THE FREEDMEN.

REV. JOS. E. ROY, D.D.,

FIELD SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA, GA.

VACATION REPORTS.

PROF. T.N. CHASE, ATLANTA.

A stranger could hardly obtain a more vivid and correct idea of the far-reaching influence for good that one of the higher institutions of the American Missionary Association is exerting, than by listening to the reports of the students as they return from their summer’s work of teaching. At Atlanta University the first Sunday afternoon of the fall term is devoted to these reports, and to the teachers it is one of the happiest and most inspiring occasions of the whole year. We wish that many of the readers of the Missionary could have been with us on last Sunday, and seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears, since the full rich tones of voice, dignified composure and simple earnestness of these student-teachers cannot be transferred to paper. But I did not see you present, and so will give you the benefit of some notes I took down, departing from my original plan of arranging and classifying the “testimony,” omitting quotation marks, and introducing the successive speakers simply by beginning on a new line.

I taught in Tatnal. Other pupils were afraid to go there because it was a democratic county. People did not want a teacher from outside of the county, because they did not want the money to go out of the county. They liked me very much. Colored people have from one acre to 2500 acres of land, and are about as well educated as the whites. Children are compelled by their parents to come to Sunday-school. I kept up a Sunday evening prayer-meeting. Several of the children acknowledged Jesus and turned over to the church. I made two or three speeches on temperance.

My Commissioner is well disposed toward this Institution. I made two or three lectures against intemperance, and encouraged the people to educate themselves and accumulate property. At my exhibition three lawyers were present and forty or fifty other whites.

The Commissioner did not examine me, saying that this school was the best in the world and he never intended to examine a pupil from it. He was a Saturday-Sunday man and did not do any business on Saturday. I tramped a week and a half for a school and found one on Col. ——’s place. Parents want their children whipped, and do not think they are taught any thing unless they are whipped.

Some of us had a convention on temperance, tobacco and morals. The colored people own a good deal of land and make lots of cotton. One man made twenty-one bales, but saved only eighty dollars.

Col. —— said Atlanta University must be the best disciplined school in the State. The poor whites do not want to go to school, and are more intemperate and degraded than the blacks. If the colored man would only stand up for his rights, he would not be hacked.

I taught in a district called “Dark Corner.” I think I gave them a right start. Had a prayer meeting which was largely attended. Poor whites use more whiskey than the colored people. Whites seem kind to blacks, lend them money and horses, and help them in every way.

I had an average attendance of thirty-three and a night-school of fifteen. Taught on an old plantation, on which there used to be five hundred slaves. Ignorance has great sway there. People have good stock, but cannot buy land. There is a temperance lodge in Camden of one hundred and forty members.

It was a bad county where I taught. I was careful about teaching there. They never had a school before. No land is owned by colored people. There is much opposition to their education. The immorality of the place is explained by the fact that they formerly had stills there. Preachers are not moral men. They are opposed to “foreign” teachers. Poor whites create a good deal of disturbance. Land is owned by those who owned it during slavery times, and they will not sell it to white or colored.

I was the first lady teacher that taught in the county and was quite a novelty. They had bad teachers. One white one was intemperate. White people were friendly. Three whites raised their hats to me, which was quite a new thing. I had a very good Sunday-school; white people attended my exhibition. They like this University very much, and the Commissioner wanted me to encourage the boys and girls to come up.

Most everybody uses whiskey and tobacco. I talked on temperance, distributed temperance papers and read to them. Took the New York Witness and read it to the people. I think I did some good among the children. The children of the poor whites are knocking about on the road all the time. They had a school one month, then gave it up. Young men spend Sunday in gambling; guess they are doing it right now. Some said I was not teaching them anything because I did not use the blue-back speller. The houses of poor whites are just like the colored, but their clothes are not so good.

The people where I taught are intelligent and well-to-do. Most of them own their own homes. The whites want the colored people educated. A speaker at an exhibition of a female seminary said that the colored people were leaving them in the dark, and if they did not look out, the bottom rail would be on the top. Six or eight colored people own from one hundred to five hundred acres and stock. The Commissioner’s wife asked me into the parlor and gave me a rocking-chair.

Where I was last winter, the people kept Thanksgiving. Of course I enjoyed that, because I knew you were keeping it here. I had a Sunday-school that was quite large at first, but when big meetings came on it grew small.

I had seventy-five pupils. I cannot see that I did much good, but I hope some good will come out of my summer’s work. Public sentiment seems to sanction the worst things there are.

The people where I taught said they must have a man, that females could not teach, and they could not stand ladies. The whites, on the whole, are better to the teachers than the colored people are. I succeeded in getting six men to stop using tobacco while attending school, and then they said if they could stop fifty-five days they could all their life-time.

Somehow they looked at me like they looked at Columbus when he first came to America. Preachers are all intemperate men, and some of them said they could not preach well unless they had some whiskey in them. I taught four times in the same place, and have had a larger school each time. The morals of the colored people depend on the morals of the whites. I opened school at eight and closed at six. I saw no intemperance, because it was the wrong time of the year. I talked temperance and acted it. There is but little difference between the whites and colored; they eat together, sleep together, and have the same kind of houses.

Now to these reports, only a small part of which I have copied, I will add a few comments:

1. There is no diminution of the desire of colored children to learn, and of their parents to have their children educated. Parents want teachers to teach from early dawn to candle-light, and even to beat knowledge into the pupils.

2. Intemperance and licentiousness abound to a fearful extent, not only among the laity, but also among the clergy.

3. The poor whites need education and moral and religious instruction as much as the colored people, and our students are reaching some of them in their influence.

4. Public school privileges in the South are limited, and it will be a long time before suitable buildings are provided and efficient teaching secured.

5. The whites are, in the main, well disposed toward the colored people, and in favor of their being educated.

6. Many of the colored people are acquiring homes and other property, although in some places the owners of land will not sell it.

7. In some instances the colored people are cheated out of the benefits of their labor, and ill-treated in various ways.

8. Atlanta University stands high in the estimation of the people, and needs liberal pecuniary support from its friends to keep up its reputation and do the great work that lies before it.

9. Social prejudice seems to be yielding somewhat, although the fact that a white lady invited a colored girl to sit in a rocking-chair in her parlor, is not so common an occurrence as to make it unworthy of mention. Tidiness, gentility, intelligence and morality will yet be considered superior to a light complexion.

10. The hope of this race, as well as of any other, lies in the training of children, and hence the value of good schools, both day and Sunday.

11. The American Missionary Association is doing a valuable work among the whites, by showing them what education will do for poor people, and stimulating them to try to keep the “top-rail” where it is.

12. No one can estimate the influence our school is exerting in favor of education, industry, economy, temperance, Sabbath observance, chastity, social order, and, in short, morality and religion.

WOMAN’S WORK FOR WOMAN.

MISS LAURA A. PARMELEE, MEMPHIS, TENN.

We give the closing portion of a paper read at the Woman’s Meeting, held in connection with the Annual Meeting at Chicago. In the opening portions of it, Miss Parmelee describes with frank truthfulness the perils which encircle the colored girls of the South by reason of the family habits, the laxity of the marriage relation, the ignorance of the laws of health, the late hours of their religious and social gatherings, &c. We print her statements and suggestions as to the remedy and protection.

Of special agencies for training colored girls to better habits, boarding schools claim the first place. If there had been seventy, instead of seven homes of this kind, we could to-day report a fairer record of virtue and purity. Under the constant supervision of faithful teachers, who regulate the hours, walks and visits of those in their charge, there is opportunity to acquire a love for systematic ways and a pure home life. With the instinctive imitation of their race they adopt the manners and sentiments of the ladies living under the same roof and sitting at the same table. Yet with this help, there has been frequent occasion for teachers to ponder the story of the young crabs that went from the sea-side to a seminary among the mountains, where they became ashamed of their own gait and diligently tried to learn the new way of walking, succeeding to the entire satisfaction of their teachers as well as themselves, and seeming to have forgotten the old ways, but, upon returning to parents and friends at the shore, relinquished the accomplishment and walked backwards as in other days.

In two or three schools—possibly more, but I speak only from personal knowledge—it is the duty of one of the lady teachers to give the girls instruction in dress, manners, morals and health, particularly in matters relating to their peculiar physical organization. Once a week the regular lessons are postponed or laid aside, that the pupils may have a half hour for listening to the lecture that has been thoughtfully prepared for their exclusive benefit. Commencing with points of etiquette, dress, sketches of lives of famous women, announcing the latest fashion items when they happen to be suitable, and so winning the confidence and arousing the interest of the class, it is comparatively easy to come to graver counsels concerning morals, health, danger of association with people of loose principles, the lowering of standards of personal honor, and finally the teaching properly due a daughter from her mother’s lips.

This branch of work is neither light nor pleasant. False delicacy, fear of speaking injudiciously and of being misunderstood by the girls and their mothers, too long kept us silent. We shrank from meeting our full responsibility in this direction, and nerved ourselves to the task only when circumstances convinced us that it was an imperative duty. The ordinary study of physiology is good, but in colored schools something more is needed. Teach young girls to reverence the body, to regard all its functions as gifts of God, and the possibilities of motherhood to be sacredly guarded, and they are transformed from animals to thoughtful women. Do any regard this as dangerous argument? Those who have tried the experiment are satisfied of its worth. More sensible and healthful modes of dress, increasing discretion of manners and modesty of deportment, are immediate results of a plan that a few regarded as an innovation, but which has abundantly justified itself. If every well-established school of the American Missionary Association could be furnished with models for this purpose, far more good would be accomplished than with empty hands, however wise the teacher’s lips.

These health talks include cookery, sanitary measures, medical hints, and a thousand items of common information in a land of newspapers, but unknown to people who depend upon neighborhood gossip for all their knowledge.

As teachers became better acquainted with the needs of their fields, sewing lessons were given, or sewing schools established in connection with daily work. While teaching deft use of the needle, to mend old garments and cut new, there is opportunity to speak apt words about love of finery, habits of wastefulness or extravagance, and improper hours, all of which find quick lodgment in minds eager for new ideas. It is no slight gratification to teachers that, in large assemblies, they can select their students by a more quiet, suitable dress and dignified bearing.

House-to-house visiting is another important means of elevating the homes and making “life among the lowly” cleaner and purer. In the early days of labor for the Freedmen, ladies were commissioned by the American Missionary Association for this purpose. It is encouraging to note that, through the parent society, the Christian women of the North are adopting representatives to carry on this branch of work more systematically. Year by year there are changes in methods, and teachers have less time than formerly for this outside visiting.

Honorable mention must be made of the part Congregational churches bear in this work of regeneration. Too much time would be consumed in explaining the opposition they meet, or the great need of planting this little leaven that is already moving the mass of blind superstition. Suffice it to say, that one of the two denominations claiming the religious loyalty of the Freedmen insists that, once in Christ, a soul is forever safe, and can commit sin with impunity, because forgiveness frees from all restraints of the law. The other great body of believers is equally false in its explanations of truths held by followers of Whitefield and Wesley.

These are the principal agencies operating for the redemption of the colored homes, and through them for the emancipation of Africa, latest called of nations, now stretching out imploring hands for the light, and health, and hope, streaming from the cross of Christ. I will not stop to detail incidents illustrating various phases of the one great plan, nor recount successes attained, nor introduce you to the homes—truly homelike in peace, purity and domestic love; or to the little centres of social influence, where refinement and virtue invite your respect and friendship. There are such homes and circles, although they are not sufficiently numerous to have the power in their communities that they deserve.

Between the graduates of Atlanta or Fisk, and the toilers in cotton patch or rice swamp—between the better homes of Memphis or Charleston, and the cabins in piney woods or Louisiana glades—there is a great gulf, to be spanned only by the prayers and labors of Northern Christians. I have chosen not to paint prospects and aspirations of the dwellers this side of that chasm; but rather to give you a glimpse of life beyond in the darkness, that you may comprehend in some degree the urgency of the need to chase away the clouds that obscure the light of hope and purity.

I have thought it possible for women to do more than they have heretofore in distinct efforts for their own sex; that some new effort might be made to efficiently supplement the work of schools and churches.

Two years ago, we made a bold venture at Le Moyne Normal School. Health talks had become popular, and the teachers were convinced of the wisdom of taking further steps in that direction, when, most opportunely, there came to Memphis a lady physician, well advanced in years, of evident culture, and provided with an excellent life-size model of the human frame. She was invited to lecture to our female pupils and their mothers, and did so very acceptably. Her gray hair commanded respect, although the girls were at first a little suspicious of the manikin. Satisfied with the effect upon the students and of the lady’s good judgment, her services were secured for a course of lectures, to which the friends of the girls were invited. It was a happy idea, as was quickly proven. I cannot tell how many times teachers were thanked for the privileges thus afforded, or how many mothers exclaimed, “If I had only known these things sooner, I should have saved myself and my children worlds of sickness and trouble and disgrace!”

Ever since that experiment I have longed to see a similar opportunity offered to all the colored women. If a discreet, motherly woman, who understood anatomy, hygiene and medicine, could be furnished with a model of the body and sent through the large cities and villages, giving free lectures upon health, care of their own persons, proper food, training of children, and responsibility to God for the chastity of their sons and daughters, the Freedwomen would receive incalculable benefit. The teachers cannot always reach out and control the mothers; the missionary meets but a part of the women in a single city; but an itinerating lady physician could influence thousands of the very class most in need of the instruction she could give. I wish the heart of some woman, qualified for the undertaking, would be stirred to consecrate herself to this work. I think the officers of the Association would indorse such a movement. Certainly, pastors and teachers in the field would heartily welcome her to their churches and homes, to which she would be a valuable auxiliary, while exerting a more positive and direct influence upon the women than is possible from any one of the already established methods of work.

Dean Howson says: “How can you convert a country unless you convert the families? How can you convert the families unless you convert the mothers?”

It was once my privilege to minister to an honored friend who was gently falling asleep in Jesus. Happening to draw up a window-shade an hour before the eyes closed upon the scenes of mortal life, I received from the beloved lips this last commendation and counsel: “That’s right; give us more light.”

Speaking to-day in behalf of our colored sisters, I appeal for light. “Give us more light” to dispel the heavy clouds of ignorance and sin, to show plainly straight paths for the feet of stumbling ones, and for the praise of Him who is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.

THE GEORGIA CONFERENCE.

REV. C.W. HAWLEY.

The Georgia Congregational Conference, from which I have just returned, is a large body, if an extensive framework can make it so. My share of the travel to its second annual session at Savannah was about six hundred miles. Of the fourteen churches, two of which are in South Carolina, all save one were represented, and the meeting was much enjoyed by all. The color line was a little indistinct and almost forgotten. The colored brethren were quite in the majority on the platform and on the floor, and gave good proof of their ability to preside with dignity—Rev. Floyd Snelson was our Moderator—and to speak fluently and well. In fact, they showed a real genius for public address, warranting the statement of a city daily—the Southern press is growing liberal—that their speeches were “worthy of the most dignified deliberative body.” Dr. Roy reported the great meeting at Chicago, giving, as he had already done at Atlanta and Macon, rich skimmings from the papers and speeches there presented, and greatly cheering, with these proofs of the sympathy of Northern Christians, those who must here learn to do without the sympathy of their near neighbors. His lecture on Congregationalism also elicited much interest, and nothing but the lack of money to pay the printer prevented its immediate publication in full, as a much needed campaign document for the use of the churches. To whatever church a man here belongs, it becomes him to be able to state and to justify its faith and polity. There is kept up a running fire of small arms between denominations here. It was encouraging to see that the men of this young Conference desire to be intelligent Congregationalists, and able to defend themselves; but it is hoped that they will not fall into the mistake of making denominational strife the chief end of their existence, as some of their neighbors seem to do.

The reports from the churches do not show any rapid increase. “We must expect the churches to be small, perhaps, for twenty years yet,” said one who has grown up with this work. There are obstinate prejudices in the way, and there is a great educational work yet to be done. A lay delegate sagely remarked: “When the ground is rough we must go slow, or there’ll be trouble,” adding also his personal testimony that, in seeking to bring others over to his way of thinking, he found it “mighty hard to sense them into anything better than their old ideas, that a man cannot have religion without making a great big fuss about it, and cannot pray without hollering as though the Lord was deaf;” but still he was sure that “if we kept pulling at the wheel and rolling on the chariot we should gain the field.”

TWO COUNCILS.

On the way down to Conference, some of us stopped at Macon, according to letters missive, for the examination and ordination of Preston W. Young, acting pastor at Byron; and during the sessions of Conference another council examined and ordained two others, A.J. Headen, of Cypress Slash, and T.T. Benson, of Orangeburgh, S.C. These three young men passed very creditable examinations, and, with Rev. J.R. McLean, moderator of the second council, formed a very interesting and promising group—all Talladega men and classmates—a fine illustration of the good work done by the school for the church. Putting all things together—Conference and Councils, and acquaintance with the teachers and their excellent work in Macon and Savannah—it was with us all a grand week, quickening in its Christian fellowship, and profitable in its revelations of work already done, and of harvests yet to be gathered.

THE CENTRAL SOUTH CONFERENCE. Education—Discipline—The Exercises.

REV. HORACE J. TAYLOR, ATHENS, ALA.

The Central South Conference embraces the Congregational churches of Tennessee, North Alabama and Mississippi. Last week we enjoyed the rare privilege of welcoming to our homes some of the members of this Conference, and the Field Superintendent of the A.M.A. On Thursday evening, Nov. 20th, Rev. G.W. Moore preached the opening sermon from Psalm lxxiii. 24, “Thou wilt guide me by thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.” The subject was clearly and forcibly presented. On Friday morning an organization was effected by electing Rev. J.E. Smith, of Chattanooga, moderator. That morning was spent in hearing the narratives of the churches. The reports generally showed progress. Athens alone reported a less membership than last year; but in this church there has been a growth in grace in many of its members.

In the afternoon we discussed the subject of education. The young people were especially urged not to be content with a little schooling, nor even with a good common school education, but to press forward with a determination to secure the very highest education that can be secured. The idea that the schools at Chattanooga, Athens, Florence and Memphis ought to be feeders of Fisk University was well brought out. These schools cannot give the high education that can be gained at Fisk, and their success should be measured largely by the number of students they send to Fisk University. Rev. J. E. Smith read an article on the necessity of church discipline. The subject was well presented, and in the discussion that followed, as in the paper, the idea that church discipline ought to have for its main object the reclamation of the offender, was clearly brought out. Dr. Roy and others also spoke as to the method of church discipline, and especially the propriety of getting evidence from any source. It seems that some, perhaps a majority, of the churches about here will not receive the evidence of any but their own members. Some think that Congregational churches should be bound hand and foot in the same way, so that the devil and his followers can manage all in their own way. Then any member could be guilty of theft, adultery, fornication or anything else; if he only were not seen by members of this church he could remain in “good and regular standing.” Dr. Roy said emphatically that evidence was to be sought from any source, and weighed carefully. Others agreed with him.

At night Dr. Roy spoke, using his fine large map, on the work of the Association in the South. The house was full, and all were deeply interested. Saturday morning we listened to a paper by Rev. G. W. Moore, on how to reach the young people. Saturday afternoon was mainly taken up with hearing reports of committees. Revs. H. S. Bennett and J. E. Smith were chosen delegates from this Conference to the National Council. Saturday night we listened to the news of Trinity church and congregation. This was one of the best meetings of Conference. Sunday morning Rev. H. S. Bennett preached from Acts ii. 3, and Revs. A. K. Spence and G. W. Moore officiated at the communion. At night Rev. A. K. Spence preached to young people from Ps. cix. 9.

I cannot give in this paper an idea of the interesting meetings we had. Each meeting was a feast of fat things. It was a great privilege to meet these brethren from abroad, to have them sit at our table, to talk with them about the common cause we all are interested in, and above all to meet with them around the table of our Lord. Some of us may never meet them again in Conference, but the memory of this good meeting will remain through life; and we trust that this church will receive a blessing in consequence of this meeting.

GEORGIA. Thanksgiving Services and First Impressions.

REV. C. W. HAWLEY, ATLANTA.

I have just come in from our social evening service of thanksgiving and prayer for the A. M. A. About fifty were present, and there were repeated expressions of gratitude for blessings here received, and fervent prayers for the continued and increasing success of the cause. One brother thought the Association the chief agent in the abolition of slavery, and spoke most feelingly of the inexpressible relief which that abolition had brought to him and to his people. Another in his prayer thanked the Lord for the schools and the church in the city, expressing the conviction that if the A. M. A. had not sent its workers here “things would be in a considerably worse fix than they are.”

One woman told her story: her blind gropings as a slave, her joy in being sought out and taught by the teachers of the A. M. A., just when she “did not know what to do with her freedom,” and made capable of giving her children, now converted, a Christian training, with a purpose henceforth to use for the good of others all the light and help she had received. Another told us how the A. M. A. had reached out its helping hand to him in this city when he was ignorant and vicious, and through the influence of a faithful teacher in a night school had saved him from evil companions and the curse of drunkenness.

It has been an intensely interesting meeting to me, and would have quickened the zeal of any friends of the A. M. A. who might have been present. Our regular prayer-meeting comes tomorrow evening and is a pleasant anticipation to me. I reached the field the 11th inst. and am not yet well acquainted with it. I am sure to be interested in it. I have quite enjoyed the welcome given me and have no painful sense of isolation. Their faces, their intelligence, their quiet good sense, their homes, so far as I have seen them, all surpass my expectations. The work that has been done for them shows. I shall esteem it a privilege if I may do something to help it on.

ALABAMA. Emerson Institute—1865-1879.

REV. O. D. CRAWFORD, MOBILE.

It was named after Mr. Ralph Emerson, a resident of Rockford, Ill., whose timely gift enabled the Association to purchase “Blue College,” a commodious building, with beautiful grounds, in the western part of the city, two miles from the post-office. It was originally built for the education of the white youth. In the transpositions of the times “after the surrender,” as the close of the war is here styled, it became the resort of three hundred Freedmen. In April of our Centennial year it crumbled in the flames. The school went on in unfavorable quarters until, in May, 1878, it entered its new and elegant building, which was designed for two hundred and fifty pupils. Last year the yellow fever delayed the opening of school and crippled many of its friends. But adverse influences are now disappearing, and the ten thousand colored people of the city are looking to it again as the hope of their youth.

Last year, two-thirds of our whole number in attendance entered after the Christmas holidays. This year the second month closes with fifty names more than the highest number of last year. The rooms are furnished with the best of modern desks; but their present capacity is exceeded by more than forty names. If another room and sufficient teaching force be added by the friends of the Association after New Year’s, our present number of two hundred and forty will, in every probability, run up to three hundred. To meet the wants of these, we should have six teachers besides the superintendent, including one that should give half an hour each day to instruction in vocal music and some time to instrumental music. We now have one that is competent for this work, but she has no time for it. Our overworked force is to be somewhat relieved by the expected arrival of a fifth teacher this week.

At present we are obliged to receive many primary scholars, not only to relieve the public want, but also with the view of raising up normal scholars, for whom the Institute has been specially designed. We regret the seeming necessity that is laid upon the colored parents of taking their children from the public schools. We do not advise their action. The feverish desire for education which seized the body of colored people immediately after emancipation has subsided. Their best men are now obliged to urge upon them the duty of educating their children. In this they have come down to the level of the whites. An organization has been formed to promote this interest. The largest church has established a school of more than fifty members. The pastor of the most influential church, in point of intelligence, has opened one, with an attendance of more than forty, and teaches it himself, in addition to preaching three sermons every Lord’s day and performing the other usual duties of a minister. These schools are intended to awaken their people in the matter, and to raise up candidates for the work of teaching, that may get their fuller preparation in our Normal department.

The friends of Christian education could not ask for a more needy and promising outlook than lies before us. Will they put into the hands of the Association the necessary means?

The Church—1876-1879.

Organized with forty-seven members, it now has sixty-one. It owes its origin and existence to the presence of the Institute. Its members are very poor in this world’s goods, but delightfully rich in grace.

It was natural that the spirit of independence which found full scope among the Freedmen should seek for a church organization and connection with an ecclesiastical body whose history was not tainted with oppression. This disposition, however, has sometimes asked for more license for fleshly indulgences than pure Congregationalism permits. In this city it is impossible for your Superintendent to find a provision store having any considerable variety of goods that does not include among its principal commodities wines and liquors. Members and officers of churches are engaged in the trade, and scruple not to advertise conspicuously that branch of their business, which we regard as exceedingly immoral. Yet there are some churches, both white and colored, whose rules and discipline would delight the heart of a Puritan. Congregationalism is an exotic in this soil; and its Northern friends have reason to be pleased if it grows even slowly. Among the adverse circumstances against which our church has had to struggle may be mentioned a frequent change of pastors. In its three and one-half years it has suffered the perturbations incident to two summer supplies, and now the fourth pastor. These changes have tended to prevent some from making their church home with us. More permanence is a necessity. We have no such opportunity for reaching those under our educational care as is offered by a boarding-school. The parents of most of our pupils are connected with some church, and the children themselves with Sunday-schools. The kind of instruction they receive is one of the necessities of our continuance. The growing intelligence of the colored preachers, and the attractiveness of the large congregations which gather about them, make our beginning less attractive to the young, who otherwise might prefer our place of worship.

Your missionary has preached to the largest colored church in a revival meeting, and exchanged pulpits with the other leading pastor; but we cannot expect any special help from other churches in building up a new denomination in the midst of them. J. H. Roberts, now in the Senior Theological Class at Talladega, supplied the church very acceptably through the summer, and just before his departure witnessed the reception of four persons to fellowship. Since then the attendance has increased some. The interest in the Sunday-school has likewise received the impetus given it by the return of our schoolteachers; yet our hopes of an increase in members have not thus far been realized. As accessory helps we need Sunday school papers and a library. Our problem is that of reaching the young with Christian influences in the form of direct religious instruction. For this purpose we have some advantages, and hope for more. We wish to keep this missionary work upon the prayerful hearts of our Northern friends.

A Revival.

REV. J. D. SMITH, SHELBY IRON WORKS.

During the first week in October we set apart Wednesday as a day of fasting and prayer. On the following Sabbath we commenced a series of meetings, which continued three weeks. Brother H. W. Conley stopped off here on his way from Marion back to Talladega, and preached and labored very faithfully with us several days. Brother J. W. Strong came down and labored with me, preaching the word almost every night for over a week. Brother Jones, of Childersburg, paid us a short visit, and Rev. F. J. Tyler, of this place, pastor of the Union Church (white), preached for us. Last of all came Rev. G. W. Andrews, who preached several times.

Every evening, one half-hour before services, a number of Christians would assemble in the inquiry-room and converse with those who came to inquire of the way of salvation. I must say that the inquiry meetings were the means of great and untold good, as much or more than the sermons, perhaps.

Well, the meetings closed with twenty-one conversions reported. Last Sunday fifteen came forward, entered into covenant with the church, and were baptized, on profession of their faith. All of the candidates for baptism preferred sprinkling—the first instance, to my knowledge, where we did not have to immerse some out of so many uniting at one time; and, more singular than all, a Baptist father and mother presented their infant boy for baptism. When reminded by some of the Baptist brethren that they had “broken the rules of the church,” they replied by saying that if they had five hundred children, they would have them baptized, because it was right in the sight of God. The work has a more hopeful outlook for future prosperity than ever before.

Some eight or ten are to unite by letter, the first opportunity, who did not get ready in time to join last Sunday. Our total membership will then stand about fifty.

TENNESSEE. A Student Aided.

REV. E. M. CRAVATH, FISK UNIVERSITY.

Our readers will remember a plea for student aid made by President Cravath in the Missionary for October. Soon after its publication this description of the first young man thus aided came, but has been delayed by the special matter which has claimed our columns. There are many more such at all our institutions awaiting similar help.

The first answer came in the shape of a draft for fifty dollars from a good friend of Rochelle, Illinois. On the same day with this answer a young man from Abbeville, S. C., came to Fisk University for the first time, and as he was a good representative of the class of young people for whom our appeal was made in the October Missionary, we assigned him at once to this scholarship.

A brief sketch of his personal history may encourage some of the readers of the Missionary who are yet hesitating to give a favorable answer to our appeal. Mr. Richard J. Holloway was born in Abbeville, South Carolina, in 1857, and was a slave up to the close of the war. He brought to the University the following testimonial from his former master, dated Abbeville, S. C., Sept. 8, 1879;

“The bearer of this, Richard J. Holloway, is a young man who was born in my family. I have known him from his birth to the present time. He early exhibited a desire for knowledge, which he has pursued under great difficulties. Notwithstanding he has made considerable advance, his laudable desire seems to be unsatisfied, and he leaves this section of the country to avail himself of advantages offered elsewhere. So far as I know, his moral character is good. He is commended to the favorable regard of all to whom this may come.” The first year after the war, being a lad of nine years, Richard had the opportunity of attending a school in Abbeville for five or six months. After this he was under the necessity of working with his parents, but contrived to study by himself so that he made considerable progress. During the fall of 1875 he happened to see, upon the table of his minister, a circular which had been sent out from the school established by the Am. Miss. Assoc. at Greenwood, S. C., which was then, and is still, taught by that most faithful and zealous missionary laborer, Mr. Backenstose, of Geneva, N. Y. Noticing that the tuition was only fifty cents a month, there dawned upon him the possibility of realizing his long-cherished desire of securing a good education. Inspired by this thought he left home and hired out on a plantation to earn some money with which to go to Greenwood.

By working three months he earned money enough, so that by buying his food and doing his own cooking he was able to attend school about the same length of time. He then went to one of the upper counties of South Carolina and taught a private school for two months, after which he worked for two months in a cotton-gin near by, while remaining to collect the money for his teaching. Being compelled to use considerable of the money he had earned to help his parents, he again secured a public school for two months, at fifteen dollars a month, and boarded himself. He then went over into Georgia and taught a public school, for which he was fortunate enough to receive twenty-five dollars a month. He was then able to return to Greenwood, where he was again under the instruction of Mr. Backenstose for nearly three months. Under the advice of his teacher, he determined to get to Fisk University if possible and take a thorough course of study, but not succeeding in earning much money by his teaching during the spring and summer, he stopped for five months of last year at Biddle University at Charlotte, N. C. He then undertook teaching again, determined to earn what money he could during the spring and summer, and to get to Fisk University if possible at the opening of the next school year. He only succeeded, however, in getting a three months’ school in Georgia, for which he has only received payment in part. As soon as his school closed he started for Nashville and reached here on the 7th of October, just as the answer came from our friend in Illinois which told us what to do. Mr. Holloway is a member of the African Methodist church, and his desire evidently is to secure an education that he may use it in Christian work among his people.

We are confidently hoping that we shall receive similar answers enough to enable us to provide for at least a hundred such young men as this.

Health—Business—School—Church.

PROF. A. J. STEELE, MEMPHIS.

November 1st found Memphis dull, spiritless, and wearing a half deserted appearance, its streets strewn with autumn foliage and dry grass, so that the rustling of leaves beneath the feet was a more familiar sound than the rumbling of wagons or drays on most of the streets. Business men who had returned, in most cases without their families, wore a troubled and doubtful look. Many were discouraged and without hope for the future of the city, either as a business point or a place of residence. A few, like the boy in the dark, made a pretence of courage by “whistling.”

Although the Board of Health had declared the fever ended, there were still a few cases, with constant rumors of many more. After the cold spell of October 30, the weather became and continued unusually warm. Little or no cotton was being received, and orders for goods came not to waiting merchants. Laboring people returning to the city found no employment, and many suffered for the necessaries of life.

This state of things continued till the middle of November, when, after a few frosty nights, and with bright clear weather, the entire aspect of affairs changed, and rapidly took on a most hopeful and promising appearance. Cotton, the staple and life of business, began to come in rapidly, until before the end of November the daily receipts became the largest ever known at this point, placing Memphis as a primary cotton market scarcely second to New Orleans. With this revival of activity the empty talk of a hundred or so self-constituted newspaper correspondents and pretended scientists ceased to be heard on the corners and to be seen in the papers. The city authorities and a committee of citizens began a careful and thorough canvass of the city to ascertain its condition and needs. Under the advice of a committee of experts from the meeting of the American Sanitary Association held at Nashville, a system of sewerage and general sanitary reform was promptly adopted, and it is now expected that the Governor will convene the legislature to empower the city to make the needed changes. There is little doubt but that the hard and painful lessons of the past two seasons have finally been learned, and that at least another epidemic will not be invited next year by the criminal negligence of the authorities.

The school opened November 17 with about forty students. This number on December 2nd had increased to over 100. We are now receiving new students every day, of these ten are in the senior or graduating class. We note with interest a revival of the early desire for education and the culture which it brings; not just the early desire of ignorant and foolish expectation, but a steadily deepening conviction of the need and advantage of patient, continued study and training for better things in the future. We hope to foster this feeling, and to do what we may to realize the expectation, by building up honest, manly and womanly characters in our students. Many of the pupils have taught during the vacation months; some have not yet completed the term for which they were engaged. So far as we know, all have labored earnestly to exert an influence for good in the communities where they have been located. A few during the sickness were employed by the Howards or other societies as nurses, one young man saving about $200 at this work, and gaining an enviable reputation as a nurse.

Our public library is demonstrating its influence and usefulness in a gratifying way, in awakening in many laboring people a love of reading and of thought, aside from the great advantage it is to the school directly and indirectly. During the summer months, considerably over one hundred volumes were drawn and read. Among many others several white persons of most excellent standing availed themselves of its privileges. Of these latter, one is principal of a boys’ and girls’ school in our vicinity.

I cannot close this letter without a word concerning the church here. During the epidemic, one of its most earnest, reliable members fell a victim to the scourge. By thrift and saving, every family belonging to the church, except one only, got through the long summer of idleness without aid in the way of charity, and before the return of the teachers, and in the absence of the pastor, the church voted to send a delegate to the Conference at Athens, raising money at once to pay his expenses. If this is not an example of commendable church devotion and courage, show us one that is so.

We look for a fuller, stronger school this year than ever before. I sometimes think these people have become so accustomed to adversity and trial, that they come out stronger under it than from any other experience. May it not be that God is leading them through rough ways to better things than we think?