Various

“ To assert equality and brotherhood at the polls, to reaffirm it in a public school system, to reassert it by courts of law in the hotel and the railroad train, and then deny it in the church, would be indeed a singular incongruity, and would make the Nation more Christian than the church.
The principle, then, by which the color-line question is to be settled is very simple, though its application may in some cases present some difficulties. The whites and Negroes are not to be coerced or bribed into uniting in one and the same church organizations. ”

“ It is difficult to see with what consistency a Christian minister can preach on the parable of the Good Samaritan if his church refuses to recognize a Christian brother in one of another race because he belongs to another race. There is no reason for an attempt to corral all men of all races in one inclosure; but for any church, especially for a church of the Puritans, to enter upon missionary work in the South, and initiate it by refusing to admit to its fellowship a black man because he is black, is to apostatize from the faith in order to get a chance to preach the faith. ”

“ We are like the two American boys. One says to the other: "My father is a Christian; is your father a Christian?" The other boy replies, not wishing to be outdone, "Oh, yes, my father is a Christian, but he is not working much at it just now." That is about the way with this nation, nominally a Christian nation; we are not working much at it in the way we are treating the Indian, Chinese and colored man. We want the nation to act out the principles it believes in. ”

“ I never read any report of this, without feeling both humiliated and inspired. Humiliated, because I have regarded the field so unpromising; inspired, because such glimpses of gracious possibilities and achievements are caught. We have been so incredulous as to certain alien races, that we have only partially and feebly brought to bear upon them the saving influences of the Gospel. We are not, indeed, responsible for the presence of these Orientals in our land. Ours is a different responsibility; it is for their evangelization, now that they have been led to our shores. ”

“ In the animosities born of our commercial greed, we have acted as if our religion had made us neither in life nor doctrine better than they. Eager to send the Gospel to distant heathen, we have been reluctant to exemplify, and slow to practically apply, to the heathen in our midst the teaching of Christianity. Now has come a new era, and the evangelistic efforts among the Chinese are assuming greater proportions than ever, and are engirt with every sign of gracious success. We have yet to learn to respect the manhood in these emigrants from the great kingdom beyond the Pacific. ”

“ On you rests the obligation of becoming the conservative element in society. Confronting as they did a decadent civilization and a vanishing religious faith and a general heart-despair, they were to be the saviors of men. ”

“ It were far better that the Northern Church should not go with its missionary work into the South at all, than that it should go with a mission which strengthens the infidelity that denies that God made of one blood all the nations of the earth for to dwell together. ”

“ Some of the children were ragged and dirty, with faces unwashed, and hair uncombed, one little boy with both knees coming through his trousers, but their faces were, almost without exception, bright and intelligent, with the intelligence of childhood, which would inevitably change to the stolid indifference of ignorance, were it not for the influence which this Christian household among them may exert. ”

“ But it is not within their Christian liberty to refuse the fullest and most perfect Christian fellowship to each other. The doors of every Christian church must stand wide open to men of [191] every race and color. The only reason of exclusion must be in moral or spiritual character. And in the higher representative bodies these churches must be one. To organize, for example, in the State of Georgia two Congregational bodies, one white and the other colored, would be to organize a church to perpetuate divisions which the church should aim to obliterate. ”

“ Our general school work goes on like clock-work. The children and young people are growing in their power of concentration and self-control, and we feel greatly encouraged, as we look into the future for them, to hope that at no very distant day a well ordered home, where three meals a day shall be served in a refined, orderly manner, shall not be so rare a thing as it now is. ”

“ New facts regarding the people among whom we work are brought to us constantly. Yesterday four pupils entered school who were perfect wonders. The oldest of them is seventeen years of age, and the youngest perhaps ten. The oldest has been to church three times during her life, the others have never been. They have never been to Sabbath-school, and know nothing about Christ and God. They have never in their lives heard the word Bible. The oldest one has seen a preacher three times—the same man each time. ”

“ If the insignificant frame structures which are hidden among the trees, and only half supply the needs of the institution, could be exchanged for a good, roomy, handsome edifice, placed on the summit of the mountain, where it would be visible for miles along the line of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad, besides being a benefaction to the cause, it would be the best, cheapest and most attractive advertisement of our mountain work, conceivable. ”

“ We have only a few thousands of Chinese in our country, and whenever one of these becomes a Christian he is much like a Christian in apostolic days. He is raised above his former life, loses largely the sympathy of his own people, and is regarded as an apostate from his ancestral faith. It costs, therefore, a great deal to become a Christian under such circumstances, yet there are joyous, devoted Chinese Christians preaching, with signal power, the Gospel to their brethren, and living so as to be Christian luminaries among their idolatrous kindred. ”

“ Every two weeks, these pupils come in to give a report of their work. It is understood by them that it is a part of their duty to tell us just what work they do and how they do it. We supply them with reading matter for their pupils—especially are we careful to let them have Sunday-school books, etc. These pupils will be out of school three months, and will then return to their school work. Every one who is out is a Christian, and we feel that their influence for good is very great. ”

“ I was comfortable and happy, and as we stopped for lunch when we got hungry, I began to wonder where the hardships of my journey were coming in, but people who are never so happy as when they are uncomfortable, ought to get their just deserts. ”

“ It is time we rose above the mean political enmities which have embarrassed not a little this imperative evangelism. Our treatment of these people is but another chapter in our history on which other and larger hearted generations will look with shame and sorrow. ”

“ The responsibility is so great that it makes me tremble.
Many of our pupils have little or no religious training at home. We have a good many pupils whose parents are "Hard Shell Baptists," and do not allow them to go to Sabbath-school, and teach them not to pray for forgiveness of sins. A few afternoons ago, the pupils were all asked what they desired to be. One little boy raised his hand to say that he was going to be a "Hard Shell" minister, for they were already saved, and had no praying to do. This answer was a result of his training at home. ”

“ The membership of the church is less than forty, and yet it has raised one collection for the American Missionary Association amounting to twenty-four dollars!
These people have no pastor. They are dependent on the scattering ministrations of two or three of our overworked missionaries from other points, who have undertaken to supply them by turns. There are one hundred and fifty families in the community, fifty being colored, without pastoral training. I am assured that it would not be hard to raise money enough in the community to nearly, if not quite, support a minister. ”

“ Pope recently found a small Sunday-school battling against great odds. Intemperance and profanity were rife, and the demand for gospel labor was very urgent. Meetings were held with blessed results, so that shortly ago a church was organized, now one of the strongest in this region. One consecrated young man is at the bottom of the whole movement. Two years ago, he started a Sunday-school with no assistance. At first, he met his pupils in the colored people's meeting house, but was obliged to change after a time, because of the prejudices of color which started among the blacks! ”

“ The ticklish part of the report on co-operation was that, of course, on colored evangelization. Here the report first stated what had been the policy of the Southern Church for a separate Negro denomination, and then gave that of the Northern Church:
"The Northern Assembly, on the other hand, has pronounced itself as not in favor of setting off its colored members into a separate, independent organization; while by conceding the existing situation, it approves the policy of separate churches, presbyteries and synods, subject to the choice of the colored people themselves." ”

“ The preaching which appeals to the Anglo-Saxon race appears cold and unmeaning to the warm-blooded Negro; the preaching which arouses in him a real religious fervor appears to his cold-blooded neighbor imaginative, passionate, unintelligent. ”

“ In the State of Georgia, there has been for some time an Association of Congregational churches mainly composed of colored people, and largely under the fostering care of the American Missionary Association. A Congregational work has latterly been started among the whites under the fostering care of the American Home Missionary Society. And [190] recently a body of independent Methodists, really Congregational in the principles of their government, and having a considerable number of churches in Georgia, and some in other Southern States, has become also Congregational in name. ”

“ A professional gentleman in Andersonville operates five large plantations without any white overseer except himself, and is making money from the land. He states his principle to be: "I make a short, clear contract with the Negroes and do exactly what I promise, and I require the same execution of their side of the bargain. And I pay them just what I agree to pay them. [185] They work six days every week. I give them a chance to attend a funeral or church service if they keep up the work." ”

“ That this Society rejoices to learn that an effort is making to unite the Georgia Congregational Conference and the Georgia Congregational Association on principles of equal recognition and fellowship of all the churches of each body, and trust that such a union will be accomplished.
We are in full and hearty agreement with the general spirit of these utterances. In the hope that the churches of the Georgia Conference are in [182] accord with the principles of Congregationalism, which do not discriminate against men because of caste or color, we are prepared to welcome them heartily. ”

“ To go into the South to establish white churches from which, whether by a formal law or by an unwritten but self-enforcing edict, men are excluded because God made them black, is to deny one of the fundamental tenets of Christ: All ye are brethren. ”

“ I expect you to Christianize these representatives of the Orient, to convert them to the worship of the God of the Bible." In this expectation of the Master, lies at once our obligation and our privilege. Much is laid upon us, but the trust brings with it honor, and inspires to grandest service. ”

“ This is the principle which we need to apply to the emergencies in which we are called to act. We get from others what we tell them we expect. There is something in human nature that likes to be trusted with responsibility ”

“ We are more and more convinced that the home life of these people must be changed, if they are ever to be what we want them to be, and what, for the interests of our country and for the coming of Christ's kingdom on earth, they must be. ”

“ The out-station work among the Indians is a feature almost peculiar to the Indian Missions of the A.M.A. These stations are the picket-lines pushed forward into the Reservations beyond the line of established schools and missions. Each one consists of a cheap home connected sometimes with a cheap school-house, and these are occupied by one or two native Indian missionaries who teach and preach, and thus accomplish an immediate good and lay the foundation for the more permanent church and school. ”

“ Indeed, a volunteer commission of editors and managers had gone all through the South visiting the synods of the Northern Church where the Negroes were in the majority, persuading them that it would be better for them to go by themselves and [188] get their share of the honors. Not willing to be an obstacle, the Negroes had very generally yielded to the persuasions of their kind visitors.
But there were a number of earnest men who were not willing to yield the principle, and who would make a fight. ”