from Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, &c., as may be seen by noticing the “Items from the Field,” in this number of the Missionary. These items were taken without any special reference to this article, and surprise us, as we glance over them, by the needs which they disclose.

In addition to these, we give just here a few extracts from letters not quoted in our “Items.”

One teacher writes:

“Our school opened with a rush. It reminded me of the time when I used to attend lectures at L—. A crowd would assemble, and as soon as the doors were opened they would press in, each intent on the best seat. So it was in my schoolroom, each parent striving to get the first chance to enter his child or children; and ever since the opening, I have had to turn away applicants, though they begged with tears to be admitted.”

Another:

“If our number increases this year in the same proportion as two years ago, in February we shall have 121 boarders; if the same proportion as last year, we shall have 134. We can not find room for any such number. From present prospects we shall reach that number. If anything is going to be done by way of enlarging this year, we ought to order lumber immediately.”

And in a subsequent letter:

“We have more young women boarding than we have had at any time before since I have been here, and several others have engaged rooms. Every room in the Ladies’ Hall is filled. Two rooms have four in them. Miss E. expects to arrange beds in the sitting-room. We cannot put four into our 10 x 14 rooms. The new scholars this fall have mostly come from schools that have been taught by our pupils, and have been able to go into the Preparatory Department.”

Still another:

“Something must be done for our relief at once. We are overrunning full.”

From another the story is:

“I wonder if all your stations have such increasing wants as this one has! We trust that our request for another teacher is honored by an appointment. We intimated that our wants would still increase. This is verified. The question now before us is this: How much enlargement of this work can you make? Are your means equal to the demand? Now, we wish that our building were larger by two rooms; especially so, since many tell us that a large number are planning to begin school after Christmas. We submit very earnestly the proposal that we be authorized to rent a building that is contiguous to our grounds, and that you send a sixth teacher to occupy it. If we do thorough work this year, the demand another year will require a permanent enlargement of room. We unite in the most earnest wish that you not only send us the fifth teacher, but also the sixth.”

We have already appropriated several thousand dollars more than in previous years upon the Southern field, and that mainly in the work of Christian education. If our readers only knew the many things we have not done, they would count the expansion to be very little. Among other things, as was indicated in the Annual Report, and as is set forth more explicitly elsewhere, we have enlarged our Indian work, not in the far West, but in Virginia. We have allowed something more for the foreign field, and added a few hundred dollars for the Chinese Mission in California.

Our friends will have the satisfaction this year of knowing that their gifts all go to do the work which presses now; no more is needed to fill up the hollows of the land through which we travelled long ago. They must not fail us, then, who have helped us in our distress; but much more, stand by us, now that they have enabled us to give ourselves wholly to the wants to be met and to the work in hand.

PROFESSOR CHASE IN AFRICA.

It has for some months seemed desirable to the Executive Committee that an experienced man, in the carefulness of whose inspection and the calmness of whose judgment they might fully rely, should go to see for them, with his own eyes, the field on the West Coast of Africa, the missionary band, and the work it is doing. The great difficulty has been to lay hands upon a man who should unite with the qualifications required the willingness and the ability to go. That obstacle has given way at last, and an embassy is on the way.

Prof. Thomas N. Chase had been detailed from his duties as an instructor in Greek at Atlanta, where his eminent abilities have been most fully proved by the annual examinations of his classes, and where his presence has been valued for his manifold service, for special duties in superintending the plans and erection of buildings in the Southern field. Some important preliminary work had been accomplished in that direction, when it was found that the money which was anticipated for this purpose would not be at the disposal of the Association for some months. Prof. Chase being thus open to our call, and being the man of all men we should have chosen for this post, the proposal was made to him that he should take this trip to the Mendi Mission, and inspect the work. After some hesitation, but with much less than was anticipated, and regarding the circumstances and the call as of the Lord, he consented, with the full agreement in his decision of his excellent and devoted wife.

On the sixth of December he sailed from New York for Liverpool, expecting to take the steamer thence to Freetown on the twentieth of December, and to be in the field at Good Hope by the middle of January. He is accompanied by the Rev. Joseph E. Smith, a graduate of Atlanta, who has been for three years in charge of important churches in the South, and in whom we have every reason to place the highest confidence. Mr. Smith will, we hope, conclude to remain with the mission, although that matter is left to his decision. We believe that he will do what he thinks the Master wishes. Meanwhile he will do good service as a companion of Prof. Chase, to care for him and aid him in the accomplishment of his work.

Important questions as to the permanent location of the stations, the distribution of the work among the missionaries, and their more complete equipment will be decided, and with the Lord’s blessing on them we hope for results of lasting value from this embassy.

It is just the time of the year when such a mission can most safely and effectively be prosecuted. They will reach the country and have three mouths of the dry season, if so long a time shall be needed, before it will be necessary that they should come away. They realize, as we do, that there is always some peril in going to the West Coast, especially for a white man; but the professor is in his prime, of sound health, and we believe will be so prudent in all matters of exposure and of living that we have no great fears for him. And yet, when we remember those who have fallen, we pray the Lord, and beg all the friends of Africa to join with us in the prayer, that He will keep these His servants from harm, will prosper them in their mission and bring them back in health.

OUR INDIAN BOYS AT HAMPTON.

The Association has, after conference with General Armstrong, decided to make appropriations to aid the Indian work at Hampton as follows: (1.) It agrees to pay the salary of a teacher, whose time is wholly devoted to this work, and whose enthusiasm and success in it no one who attended the last commencement can have failed to remember. (2.) It will support these three boys: James Murie, a Pawnee from the Indian Territory, a bright boy, who is now in the Preparatory Department, and will be able to enter the Junior Class next year; Jonathan Heustice, a Pawnee with some colored blood, apparently a very good boy; and Alexander Peters, a Menomonee from Wisconsin, who comes well recommended by his teachers, and is proving an interesting scholar. (3.) It will clothe the eight boys from Fort Berthold Agency, sent by the Government last year, and for whose support it is mainly responsible. The total expense will be $1,450. We shall be very glad to receive contributions to this work, or for any of these boys in particular, from those who are specially interested in this new work of educating Indian boys in our colored schools. The success of the effort has been so marked, that we no longer look on it as an experiment. It is the application to this class of the same principle on which we believe the solution of the great problem of negro citizenship depends. Let us educate the teachers and the leaders for these races, keeping them constantly surrounded by the most elevating Christian influences, and they will have great power in lifting up the masses, who must be taught and Christianized at home.

The news of the destruction of Academic Hall at Hampton, has reached the friends of that Institution long ere this. The origin of the fire is unknown; it was discovered in the attic, and was already beyond control. In a couple of hours all was over. An insurance amounting to about three-quarters of the expense incurred in building will, in the lower prices now prevailing, replace it to a great extent. Still it is a severe loss.

The value of the excellent organization of the school was made apparent in the perfect order which prevailed. The honesty and loyalty of the students were thoroughly tested and triumphantly proved. Only a single day of school work was lost. About $3,000 will replace the loss on apparatus, furniture, library, &c. The students lost about $1,200 of personal property. We trust that the friends of Hampton—and they are many—will come generously and promptly to its relief.

Our Sunday-schools are in great need of special helps for their work, and that of all sorts: books for the library and for the service of song; Sunday-school banners, maps and every thing of the kind. Are there not Sunday-schools who have such material they have outgrown or laid aside, and which they can send to us for the dark-skinned children of the South?

SATISFIED.

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.—There are many motives which combine to urge the disciples of Christ to energy and fidelity in the missionary work: the wretchedness of those who lie in the darkness of heathendom, and especially in the black night of savage superstition; the wrongs and crimes which the introduction of a Christian civilization would in time efface; our sad anticipations for those on whom we must believe the Lord will look with merciful and just consideration, and yet who are surely not fit for the kingdom of God. The fact of the command of Christ were enough, and especially that this was His last and parting charge. But, amid all these, is there a motive so sweet and still so energizing as that which we have written above—that in the contemplation of His salvation accomplished among men, the joy of our Lord shall be full, the purpose of His love attained, and He content to have endured the flesh and the cross? If we love Him because He first loved us, let us remember that His love was not a sentiment, but a sacrifice; that it was measured by what He did for us, and for our salvation; and that it is the sacred claim of His love upon ours, that what sacrifice by us of time, or strength, or means, or life itself, may contribute to the fullness of His joy, to the completeness of His satisfaction, we should give with cheerful and continuous readiness.

Other motives may bear upon us with now greater and now less force; special calls may be heard with more or less distinctness; unusual disclosures of need may make us eager to relieve; but through all, and under all, and greater than all, is this, that we may please our Lord, and contribute somewhat to the completeness of His redemption, and to His satisfaction in the result of all that He has borne and done for sinful men.

ITEMS FROM THE FIELD.

Talladega, Ala.—The Southern Industrial Association held its second annual fair at Talladega, Ala., November 11-14. This Association is officered in part and largely helped by Talladega College, and its object is to promote the industry and physical good of the Freedmen. The weather was favorable, the attendance was large, many coming quite a distance, and the display of articles was unusually good. In agricultural and garden products, in fancy articles, in needlework, both plain and ornamental, and in the culinary department, especial excellence was shown. The exhibition of stock was meagre, with the exception of fowls, which were numerous and remarkably fine. Some blacksmith’s hammers, tables, and an upholstered chair, would compare well with similar productions from the best Northern workmen. More than seven hundred entries were made, and the premiums awarded were worth about three hundred dollars. The fair stimulates industry, and marks a real advance in the condition of the people. Many of our white friends paid well-deserved praise, and one late slaveholder, said to have owned nearly a hundred negroes, was so pleased as to make a cash contribution to the treasury, and offered to double it should there be a deficit. On the last evening, the College chapel was full to overflowing, while Rev. C. L. Harris, of Selma, gave a very bold and moving and powerful address of more than an hour in length, on the African in America. The address showed what an African can do, and it pointed out what an African should become. Take it all in all, the Fair marks a good step upward and gives fresh hope for the future.

McLeansville, N. C.—Our school is growing larger—double what it was at the corresponding time last year. Many expect to come after Christmas from abroad. Must enlarge our accommodations.

Tougaloo, Miss.—We now have seventy-nine boarders, and have had to go into the barracks again. A prospect of increased attendance, and what to do with the students we can none of us imagine. We ought to enlarge our accommodations immediately.

Mobile, Ala.—School overflowing. If we have room and teaching force enough, we shall have three hundred in attendance by February 1st. Without increased room and help we shall be obliged to turn away many that would enter the intermediate and normal departments. We have already begun this at the primary door.

Atlanta, Ga.—Mr. A. W. Farnham, late principal of Avery Institute, has become principal of the Normal department of the University, to assist in making the best teachers possible for that region.

Fisk University.—The number of pupils is rapidly increasing, and there is a prospect that the students will be too many or the accommodations too few.

Woodville, Ga.—Our school is crowded. If you had not built the parsonage, the pupils could not have been accommodated. You have done a great deal of good for the people at this place. Almost every day, children are refused admittance, because we are so full. The only hope of our church, so far as I can see, is in the children educated in our schools.

New Orleans, La.—“I wish you could have heard some of the expressions of gratitude to the A. M. A. in our services during your Annual Meeting in Chicago. The church observed the day by remembering the Association in their Tuesday evening prayer meeting.”

Marion, Ala.—In one envelope yesterday, the collection being for the A. M. A., was $5 from a hard-working man, this being one-tenth of the man’s crop—one bale of cotton, which brought $30—showing that your work for this people is not wholly unappreciated. We made the A. M. A. a special subject of prayer at our church meeting last week. Sixty-three at Sunday-school yesterday. Boys’ meeting at the Home fully attended. We have had a “reception” at the Home—all our people, men, women and children, including babies. We only want the special influences of the Holy Spirit.

Florence, Ala.—On the Sabbath, November 23d, a new church edifice was dedicated at this place. Pastor Wm. H. Ash was assisted by Field Superintendent Roy; by student Anderson, from Fisk University, who had preached for the church the year before Mr. Ash came; by the Presbyterian pastor, who offered the prayer of dedication; and by the M. E. South Presiding Elder. Fifty of the best white citizens of the place were present; among them, besides the ministers named, two other Methodist preachers, ex-Governor Patton and four lawyers. These friends contributed freely to the balance needed ($70) to put in the pulpit and pews, which had not yet been secured. It was all raised in a few minutes after the sermon. The house is spoken of by the citizens as the only modern church in the place. It is indeed a gem. It is twenty-five by forty feet, with a brick foundation, a steep roof and a little belfry. It is well painted on the outside, and on the inside ceiled in varnished yellow pine. The total cost was $950. It was built with great economy under the supervision of Mr. Ash. “Howard,” of Boston, is a man who knows how to make fine investments in this line, as several of his ventures of this kind have proved. To his $300, the Central Congregational Church, of Providence, R. I., to which Mr. Ash belongs, added $100. One year ago, more than twenty of the influential and well-to-do members of this church removed to Kansas, else so much of aid would not have been needed. We learn that those people are highly respected in the communities where they have settled. Pastor Ash and his educated wife are greatly devoted to their people. They are also teaching a parish school, which is much approved.

GENERAL NOTES.

Africa.

—Quite full accounts of the Nyanza Mission are given in the last two numbers of the Church Missionary Intelligencer. Mr. Wilson set out August 23, 1878, from Kagei, at the south end of the lake, for Mtesa’a capital, at its northern extremity, in the Daisy, but was wrecked on the way, and compelled to take out a section of the boat with which to repair the rest of it. Eight weeks were thus occupied, during which they received great kindness from the chief and people of Uzongora, a tribe which met Stanley with great violence. They arrived November sixth at Uganda. Mtesa continued to treat them well, despite the efforts of the Arabs to prejudice him against them. Mr. Wilson had gone to meet the three missionaries who were coming to reinforce them by way of the Nile. Mr. Mackay was teaching reading by charts to a large number of old and young. Some valuable conclusions have been reached by their experience—that they do not need ordained men yet so much as those experienced in practical work. “Unless we succeed in elevating labor, we shall get hearers, but no doers. Hence slavery—domestic, at least—cannot cease; and if slavery does not cease, polygamy will remain.” The need of English traders to take the place of the Arabs, who want slaves, is emphasized. The cost of maintenance is very trifling: small presents secure an abundance of goats, coffee, plantains, sugar-cane, etc. It is hoped that long ere this, seven missionaries are together in Uganda, viz.: the Revs. O. T. Wilson and G. Litchfield; Messrs. Mackay, Pearson, Felkin, Stokes and Copplestone. Sixteen in all have been sent, of whom six have died and three have returned sick.

—The English Independent of October 30 says: “It would seem, from communications which have just been received, that the wiles of French Jesuits have already brought trouble to these missionaries. A letter of introduction, written by Lord Salisbury to King Mtesa, was read, and gave great satisfaction. Soon after the arrival of the Jesuits the aspect of affairs was changed. The king accused the missionaries of playing him false, an untruthful report having reached him that the Egyptians were advancing their posts more to the south. Some months passed in a very unsatisfactory manner, and at length one of the missionaries was allowed to go to Egypt to prepare the way for the king’s messengers, who were to be accompanied by Mr. Wilson; two more were permitted to return to the south side of the lake, ‘on condition that they would thence send on to Mtesa some mission stores left there.’ At the end of June, three remained at Uganda, without the necessary facilities either to carry on their mission work or to withdraw. With such troubles they are beset, through the combined intrigues of the enemies of corporeal and spiritual freedom.”

—The same paper says that no direct tidings have been received from the London Missionary Society’s agents at Ujiji on the Tanganika, and ascribes this break in communication to the Arab slave traders, and only hopes that their hostility has been limited to intercepting letters. Dr. Kirk, the consul at Zanzibar, has been instructed to institute inquiries. Dr. Laws, of the mission at Livingstonia (Scotch), has been requested to send messengers to Ujiji to learn the condition. Great solicitude is felt, and a day of special prayer for Divine guidance and help has been appointed. The last accounts in the Chronicle of the London Missionary Society report the death of Rev. A. W. Dodgshun seven days after his arrival at Ujiji, on the way to which place he lost nearly all the goods belonging to that part of the expedition, and the successful progress through Ugogo of Messrs. Southon and Griffith: they were in good health, and confident of reaching their destination shortly.

—The London Telegraph, of Oct. 22, says: “All alike will be interested in the following extract from a letter which has just been received from Mr. Stanley, the famous African explorer, by an intimate friend. The letter is dated from Banana Point, at the mouth of the Congo River, Sept. 13, and says: ‘All this year I have been very busy, and have worked hard. I have equipped one expedition on the East Coast; have reconstructed another—namely, the International—of whose misfortune we have heard so often, and have explored personally several new districts on the East Coast. Having finished my work satisfactorily to myself, my friends and those who sent me, I came through the Mediterranean and round to this spot, where I arrived two years and four months ago, on that glorious day on which we sighted old ocean after our rash descent of the Livingstone. * * * And now I begin another mission seriously and deliberately, with a grand object in view. I am charged to open—and keep open, if possible—all such districts and countries as I may explore for the commercial world. The mission is supported by a philanthropic society which numbers noble-minded men of several nations. It is not a religious society, but my instructions are entirely of that spirit. No violence must be used, and wherever rejected, the mission must withdraw to seek another field. We have abundant means, and, therefore, we are to purchase the very atmosphere, if any demands be made upon us, rather than violently oppose them. In fact, we must freely buy of all and every, rather than resent, and you know the sailor’s commandment—‘Obey orders if it breaks owners’—is easier to keep than to stand upon one’s rights.’”