Various

“ Going into the kitchen you will find a dozen or more girls, with bright and happy faces, doing the homely work of dish-washing and preparing the vegetables for dinner. In the laundry, you are greeted with as many more smiling faces, some singing, others telling funny stories, but all busy at their allotted work. The bell rings for school and you will see them flying from every direction, perhaps having taken a moment to smooth the hair, or arrange the dress. ”

“ Americans are much addicted to settling difficulties by compromises; but these compromises, in State and Church, especially in regard to slavery, have so often been the sacrifice of principle to expediency that the word has come to have a sinister meaning—implying such a sacrifice; and they have so often proved failures as to show them to be unwise, even as a matter of expediency.
A brief sketch of some of these past compromises, with their motives and failures, may throw some light upon the compromise proposed for the Congregational churches in Georgia. ”

“ No man can kill God's Word. It will live and his church will grow. We have tried to kill it in this village, but look at it now. It has taken hold of us, and we who have fought against it are now its followers. No man can kill God, because he alone is the creator of life, and it is only foolish to try to stand upon his word and keep it down. The Indian customs fall before the Word of God wherever the Bible has gone. ”

“ Their Christian faith is something wonderful. It has been my blessed privilege to be at the bedside of several young people as the death angel hovered near, and nowhere did I ever feel so near the pearly gates. ”

“ Perhaps, if I give you a glimpse into the home of one of our pupils, you can more easily understand what we have to work against among these people. In a miserable old hovel, of one small room, lives a family of eleven, [296] father, mother, five children, two pitiful little orphans, to whom the mother out of the kindness of her heart has given shelter, and a young man and a young woman as boarders. The mother toils hard each day to furnish bread for the little ones, and does what she can to keep her family respectable. ”

“ Our Sabbaths are not idle days either, for with Sunday-school, church service, and prayer meetings, our day is pretty well filled. Some of our girls are doing real missionary work by going out into the neighborhood, to relieve the sick, read to the old and infirm, and to carry food where it is needed. This they seem to enjoy, and it will, perhaps, prepare them for usefulness as they go out to work among their people. ”

“ If the Negro will take his place as an inferior, he and the white man can ride on the same seat in a buggy: if the white man will surrender his prejudice, the Race-Problem is settled. Which shall be surrendered—the manhood or the prejudice? The Congregational churches have no doubt on that question, and if we are to educate men in right principles we must stand firmly upon them ourselves. To begin with a compromise is to yield the very point at issue. ”

“ The great motive for these concessions was the desire for church enlargement. Slavery was a sin, but the slaveholder might not always be guilty, and if church unity and church extension were to be secured in the South, some concessions must be made. Then, too, there was undoubtedly the hope that concessions and fraternal intercourse in public assemblies and in Christian work would win the confidence of the [276] slaveholders, and perhaps prepare the way for the gradual removal of slavery; and above all there was the cogent plea that compromise or division was the only present choice. ”

“ Frivolity and silly nonsense are not the rule. Our boys and girls who go out to teach, carry a load of responsibility with them. Some of the parishes have been almost entirely transformed by their work. Three of our boys last summer built the school houses in which they taught, the people contributing time, lumber and money, and they are the only school houses in the State, outside of the large towns, that were built for, or are fit for, the purpose. ”

“ One poor woman told me she spent less than a dollar per week for provisions for a family of eight persons in order to save money to keep her children in school.
The oldest pupil in my school, a man over thirty years of age, said to me one day, "I wish I could have gone to school when I was young, for as a fellow grows older, his remembrance comes shorter." ”

“ This might be expected in the political world, but not in the Church where "all are one in Christ Jesus." And it would be a specially sad fact if the Church should be more tardy than the State in the recognition of the equal manhood of the two races.
One great effort in the present ecclesiastical struggle is to secure the reunion of the sundered Churches; and, as in the case of slavery, other issues have been waived or compromised, leaving race-prejudice as the real point in the contest. Great have been the endeavors for harmony. ”

“ Two or three young men go out to hold Sunday services in the country cabins, the Sunday-school is full and the older ones serve as teachers, for many children come in from surrounding fields, making a school of nearly one hundred teachers and pupils. The young people's society meeting each Sunday afternoon, and the prayer meetings on Sunday and Wednesday evenings are characterized by a quiet, earnest Christianity, that would do credit to any circle in our Northern States. ”

“ But already the old pleas for compromise are urged in its behalf:
1. It is said that this is a first step towards the ultimate—a bridge to facilitate a future coming together. But a bridge is not possible, nor if possible, necessary. There is no doubt that since the New Testament was written there have been great improvements in bridge building, both mechanical and theological; but between equal manhood on one side and race prejudice on the other, "there is a great gulf fixed," and no bridge can span the chasm. The Negro must surrender his manhood or the white man his prejudice. ”

“ The natives are having their big yearly meetings and lively times shouting and actually chasing each other in and around their log churches to pull them to the "mourner's bench," and, in their wild efforts, they upset stove pipes and benches. It is so much like a circus that everybody runs to the big meetings. ”

“ A sense of responsibility for their Christianization seems to have taken possession of the minds of the intelligent Christian people. One is impressed with the abundance of church buildings in these small white settlements. In one small village of perhaps five hundred people, I counted eight Protestant churches. With Christian churches so numerously planted as they are in these new Western States, we may hope for large help from them in the Indian work of the Association, before many years. ”

“ The above was the characteristic heading in a Dakota paper of an editorial notice of the closing exercises of their High School. Everything takes its color from the peculiar condition of society. A rubber overcoat is a "slicker," and a native pony is a "broncho." Not so inappropriate, either, is the term "The Round Up," for the closing exercises of a school year. It ought to be the round up, a complete circle or sphere of successful work and accomplishment, so far as that period of school-life is concerned. ”

“ Our school refuses none on account of age. Pupils are there, from the little three-year-old who attends the "Kinny-garten," as they call it, to those who are forty and fifty years old. I have been exceedingly interested in one woman who is now attending school in the primary room. She said to me: "I done sent my daughters through school and now I thought I would try and get a little education myself."
One of the good brothers well expressed this idea of sacrifice on the part of the parents for the education of their children when he said, "I only wants to be a stepping-stone for my children. ”

“ He has met many young people who are thirsting for books and school, has also found numbers who have struggled up through the darkness and have become teachers in their own neighborhood, "the blind leading the blind." Such almost invariably wish to come to our school and say they shall be here as soon as their schools close. Many are too poor to come. ”

“ Whoever will provide funds to meet the expenses of these neglected girls, and place them in our school and prepare them for the future duties of life, will be doing an angelic work, and in the end will do the greatest good that can be done to this people. ”

“ He is now ambitious to become a teacher. He will be ready for an out-station whenever you are able to build one. He says they have already asked him to come up on Oak Creek to teach them, and I gave him a Bible and hymn books and primer, and he goes about reading and singing and praying for Christ. May he be indeed the Walking Hunter, going about seeking souls. God be with him to the end.
Nearly all of our Indians signed the bill to open the reservation. John Grass took the lead. He is a very wise man, and a good one for an Indian who represents the wild Indians. ”

“ Another letter from a Chinese brother tells me, "My wife one time, with the Chinese women, keep Sabbath day. So I am very glad. When I was at home my wife say she too young to be Christian and afraid the people would make fun of her. I told a Chinese preacher's wife in China to try to get her. I hope she will be led the Christian way." ”

“ We are told that race prejudice is a fixed fact—that the Southern people will never yield, and that hence if we are to plant Congregational churches in the South at all, we must compromise. And once more we have with us the "practical men," who claim to take common sense views, and they urge us again to be content with the "half-loaf." ”

“ The boys—little fellows some of them only seventy-two inches tall in their bare feet—comprise the regular students in the industrial courses; the baker, the butcher or meat boy, the irrepressible John boy of all work about the kitchen; then the stock, the farm, the carpenter and blacksmith apprentices, together with several kept for general help, for work of an unusual magnitude was to be undertaken this vacation. ”

“ The public has been made aware through the press recently that the United States Government aids the Roman Catholics to support 2,098 Indian pupils and assists all Protestant denominations in the support of only 1,146 pupils. Why is this discrimination, and who is to blame for it? If the Roman Catholics give for plant, teachers' salaries, etc., an amount proportionately greater than that given by the Protestants, then the Protestants have themselves only to blame, and the difficulty can be remedied by their giving an equal amount. ”

“ It may be remarked in explanation of this somewhat singular toleration of Fung Jung's faith and conduct as a Christian, that he had been a merchant for two or three years before he returned, and in comparison with his relatives at home, and perhaps with the average of returning Chinese, was a prosperous and somewhat well-to-do man. And it is often remarked that if a son or a brother can get good luck in California he may have whatever religion he pleases. ”

“ About some of these women our brother knows something, and says: "One of the women was about sixty years of age. Her brother was a Christian and a preacher, and through her brother she gain to be a Christian. After this she encountered many trials, especially with her son's wife. Her son was in California, and his wife and two children lived with his mother. After she became a Christian both the children died. Their mother quarrel with her because she will not worship the idols. Then her brother, the preacher, died. ”

“ Every little while, some article giving ultra views of "The Problem," gets into the papers, sometimes painting a roseate-hued picture, and again some one, who does not find people of dusky hue all angels, writes that there is no hope; that all experiments leading to intellectual and especially to moral elevation are failures; and that she (as one wrote) is ready or almost ready, "to throw away the Bible and advise the negroes to be honestly heathen." ”

“ Presbyterian, "Man stealers: stealers of men are those who bring off slaves or freemen and keep, sell or buy them;" Baptist, "Slavery is a violent deprivation of the rights of nature;" Congregational, "Slavery is in every instance wrong, unrighteous, [275] oppressive, a great and crying sin, there being nothing equal to it on the face of the earth."
But there were slaveholders in the churches, and as population increased they became more numerous and naturally chafed under such denunciations. ”

“ Let me tell you of the general interest manifest in several of the counties west and north of us in attending this school. One of our students has visited many cabins over the mountains during his vacation, and finds school advantages very scarce and poor. He finds poverty and degradation, and ignorance of the world and of books. Some of the people are still using the old-time method of kindling their fires by flint and steel instead of matches. ”

“ Some stand firmly against all race distinctions, while others are disposed to compromise on a plan that keeps the two organizations in Georgia still separated by the color-line, but that provides for the appointment of a few delegates from each, to form a new body that shall have charge of the interests of the denomination and be represented in the National Council. ”

“ In connection also with the Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association, and by their invitation, there will be an all-day Mass Meeting of Women's Home Missionary Unions in the New England Church, Chicago, October 29th. Every State Union is urged to send representatives.
GLIMPSES FROM THE FIELD. SCHOOL LIFE.
I think you could not find a busier company of young people anywhere. As soon as one task is accomplished, another is ready to be taken up, and this goes on from early morn till time for retiring. ”