Various

“ It is the Negro, uneducated, immoral, with a ballot in his hand. It is the white man, uneducated, immoral, with a ballot in his hand. For it makes no difference. The harm lies back of the color. The consequences of ignorant suffrage, by whomsoever exercised, can be only detrimental to the peace and welfare of the State. Free institutions can be built up only on the basis of intelligence and integrity. Without intelligence and integrity, the best cannot long survive. ”

“ He is the ward of the nation—a ward who has never been taken to the maternal bosom as a child, who is not permitted to reach his majority, or to care for himself, who is cheated by his guardian, and unfitted by the whole course of his education for the duties and responsibilities of manhood. There has been no false principle of politics but has been applied to his regulation. There has been no species of wrong, or injustice, or folly, which has not been practiced upon him, and regarded by him as the exponent of our Christian civilization. ”

“ Will not some generous friend of the South send us the money?
Tougaloo’s Plea.—Through its workers, this Institution puts in a most pathetic plea to the Executive Committee for an appropriation for a new building. How they inquire, can 120 persons be seated in a dining-room large enough for only 80? Or how can fifty girls be put into 16 small dormitories? The Executive Committee gives it up, and sends it along as too much of a 15-puzzle. The plea melts the hearts of us who have no money, so we make it to those who have, hoping some one will help to a solution of this problem. ”

“ Capitalists look out for their own interest, and will, if they can, oppress one man, be his color what it may, as soon as another. We should remember that knowledge is power and ignorance is weakness. The protection which we most need is the power which education and property give. For my own part, all I ask of any man is an equal chance, and then if he can outstrip me in the race of life, let him do it.”
Lovedale Missionary Institute, South Africa, is said to be the busiest industrial college in the world. ”

“ Before the Indian can become civilized, the conditions of civilization must exist. For him, at present, these are scarcely possible. No mere tribe can attain to a civilized state, yet the tribal relation is fostered and perpetuated by our policy. Such agencies of a civilized life as civil courts, town meetings, common schools, railroads, telegraphs, etc., these are simply impossible so long as tribes of men are forced or permitted to wander over vast territories to which they have no other title than that of tribal occupancy. ”

“ In short, I am more than ever convinced that we need a lady missionary here, to devote her whole time to personal work among the classes not now reached by our schools and churches, and to take charge of the industrial work among the women and girls. We have in mind just the one we need if her support can be assured. Our church will, I am sure, assume a share of the expense, though it will be impossible for them to do much more than they are doing. ”

“ It is a crime in the eyes of this commonwealth for white and colored persons to inter-marry, and whoever celebrates such a marriage lays himself liable to a thousand dollars fine. Of course, we cannot admit her to the church while living in her present relations. She cannot marry, according to the law; she has no friends, and is not able to support herself if she should leave him. Even now she is so poor that she has to borrow shoes and other clothing in order to attend church. The white churches here have no room for such persons. ”

“ When we know the possibilities yet undeveloped in the negro, and give full scope to them, we shall know also what an element of wealth and strength here is in what is now known as an incubus on prosperity and a menace to our national life. ”

“ Very few attended Sunday-school. One hadn’t been inside of a church for five years but once, and then only to attend the funeral of a friend. One, who admitted that he habitually used both whiskey and tobacco, claimed to be a minister in good and regular standing among his brethren, and he is not the only such example in the city. Several of the workers, particularly a young student from the Baptist Theological School here, made stirring appeals to the churches that they more earnestly endeavor to bring in the poor and degraded, and make them feel at home in the house of God. ”

“ He sells land to the Freedmen. One of his neighbors, whose hospitality I enjoyed, is Gabriel Washington. I wonder if that archangel has not sufficient regard for “the Father of his Country,” and for this, its dusky citizen, to be pleased with this collocation of names? Our Gabriel is so much of the earth earthy, that he owns 1,260 acres of its soil, and has a model farm, with its orchard, cotton gin, and its big Yankee woodpile, the finest one I have seen in the South. His buxom wife had been down the day before, twelve miles, to our big meeting. ”

“ I never have known any church in the North to be so thoroughly united in revival effort. The contagion spread to other churches, many of them soon beginning to hold special services. This somewhat lessened our audiences, but a general revival spirit spread through the city, and still continues. During one or two weeks we held union afternoon prayer-meetings with a colored Baptist church, a very uncommon thing in this country.
The meetings were quiet, tender, impressive throughout. The people are beginning to get out of their old ideas of a noisy conversion. ”

“ He asserts that the Exodus has not been brought about by political causes, though a certain class of politicians have done something to spread the movement; nor is it due to the fact that educational or religious privileges have been withheld, for, strictly, it cannot be asserted that such has been the case. Persons who were pronounced in their opposition to negro schools are, when this movement begins, laboring side by side with those who have devoted themselves to negro education. Whatever of politics, or education, or religion may enter into the movement is merely incidental. ”

“ The prime condition of a home is an exclusive title to the land upon which it stands and from which its support can be drawn. Without a home, a high civilization is impossible, but our policy has been to discourage, and too often render impossible, the creation of a home by the Indian. ”

“ One of our wealthiest manufacturers of New England, who has recently been to Eastern Tennessee, where he has an interest in a new mill, says if twenty years younger, he would certainly go South and invest largely in manufacturing. Everything is favorable for such enterprise.
This is in striking contrast with the time when the papers, voicing the sentiment of Virginia, compelled the founders of Lowell, Mass., to abandon their purpose of building their mills in Richmond, because such industries were in deadly hostility to Southern institutions. ”

“ If there be large numbers on whom this right has been conferred, but who are densely ignorant, especially if these large numbers are grouped in a single section, like these millions of negroes and poor whites in the South, it is an official notice served on the nation that no time is to be lost in imparting the mental and moral training requisite for the right discharge of these sacred functions of voting. Men are not left to settle this question of helping with schools and churches, merely on the ground of humanity or Christian duty. ”

“ Another significant, but almost unnoted feature of the new South, (for the old is passing away more rapidly than is generally believed,) is the increasing favor with which the town system, but more especially the common-school system, is regarded by the people. ”

“ The American Missionary Association. AIM AND WORK.
To preach the Gospel to the poor. It originated in a sympathy with the almost friendless slaves. Since Emancipation it has devoted its main efforts to preparing the Freedmen for their duties as citizens and Christians in America and as missionaries in Africa. As closely related to this, it seeks to benefit the caste-persecuted Chinese in America, and to co-operate with the Government in its humane and Christian policy towards the Indians. It has also a mission in Africa. ”

“ Their interest is challenged, and their very selfishness is under contribution. We do not put matches in children’s hands, and then leave them to play about hay-mows. If we give them matches we train them in the use of them. With an instrument in his hands so potent as the ballot, and with the possibility of using the leverage of it in contingencies easy to be foreseen for the overturning of the nation, it takes but half an eye to see that the man who wields it ought to have an instructed mind and an instructed conscience, and the State is not secure until he does. ”

“ Art. VIII. This society, in collecting funds, in appointing officers, agents and missionaries, and in selecting fields of labor, and conducting the missionary work, will endeavor particularly to discountenance slavery, by refusing to receive the known fruits of unrequited labor, or to welcome to its employment those who hold their fellow-beings as slaves. ”

“ There is something delightful about a new church organization. There is an inspiration in building upon newly-laid foundations, and every member feels that he is essential to the success of the movement. In an organization representing many years and great numerical strength, a man of quiet, retiring spirit is lost to view ”

“ Hospitality is a virtue among this people. They exercise it “without grudging.” They have a real love for sharing their “loaf” with him, be he stranger or friend, who calls at their door. It is only necessary that he have the “password” of the Christian Church.
Rev. W. S. Alexander and Rev. Isaac H. Hall were elected delegates to the National Congregational Council.
The next meeting of the Association will be held in Terrebonne the 1st Wednesday in April, 1881. ”

“ It is significant that the leading article in the current number of the South Atlantic, the élite literary magazine of the South, is by a colored man. His topic is, “The Status of the Negro, and the Exodus.” It is able and fair in its treatment of the subject. The editor disclaims responsibility for its statements, and slightly apologizes for its publication; would have been glad, had it not seemed unfair to the writer, to modify a few paragraphs; but has given a negro full leave to tell his white readers just what he thinks of negro status and exodus. ”

“ Not every pastor, even in favored New England, is so fortunate in his young people.
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On a recent Sabbath, one of his boys, who is to graduate this summer from Talladega, preached for him, and proved himself a good speaker, possessed of a clear, logical mind, with the promise of being a useful man. On the next day, he and another member of his church, also a Talladega student, spoke at the meeting of the Young Men’s Christian Association extemporaneously, but with great beauty and force. ”

“ Two Christian gentlemen of Edinburgh, Messrs. John and Frederick Moir, are at the head of the company. It is to be no less a missionary than a commercial enterprise, and there is every reason for believing that in both respects it will prove a success. The natives are becoming fully awake to the advantages of the extensive and solid business facilities possessed by the company, whose future will be watched with great interest. ”

“ Daniel Clay, the entertaining pastor, with his own home and his church upon the same plantation where for thirty-seven years he had served as a bondman, is a very patriarch among the young ministers, loved and revered by us all. The last meeting of this Conference, at New Iberia, was followed by a revival that added one hundred to the company of the disciples. ”

“ Yet we had a glorious four days’ meeting, with preachings, conferences, a communion, a season of baptizing, and a class meeting, which, according to the custom of the church, precedes the communion as a preparation. People came six, nine, or twelve miles. The native pastor, Mr. Thompson, preached an able and moving sermon upon trust in God. The regular meeting will be at the same place in July. This Church has a dignified and efficient deaconess, who looks after the many little things in the parish, which a woman can do better than anybody else. ”

“ We are glad to believe that the sixteen hundred members in the churches of the Association represent more solid moral worth than in any previous year. In the business sessions, when questions requiring wisdom and prudence were presented, and in the discussions of vital religious topics, I was gratified to observe real progress in the ability, self-control and kindly Christian spirit of the brethren. ”

“ They have been discouraged by the fact that success would give them no social or political advantage, and so they have either refused to labor, or have squandered in pic-nics and cake-walks, for tobacco and whiskey, it is estimated, about eighty millions of dollars annually.
There have been, so far, about 28,000 of these exodusters who have paid an average of about $16.65 to the railroad companies for transportation. Out of this the companies have paid to the unscrupulous agents who promote the movement, one dollar for full, and fifty cents for half fares. ”

“ Some of our members live two miles in one direction and some three miles in another. The whole congregation are scattered far and wide, hence they are somewhat irregular, and the labor of visitation is much increased. If we had a horse we could accomplish much more, besides saving something on draymen’s bills, etc., etc. All our workers need the recreation of riding for the sake [172] of health, and we can’t afford to hire hacks. Now I don’t know why I wrote this, except that I do feel like ‘praying for a missionary horse.’ Join your prayers with ours. ”