Various

“ The Foreign Missionary of the Presbyterian Board has been of late renewing its youth, and coming up, until it has become the most suggestive and vivacious of all the periodicals of the kind which meet our eyes. But nowadays, when intelligent people read the doings of all the world every morning at their breakfast tables, and are no longer satisfied with the village or the county news, they must have something which shall give them broader views of the great field of missions, which is the world, than they can obtain from the organs of special societies. ”

“ The day-school brings about sympathy of the day scholars with the church and Sunday-school work. The religious exercises of the schools cause the impression that there is a soul as well as a brain to be trained. The knowledge that the teachers are universally engaged in Sunday-school work, by the very law of cause and effect, calls attention to that work also. The sympathy that always exists between the preacher and teachers, and the hearty interest in the children that is shown by the ministers, cause both parents and children to think that the work is all one, as it really is. ”

“ A fearless friend of all who are unbefriended by the world at large, an eager, efficient and prayerful follower of Jesus, a strong pillar in the church, a man who united a careful and intense energy and an unflinching and unspotted integrity, with the gentleness and kindliness sometimes supposed to adorn womanhood alone, genial, generous, helpful everywhere,—how can we spare him? ”

“ It is with churches as with everything else, the fittest survives. If African Methodism prove to be that fittest, it will survive. If not, it must inevitably pass away, and only be remembered as a thing of the past. To be the fittest, it is required that she banish all ignorance, all immorality and superstition from her midst. This must be done, let the cost be what it may. Thin out the ministry of the church until there shall not be found an ignorant man nor a bad man in the ranks. Thin out the church itself. Expel the vicious. Drive out the notoriously bad. Have a clean church. ”

“ The mothers are delighted, and the children not less so. As the entire burden of the work rests on me, with no white help, you can see that my moments at home are all occupied with cutting and basting. I have finally succeeded in getting some colored teachers, and may, in time, have help in preparing work. I try to visit the homes of all the scholars, that I may know their condition and needs. This is one of the very best means of access to the people, and helps to fill up the Sunday-school with needy ones. ”

“ And now we repeat what we have so often said to our brother ministers, especially of the South, where they are brought in contact with this energetic body of men: Know, once for all, that the Church possessed of the best cultured heads and the best cultured hearts, is to win. That we are infinitely stronger in numbers to-day than are the Congregationalists, argues nothing for the future. ”

“ I do wish we could find some one to give us some singing books, both for Sunday-school and church. We have only three that we can use in worship. I like the “Songs of Devotion,” but then anything else will do if we can get that.
The Temperance Society is doing good, but there is room for it to do much more. At our meeting last Sabbath, five joined us. The band numbers now about 50. Some, as might be expected, have broken their pledges. I find it is those who are trained in our schools, and those only, that take hold of our principles. ”

“ Your “Woman’s Board of Missions” is doing a good work for God and humanity. I would not underestimate its value; but while you are responding so liberally to the calls for help from afar, are you not forgetting this work of no less importance which lies nearer to you, the work of giving Christian education to the despised and degraded colored women of the South?
We are very sorry to have Frank out of school. He can not afford it, neither can you afford it, for if he could be in school for one or two years longer, he would make a very fair teacher for the country schools. ”

“ On two afternoons we have had to suspend the school exercises on account of those weeping over their sins. Some little ones will not leave the house till they feel forgiven. Almost all are from the Band of Hope. The older ones look on in surprise at such a work among the children. Some have tried to stop their children from praying, but they could come to school and pray, or go out in the woods till they were converted, and then they couldn’t help it. We have a daily prayer-meeting in the school-house, in which all take part. Sometimes we have open meetings for the children. ”

“ The white people are doing nothing to help them, as I shall tell you when I get to it. But the old ones find it hard to leave off the habits of slavery, which have been going on so long that they have taken deep root, and how they are to be dug out I cannot tell. But will not our Heavenly Father overlook many of these wicked habits!
Our church grows slowly because we are trying all the time to get the people out of their old ways, which most of the people like best, and so they are held by the other churches. ”

“ My infant class in Sunday-school has grown from five to forty-five since I came; and, as I visit all my scholars, it keeps me busy. Monday afternoons I give to practising music in the Sunday-school; Wednesday, we have our school prayer-meeting; Thursday, a mother’s meeting, for prayer and conversation. This last has always been an interesting feature in my labors among the poor, and I trust it will be so here. Friday evening, I have a meeting for Bible-reading and prayer in the cabins near by. The reading is greatly enjoyed by the people. Sunday evenings I usually spend in the same way. ”

“ The people, with commendable energy and self-denial, bating not one jot of heart or hope, set themselves to the work of rebuilding. They purchased more ground, put up a larger and better building, and the machinery of the church is again in working order. They have expended something like $450, and urgently need $200 more for painting and furnishing. The people feel that they have exhausted their resources. It is a noble enterprise, and should be encouraged. Loyalty to our Congregational polity in Louisiana should call forth a hearty response to their appeal. ”

“ The young delegate from Atlanta said: “The first church of Atlanta is the outgrowth of the Storrs School, whose devoted teachers have always sought after the spiritual as well as the mental welfare of their scholars. They have been true missionaries and worthy co-laborers in the Gospel with the pastors of the church.”
A young preacher, who is also the successful teacher of the day-school in his parish, said that “The training of the school children to be punctual at the morning roll-call, teaches also the very necessary habit of punctuality at church, in which our people are so deficient. ”

“ Instead of exhausting all the strength of the crew at the pumps in a desperate endeavor to save the ship from sinking, has the time not come, when, with canvas all spread, and the ship sea-worthy, rightly headed and well under way, the main question shall be, how to touch every harbor, explore every river, sail every inland sea, and leave the precious freighting of the Gospel at every port around the globe? ”

“ To meet this want, the societies themselves are increasingly informing their constituency that there is other work being done than that they do themselves. “The work of other societies” is becoming a familiar heading. Even this, however, does not answer the full demands—and that the day has come for missionary periodicals, which are edited and circulated upon the same basis as those which deal with scientific or material progress, shows that the broader interests of the coming kingdom are taking more fully their appropriate place in the hearts and minds of Christian men and women. ”

“ Sometimes after school we take the carriage and go to see some sick person. Last week we went three miles to see one poor sick woman, who has lost the use of one eye and is nearly blind in the other. She is a great sufferer, but said, “My many afflictions and tribulations bring me near the Lord, and I am so proud to see you all.” Last Saturday we went four miles to see an old man who is probably on his death-bed. He was sixty-three years a slave, is a Christian, has united with the church since we came, and said that if he never met us here on earth again, he hoped to in heaven. ”

“ The school is a new thing and creates much interest. Sometimes several will crowd around, looking over the shoulder and listening eagerly to the one who reads. I do not think this will always last, but I think there is a great field here for good. ”

“ Our people never had any mental training, or any encouragement to think for themselves, and did not know how, until the A. M. A. schools awakened these powers. We, as a race, are not naturally a reasoning people. We are too much governed by impulse, by emotion, by instinct, by passions, and too easily offended, with little self-control. ”

“ Sundays are our grand working days. As we have services morning and night, the afternoon is left free to meet the people in other ways.
Sometimes the women come to the “Home” for a prayer-meeting, or the little children come in to hear Bible-stories told or read. Sometimes I have a Bible-reading for boys. They come, bringing their Bibles, and pencil and paper, and I read them some of the precious verses marked in my own Bible, or choose some story like that of the Shunamite, which they are not familiar with. ”

“ The management of the institution is admirable, its teachers are superior, and everything connected with it is in excellent condition, as I have had occasion to learn from personal observation. As a recognition of the good work being done by the American Missionary Association in the education and elevation of the colored people of the State, it is recommended that a liberal appropriation be made, that it may be rendered still more useful. ”

“ Our lady teachers are also missionaries. The lady missionaries sent out by the Woman’s Boards often find their first and most effective means of access to the people in the schools they start for girls. Our one hundred and fifteen lady teachers are doing the work of Christian training along with that of school teaching, and are missionaries nearly as much as the seven ladies who devote themselves exclusively to direct mission work. They have a right to consider themselves as missionaries. ”

“ Four of the class are ordained ministers, of whom two are pastors of churches in New Orleans. Not all of them have the ministry in view. Those who have not, are hoping through this instruction to become more useful and efficient in the church. Three theological lectures are given each week, and there are besides sermons given by the students before the class for criticism, and discussions on religious topics. Our great lack is books of reference. We have no systems of theology, and no commentaries to which the young men can have access. ”

“ Gratitude prompted us, in many cases, to break away from the old superstitious churches, and growing enlightenment helps us to see more clearly the superior advantages of an intelligent religion. The consecrated teachers of the Association have many of them done grand missionary work, although very few of them are open to the charge of sectarianism. Congregationalism, by its broad, liberal, unsectarian policy of churches and schools, has done a vast amount of good to all the other denominations. ”

“ I think it would be a sin to leave them in the care of any of these colored people, the greater part of each day. They are so ignorant and sinful and superstitious, that I am sure they would poison their young minds. Perhaps that is the reason the Southern people have given so much trouble, they have had such ignorant nurses.
Our Sunday-school is large and doing well. We have large classes because we have so few competent teachers; we are trying to train others. Church services are well attended. ”

“ Seven young men and two girls are doing their own cooking so that they can remain longer. Five others are paying board.
We have some very dull scholars. We have some bright ones. One young man, fourteen months ago, did not know his letters. Now he reads in National Third Reader and United States history, has commenced grammar and geography, and is in fractions in arithmetic. One pupil, who is a minister, is over thirty years of age. Three other scholars are twenty-nine. Nearly all the larger ones are teachers, or are preparing to teach. I think they will do much good for their people. ”