Various

“ Of course Christian schools need to be multiplied among them, where the rudiments of an English education shall be thoroughly given, where sewing and cooking, the care of the house and the care of the sick shall be carefully taught the girls, where the boys may learn the use of tools and all that pertains to good farming.
Our stronghold is the children. We can never eradicate the evils existing among the older generation. Slavery left too much ignorance and superstition to ever be driven from the minds of those who lived under its sway. But we are responsible for the coming generations. ”

“ Nothing could do more for immediate results in developing a pure Christianity among the untaught and unsaved poor of the South.
We might also, with a thousand dollars a day, do more than we have ever done to foster the growth of right and permanent institutions in all our fields of labor. This is the great and urgent necessity. Out of Christian churches and schools will flow all the benefits demanded by a Christian civilization. For this especially we emphasize our appeal. To what better use can the Christians and patriots of our country devote a thousand dollars a day? ”

“ I have known of an old gentleman working all day for fifty cents and spending forty cents at night for tobacco for himself and wife and nine children.
They seem to be without a standard in the land. They live so isolated, and have measured themselves by themselves until they have lost all idea of accurate judgment. Morality and sobriety are hardly looked for, even among church members and ministers. "Religion may be up to fever heat, while morality is down to zero." ”

“ Do not fail to give the children for their Christmas gift the happiness that giving brings. Do not delay to teach the young by so simple a lesson the difference between the blessedness of giving and that of receiving. Identify by all means the aims and methods of the Church and Sunday-school. Let it not, even in a figure, appear to the child that the Christian attitude is one of idle enjoyment. ”

“ They are simply poor people, who during slavery were unable to obtain large plantations and so were driven by the arrogant Bluegrass slaveholder on the one side, and the greedy cotton-planter on the other, back into the mountains, where they are shut away from the rest of the world by mountain barriers, and still more hopelessly by the haughty caste spirit of the slave-holding monarchs, who disdain to have anything to do with them except to seek their votes. ”

“ As I said before, an Indian woman's aspirations for herself are limited, but she wants her child to grow up in the white people's way. Now, if we are to elevate the Indian nation, let us plant in the homes the desire for the Gospel, and as we do it gather the children as fast as they are old enough to leave their mother's care into Christian training schools. Now out in the Indian country we are all the time carrying on missionary work in the homes, planting schools, organizing churches, and sending out native missionaries. ”

“ A single horse attached to a little shovel plow simply tears the sod a little, enough so the weeds spring up luxuriantly, and the women and children must work hard in the hot sun to destroy them, while the lord of the home saddles his horse and rides to town, to sit on store boxes and tell low stories. ”

“ Already fifteen applications are before us for lady missionaries to work in the homes, and we wait only for the women of the North to furnish us the necessary funds. As fast as we receive pledges of support the missionaries will be sent out.
May the heart of every Christian woman be quickened to new impulse for the development of womanhood in those in our own land, so degraded and helpless! ”

“ She begins to show that she has become a missionary at heart and that she has a desire to send this great blessing which has wrought such a change in her home into other homes; and as others like herself, near at hand, have been treasuring up the blessed words of the Lord Jesus, "Go ye and preach my gospel," they begin to think that they can do something to send the good tidings to those who are in the darkness which so recently surrounded themselves. ”

“ Then add to all this the fact that tobacco is used almost from the cradle, and whiskies and toddies from the time the poor child opens its eyes to this world, and it's no great marvel that gray-haired men are exceedingly rare, and it's the "old man" and the "old woman" when one has reached the age of twenty-five.
Now comes the question, What are we doing for the people? We have been with them nearly two years, and this has been our effort from the first, to get them to see that religion is a life rather than a sectarian belief. ”

“ Freedom brought the right and opportunity of establishing homes. Glorious privilege! But do we not all know how much good judgment and wisdom and thought and planning it takes to maintain a true home? ”

“ The dingy low walls, the glass-less windows, the tobacco besmeared floor, become transformed to a holy temple, where God deigned to make visible His presence, and it has been a sacred place. Our hope of this people centres largely in the young. ”

“ We hope to get a school, the good influence of which will never die out of these mountains.
These are peculiar people. What I have said of them has reference to the general class of society. But there are some who seem of better stock, who are shrewd, keen, far-sighted people. You cannot find their superiors in native ability in any country. Though often lacking in culture and morality, they still hold a wide influence over the rest, so that something besides goodness is required in those who wish to come among them as helpers. ”

“ Then once in two weeks the older pupils meet for a social reading.
In our devotional exercises and school prayer meetings we aim to assist them in a knowledge of true religion. Last year we observed the Week of Prayer, and in the daily meetings held for several weeks some found the way to Christ and Christian life. Our Church and Sunday-School work reaches many who are not connected with our school. We have a devoted missionary who spends her time in visiting the parents and children in their homes, ministering to the wants of the sick and needy, and holding Bible and Missionary meetings. ”

“ Here I have met 100 or more young people. I have been surprised that in a land where a woman isn't expected to know anything, or be anything but a doll or a drudge that there has been so little prejudice against my school. ”

“ American Missionary Association.
Another year. Are we ready for it, ready to work and to win? The harvest is still plenteous and every increase of store is precious. Who can measure such privilege? And what of opportunities? The swift-winged events of our civilization are continually hurrying us into the midst of them. It is a day of speedy rewards. Christ comes quickly in these times. The business of the Church is helped as absolutely as secular business by the development and use of material agencies for advancement. What is wanted is the good seed of the word. ”

“ Now, in the Dakota mission, we have thirteen churches, and in every one a woman's missionary society, and the money raised is used to support native missionaries—that is, Christian Indians are sent out among the heathen Indians as missionaries, and are supported by Indian societies. The Indian woman's society is conducted very much like any sewing society among white women. Some woman is appointed to lead the devotional exercises, and we have our officers appointed annually. ”

“ Then she shows a desire to dress like white women, and instead of the broadcloth skirt tied around her waist with a string and the short calico sack, and moccasins upon her feet, she appears with a kilt plaiting around her dress skirt, and, what probably in her mind is an improvement upon white woman's taste, the plaiting is headed with two or three rows of bright worsted skirt braid. As she admires the thin and lightly covered head of the white baby, she closely clips her own baby's hair so as to have it as nearly like a white baby as possible. ”

“ Each Sunday when we were not there that important question had to be discussed.
One of these same preachers took his children from school because they were taught the heresy in geography that the world is round. They do all they can to prejudice the people against our work. They call our religion railroad religion. They are great barriers in our way. Still we have been cheered this year to see that their hold on the young people is loosening, and we are getting their hearts in spite of the protests of their parents. ”

“ Under a pagan religion her place is next to the mere animals. She goes with her husband to the hunt, not as a companion, but as the drudge, the human pack-horse; she prepares the food, and her husband devours it regardless of her needs; he may boast of his "old woman" as being "nina mimi heca" (swift or good to work) for that is the only accomplishment required in his selfish, egotistical mind. "The Indian woman comes into the world under a species of protest—every Indian parent desiring to have boys, rather than girls, hence she grows up into a condition of servitude." ”

“ Christian men and women, filled with love for the Master, went down among these lowly ones. They carried the Gospel of Jesus Christ, established schools and churches, teaching in the open air, or in rude huts and deserted cabins. For twenty years this work has been carried on, and much good has been done in the name of the Lord. But to-day there are between six and seven million colored people in our Southland. The work of the A. M. A., together with all done by other societies and by students going forth from the colleges as teachers, as yet scarcely begins to reach this great number. ”

“ The New West Education Commission, the American Home Missionary Society, and the American Missionary Association—no effort has been made by the American Missionary Association to organize local societies auxiliary to itself; but that a society should exist in every church, able to co-operate directly with this Association in its great work for the Chinese, the Indians, the negroes and the needy whites of the South, seems apparent. ”

“ But faith and prayer, together with a genuine interest in the Indian home, can accomplish much. Desolate and comfortless though that home may be, it can be transformed, and the husband even can be made to see that there is something more real, something that is more satisfying, something that is more comforting than this life of fear and bondage to his heathen gods. "The man has more to give up than the woman [Pg 10] if he becomes a Christian. If a woman changes her gods and her religion, no one cares very much ”

“ We can sustain efficiently our current work of educating teachers and preachers and the planting of churches. In the progress of development, more requires more. If the Association did not need increased receipts it would be evidence of lack of growth. There is no such lack. New demands are springing up at every point, and it is wise economy to meet these demands. They are simply the healthy development of legitimate missionary work.
Just now there is urgent demand for the increase of facilities for promoting industrial education. The South is arising into a new life. ”

“ She does not know that you care for her. She feels that she is different in some way, and most likely if you smile upon her she will not know it, for she is too modest even to look at you; but speak to her in a pleasant tone and offer to shake hands with her and notice her baby, and she begins to think that you are a woman. ”

“ We have no work among the Chinese women that we can call our own. Both Presbyterians and Methodists have such a work in San Francisco, and it divides into very little sections what can be at best but a small work, because there are only three or four hundred Chinese women in San Francisco, and not a tenth of these accessible. But if means would allow we would be glad to attempt a work among the women at Sacramento, where nothing is done for them. With our very limited resources we can save more by working among the thousands of men and boys. ”

“ We need more means for supplying the minds of those hungering for knowledge with good reading. The colored people have few, if any, books or periodicals. We ought to have the means at once for furnishing fifty libraries and reading-rooms at as many different points. Such help to those willing to help themselves to some extent should be provided.
The students leaving our schools to go forth as teachers may be numbered by thousands. These explore the dark places of the land. They open schools in such buildings as can be found, or, finding none, teach out of doors. ”

“ They make children's clothing after the white woman's fashion, and many useful articles similar to those usually made in sewing societies. Those women who are able make articles after their own styles, such as moccasins, pretty bags handsomely ornamented with porcupine, bead or ribbon work. These articles are gifts to the society, and we have no difficulty in disposing of them to those who wish specimens of Indian woman's skill in fancy work, or who may wish to help this native missionary work which is being so nobly carried on. ”

“ This people, especially the male portion, seem to have a natural distaste for labor. They would be aristocratic if they could. In days of slavery they had their household servants, and tried to imitate the more wealthy slave-owners by living in idleness, and they still look upon labor as degrading.
They make no effort to get themselves homes. The large majority live in log cabins, with no windows. The doors stand open winter and summer. The women in cool weather always sit with a little shawl around them and a sunbonnet on. ”