Various

“ This supply of materials is a true blessing. Perhaps my Sunday-school stands highest in importance, but surely this sewing-school work, with all the influences of good which I strive to bring there to bear upon the girls, is next. I couldn’t willingly give it up. Through it the girls are clothing their bodies with their own honest efforts; are learning Christian gentleness and politeness, and having their minds stored with good thoughts out of good books. ”

“ Doubtless many a faithful toiler has spent his whole life in laying foundations, deep and broad, but out of the sight of ordinary observers, upon which shall rise, in magnificent proportions, a temple to our God after he has gone to his reward—to the reward of one who has been faithful, rather than of one who has been observed. ”

“ One of the missionaries of the American Sunday-school Union writes from South-western Virginia: “In Pulaski County I attended the best Sunday-school Association I was ever in. It was among the colored people. They are intensely in earnest in Sunday-school work, and anxious to learn. They are very poor, yet buy more books than their white neighbors. Some of them are quite intelligent. They take hold of the International Lesson System well. Most of the Sunday-schools which are kept up during the winter here are colored schools. They ought to have a Sunday-school missionary of their own color.” ”

“ The Gospel will never gain its conquests in such way as to relieve the Church of the duty and labor and self-denial and discipline of carrying it and proclaiming it to the heathen, who will find it, as all people have, opposed to all their habits and pleasures and traditions, and will, therefore, when they understand it, resist it before accepting it. The cheering news which so often comes to us from Central Africa and other lands will doubtless be followed by most discouraging news of disappointment and seeming disaster. ”

“ In all religious movements it is especially true that much of the best material, and much of the cost, is utterly lost to sight before the world sees any result. In the South, for the past fifteen years, the foundations have been laid for a superstructure which is to arise in grand and glorious proportions, the joy of our land and the praise of all people. ”

“ We have started a Missionary Association for work in the country about. On Sunday afternoon twenty-five go out into the cottages to read the Bible and pray with the poor families. Many of them work in the Sunday-schools in Hampton. One goes out to the poor-house, another to the prison. They all make the reports of their work to me. We are talking of starting a Sunday-school in the Butler School House. We think we could get in many who do not now attend, and it would give our students a chance for work. ”

“ The conduct of our students was truly admirable. Each young man worked with a will, wherever he was placed, or at whatever needed to be done at the moment, whether it was at the pumps or carrying water, guarding a roof, or taking out furniture and books. None worked harder than some of those who had rooms in the chapel building and were losing nearly all they had, forgetful even of the trunk or handful of clothing that lay somewhere scattered about in the yard—all that was left of their possessions. Many of the young women, also, showed much presence of mind and were of great service. ”

“ The coming into a community of one who has enjoyed superior advantages, introduces a better idea to which others will seek to attain. One of the most threatening obstacles in the way of colored education has been the great lack of competent colored teachers. The paying of incompetent teachers is almost, if not entirely, a waste of the public money. Viewing from this standpoint, the long and expensive journeys necessarily taken by the students of Fisk University to reach their schools, may not be a loss but a benefit, by scattering further the good influence of the University. ”

“ They suggest their favorite hymns and lead in prayer, usually in their own language. They all seem attentive and devout. It is very pleasant to see their faces light up as they get some new thought from God’s word. I have seldom seen men more earnest in the study of the Scriptures. One of those who united with the church at the last communion has been confined to the house with sickness. The nurse tells me that he often sits for two or three hours at a time patiently spelling out the words of the English Bible, and asking her the meaning of that which he cannot understand. ”

“ It is not for us humanely to consider, therefore, how we can make comfortable in their decline the lingering remnants of this perishing people. The more momentous question is how this vast and rapidly increasing mass of humanity is best to be fitted for the large part it is to play in our national life. ”

“ Since the day of prayer for Colleges on the last Thursday of January, we have had a very marked and general interest in religious things, and we have reason to believe that very many have become reconciled to God and taken up the service of Christ. Nearly every one in the family, numbering about two hundred students, who was not already a follower of Christ, has been affected and confessed an interest in the subject, and not many have drawn back thus far. About sixty have attended inquiry meetings, and we hope a large proportion of them will hold on their way. ”

“ The recent burning of the boys’ dormitory at Tougaloo, Miss., compels us to build anew, and the over-crowding of students compels us to build larger.
We must rebuild or abandon the school. The latter we dare not do. The colored population in the State exceeds the white, numbering 652,221, and has increased over 46 per cent. in the last ten years. Tougaloo University is seven miles north of Jackson, the capital, and there is no similar school of higher grade admitting colored students nearer than about 200 miles south, east, or north, and none much nearer west. ”

“ Even when they were slaves, wholly under control of their masters, with no rights to claim and no duties to perform, their very presence as an ignorant and licentious mass of chattles gave great cause for anxiety to the intelligent lover of his country. But now they are citizens and voters, and whether exercising their rights as such or deprived of them, are equally, almost, a source of dangerous power which cannot but fill us with grave apprehensions, if we but think of it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The merest accident may place another in such relation to this man’s toils that he shall seem to be the creator of all the results for which he labored, while he bears no other relation to them than the minnow does to the swell and roar and irresistible rush of the wave by which it has been caught and upon which it rides. ”

“ These statistics show that, while in the midst of their own arduous labors as students, these young people are accomplishing a great amount of good [115] in a field to which now, happily, the eyes of the nation are turned, the education of the colored people. During the last year, when, for reasons not necessary now to give, a less number of students than usual were engaged in teaching, they had under their training an army of between five and six thousand children, and performed the labor of more than the ordinary lifetime of a man ”

“ In this building I am to open an afternoon industrial school for women. The different arts of housekeeping will be here taught in turn. Those who wish will learn to read, and especially mothers’ meetings will be held. This is the central point of all my work—the women and their homes. Around this will cluster several other departments, for I have already four or five co-workers. Two of these are good Quaker women, living in the place and already doing all they can. They will assist in the women’s school and in visiting at the homes. ”

“ They might not follow one who gave them Rowland Hill’s fine “river of words, and only a spoonful of thought,” but if any man can speak thoughts in words which accurately mate each other, I invite him to my pulpit, assuring him that he will have an attentive and appreciative hearing such as delights the heart of the messenger who has something to say. My impression is that the Negro is to have a decided and beneficent influence upon the Christianity of America, if not upon that of the whole world:—but in precisely what direction I am not clear. ”

“ But the whole good is not to be estimated in years. The great mass of the teachers among the colored people, as among the white, teach with little if any more preparation than what is gained in the common schools. ”

“ The average salary per month is $29.54. The average cost for board and travel, not calculating other expenses, is $10.47. This leaves the net gain per month of $19.07. This in reality is reduced somewhat by loss of time often incurred in securing a school, or in waiting for it to begin after it is secured.
3. It is seen that the students are making very praiseworthy efforts to gain an education, and that they earn annually a large sum of money to secure that end. Still, at a net gain of $19.07 a month, the student cannot entirely support himself. ”

“ If structures, however beautiful, which have no foundations, must topple, and we should feel no disappointment when they do, we would yet understand that much has been done when a foundation broad enough and strong enough has been laid. ”

“ How to develop that gift in the wisest manner and to the best advantage of the race, is a question which ought to receive a practical answer, and as speedily as possible. If they are peculiarly susceptible to the refining and elevating influences of such an art as music, it is very desirable that these influences be brought to bear upon them just now, while in the formative stage of their history. ”

“ Under editorial supervision at this office, aided by the steady contributions of our intelligent missionaries and teachers in all parts of the field, and with occasional communications from careful observers and thinkers elsewhere, the American Missionary furnishes a vivid and reliable picture of the work going forward among the Indians, the Chinamen on the Pacific Coast, and the Freedmen as citizens in the South and as missionaries in Africa. ”

“ Cutting and basting work for so many occupies a good deal of time.
At our annual church meeting, the reports showed that eighteen persons had been received on profession of faith during the year 1880, and $256 raised for church purposes. The Sunday-school reported 220 names on the roll, of whom 175 were present at one time, and the average attendance for the year was 115. Ten of the scholars united with the church, and the school has raised about $60 in weekly contributions. The pastor and wife gave away 8,500 religious and Sunday-school papers during the year. ”

“ Those who have not taught are too young to take charge of a school. The per cent. of those in the Normal department who have taught, is less, because the advancement in scholarship is less, as is also the average age. ”

“ Another of the workers there will be John Smith, a colored minister, from Iowa, educated by the Society of Friends. This man has been on the ground three months. He is teaching a children’s school. There are three hundred children of the age to go to school, only about half of whom are provided for by the town schools. He will be ready to assist me in every way necessary, and will have one of the departments in the Sunday-school, of which we have arranged three, beside being the superintendent of the school. For the use of the Sunday-school we have three rooms in the public school building. ”

“ The students, in summer vacations, teach about 4,000 pupils in day schools and Sunday-schools, and secure from 1,000 to 1,500 names to the temperance pledge.
The Executive Committee, a few months since, authorized the gradual enlargement of the girls’ dormitory as funds would permit. For a new boys’ dormitory it was hoped that $10,000 might be spared from the generous gift of Mrs. Stone, but the definite pledges to other institutions and the increased price of labor and materials forbid it. We had scarcely more than realized this disappointment when the boys’ dormitory was destroyed by fire. ”

“ They do not know what they are doing—nor do any of us, I think—in planting the seeds of a decorous and an intelligent church life, and one which insists upon honesty, sobriety, “whatsoever is of good report,” etc., as fundamental therein, among these people who are slowly but surely getting into a secure and respectable place in the body politic. ”

“ Messenger, once a missionary of the Episcopal Board in Africa. He is pronounced to be “a good Christian, who can sing well, can play on the organ, and will work earnestly” in the liberty of Christ and not in bondage to any ritual or liturgy. The pupils attest their zeal by pledging contributions sufficient to pay the rent of the school-room, $15 per month, and, perhaps, the incidental expenses likewise. Pray for the success of the first Chinese mission in Arizona. ”

“ We regard the Missionary as the best means of communication with our friends, and to them the best source of information regarding our work.
A little effort on the part of our friends, when making their own remittances, to induce their neighbors to unite in forming Clubs, will easily double our list, and thus widen the influence of our Magazine, and aid in the enlargement of our work. ”

“ During the same time, the per cent. of increase in the white population has been less than 28 per cent., which will give something over eighteen millions as their total white population in 1900.
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It is manifest that the negro has come to stay, and must be taken into our calculations in all estimates for the future of our national life. He need not fade away before us despite heroic efforts to save him. He does not perish even under our discouraging frowns. He will not be suppressed by a somewhat rigorous repressive policy. ”