Various

“ The people are poor, but the land is rich, and a few years hence will see wealth in the place of poverty, in the hands of either the natives, or those who will have displaced them. All the motives which urge the establishment of the church and the school for the incoming population of the West, press us to build them in this great empire of the South; and they become doubly imperative when we take into account the fact that a population of between two and three millions is already in the land and needs to be saved now. ”

“ We may not close this review of our year's work and attendant suggestions without remembrance of our indebtedness to the American Bible Society, for its grant of Bibles; to the Congregational Sunday-school and Publishing Society for the help given to our struggling churches and Sunday-schools in its grant of books and lesson helps. We rejoice in the unity of our societies, which make all one in the blending of the parts for the great common purpose of redeeming the lost and gathering them into the family of Christ. ”

“ Congregationalism goes to these people as the representative of pure, intelligent and progressive Christianity. We can gather them into schools, Sunday-schools and churches, anywhere where we can put a Christian worker. Our only limit is consecrated workers and the support for them. The field is as ripe this very day for a thousand as for a score. But the school and the church must go together. ”

“ The people of America are determined to press the Indian problem to a speedy solution. Provision has been made for giving lands in severalty, and the next great movement should be to induce the Government to provide secular education, and the churches to furnish religious instruction to all the Indians. The American Missionary Association, during the year, has responded to this new impulse by enlarging its work—in the opening of new stations, in the erection of new buildings, and in the appointment of more missionaries and teachers. ”

“ This is our Southern mission field, which God has committed to us, according to our faith and opportunity.
Those of our own race in the South could not do this work, which is upon our consciences and hearts, if they would. They do not see what we see. They would not if they could. They do not feel what we feel. ”

“ When war came, it was loyal to the Union almost to a man. This fact shows that they have a natural affiliation with "Northern ideas." The caste spirit is among them—as it is indeed in the North to some extent—but it much more readily yields to reason and loving teaching than in other portions of the South. Vigorous and extensive missionary work can and will mould the ideas and sentiments of this whole region, and thus establish no-caste churches and schools, where they would demonstrate to the South that they do not carry with them social disorder and every baleful influence. ”

“ The Christian work, lately introduced and already done among them, demonstrates that they are capable of a rapid and radical change, when once the vivifying touch of the gospel has reached their hearts. ”

“ Every such agency should be encouraged and promoted, except as other and better agencies are provided for the work. In particular, owing to the anomalous condition of the Indians and the fact that the Government is administering trust funds that belong to them, what is known as the "contract system"—by which the nation aids by appropriations private and missionary societies in the work of Indian education—ought to be maintained by a continuance of such aid, until the Government is prepared, with adequate buildings and competent teachers, to assume the entire work of secular education. ”

“ The churches through the National Council have asked us to keep abreast with the providence of God. "It is our duty," said the Ohio State Association, "to see that this great work in which we have borne so large and honorable a part, halt not, nor slacken in its energy because of our failure to keep its treasury replenished and its faithful laborers re-enforced and supported by our gifts and our prayers." ”

“ We are sent, not as philanthropists who hear the cry of the poor and needy, nor as patriots who realize the perils that overhang the State, but as missionaries of Jesus Christ who believe that salvation takes in the whole man, including philanthropy and statesmanship, and whatever builds up man for time and for eternity. ”

“ In a territory five hundred miles long, and more than two hundred miles broad—twice the size of all New England—are at least between three and four hundred counties with a population greater than that of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut combined, without schools worthy of the name, without Sunday-schools, without prayer meetings, without an educated, spiritual, or even moral ministry, without a weekly Sabbath religious service of any kind, or any of the institutions of the gospel which really elevate them. ”

“ In no case should the Government establish schools to compete with private or church schools which are already doing a good work, so long as there are thousands of Indian children for whose education no provision is made. ”

“ The Association provides also the entire teaching force at the Ramona Indian School at Santa Fé, New Mexico. To these Normal Schools, we may add the six normal departments in our colleges with their superior normal instruction. From nearly all of these, strong appeals for enlargement have come to meet the demands of a healthy growth. We have cut, trimmed and denied, with a resolution that has been painful both in the office and in the field, and yet the growth is upon us. Without pushing our work, it is pushing us. ”

“ There are now nearly eight millions of a Negro population, from four millions twenty years ago. There are more than two millions of mountain people in the South, one-half of whom cannot read. These benighted people live where there has never been a public-school system even for the more highly favored race, and where this more highly favored race deliberately assigns those who are not of its color to a permanent inferiority. The laws of caste are to be inflexibly enforced against all people of color who [pg 304] would rise from their low-down conditions. ”

“ At Los Angeles no less than 75 pupils [pg 313] were enrolled the first month, and at all these places Christian Associations have been formed.
A minister on the Pacific Coast not in connection with our schools, after giving a sketch of work accomplished which could not be tabulated, says: "Socially, intellectually, spiritually, the Chinese mission school does its beneficent work. But everything is made but the means to the spiritual end. The whole drift of the teaching, the songs, the pictures, the Scripture text, is to make known Christ. Every evening's lesson ends with worship. ”

“ Nearly a hundred men have been shot already in this one place, and the place itself is not more than six years old. Is it strange that these mountain people who have a glimpse of better things, are appealing to us every week of the year to plant institutions among them? [pg 311] Is it not the voice of Christ clearly commanding us to possess and subdue this land, and to transform it into a part of his peaceful and beneficent Kingdom, which shall join hands with us to pass on the torch of Christ to others yet in darkness? ”

“ These are in Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, Alabama, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas and South Dakota. Other States, also, not yet organized, are assisting in definite lines, as Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Our Bureau of Woman's Work has for many years proved its wisdom. The state of black womanhood and girlhood taken together is pitiful. The permanent and uplifting Christianization and civilization to be engrafted on the Negro race in this land, can come only as the womanhood of that people is imbued with right principles and led to right practices. ”

“ Instead of twenty Congregational churches among them, there is room for a thousand, and instead of nine Christian schools, if there were twenty-five normal schools, it would be only one to each hundred thousand people; and if there were a hundred common schools, there would be one to each three or four counties for models. There should be one good college. If there were Congregational churches in this region in the same proportion as in New England there would be a full thousand. If they were in the same proportion as Connecticut, there would be twelve hundred churches ”

“ They are close to the life of the churches. They are close to the first principles of human rights. They are questions that can have only one final solution, which may be so remote that fearful dangers will culminate in terrible disasters before the only remedy can do its work. ”

“ Sin must be left outside, but the sinner of every race and tribe was welcomed to all the privileges of this kingdom. We now see the wisdom and the divinity of our Lord's course.
Had these marveling disciples had their way, the sect of the Christians would have been added to the sects of the Herodians and the Sadducees, and been buried in the same grave centuries ago. The voice that talked with this Samaritan woman is heard round the globe now, and every century only adds greater authority to its divine utterance; and it is heard because it spoke with this despised Samaritan woman. ”

“ With our large corps of lady teachers, the Woman's Bureau, as an intermediary between the Woman's State Association and their sisters who are teaching in the field, and the women and girls to whom they are sent, has proved during the year its increasing efficiency. ”

“ Our survey takes in questions that are painful; disturbing questions that are not in the North, nor in the West. They are difficult to meet. They are near, and the troubles which the questions hold are near. They come close to the heart of Christianity. ”

“ Remember that it is our own country where, in twelve great States, like empires, forty per cent. of the population cannot read, where, to-day, three-fourths of the illiteracy of the whole nation exists; where the darkness is increasing more rapidly than it is being lighted up ”

“ The church at Pine Mountain is a year old; is already the center of four Sunday-schools, with an attendance of 415 children, only 10 of whom had ever been in a Sunday-school before.
Revivals of religious interest have been reported from our churches in Washington, Wilmington, Charleston, Talladega, Mobile, Athens, Marion, Selma, Birmingham and New Orleans. Those of the churches which are side by side with our educational institutions are most hopeful ”

“ The common schools, 35 in number, in eight different Southern States, are in the hands of faithful teachers.
There are six Chartered Institutions, behind which we have stood the year past.
TALLADEGA COLLEGE in Talladega, Ala., has had a year of exceptional interest. The college work is developing and the theological school was never better. The industrial departments in agriculture and the mechanic arts offer fine advantages. The institution increases in popular favor and is full of students. ”

“ The generous words of sympathy and confidence that have come to us of late, with noble gifts, large and small, repay the solicitude and incessant care. We thank God and his people, and hold firmly our faith in Him who said, "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." ”

“ THE GRAND VIEW ACADEMY in the Mountain region, has also increased its school accommodations, and the look forward is to a large institution with far-reaching influence in the valley of the Cumberland and on the plateau. If we are to hold this region, we must take possession now.
We have also reassumed charge of a school at Beaufort, N.C. The people are already appealing to us in the accents of their own sacrifices for its immediate enlargement. ”

“ Teachers were teaching, and pupils were studying, in conditions [pg 306] that none but missionary teachers would accept. For lack of room, industrial training has been impossible. The locality, meanwhile, has been surrounded by saloons, and houses that are worse. A benevolent lady who became acquainted with these facts offered $2,000 to purchase four acres of land for school and industrial purposes, and to give money sufficient for a new brick edifice with eight large school-rooms and all needful appointments and furnishings; the gift amounting to $15,000. ”

“ Much less money would be diverted from this authorized and recognized servant of the Congregational Churches, and far greater efficiency would be secured, if our friends would remember that their own ordained agency can open as many missions as they will make possible, which shall have, at least, one advantage over independent and unsupervised work, in that, through us, they shall be under your own constant Christian watch and care. ”

“ We have, in addition, 17 Chinese Schools on the Pacific Coast, with 39 teachers.
CHURCH WORK.
We turn now to our Church Work.
In every school we have an incipient church; in many of these are organized churches. From all of them there is a continual going forth of a predisposition towards Congregational Churches, which will make for churches in the future.
The statistics are as follows:
Four new Churches have been organized during the year. ”

“ But our Lord chose to sacrifice the temporary success of his kingdom that he might be true to the eternal principles of that kingdom; and so he talked with this sinful woman of this despised race just as considerately as with Nicodemus. He invited her to his discipleship just as cordially, and to the same discipleship. There is not a hint that the Good Shepherd built another fold for the Samaritan sheep, lest some of the Jewish flock should jump over the fence, if they were put into the same fold. ”

“ We are not building pauper institutions in this mountain country to be forever a dead weight for the Northern churches to carry, but institutions which will very speedily take care of themselves, and give to others as they have received. ”