Various

“ There is a large household to look after, and between times there must be flying visits to the distant kitchen to see that everything is going on right there. A watchful eye must look after the details of the dining room and see to the comfort of the whole household. Supplies must be ordered; bills must be paid; there are countless letters to write; there are sorrowful hearts to be comforted; wayward church members to look after; cold, dead prayer meetings to warm up; the Sunday-school to carry along; mother's meetings and children's meetings and missionary societies. ”

“ This is a wonderful showing for a race that has two hundred years of slavery and four thousand years of barbarism back of it; it needs no silent sympathy or patient waiting, when in twenty years it makes such a showing. American generosity has done for the South in twenty years what statesmanship has failed to do in over a century ”

“ The colored people are not very much in advance of what they were twenty years ago, but the sad part of it is, that the leaders are no better than the people. I think almost every minister about here uses whiskey and tobacco, as far as I can learn, and of course the members of the churches can see no harm in doing what their minister does. This is a sad picture, but it only shows the need of intelligent and consecrated leaders, such as the American Missionary Association is raising up for a people who have been led by those who are neither intelligent nor consecrated. ”

“ But yet the Bishop suggested and endorsed the plan for the separate education of colored students, for two reasons: (1) "The power of heredity is not to be overthrown in a day nor an hour... This subtle spirit [66] of caste is perhaps the demon hardest to cast out of the human spirit, the one that requires the most prayer and fasting, without which it will not go out," and (2) "It is certainly true that the colored men themselves do not want to go there. It is just as true that the white men do not want to have them there." ”

“ I think I am safe in saying that not a year, nor a month, has passed in which the school has not been markedly under the influence of the Spirit, giving guidance and instruction, and drawing, as with cords of love, many of our pupils to see in the religion of the cross a peace and joy to be found nowhere else. ”

“ Surely God is hastening the time when His will will be done in all parts of the earth, since the Chinese themselves have summoned their people to Christ. And now I respectfully and earnestly request of all the friends of the A.M.A., and even people of every name, race and creed of this Christian land of the United States, to follow the example of our Master who has given himself for us all, and we do ask for your prayers both for the Chinese in your country and in China. ”

“ But this is not all; not long ago the Congregational Association of Christian Chinese in California organized a missionary society to Southern China, from which part nearly all the Christian Chinese that are now in the United States have come, and this is the most important part of China in which to do the missionary work. There are now many native preachers and evangelists. This society proposes to buy property in China, for a headquarters must be established in some of the middle cities in the south of China, and then to sustain some of those native preachers and evangelists. ”

“ Here comes a gift of five dollars from an aged friend ninety-one years old! He has contributed to the A.M.A. every year for a generation. Who will step into the place of these grand veterans when they are called from the ranks? Such examples ought to thrill younger men and untie their purse strings.
At a recent visit to Wellesley College, the great company of students listened patiently more than an hour to the story of the "American Highlanders; where they are, who they are, and what the A.M.A. is doing for them." ”

“ Never since the days of reconstruction and of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, has the question of the equal suffrage of the races in the South awakened public attention as it does now. In many quarters, some of them very influential, the right of the Negro to a fair vote and a fair count is strenuously advocated. On the other hand, the supremacy of the whites as the ruling race in the South is set forth by leading Southern men more distinctly than ever before. ”

“ The Bishop of Kentucky, whose generous feelings toward the colored race we have had occasion to notice heretofore, quoted from another, and endorsed for himself, the declaration: "The white man is not fit to study for the ministry who is not ready to have his black brother sit by him in the class room," and he subsequently added: "I believe I can speak for my brothers, and I say out of my heart I would just as soon sit by the side of a black man if he were in the House of Bishops, as one of my white brothers." ”

“ The State had voted in February, by sixty thousand majority, to remain loyal to the Union. These Highlanders had sought to save their section of the State from rebellion, and to defend their cabin homes from outrage and butchery. In doing so, they had burned bridges, and for this the government at Richmond deliberately instructs its army officers to hold a mock trial, to hang, and to brutally expose the bodies of those who had been executed, so that surviving friends would have to look upon these sickening horrors! ”

“ The white people suffer more by the trickery and malfeasance by which they score victory than the colored people suffer. The supremacy of what, for convenience, is called Anglo-Saxon civilization, though there is little of the Anglo-Saxon manner or of civilization in the mode of securing it, must and will be maintained, but it can be maintained without sectional divisions in politics and without the maintenance of radical lines at elections."
As these old methods are beginning to find little favor with the South itself, a multitude of other schemes are brought to the front. ”

“ To this influence, the school owes all its success in every direction. For myself I can truly say that in the midst of the sorrow that has been my constant and only companion, besides my Saviour, the joy of this work and the consciousness of its acceptance with God have alone held me to the task laid upon me these years. ”

“ Good health, good training, good powers of discipline, a missionary spirit and a membership in some evangelical church, are the absolute essentials for all persons that we employ. We call for recruits, but we ask for only those that are well equipped, courageous and ready to endure hardness as good soldiers of Christ. ”

“ I myself have never before spent such a happy Christmas, because previously all my kind friends have always tried to make me happy, and this time I worked hard to make some one else happy, and I find that is the best kind of happiness. ”

“ If bishops and churches will only bring this demon of caste to Jesus, the work will be done.
The Bishop's second point, that the colored people desired the separation, was pointedly answered by Dr. Crummell (rector of St. Luke's Colored Church, Washington,) who was invited to speak on the subject. Dr. Crummell said: "I do not think that any man in this country has seen any statement by any number of black men or black students that they wanted to be by themselves. I do not think such an utterance can be found among the race. ”

“ Between thirty and forty of our scholars, including five of the seniors and nearly every pupil of the other higher classes, have learned the joy of Christian experience, and there are yet others to follow.
The night meetings at the church are very interesting and in them conversions are occurring in considerable numbers. The class work of the school has not been interrupted, as half-hour meetings only have been held, morning and noon. ”

“ Classes are sent from this room, and their recitation room is the teacher's kitchen and dining-room—not very pleasant for the teachers, but a necessity. The teacher of these classes is the Principal's daughter, who has been taken from her own school to aid in this emergency. In the other school-room, fitted for fifty-eight, there are eighty-six—not quite as many as in the other room, but what is wanting in numbers is made up in size. There are several men six feet tall, and one minister six and a half. In many instances, we are obliged to look up to our scholars. ”

“ It is with difficulty that some of our men, weighing two hundred, get into the seats in the school-room, but they bear the crowding and close packing with great patience. The small boarding-houses in the yard are as badly crowded as the school-rooms. In two small rooms, having two beds each, there are twelve young men, six in each. Here they cook for themselves, sleep and study [75] out of school hours. One can hardly find standing-room among the chairs, trunks, etc. Other rooms are crowded nearly as much. And still the scholars come. What shall we do with them? Our cry is more room. ”

“ At one of our schools, students had been learning the Beatitudes to recite at the table, and one Sunday they were asked to write the meaning in their own language. One wrote, "To be poor in spirit means weak but willing." Another, "Poor in spirit means that a person who has religion and don't make a great to-do over it, has as much as one who cuts up over theirs." ”

“ There are men, however, in the South, wise, conscientious and "to the manner born," who take entirely different views of this great problem. The Hon. J.L.M. Curry, once a General in the Confederate Army, subsequently the efficient Secretary of the Peabody Fund, more recently our Minister in [65] Spain, and now again at his post as Secretary of the Peabody Fund, utters himself in this forcible language:
"I want to say to you, in perfect frankness, that the man who thinks the Negro problem has been settled is either a fanatic or a fool. ”

“ During the past week, two members of the senior class, young men, professed their faith in Christ in the quiet prayer meeting of the school, as did also a young lady of a lower class, and now, this week, Brother Wharton is with us, and to-day, at the first meeting led by him in the school, sixteen of our students, three more of the senior class, quietly but hopefully profess to become followers of the Master, with scores more earnestly seeking to enter in. ”

“ The needy people for whom we labor have suffered such privations, and such absolute destitution of all adequate religious instruction, that we feel they are now entitled to as good as can be given them. ”

“ A sad-faced man wants to see the minister. We know his pitiful story and his errand before he speaks. A sick wife and six young children. The desperate daily fight with the hunger-wolf at the door, spite of the little lifts we try to give them. Now the wife is dead, and he comes to ask for money to buy a coffin and a place to lay her away. He has tried in vain elsewhere, so comes to us, and we cannot refuse. A few hours after, the pitiful [74] little procession passes by. The pine coffin in an old cart, the husband and children, the minister and a few friends, following on foot. ”

“ Yes! for slowly but surely this people is being lifted up to a higher life, and while we sometimes grow faint and heartsick and discouraged, still there are rifts in the clouds and bits of sunshine now and then to cheer our hearts, and someday we hope to hear the Master say, "Well done!" ”

“ People are not interested in what they know nothing of. Or, (2) there is a lack of preparation and purpose to make the meeting interesting on the part of those to whom the leader ought to look for help. ”

“ The decision reached by the Council was to erect, in connection with some of the colored universities in the South, a hall under Episcopal control for colored Episcopal students for the ministry, who should also attend the college classes in the University. So far as the principle is concerned, we regret this decision. How much better if the wealthy and intelligent Episcopal Church in this country had lent its vast influence in repudiating the spirit of caste by introducing colored theological students into its own excellent seminaries. ”

“ And to those who believe in Jesus Christ it is equally certain that nothing can be rightly settled that is not settled in harmony with the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. If there be a Divine Providence no good man need be afraid to do right to-day ”

“ We send no teachers to the field that are incompetent and without adequate experience. We do not believe that everybody is qualified to teach the Negroes, at least it is not fair to them, that we should employ those who cannot find occupation anywhere else. ”