Various

“ What can it do for this white man? Triumphantly, you answer, “It can save him; can break down his self-sufficiency and pride, redeem him from his cups, make him an honest man, and, if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.” What can it do for the Indian? “It can save him; make him sober and industrious, a servant of God.” What for this Negro? ”

“ The appeal that is made for the American Missionary Association, in the name of the witness to the gospel, and in the name of Christian patriotism, gains its height when it is made in the name of Christ.
Every argument by which this work appeals to us to-day, is a prophecy of its success in our hands. Work among the despised races, work that sets the seal of power on the Christianity of our time, work that is to realize God’s thought for the land, work so Christly cannot fail! ”

“ English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dane, German and Russ—all over our land—are companies of them cemented into the equal brotherhood of a Christian Church and a Christian State. And now the deeper conditions of the problem are upon us. Within our borders are three races, neither white nor dominant. They are men; the Saviour died for them; the Holy Spirit calls them, one by one, into membership in the kingdom of God; they are our brothers by New Testament law. We are to make them organically one with us in a Christian state. Here, in the despised races, is the test of our national life. ”

“ It is truly inspiring to behold the work which such a college as this is doing for the colored race, not only in providing good schools and teachers, but in raising up an intelligent ministry, and in planting the right kind of Christian churches.
Here, for example, at A., where we were the other day, there is the old established Episcopal Church, for white folks, and, perhaps, a colored church or two, where “faith” is more insisted on than “works.” A new order now comes in, which is at first looked upon with distrust as an innovation. ”

“ Rather, by what this good lacks of that which Christian motive and effort might have accomplished, we are guilty before God.
The horrors enacted and still enacting on the dark continent of Africa—for the slave trade still continues—the enforced ignorance and enforced vice of two centuries and a half, the engrafting of the vices of civilization upon those of heathendom, are the charges which this nation has to meet before the bar of God. It is a debt which never can be paid. Is there no claim on us from the American Negro? ”

“ I was happy to be able to confirm and illustrate some of those statements, and to urge upon that intelligent church, and the flourishing Sabbath-school, from which seventy were received into communion last year, the pressing, may we not say paramount? importance of that department of missionary effort.
If the “four millions” are suffered to live in vice and ignorance, and the superstition which is already seeking to overshadow them like the old fetichism of their ancestors, the American Church—yes, the nation—will find too late what a mistake they have made. ”

“ The most valuable practical papers, by eminent writers in all departments of Science, will be found in the Scientific American; the whole presented in popular language, free from technical terms, illustrated with engravings, and so arranged as to interest and inform all classes of readers, old and young. The Scientific American is promotive of knowledge and progress in every community where it circulates. It should have a place in every Family, Reading-Room, Library, College, or School. ”

“ It is but needed that there should be such incomes of the Holy Ghost into Christian hearts as shall lift up church membership from membership in a religious club to its true dignity of citizenship in the kingdom of God; such incomes of the Spirit as shall fill the heart of each citizen with the grand thought of the kingdom—brotherhood. ”

“ It is just as well that our people should at once fully grasp and comprehend the problem of the negro’s future. He is a citizen both of the United States and of the Commonwealth of Georgia, and possessed of equal rights and privileges with the most favored of the Anglo Saxon race. No law can be enacted which does not include and apply to him, and the freedman is now an essential and integral portion of the community. ”

“ The first shall be of Anglo-Saxon lineage, the inheritor by birth of our ripe Christian civilization, and bearing upon him the marks of our characteristic civilized vices,—a man self sufficient, profane, intemperate and dishonest. Next him place an Indian, in all the brutality, sottishness and despair to which our guardianship of two centuries has brought him. The next is a Freedman, touched with his ancient race-superstitions, and possessed by the usual vices of a subject people. ”

“ Take them altogether, the progress of the colored churches has been sufficiently rapid to gratify any one who prays that the beams of the Sun of Righteousness may illumine the dark corners of the earth.”
—“There is no teacher so wholesome as personal necessity. In South Carolina a few men and many women cling absolutely to the past, learning nothing, forgetting nothing. But the bulk of thinking men see that the old Southern society is as absolutely annihilated as the feudal system, and that there is no other form of society now possible except such as prevails at the North and West. ”

“ It may be well to hear what impression is made upon a new comer, so I quote from one of our teachers who has been with us only a year.
“To hear of the degradation of the colored people of the South is to know but little of it, for ‘the half can ne’er be told.’ It is humiliating to think that in our own beloved land there exists so much of barbarism and heathenish superstition. This is realized by looking at the homes and home-life of the poor [236] people, but much more by noticing their form of religion. ”

“ It is entirely clear to our minds that the peace policy adopted in 1869, for which great credit is due to General Grant, and which, not without some imperfections, has been pursued ever since, is the best that ever was adopted in this country, and in its principles and purpose the only one that ever should be adopted. The statistics show that the condition of the Indians, in all the elements that go to make up the idea of civilization, has immensely improved within the last ten years, under the benign influence of this policy. ”

“ The students have made gratifying progress in their studies, and we feel that a year’s advancement has been made. Twenty-six of our students are now engaged in teaching, and over eleven hundred pupils are under their care.
We have met with hindrances. We have been accused of prejudicing our students against their church, and of punishing them if they did not attend our Sunday-school; but, despite all this, our school has been unusually full, and our Sunday-school large and interesting. The students have all gone to their homes, or to some work, to make preparation for their return next fall. ”

“ These eighteen centuries, and those that are to follow, are the development of Christianity, and that development covers three zones, which circle and complete the globe—God’s relation to man, man’s relation to God, and man’s relation to man. ”

“ It is sufficient to say that those it was our privilege to hear acquitted themselves with credit, and their enunciation and training as elocutionists evinced much care and skill on the part of the teachers of belles lettres in the University.
Some of the graduates, both male and female, are intelligent looking young people, and really exhibited powers of original thought in their essays and speeches that would have done no discredit to any institution in the country. ”

“ Our church-work is distinct from the school, the latter being not in any sense sectarian. We think we see marked improvement in the character of those who have been longest members of the church. They seem to hunger for truth for the purpose of living it, and their progress is, of course, steady and rapid. We are often thrilled by the rich experience as manifested by unconscious expressions in the prayer-meetings. ”

“ A church is organized with eight or ten members. Preaching is statedly kept up by students from the college. The congregation steadily increases; and, in three years, partly through the exertions of the members, and partly by the kindly aid of the “Iron Company,” a neat little chapel is built, with a miniature parsonage alongside. A pastor is called, and an ordination takes place, conducted with as much solemnity and decorum as if it were in the suburbs of New York or Boston. The people outside look on. Strangers are attracted in. Distrust gives place to respect. ”

“ The dream of re-enslaving the negro, if it ever existed, is like the negro’s dream, if he ever had it, of five acres and a mule from the government. Both races have long since come down to the stern reality of self-support. ”

“ The law of restitution is one which the religion of the Old Testament enforces, and which the New Testament does not relax. It applies, as all laws do, most pressingly to individuals, but it reaches out, as all laws do, to nations and to races. ”

“ I can see a decided improvement in the conduct of the scholars. They come in and go out orderly, pay better attention, and begin to understand what a Sabbath-school is for; when they leave for home, they do not make such hideous noises, but go along the street more quietly. They have to be taught everything. There are thousands upon thousands of children in Georgia in the same condition. We hope soon to be able to organize a church at East Savannah, of twelve or fifteen members. ”

“ Students who had to leave before the year closed, sent back for pledges. They were hard at work in the temperance reform. When school closed, every one who was going out to teach, and many others, took pledges, and went out enthusiastic to their new field of labor. This seems to us the peculiar feature of our work this year outside the school-room.
The work in the school-room has been marked by thoroughness. Gen. J. A. Smith, State Superintendent of Education, writes me: “Only having attended your exercises one day, I am hardly prepared to give anything more than impressions hastily formed. ”

“ Bargains have been broken and treaties violated, in almost every instance, first by the white man. The true history of almost every Indian war (so called) has been begun by the violence or provoked by the faithlessness of the white man. ”

“ Smith, a graduate of Atlanta University, is pastor. This church is in a healthy and prosperous state. Since Rev. Floyd Snelson left here, to go to Africa, there have been added nine members. I hear many encouraging things about Brother Smith’s work there. There are now about two hundred and forty members. Here is a fine opportunity to do good. The most of the people are securing permanent homes. The colored people need to be taught to act and think for themselves, and feel responsibility.
There is great need of more help here. The day-school ought to have additional help. ”

“ The evangelization of six millions of people, one-seventh of our entire population, cannot be safely left to the enthusiasm aroused by special pleas, but must be grounded in such truth as shall make its prosecution a Christian and patriotic duty of supreme and abiding urgency. ”

“ A venerable Presbyterian pastor in the State of New York, who had himself previously made a generous donation in aid of our work, writes a second time as follows: “After reading the account of your work on page 150 of the May number of The American Missionary, at our missionary meeting, last evening, an Indian came forward and handed me fifty cents for your mission, with tears in his eyes. I hasten to enclose his offering, with those of others, making out for you a postal order for five dollars.” ”

“ J. H. Stephens, a student in my theological class, started a Sabbath-school, and preaches to the people. The children are very wild, though some have bright intellects, and can make useful men and women; but they are as uncultivated as the children in the centre of Africa. It is very hard to keep the attention of such children, and secure a regular attendance at school. Mrs. Markham and Hattie B. Markham and Mr. Floyd have been going out regularly every Sabbath to work in the East Savannah Sabbath-school. Sometimes they have had eighty or ninety scholars, then only forty or fifty ”

“ Then, with the seventeenth century, history passed into the third zone, in which is to be illustrated the Divine idea of man’s relation to man, which is, that the race is an organic brotherhood, because having one father, God, and one elder brother, Jesus Christ. ”

“ The whole number whom we have reason to believe have been born of God, during the last five years of our work, cannot be much less than two hundred.
Baptisms.—Six of our pupils were baptized and received to Bethany Church, San Francisco, on Sunday, June 2d. This makes the Chinese membership of that church number forty-four. These brethren had studied diligently the Confession of Faith and the Covenant, which they were called publicly to accept, and had approved themselves well through their five to eight months of “probation” in our “Association of Christian Chinese.” ”