Various

“ I am more than ever convinced of the priceless value of the Gospel as an elevating, purifying power in human hearts, no matter what is the color of the skin. Judging medicines by their results, we say that this or that is a specific for certain diseases; so judging Christianity by its results, as applied not only to different individuals but to different races, it is a specific for the deep-seated disease of sin everywhere. ”

“ It is a rare thing for a graduate of the Normal School to enter into political life. Not one has been known to be a demagogue. The standard set before them is that of a hard-working Christian manhood; and it must be said that they bid fair to make the best citizens we have, in a time when the great demand is for men who will not work for an office, but who will work honestly for a living. ”

“ A diligent husbandman plants trees, the fruit of which he himself shall never behold. With such sentiments did our excellent Arnold support us in the arduous pursuit of Latin prose composition. It is evident, however, that there is a difference in trees, if not in diligent husbandmen.
“Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute” is a tree whose fruit may be speedily beheld, not only by those who planted it, but by those also who cultivate or enrich it. It is a paying investment. Every year it sends its roots deeper and stretches its boughs out farther. ”

“ The Committee also urge that the relations of America to the slave trade have been such that we are in duty bound to do all we can for the redemption of the people of Africa, and that as a thank-offering to God for His overruling Providence in ridding our country of slavery, we, of America, should be ready to establish one new mission at least in addition to the three that have recently been undertaken with so much enthusiasm and at so great expense by our British friends. ”

“ Under the Christian treatment of Capt. Pratt they experienced a wonderful change, laid aside their savage propensities, and heartily embraced the principles of civilization. A year ago it was proposed that they should be brought to Hampton. The experiment was tried successfully. They mingle in a kindly way with the negroes, and have manifested an earnest disposition to learn what they call the white man’s road. They have given up their tobacco and their whiskey; they hold prayer-meetings together, where one may hear their tones of earnest entreaty, pleading with God in their own language. ”

“ I, as a Congregationalist born and bred, the son of a Western Home Missionary, with Puritan ancestry running back to the days of John Robinson, am, as a student of human nature and of theological therapeutics, convinced more than ever of the value of our Puritan ideas, modified, mellowed and improved as they are by the additional light which has broken forth out of God’s word. I think Congregationalism is adapted to African as well as Caucasian Christians ”

“ As he stood before his audience, a messenger for Christ, and preached the words of the Master, one could but recall the trying years of the past, when the speaker fearlessly combated a race prejudice and battled for the freedom of a people who seemed hopelessly enslaved; when he stood alone in his advocacy of negro liberty, and in his mild and gentle way, sought to convince his neighbors that human slavery was wrong and condemned by God ”

“ We cannot ourselves avert the calamity of debt, for if we should recall every laborer, and close every school and church, we should still owe the salaries and return traveling expenses, so that the saving would be very little. ”

“ To their honor be it said, however, that both Unitarians and Friends have not only contributed of their means in large proportion, but have also served in the work of education and Christian culture with the most unselfish devotion. They reap a far richer reward than that of theological proselytism. Their noble spirit, scorning all partisan ends, seeking only for an opportunity to do good, has greatly increased the humane and beneficent influence of the school ”

“ The negro race has always been our prominent and peculiar charge. That the people of this district have been degraded more by the slave trade than by their native heathenism, makes their claim on us the less possible to resist. And the fact that the missionary spirit among the students in our Southern colleges will soon demand room in which to expend itself in self-denying labor, forbids that we should refuse such an offer without careful and prayerful consideration. ”

“ The church has been quickened in its spiritual life and activity, but no pervading revival influence has gone forth into the community. A good proportion of our members seem to be earnest, growing and happy Christians. Our social-religious meetings are very enjoyable. Some who have been delinquent now promise better things. One or two have just begun a new life of faith in Christ, and some others have promised to take the subject of their salvation into serious consideration. ”

“ I have also verified what I had before heard, that the Negro race is not all composed of Uncle Toms—that, in fact, such transcendent characters are rare. The negro is neither a prince in disguise nor a hero in rags. He is exceedingly human, fallible, ignorant, childlike, fickle, improvident, thoughtless. We could easily lengthen this catalogue of failings, painful things which oftentimes tend to discourage the Christian worker. But hence is all the more need of the Gospel among them. Their animalism makes necessary the proper antidote of spiritual training. ”

“ The white part of it at the close of the war surrendered the polity to which they had clung with heroic tenacity for more than one hundred and sixty years, and went over in a body to the Presbyterian Church South. Not so the larger part of the colored membership. They knew nothing but Congregationalism, and they refused to accept anything in its stead. The result was that they were formed into the new Congregational Church of Midway. They have built a new meeting-house, and are showing marvelous energy in maintaining their institutions and working towards self-support. ”

“ Of the region and peoples accessible by the river Jub, your Committee have as yet been able to gain no clear information, further than that the high lands, extending back for perhaps twenty miles from the sea-coast, sink into low, marshy plains, through which the river runs as far as it has been navigated. The higher region in the interior, in which it must have its source, is as yet utterly unknown.
We not only deem the proposed mission practicable, but the call to it Providential. The attention of the civilized world has recently been directed in a striking manner to the Nile basin. ”

“ Even the Jews, that remarkable people, known as they always have been for shrewdness, intelligence and business prosperity, after being enslaved in Egypt for some hundred years, were fearfully debased and demoralized, wandering in the wilderness many years, and even when they had conquered their promised land, were in turmoil and confusion. Can we expect better things of the sons of Ham? No nation can be “born in a day” whose minds and hearts are degraded by bondage for so long. ”

“ Besides all this at the South in this line, the American Missionary Association reports for the last year 5,894 Sunday-school scholars connected with its sixty-four churches. Then there is a vast [109] amount of such work done every year that does not come into these statistics. During the last summer vacation Atlanta University sent out 150 day-school teachers, and Fisk as many more, and all our institutions furnish more or less of them. Nearly all of these also run for the time their own Sunday-schools, thus reaching many thousand children with the truth of God’s word. ”

“ Since then the history of our financial institutions has made it appear that this gentleman was not alone in his unhappy predicament; there has been a world of college education which has not fitted its beneficiaries to gain an honest livelihood. It has given them the accomplishments of a social rank, but not the power to earn that rank; it has simply made them miserable. It has done worse even: it has left them in the midst of a moral snare. It is the grand miscalculation of our educational system. Here are millions of acres at the South waiting to be reclaimed by skilful hands ”

“ During the “week of prayer” and the remainder of January there were no conversions save one, that of “reckless George,” as he used to be called. He was one of our brightest young men, and his conversion made a deep impression. The revival did not commence in earnest until the first week in February, when there were twenty who turned to the Lord from the ways of sin. Since then the work has gone steadily forward.
This whole region seems ripe for a spiritual harvest; but whence are to come the reapers, as there is a limit to strength, and other duties press sorely. ”

“ Pastors can be our greatest helpers. They can see to it that our collections are not forgotten. If our cause is on the list, they can secure the collection at the regular time. If it is not, and we have received no contribution for a year or two past, the pastor is entreated to consider if our work is not worthy of support, and to present it to his people. ”

“ I am trying to contrive how, while keeping within our limited means, to increase our force of Chinese helpers. I am sure that with reference to immediate results, these who know by experience the darkness of heathenism, who have themselves trodden the path out of that darkness into the light of Christ, are better fitted to lead others along the same path than we could possibly be, even though we had their language at our tongue’s end. ”

“ One little boy scarcely ten years old often prays intelligently and touchingly for a dear uncle and aunt, and asks others to join him.
All but two of the girls at Foster Hall are hopeful Christians; and of the forty-five young men who board at the same place, but four remain without a hope in Christ. Two in the higher normal room still refuse to enter upon the better life, and fourteen in the common school normal, out of the ninety in that department. The community outside of the college, our people say, was never before so awakened since the college was established here. ”

“ Corliss has offered one of his engines for a machine shop, but there is no money with which to put a roof over it; even the Indian dormitory is yet unpaid for. For want of $18,000 the work is checked; but it is a vital work. If there are two classes of men to whom the people of the United States owe a helping hand, they are the Indians and the Negroes. Besides, it is God’s time; both races have been awakened to their needs; there is a cry for help. Even from the far neighborhood of Puget [112] Sound have come letters asking if there is room at Hampton. ”

“ The religious work of the school has been well directed, although not a thing that could be put in figures. It is largely an endeavor to counteract the tendencies of ignorance and prejudice in the colored churches and so give free play to the spirit of grace. A large proportion of the students are professors of religion when they come. ”

“ The climate is sure to wear out a white man in the course of a few years, if he remains constantly on the ground. (Col. Long, before the Executive Committee of the A. M. A.) The degree of mortality among the white soldiers of the Egyptian army, and the fate of the missionaries of the Austrian Mission at Gondokoro, illustrate the same fact. Besides, the general testimony is, that black men are better able to convince people of their own color of the attainments that may be reached in religion and civilization by the African race. ”

“ Not only blossoms but fruits are already seen in the immediate vicinity of the mission, and far into the interior there has been a silent influence for good that we knew not of. The labors of the dark days of our missions were not in vain, but are now being crowned with the glorious fruits of righteousness, which will only be a brighter crown for those who have fallen asleep at their post of duty.
THE INDIANS. SCHOOL AND CHURCH WORK AT DUNGINESS. REV. MYRON EELLS, S’KOKOMISH, WASHINGTON TERRITORY.
We have an excellent young man at Dunginess as school-teacher. ”

“ They can never be good citizens and exercise intelligently the rights of freemen till they have these advantages.”
—We regret to see that the Young Men’s Christian Association, of Washington, D. C., by the Rev. O. C. Morse, its secretary, feared to have a few colored Sunday-school teachers mingle with white persons engaged in similar work, withdrew invitations given, and at first refused admission to the three or four who came with cards of invitation, though they were afterwards allowed to enter. Meanwhile Senator Bruce was occupying with dignity the chair of the Senate of the United States. ”

“ Then I said, ‘Well, sir, please to hear me in these few words: Every one ought to be punished by God who did not put their trust in Him, and also transgressed the commandment of God by their tradition. ”

“ While it will not be, as it has not been, the sole object of the Association to extend the form of church polity, to which most of the churches which contribute to it are attached, but rather to labor for the intelligent Christianization of the people who most need it, we are disposed to think that there will be found a greater affinity between the Southern people and the Congregational way than many have supposed. ”

“ They, from some source or other, have learned that there is a Saviour. Even those who have never seen or heard a missionary themselves seem to be thoroughly informed as to the objects of this mission. ”

“ The colored people are emphatically a religious people, and the difficulty is not so much in getting them to go forward to the anxious seats, or enter the inquiry-room, or to weep over their sins and cry for mercy, as it is to show them the simplicity of the way of salvation. ”