Читать книгу The American Missionary. Volume 42, No. 04, April, 1888 - Various - Страница 2

We acknowledge with gratitude to God and to his people the fact that our receipts during the month of February are such as greatly to encourage us.

We are cheered, not only by the benevolences which are reporting themselves from the churches, but also by the kind words of sympathy and helpfulness which show us anew that this great and exigent work upon us was never nearer than now to the hearts of our pastors and churches.

We may add that the month just past and those immediately before us are those upon which we must largely depend for our fiscal year. We are coming to the summer season, when contributions are less likely to be taken. We trust that those who believe that God has called the American Missionary Association to this immense work in the name of Christ, will not cease to pray that the hearts of men may be moved to heed the appeals of those who, through us, ask for the very bread of life, and who will not have it unless we carry it to them.

We are now compelled to deny more appeals for help which ought to be heard than we are granting. Several schools which were begun by private enterprise with good intent, are now asking us to take them from their hands upon our own, where they can be perpetuated and saved. We would like to save these schools to the needy people whose hope is in them, and to protect the churches from indiscriminate appeals for works which they have not authorized, and which we could do with greater economy and better care; but for this we need a generous increase of gifts. Our faith was in Him who said, "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you," and the doors were opened. God withdrew the bolts of hindrance and said, "Beloved, I have set before you an open door." Our faith is in Him who also said "Ask, and ye shall receive."

A friend has just sent us eighteen subscriptions to the American Missionary. This might be repeated easily by a thousand friends. There is scarcely a self-sustaining church in the United States where it could not be done by one who would try to do it as an act of missionary love. Some who read this, perhaps, will try and will succeed.

The name of Rev. Frank Cross, who was appointed to the charge of the Rosebud Indian Mission, was by mistake not printed in the roll of workers. He is there, however, and his work has gone on bravely and hopefully.

We wish that the extent, and necessity, and hopefulness of our mountain work, were more fully understood by our readers. Now is our opportunity and the accepted time to answer the most urgent appeals from this neglected region in the heart of our country. Our Congregational churches are just what are needed to uplift these people. One of our earnest missionaries writes us:—

"The A.M.A. has done a work here to be profoundly grateful for as a beginning, but thus far it is only playing around the edge of its mountain work. This mountain region is of great extent. Sober calculation from facts already gleaned, makes a thousand Congregational churches in these mountains the possibility of the future, if only the strategic points can now be occupied. One church and one school to a county, should be our immediate aim; then we can throw upon these the work of developing native teachers and preachers for the rest. There are forty counties waiting for us, and all our mountain work so far is in three or four. I see this place where I am, changing like magic under the influence of school and church, but the necessity for our going forward oppresses me. I am ready for any additional labor, and will carry any burden my strength will permit, if only the American Missionary Association will take for its motto, 'One church and one school in every mountain county, as fast as they can be established.' I feel, when I see the need, as if I could plead the money right out of the most self-indulgent members of our favored churches at home. It would not be expensive as compared with other missionary work. Cannot some way be devised for making a large advance on the present movement?"

Those who thought to cripple Atlanta University because it could not yield its principles for the sake of a State appropriation of $8,000 made a mistake. They have helped that which they meant to hinder. The university will get the money. Joseph's brethren took counsel together and said, "We will see what will become of his dream," and they thought they had a sure thing when they put him in a pit, but they discovered some years after that this was but a way-station on the direct road to the Viceroyship of Egypt, and they saw what became of his dream.

When Napoleon the First wished to hinder the Huguenot Church, he gave it a small stipend in order to retain hold of it. He appropriated just enough to keep it a cripple. When the State of Georgia thought the education of the Negro was becoming too marked, it reversed the policy of the far-seeing Bonaparte and took its hands off. We have never thought that Napoleon was a truly good man, but we do believe that he had a larger idea of the philosophy of control than the author of the Glenn Bill. If the State had held on, it might have hindered, but it has lost its hold.

Would it not sound well to the American people to have it said that in the United States of America, in the year 1888, our missionaries were imprisoned for reading the Bible to a heathen tribe of Indians who lived remote from civilization, the crime of it being that it was read in the only language which they could understand?

Yet "the orders are," writes a missionary, "that we shall hold only two services on a Sunday and two during the week, and that we shall cease to read the Bible in the Indian homes." This is the Government authority of the great and free United States, but is there any authority greater than God?

In an eloquent address at the Old South Church in Boston, on Sunday, March 4th, George W. Cable accentuated in strong words the work in which we are engaged. "Here is the mightiest, the widest, the most fruitful, the most abundant, the most prolific, missionary field that was ever opened to any Christian people."

We quote from his address:

The benevolence of Northern men and women, yea, and even of Northern children, helped to establish in the South these missionary colleges, these educational missions, wherein not the black man alone, not the black woman alone, but every one who was qualified with orderly behavior and a rational intellect might come, and get, not only an education, but a Christian education, and not only a Christian education, but a Christian American education. These institutions, standing out in the darkness when nothing else stood by them, when the land was racked and torn and bled afresh under the agonies of reconstruction, these institutions began and carried on the blessed work of raising up leaders, intellectual leaders, among the black people, for the guidance and stimulation of the colored race toward the aspirations of American citizenship and Christian intelligence.

These institutions, these missionary colleges in the South, have carried the torch of liberty, these have upheld it, these have taught American citizenship, these have given to the Southern States 16,000 colored teachers, when nobody else would teach the poor black boy—nay, or the poor white boy either. Seven millions of people concerned in the matter, and the National Bureau of Public Education reporting year after year that the reason why there are 600,000 colored youth out of the public schools, is not because they don't want to go, but because there are not school-houses and school teachers.

Here is the mightiest, the widest, the most fruitful, the most abundant, the most prolific, missionary field that was ever opened to any Christian people. It is right here at your doors. It is not across the Pacific Ocean and it is not down yonder around the Cape of Good Hope. Right here at our doors is the greediest people for education and the gospel there is on the face of this earth, not counted among our white race. I suppose that ninety-nine one-hundredths of those who generously give to this cause believe to-day that it is being given to in generous proportion. Ah! you never figured on it. Why, if you knew the national value of this work, to say nothing of its gospel value, you would quadruplicate it before the year is out. You would not submit to it for a moment, as citizens, not merely as members of Christ's Church.

The American Missionary Association is called again to mourn the decease of one of its officers. Hon. Alfred S. Barnes, a member of its Executive Committee, after an illness extending over five months, at his residence in Brooklyn, finished his earthly life on Friday, February 17th, at the age of seventy-one years. Mr. Barnes was elected on the Executive Board of the A.M.A. nineteen years ago, and had served in that capacity continuously up to the day of his death. He was a wise counsellor, large-minded in his views and honorable in his spirit, known throughout the land as one of the foremost publishers in the country, largely interested in educational work, and yet he found time for an earnest devotion to various enterprises in the Christian church. His fidelity and helpfulness in the service of the A.M.A. are fully known only to those who were associated with him. Many organizations of missionary and Christian work will miss his presence and the help of his generous stewardship, but none will feel his departure more truly than the American Missionary Association, which has lost its President, one of its Secretaries, and this long-honored member of its Executive Board within the last half-year. The greatness of his work in our service will be remembered and cherished.

We acknowledge among our exchanges, the Fisk Herald, published at Nashville; the Atlanta Bulletin; the Olio, of Straight University; the Tougaloo Quarterly; the Head and Hand, of Le Moyne Normal Institute at Memphis; the Helping Hand, of Sherwood, Tenn.; Our Work, of Talladega College; the Howard University Reporter, of Washington; the Word Carrier, of Santee Agency, and Iapi Oahe, of Santee Agency; also the Christian Aid, published by our church in Dallas; the Beach Record, (occasional) by our school in Savannah.

Several of these papers are models of their kind, publishing original articles written by the students and professors, and printed by the students with superior typographical skill. As indicators of progress, they are full of interest, apart from the items of local school and church intelligence with which they are freighted.

We commend to our readers, "The Missionary Review of the World," edited jointly by Rev. J.M. Sherwood, D.D., of New York, and Rev. A.T. Pierson, D.D., of Philadelphia.

One rises from its pages as if he had been breathing Christian ozone. The editorials are upon living topics and issues, and are vigorously presented. The "Review" sweeps its vision over the entire world and it not only sees, but knows how to tell what it sees. If the high standard of literary excellence so far sustained can be continuously held, we shall have a magazine of missions which will be the peer of our best literary monthlies in quality and interest.

We congratulate the Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society on the acceptance of its appointment of Rev. Geo. M. Boynton as its Secretary. We have known him as a member of the Executive Committee of the American Missionary Association, as editor of THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY, as a pastor, as a secretary of Associations and Conferences, as a wise counsellor and genial brother. We regard him as eminently fitted for the place to which he has been called. To Brother Boynton we extend most cordially a welcome to the honorable, the fraternity of the Secretaries.

The fifth annual report of the Executive Committee of the Indian Rights Association, written by Mr. James B. Harrison, is a strong and valuable contribution to the literature of Indian rights and wrongs, which should be considered by every friend of the Red Man. Respecting the orders of the Indian office at Washington which abridge the liberty of religious teaching, this report characterizes them as "unintelligent, arbitrary, despotic and unstatesmanlike, merely a blow at missionary work. There is no reason to suppose that a single Indian anywhere will ever learn ten words more of English by reason of these orders. There is, indeed, no provision made by the Government for any increase of facilities in the study of English. The damage to the missionary work produced by these orders is their sole result. The orders should be distinctly and wholly revoked and withdrawn. It is not necessary that the missionaries and churches should submit. If they will publish the facts fully these orders will be revoked. The facts must come to light. Then the people of the country will have something to say."

The above quotation will give our readers the flavor of the pages. "Plain words are best," and it is time that the country should have them. No one can read the statements in this able Report without having his heart stirred with honest indignation at the condition of Indian affairs, through the unfortunate unfitness of the Government Bureau.