Various

“ The normal school is one of the best and most useful of the educational agencies at work in the South, but had dared to ignore the outrageous statute which makes it a crime for any school, public or private, to teach black and white scholars in the same building or have any white teachers to eat and sleep in the same house [pg 181] with their Negro pupils. If these discretionary rights are not guaranteed by our national Constitution to American citizens, then the professed abolition of slavery and of the color line in citizenship is a wretched farce. ”

“ Who can say that the colored people are incapable of fine feeling? This poor woman was certainly not so well provided with this world's goods that she had no use for money. On the contrary, she was a widow, with a family of five children that she had kept together and had sent to school at the cost of much sacrifice and years of hard work at the washtub. ”

“ They believe that in Christian education lies the only redemption from this condition for them and their race, through their children, who are enjoying privileges that were denied to them.
There are not more than a dozen individuals in the church who are earning a comfortable living. More than that number did so when times were better, but now there is not much for them to do except conduct [pg 186] very poor farms, on which they cannot earn enough to make themselves comfortable.
There have been very few years in the history of the church when it did not have a revival of religion. ”

“ Scores of such men and women are among the students in the schools for the colored people of the South. A mere common education will not disclose their uncommon powers; they need the test of the best. And somewhere, at several central points at least, provision should be made for the higher education of the talented tenth as well as ordinary education for the other nine.
The great need of the colored people of the South is wise leadership along all lines of development; men of large and comprehensive views acquired by contact and communion with the world's great thinkers ”

“ To me the South presents a touching but heroic picture as she struggles nobly, but somewhat uncertainly, toward the light, still the victim of her cavalier training, still held back by the poor black and the poor white, the products of her accursed institution. ”

“ Ah! many a feud has sunk forever, many an unpleasantness has been forgotten, many a half-ripe quarrel has been strangled, and many a friendship has been strengthened and ripened in these services of emotion and love, those hand-shakings of the Mountaineers. ”

“ The enactment, which we protest is in no just sense a law, forbids not only white and colored persons to be instructed within the same building at the same time, but it also forbids a white principal or matron or guardians of the school rooming or living within the same building where their pupils are.
This enactment against the personal rights of education in a private Christian school not supported or aided by the State, if sustained, would destroy nearly all of the institutions carried on by Northern benevolence in all of our Southern States. ”

“ Effort is made each year to have all the students converted. Of all the young people who have graduated here only two have left without being professing Christians.
The growth of the church has not been rapid, but steady. During the days of slavery the colored people were members of the churches to which their masters belonged. None of them belonged to Congregational churches, and so, when Congregationalism came to the South after the war, it was entirely new to the former slaves and to those who had been their masters. ”

“ The people have but very little money and are obliged to struggle long and hard to get a little place to call home, in many cases buying the lumber and hiring the carpenter on credit. This being the case, it takes them years and years to pay for the little homes. The homes vary from the fairly comfortable to the wretched. It is noticeable that those who have had the advantages of an education have better homes than those who have no education. ”

“ The people have had a heavy burden upon them during the hard times of these winter months when there is so little for them to do in the way of earning money. Of their little means they give freely and gladly. Many of them are paid for their work in provisions at the stores so that they do not receive much money. One poor woman said to me: "I can always give a little something because [pg 193] I get forty cents every week for my washing." She lives in a little log cabin, through the sides of which the wind often whistles, but every Sunday she gives something for the church of Christ. ”

“ The State of Florida not long ago took action which is a disgrace to itself and a blot on the fair fame of our republic. Let our people squarely face this issue. While we are protesting against the treatment of missionaries in Turkey and calling upon the Government to use all its power in their protection, Christian teachers widely known and honored in one of the great States of this republic are arrested simply because they presumed to instruct a few white children under the same roof with colored children. ”

“ On another page will be found a sketch by Pastor Snell of the church in Talladega, Ala.
THE TALENTED TENTH. In the discussion concerning Negro education we should not forget the talented tenth man. An ordinary education may answer for the nine men of mediocrity; but if this is all we offer the talented tenth man, we make a prodigious mistake. The tenth man, with superior natural endowments, symmetrically trained and highly developed, may become a mightier influence, a greater inspiration to others than all the other nine, or nine times nine like them. ”

“ Where the girls and young ladies are sure to be, there the boys and young men are apt to be; and so it comes that when the meeting, especially the "big meeting," is to be held, the people throng. And if you want to see a genuine democracy, untainted by any kind of aristocracy, you could not find it better illustrated than among the hills, [pg 187] at meeting time, in some log "church-house." No Sir Wonderful to claim best pew, no usher to give you the place he chooses. ”

“ Florida's disgraceful Sheats law, specially designed for the teachers and supporters of Orange Park Academy, has at last been put in force. The teachers of the Academy, the pastor of the church, and the parents of the white pupils have been arrested for violation of this law, which forbids any one to maintain or patronize a school in which white persons and Negroes shall be taught or boarded within the same building. ”

“ Not only have souls been converted, but the church has been edified. In the revival there were six hopeful conversions, and four joined our church, among them a very promising young man.
Our people are becoming more and more willing to divide their little mite with the church. They make a special effort once a month to help raise the pastor's salary by giving what they call a "surprise party," bringing packages of flour, sugar, coffee, meal, rice, fish, etc., for which I give them credit. Sometimes the unconverted are with them. ”

“ Our Christians are going from house to house to pray with the sick, and many of these people are being brought to Christ through this means. On communion Sunday we opened the folding doors and yet the church was so full that three of us sat down on the little platform behind the pulpit.
I forgot to tell you that aside from this $206 we raised $200 to build a chapel at One Bull's, where Elias was. The house is too little.
We are not "lazy, good-for-nothing Indians, fit only for the soldiers' target." ”

“ In a symmetrical course of study calculated to bring into exercise every mental faculty, somewhere, as by a touchstone, the particular aptitude of the pupil may be discovered, the secret springs of power be opened; and the man, having discovered himself, leaps forward to pre-eminence among his fellows. ”

“ Suspicion has given way to confidence, and I may even fire broadsides at the tobacco habit now, even if it hits home. They are a trying, promising, and loveable people. I admire those of my classmates who have heard the voice of God (not the prompting of inclination) calling them to remain in dear old hair-splitting New England ”

“ Without disparagement of faithful men of moderate abilities, it may be said that in all ages the mighty impulses that have propelled a people onward in their progressive career, have proceeded from a few gifted souls. ”

“ We continued our meetings after he left us, and our total number of conversions is twenty. Among the persons who have left the ways of sin and turned into the way of life are two very remarkable cases. A woman of about fifty years of age, a drunkard and one of the most profane women in our city, asked the people of God to pray for her. It seemed hard for her to understand the simple plan of salvation, and that the Lord Jesus would save her if she would believe. The evening after Mr. Wharton left she received the evidence of her conversion. ”

“ Yet another of the same family has been for several years a leader in Christian work among the Chinese in New York. The Christians in California and elsewhere belonging to this family have a little missionary work of their own among their relatives in China in addition to what they do through our Chinese Missionary Society. The work at Oroville is now in excellent hands. We have a good helper--intelligent, wise, steadfast--who almost wholly supports himself, drawing but five dollars per month from our treasury, and giving back a goodly portion of this. ”

“ There is neither stove nor grate in the house, but simply some rocks on each side of the open fireplace on which they lay the green wood, by which they sit and shiver while the cold winds blow through the cracks in the floor and sides of the house. ”

“ We are men and women struggling against clannishness and superstition--against evil without and within--reaching up to you who know the blessedness of the Light of the Gospel, asking you to reach down, down into our dark lives and lift us up. ”

“ Do not cut us down this spring. It will break our hearts with discouragement.
God help people to hear our prayer. We shake hands with God's people in the name of Jesus Christ our Saviour.
P.S.--Three of the people outside the church in this village have given me their names as candidates for church membership at the May communion.
Crow Agency, Montana.--The growth of the missionary work among the Indians at the Crow Agency, Montana, is very encouraging. Recent reports from this field bring information of large gatherings in the religious services, and in the church services and Sunday-school. ”

“ It is this talented tenth man of our colleges that in after years reflects more honor on his alma mater than the other nine; it is this tenth man that is the recognized leader in his profession and the leader of [pg 183] public opinion. ”

“ Here we see the enemy, and can strike directly at him, and one has some satisfaction in getting weary and sick at heart in fighting at great odds against a visible power instead of the more subtle powers "of the air." ”

“ Several of these women take the washing of families home and work very hard for a very little money with which to subsist their families, buy books, and pay tuition for their children in Talladega College.
There are about thirty-five members of the church who own their homes, and about eleven who rent the places where they live. Several of the homes owned by the members of the church are fairly comfortable for Southern homes, having from two to seven rooms. ”

“ If a sinner seeks to enter the Christian life, he comes, on invitation of the minister, to shake hands at the close of, or during, the service. And often service closes with an all-round-hand-shake. There is a song started, like "Say, Brother, will you meet me?" ”

“ We have established ourselves in the hearts of the people, I believe, and have the respect and co-operative interest of the best men in this and adjoining counties, so I hope for great things in the future if our friends in the North will only help us. ”

“ The powers of this talented tenth man are often latent; unsuspected by others and even by their possessor, and are evoked only under favorable conditions, sometimes comparatively late in the youthful period of life. ”

“ It would take the guardianship of manners and morals out of the hands of those who have planted and sustained the institutions until now, and who, in view of the millions yet uneducated and untrained, are now needed as much as ever. ”

“ We therefore urge our appeal with strong confidence that we shall not be felt to be intruders, but that we are simply trying to fulfill the duty imposed upon us in carrying the Gospel to the most needy and destitute in our land. ”

“ It is not surprising, therefore, that the National Council of Congregational Churches at Syracuse in October requested the Association to take this question to the highest courts, nor that the General Conference of the Methodist Church in Cleveland has just passed a resolution denouncing this iniquitous enactment, or that we are receiving constantly from our State and local associations assurances of sympathy and support in our contest against this reversion to barbarism. We quote a few of the opinions which have come under our observation. ”

“ But the ability of the churches to meet the demands of their varied mission work is not exhausted, and the spirit of consecration among the followers of Christ, even when self-denial must be practiced, has not reached its limit. ”