The American Missionary -- Vol. 34, No. 3, March 1879

We have told our friends that for the last three months our receipts, in common with those of our sister societies, have been less than for the corresponding months of the preceding year. January did better, but we would still have had some anxieties if there had not come to us from an aged friend, who had given us no reason to expect so large an offering, a check for ten thousand dollars. The letter which accompanied the gift, referred to his observance of our efforts to reduce the debt and our success in that direction, but asking us to expend this money, the savings of a lifetime, in carrying on our work. It was a gift from the Lord by the hand of His servant, and again, as often before, we are called to make record of His faithfulness who has promised to help those who are in His work. Should not this generous gift strengthen our confidence that God has yet other treasures with which He will enable us to commend His love to the despised, and to preach His gospel to the poor?

We thank our friends for their noble efforts to conquer the Debt. As we feared, however, the help thus given has diminished the supplies for our regular and pressing work. We have wrought with only one hand on the work and with the other held a weapon. But now that the debt is well nigh vanquished, we must gird ourselves not merely to repair the neglected gaps, but to push forward along the whole length of the wall.

Relying upon the payment of the money pledged, our actual indebtedness is reduced to only $6,440. Against this amount our Executive Committee has set apart our remaining Iowa lands, which at a low valuation fully balance it, as a sinking fund, to be held for this purpose only. The debt is thus provided for, and we have no more pleas to urge for its extinction,—save as we suggest for this last time, there is a noble opportunity just now for some generous friend to step in and claim the honor of giving the finishing stroke to this Goliath, so setting free those lands again to aid our current work. We praise the Lord that we can now turn from this accomplished effort to other

The debt effort has enforced an economy in field work that has been rigid—nay, hindering. For example, one of our higher institutions has become so full that while it has accommodations for only 40 girls it has 60 in attendance, and one of the recitations must be held in a bed-room. Another instance is found in one of the brightest towns in Georgia, where we have planted a church and opened a school. The place is so near our Atlanta University that its pupils can readily supply it with both teaching and preaching force; but for the lack of a few hundred dollars to erect a cheap, and yet adequate building for school and church, both are hindered in growth and usefulness, and if the means be not soon furnished, might as well be abandoned.

Our industrial schools suffer for want of funds. The colored students are so poor that unless aid can in small amounts be furnished them, either by facilities for work or by help in money, many of them must abandon the effort for an education. These items as to school and church work are but samples of what come to us from all parts of the field. But there are other calls of special importance. No State in the South is growing more rapidly than Texas. A generous friend of the colored race has purchased an eligible lot of eight acres in Austin, Texas, and given it to us as the site of a colored institution. He and other friends have added gifts amounting to nearly $10,000, towards the erection of a substantial building. We shall begin the structure this spring, but will only enclose it, unless the means are furnished to complete it. We will make no debt. We hope—nay, we plead—that the money may be speedily forthcoming to finish this building and prepare it for immediate use.

The noble offer of Mr. Arthington, of Leeds, England, to which we call attention below, opens another avenue for the efforts of the Freedmen in the Evangelization of the land of their fathers. The proposed mission lies in tropical Africa, and is desolated by the slave trade. It thus appeals to our deepest sympathies as the life-long opponents of slavery, and to the millions from whom we shall select the missionaries who were themselves its victims.

In view of these facts, we press our appeal on the hearts of our friends. Let us go forward in the work so well begun, and let us enter the new fields opened to us in the providence of God. We ask not merely for special gifts for special objects, but also for the regular work so well in hand, and needing so greatly the means of enlargement.

The name of Robert Arthington, Esq., of Leeds, England, has already become familiar to all good people who are interested in the evangelization of “The Dark Continent.” His gift of £5,000 each to the Church Missionary Society and the London Missionary Society, of £1,000 to the (English) Baptist Missionary Society, and his offer last year of a similar amount to our own American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, all for the founding of new evangelizing agencies in Equatorial Africa, have been among the most marked events in the recent history of Christian giving. These various gifts and offers have all been parts in the prosecution of a wisely comprehensive plan, which his subjoined letter clearly sets forth, and in furthering which he has now come to our Association with an offer of three thousand pounds ($15,000), and a plan for our occupation of an important territory with an efficient mission.

The region which he carefully describes and commends to our care lies north and east of the Victoria Nyanza Mission of the Church Missionary Society; west and south of which lies the Tanganika Mission of the London Society; west of this the region which he has asked the American Board to occupy, and the Baptist Mission still further toward the western coast. These five divisions nearly cross the continent between 10 degrees north and 10 degrees south latitude. Of course they are large tracts, and only five starting points for evangelizing effort.

We have felt that there was a special claim on our Association, which has from its beginning been so intimately associated with the African race, and which has so long kept up its mission on the West Coast, to consider prayerfully and intelligently the proposal to enter into the far-reaching plans of this steward of the Lord. It is not a matter for hasty decision. The conditions which he imposes in regard to the liquidation of our debt we believe will be fully met before we can do more than consider and plan. The Executive Committee have appointed a sub-committee consisting of four of its members, with three of its officers, who will study into the matter with all care and report. The result of their investigations, with a map of the region, may be looked for in the April number of the Missionary, to which, in connection with the valuable letter of Mr. Arthington in this, we ask the careful attention of all who are interested in the evangelization of Equatorial Africa.

We print herewith a large portion of

Mr. Arthington’s Letter

In your thirtieth Annual Report, page 15, you indicate a desire, on the part of your Society, to enter on some suitable field for missionary enterprise in Eastern or Central Africa; and again, in the thirty-first Report, I find in the first pages of the volume a similar desire expressed for extension, so as to bring the African Continent within the range of the mighty power of the Gospel—Christ risen again, in all his reality set forth as the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.

If your Society can so enter into the scheme I am about to propose as to assure me that the debt of your treasury—see the 31st Report—is extinguished, and that your members adopt the proposal of it prayerfully in all faith, I am impressed that I should be glad in the Lord to offer to your Society towards the carrying it into execution the sum of three thousand pounds.

The unevangelized region of Africa to which I would call your earnest attention, and invite you to accept as a field for missionary labors (to be conducted with all energy in the Spirit—very judiciously fixing your positions for holding forth the word of Life so as to command the whole area, and diffuse throughout it the light of the Gospel—you and a great multitude of true believers continually standing on the watch-tower of the church and fervently praying, “Thy kingdom come!”) is situated and extends from the 10th parallel of north latitude to the point southwards where the 40th meridian crosses or cuts the river Jub (or Godschob), west to east from the right (east) bank of the White Nile to the said 40th meridian, and from the parallel of longitude of that point on the Jub southwards west and east from the White Nile to the right (west) bank of the Jub, down to the 3rd parallel of north latitude, and from the 3rd parallel of north latitude down to the 1st parallel of north latitude, west and east from the 35th meridian to the Jub. We thus avoid Somali Land, which is not at present eligible as a mission field. The territory south of the parallel 1 degree north latitude, it is hoped, some other society will evangelize. West of the 35th meridian, from 3 degrees north latitude and southwards, appears suitable for the Church Missionary Society of England, in connection with the Victoria Nyanza district.

The general object of this method of arrangement is to assign the whole of Africa, so far as not Mohammedanized, to different sections of the Christian church, that they may see that their several areas are evangelized. You would thus have a great and highly promising field for missionary labor, the most important and interesting people of which are: 1. The decayed Christian Remnants (remnants of the ancient Abyssinian church), Wolawo and Cambay, Muger and Gurague, and the places Euarea, Kaffa, Susa, Tuffti, Kullu and Doko. 2. The great and wide-spread Gallas tribes. 3. Dinkas. 4. The inhabitants of the Berri country. 5. The Latookas. 6. Fatiko and the Madi country.

The great interest and importance of the Christian Remnants and of the Gallas tribes is well known. The Berri people it is especially desirable should be early instructed in Christian truth. They are situated not very far to the east of Gondokoro, outside of the traders’ route. They have never been reported, I believe, but as a fine people comparatively, and are mentioned in Werne’s work, published many years ago.

The Latookas will appear interesting when we peruse Sir Samuel Baker’s account of them, and see “The Albert Nyanza,” 1866, vol. 1, pages 204-6, in which he writes: “One of the principal channels, if not the main stream of the river Sobat, is only 4 days’ march, or fifty miles, east of Latooka, and is known to the natives as the Chol.” See also, for accuracy of the places, Sir Samuel Baker’s “Ismailia,” the map. The east bank of that stream (the Chol) is occupied by the Gallas. The Gallas (in their attack on the Latookas) were invariably mounted on mules, &c., “the cavalry of the Akkara,” &c. In a note to me, dated August, 1878, Sir Samuel Baker says: “The Berri country has never been visited by Europeans; although it is not far from Gondokoro, it lies out of the way of traders’ routes. It would be comprised between north latitude 5 degrees 20 minutes and 6 degrees 50 minutes, and commences in east longitude about one degree east of Gondokoro, which is absolutely correct on the maps.” “Fatiko is a small district situated in 8 degrees north latitude, in the Madi country. You will find all places laid down with extreme accuracy in the maps in my last work, ‘Ismailia.’”

The linguistic aids for the evangelization of some of the tribes or populations—say Gallas, Dinkas, Christian Remnants, People of Euarea, Kaffa, Susa, &c.—already exist, I believe, in considerable degree.

The proffered gift, then, if accepted by you, should be regarded as a nucleus to which the Church of Christ around you shall pour its offerings, and I think that two thousand pounds of the amount should be specially applied towards the purchase and perpetual maintenance of two river steamers, one to navigate the Sobat and command the mission to the Dinkas—to such of the Gallas tribes as are their neighbors on the east, between them and Euarea—to the Gallas tribes on the Chol branch of the Sobat (east or right bank), and to the Latookas west or south-west (of the Chol), if accessible from that river; and the other steamer to navigate the Godschob (called the Jub at its mouth) and command the missions to the Christian Remnants, Wolawo, &c., and to the Gallas, who are to be found in large numbers in the country west of, and up to, the right or west bank of the Godschob. And it is understood that the people of the Berri country shall claim a place amongst your earliest evangelistic efforts. Fatiko, with the Madi country and Lake Samburu and population, are included in the area, but need not claim a first place in your labors. Possibly the Gallas on the upper course or waters of the Ozi—if geographers are right as to the position of the source of this river—may be reached from the Jub (Godschob) or from the Sobat. Your staff of missionaries for this work, so full of promise of great results, should be a well-chosen band, some of them men skilled in some of the arts, say two in the use of scientific instruments, and they should be most thoughtfully and prayerfully selected.

I ask that two or three of your very best and ablest men—men of large hearts, of enterprise and great faith, with several of the best maps before you—will study the description of the area I have delineated, and if it is not in any point perfectly clear, that you will at once ask for the missing details.

I really desire a thorough and permanent occupation of the field.

Yours most truly, in the Lord Jesus Christ,

It will be remembered that Rev. Floyd Snelson was compelled to return to this country, after a sojourn of about a year in our African mission, on account of the rapidly failing health of his wife. He has resumed the care of the Midway Church in Georgia, from the pastorate of which he was taken, against the wishes of his people, for the foreign work.

It was deemed necessary to make good the vacated place as soon as possible. In accordance with the expressed judgment of the missionaries on the field, the first want was of a man specially adapted to take charge of the saw-mill and other industrial interests at Avery Station, of which Mr. Jackson has had charge as well as of the church and school. Inquiries were instituted at once among our higher institutions for the right man, and we think we have found him.

Elmore L. Anthony was born a slave in Allen County, Kentucky, June 8th, 1848. Early in the progress of the war he ran away to join the Union army, but being rejected as a soldier on account of his youth, he returned to his old master, who was a stock trader, preferring, if he must be a servant to anybody, to serve him. In 1863 he left again, and soon after entered the regular army, where he served three years. He was promoted to be a sergeant, and while at Fort Duncan, in Texas, was detailed to be superintendent of laborers, having the oversight of over two hundred men. He says that he got on well in the army, simply because he was perfectly temperate and sober. He bears testimonials from his officers as to his moral character and faithfulness.

In 1870 he made his way to Berea, Ky., and entered the primary class. He has been there ever since, teaching during the last six years in his vacations; and was a member of the senior class when he came, at our call and by the advice and hearty commendation of the president and faculty of the college, to give himself to work in Africa. That he held, nearly from the beginning quite to the close of these years, the trusted position of janitor of the Ladies’ Hall, is no small evidence of the confidence which has been reposed in him. He is a man of stalwart frame, has been medically examined and pronounced perfect in health. He seems to us admirably adapted to the place as our “man of affairs,” competent at the same time to fill a gap in school as teacher when needed, and while not a preacher in any sense of the word, yet of such honest purpose to do good that he will be no less a missionary for that. He sailed the 13th of February via Liberia.

It was a happy thought on the part of somebody to prepare a Sunday-school Concert exercise, which should embody so much valuable information and afford so great pleasure and holy joy, as does that of the Jubilee Concert exercise, prepared by the Rev. G. D. Pike on substantially the same basis as that first introduced by Rev. A. E. Winship, of Massachusetts.

It was my good fortune on Sunday, January 12th, to participate in the exercises of a concert, conducted in accordance with this exceedingly well arranged programme, in the Sunday-school of the Congregational church at Stamford, Conn., Rev. G. B. Willcox, D. D., pastor. It was a glad day in that, to me, the most attractive of all New England villages. If any other town in the East can furnish a roll of better men, women and children than those who adorn the beautiful Christian homes of Stamford, then I want to go there and attend a Jubilee Concert exercise.

The preparation at Stamford was complete. All, from the excellent pastor up to the oldest deacon, and down to the youngest child, took part. The able and enthusiastic superintendent, Mr. Junius Smith, is a born missionary, and he led his Sunday-school host into the work with great earnestness. The church was filled at an early hour of the evening, and when the great throng sung that sweetest of all Jubilee Songs, and one which has stirred the hearts of the best people on two continents, “Steal away to Jesus,” that wonderful, weird, plaintive melody fell upon my ears with almost the effect with which the Jubilee Singers have a thousand times rendered it with their matchless voices and marvellous power. Hon. Oliver Hoyt, one of Connecticut’s wisest and best senators, impressively invoked the Divine blessing. The facts in relation to the organization, successful progress and grand achievements for the Master of the American Missionary Association were admirably brought out by the tersely-prepared exercises. The pastor, superintendent, teachers and scholars all had their part and did well. Rev. G. D. Pike, whose head and heart are crammed full of well-devised plans for the up-lifting of the Freedmen, and through the uplifted Freedmen of America the redemption of Africa, made one of his most forcible pleas in behalf of the Association. The writer of this imperfect sketch followed with an exhortation in his Methodist way. The collection was taken and a happy day closed.

The Sunday-school Jubilee Concert exercise, if generally used, will be instrumental in fixing facts in the minds of young and old. I bespeak for it the examination of Sunday-school superintendents, and I most heartily bespeak the generous consideration of all good people in behalf of the American Missionary Association.

PREACHED IN THE INTEREST OF THE A. M. A. TO THE 1ST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, JACKSONVILLE, ILL.,
BY THE PASTOR, REV. E. CORWIN, D. D., DEC. 22, 1878.

Joshua xii. 8: “In the mountains and in the valleys, and in the plains and in the springs, and in the wilderness and in the south country.”

We owe nobody an apology for following the example of the Great Teacher in the latitude and longitude he allowed to himself in the use of Old Testament texts. I honor by following a Divine example when I use this passage from Hebrew history as marvellously suggestive of our broader heritage and of our responsibilities as a people coming into fuller possession of a goodly land; in the mountains and valleys of the Atlantic and Pacific seaboard; in the vast plains of the interior; in the springs and great river sources of the lake region; in the wide reaches of wilderness, comparatively worthless but for their exhaustless resources of mineral wealth; and last, but not least, in the sunny south country.

If, with emotions of patriotic pride, Joshua, the great captain, could speak of the wide extent and the varied resources of that goodly land, into the possession of which he was leading the descendants of a whole nation of fugitive slaves, how much more, with devout gratitude and patriotic pride, may we dwell upon the wonderful resources and the wide reaches of a free empire in which there are forty million sovereigns, and on whose territory you might place, in patch-work, three hundred and twenty-eight states as large as Palestine, and have scraps enough left over to cover the two dwarf sisters of the Union—Delaware and Rhode Island! Corresponding most nearly in area with Maryland, five Palestines might find comfortable quarters in the single State of Illinois; yet so wonderful was the fertility of that land, now comparatively barren and desolate, that it at one time sustained a population so dense that if the vast territory of the United States were thus thickly settled, it should have not merely forty millions of inhabitants, but one thousand one hundred and forty millions. Who doubts that such a population might be sustained on the fat valleys of the interior and the plantations of the south country, even though the waste places of the wilderness were left out of the account as utterly unfit for the dwelling-places of men? And, as though this vast heritage of ours were not enough for a free and industrious people, God has over many portions of the land practically doubled its area; piling its resources of wealth layer upon layer; rivaling and redoubling the riches of the surface soil by the exhaustless stores of coal, iron and copper, lead, silver and gold, treasured up for the use of many generations; for there is the hiding of His power who is the bountiful God of Providence.

But my purpose is only so far to hint at the resources of this most favored of lands, as to make the marvellous facts a basis for the proposition that ability is one measure of our responsibility for the hearty and liberal doing of what we can for the highest development of this whole land. And let us never forget that a great, civilized and Christian State is made and measured, not by its physical resources merely, not by its accumulated material wealth, but chiefly by the mental and moral stature of its inhabitants. The best products and the richest resources of any State are in its crop of men. If these, even on a sterile soil and under frowning skies, are liberal, large-hearted, industrious, patriotic and pious, they make of the desert a paradise, and amid the clefts of the rocks there may be rootage for great ideas. If everywhere, for a single generation, such a populace could have and hold possession of this planet, the old alien orb would shine so that the shortest-sighted angel could see it without a telescope, and the inhabitants of other worlds might intelligently covet it as a dwelling-place for the society which it would afford. But wealth without good society is worthless. That city might be a hell upon earth in which there were no churches and schools, though every man had a gold mine in one corner of his cellar and a diamond mine in another. Mexico, with its mountains streaked with silver, has but few attractions as the family residence of a man who cares to live out more than half his days, or who esteems it no luxury to live among an ignorant, bigoted and revengeful people. California to-day, with all its discovered treasures, could not be so safe or so attractive a place of residence as it was before those discoveries, but for the better class of enterprising, intelligent, honest, law-abiding citizens, who have come into possession of that land. Nor are political institutions, however desirable, of much practical worth, except as they are worked by men of moral principle, not for the selfish advantage of the few, but for the protection and enriching of all.

In considering the claims of the American Missionary Association to our prayerful interest and our liberal benefactions, these preliminary thoughts have practical force as applied to moral science; for it is distinctively the aim of this Association to lift society as a whole by lifting at the lower stratum. Its work is confessedly not with the most promising material, out of which the most may be made in the shortest time, but with the most degraded, unpromising and despised of the outcast races. This is the great alchemist among our charities; seeking to transmute the baser metals into gold. For the transmuting of character the mission of Christ was a witness to the universe that the last might be first, and that the lowest might be lifted to the highest position of honor and glory, as the result of the Divine condescension, the deep down-reaching love of the Son of God. He came not to honor the lordly, but to lift up the lowly. For gaining influence and establishing his kingdom he sought out not the ruling classes; but, himself despised and rejected of men, he knew how to condescend to men of low estate. He dispensed his largest blessings to the despised and the outcasts, who, conscious of their vileness, felt their need of salvation. Not unfaithful to the self-satisfied Scribes and Pharisees, he came especially to seek and to save those who felt themselves to be lost sheep of the house of Israel. Read the record anew, with this thought in mind, and see if his special aim was not to seek and save the lost, in the sense of the despised and abandoned, who were, perhaps, without hope for themselves, and whose case might have been regarded as desperate by others.

We are not the true followers of Christ if we are wanting in the Christ-like spirit, and seek not to save the despised and outcast races who dwelt in the wilderness and in the south country. Do you tell me, as an excuse for neglecting them, that the Indians, instead of being the noble red men, such as the sickly sentimental fancy of the poet and the moralist too often paint them, are, for the most part, ignorant and vile, dirty and degraded, lazy, mean, treacherous and revengeful? My familiarity with the better class of frontiersmen prepares me candidly to admit it all as a statement of fact. But I draw from those facts a very different conclusion than that they are not worth saving. All the more do they need to be saved. I might, without encroaching upon the regions of romance, tell, by the hour, tales of horror, as they have been related to me by reliable witnesses, that would make the blood fairly curdle in your veins. And if I had the gift of eloquence I might so vividly depict those horrors that you would find yourselves, right here in the house of God, clenching your fist and threatening vengeance upon wretches so base, upon savages so merciless, upon mockeries of manhood so gross and beastly.

But let me remind you that an intelligent Indian might with more eloquent tongue inveigh against the crimes of those who profess to be better than savages. He might truthfully speak of the perfidy of those who break the faith of treaties almost before the ink is dry in which the plausible yet one-sided contract is written. He might with indignant sneer point to the great army of vagrants claiming better blood, as filthy and vile, as dangerous and degraded as the worst savages were ever charged with being. But in saying all this he has not made out his case. No criminal can make even a plausible defence in any court by the plea that he is no worse than the worst men he can find in society; though, somehow, quite respectable sinners do seem to gain some comfort from this sort of scavenger’s logic.

It is absurd to suppose that ignorant and brutal savages should be so much better than civilized men that there should not be found in every tribe, as there are with us in every community, a dangerous class, selfish enough to plunder and murder those who have never wronged them, and desperate enough to take any risk and to commit any crime. It were most surprising if it were not so. All the more, then, I insist upon their need of saving. With all the stronger emphasis I urge that this nation cannot afford, on its undefended borders, any more than it can afford in its strong centres of population and of well organized police, to be indifferent to the needless multiplying of such a class. Has our civilization much to boast of if it admits that there is no better way for forty millions of people to deal with four hundred thousand Indians than to exterminate them? If it were not true, as it is, that it costs more to kill them than to civilize, convert and by moral forces control them, what less than savages are we if we adopt the creed of the worst class of frontiersmen as the creed of the churches; that the best thing we can do with the savage is to kill him; and that there are no good Indians but dead ones?

Let us be intelligent enough to know, and candid enough to confess, that in estimating their possibilities of social, industrial and moral development, we have taken too much account of the exceptional cases in which they have made trouble, and not enough of the many tribes that, for long years, have lived in peace, grown thrifty, maintained self-control, cared for the education of their children, and honored their profession of religion. What this and kindred associations have successfully achieved among the Indians alone, entitles them to the gratitude of the nation, and the liberal support of all who have faith in the Christ-like work of saving the lost.

I have not time to speak at length of the work of the Association among the Asiatic immigrants upon the Pacific coast. Many of you know how honestly and earnestly I contend that in many respects this serf population that is sweeping in upon our Western border is a most undesirable element, morally, socially and politically. But by as much as they are, in the mass, vile and degraded, the worst sort of stuff out of which to make American citizens, by so much the more are we bound not to outdo them in violence that would dishonor a savage, and in intolerance and prejudice that is worse than heathenish. Here, too, the argument of this discourse finds its fullest illustration. It is the strongest proof of the bounty of our religion that its brightest trophies are secured and its grandest victories achieved upon the most hopeless fields, and in saving the very chief of sinners.

But the work of the Association among the Aborigines of the wilderness is as nothing to their more important mission, and their more signal success among the colored people of the south country. Here is a population vastly more numerous and more dangerous if left in ignorance; for, wisely or unwisely, they have been invested with the right, and in some places they freely exercise the power to vote. Admit, now, all that may be said of the utter unfitness of the great majority of them to exercise this privilege of freemen. Yet since, beyond recall, they have the right, and in some way must be counted as a very important factor in the forces that are to shape our destiny, we can no more afford to let them remain in ignorance, than we can afford to let the same class grow up in ignorance and vice among us, with so little sense of their responsibilities, and with so little self-respect as citizens, that they can be bought like cattle by the highest bidder. The more debased, indolent and ignorant they are, the greater the danger to our free institutions, and the stronger the motive for seeking to elevate, educate and save them. They constitute more than one-tenth of our population. If directly or indirectly we were accessory to the placing of so dangerous a weapon in their hands—a weapon, as respects their own interests, liable to kick back—we are bound to help fit them so to exercise the right that they shall not be the ignorant tools of corrupt and crafty men in either party as ignorant and unprincipled as themselves. This the A. M. A. is striving wisely to do in accord with the sentiments and sympathies of many of the former slave-owners, who in good faith accept the situation, and sincerely desire the temporal and spiritual well-being of the colored people.

But its highest aim and ours is such a spiritual elevation of the colored people as shall carry all the most salutary influences into their social, political and domestic life. Our honest and intelligent aim is to lift them out of their degradation by bringing them to Christ. Our work among them is with no sectarian, as it is with no partisan political purpose. We propose to help make them intelligent and worthy Christian people. There our responsibility ceases. As to parties and sects, they must learn wisely to choose for themselves.

Whatever the shading of their creed, we do care that they should be sincere in their love to God, close in their following of Christ, and honest in all their dealings with their fellow-men. We do care that their moral training shall be such that their religion shall mean not emotion merely, but character; not noise and bodily exercise, which profiteth little, but practical godliness, which leads one to earn an honest living for himself and his household, and suffers the neighbor’s chickens unmolested to roost low; not a religion of the lips and the tongue alone, but of the head and the heart controlling the life.

Nowhere is a mere profession of godliness of much account, if virtues tried and true are not the proofs of an intelligent love and a sincere devotion. No creed can be accepted as a substitute for character. Christ must be wrought into the life or we are not true Christians, and the more completely self-deceived we are, the greater will be our surprise, when, by and by, he who is infallible in his judgment shall say, “I never knew you.” The cross worn upon the neck, or perched upon the steeple-tops, or set up at every crossing, is at best a mocking reminder of our impiety; if ever so loudly we profess to be saints, and yet live as though our religion were a polite theory with which to compliment our Maker, and to befool our fellow men, and not a thing of practical worth, to help one stand fire in the conflicts of temptation and in the furnace of affliction. Such a genuine religion, warranted to keep in any climate, is wanted everywhere alike; in the East and the West, the North and the South country. The lofty and the lowly, the honored and the despised, the respectable and the degraded, we and everybody, need it. It is the only kind worth propagating. For it, and it alone, of all the world’s religions, has vital force and saving power enfolded in every root-fibre of doctrine, and in every seed-germ of truth.

Greenwood, S. C.—School fuller than ever before; boarding-school overcrowded. Mr. Backenstose is compelled to make arrangements in neighboring families for students.

Orangeburg, S. C.—“Our school has 196 pupils enrolled. We have a large normal class. Six are teachers now. We have some who have begun in music, and this week we have resolved to form a choir. Can you help us with a musical instrument? We greatly need one for the church. Our organ has been injured by taking it back and forth to church.”

Macon, Ga.—Pastor Lathrop has printed on his “Gospel Press,” (given him while a Home Missionary in Wisconsin by a lady at the East), a stirring pastoral address. It includes a warm greeting, notice of services and invitations thereto; also of the Lewis High School and the Sunday-school, enforced by appropriate Scripture. We quote one paragraph:

“No sectarian gospel will be taught from this pulpit. The pastor heartily believes, and endeavors to preach, the broad, liberal, helpful Gospel of ‘peace on earth, good-will toward men,’ through our Lord Jesus Christ. This gospel of the ‘Prince of Peace’ does not agree with quarreling among Christians, or strifes between churches. ‘If My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight,’ said the Master. Our great aim will be to show how this glorious gospel and this blessed Jesus will help every needy heart to bear all its burdens; how every soul may be freed from the bondage of sin, and filled with love, meekness, temperance, patience, purity, righteousness, and joy, ‘which the world knows not, neither can give nor take away.’”

Talladega, Ala.—Some recent conversions and cases of special interest in religious things are reported in the college. One student, at least, has declared his desire to go to Africa some day, if the Lord shall open the way.

Selma, Ala.—A happy work of grace is reported from the Burrell school, resulting in a considerable number of conversions.

—Senator Windom has introduced a bill providing for the colonization and distribution of the colored people of the Southern States in new States and Territories as they may select. Some interest and sympathy with the project has been expressed by prominent colored men, though we think the great majority of the most intelligent of them are persuaded that by patience and industry they can conquer peace and a place for themselves anywhere.

—Henry M. Stanley, the explorer, was present at the recent meeting of the Conference on the Civilization of Africa, and said that he would lead the Belgian Exploring Expedition, which is soon to start for Africa.

—The Board of Indian Commissioners held its regular yearly meeting for the preparation of its annual report in Washington last week. Besides the members of the Board there were representatives of the religious bodies interested in the management of Indian affairs through their missionary operations among the different tribes, and also because many of the Indian agents are appointed on their recommendation. From the tenth annual report of the Board to the President, it appears that more than one-half of the Indians have discarded the blanket and donned a civilized garb; that about one-half have moved out of their lodges and wigwams into houses, the number of which has increased nearly threefold in ten years; that the number of pupils in Indian schools has more than doubled; that nearly one-sixth of the Indian population can read; that the number of acres of land cultivated by the Indians is about five times as great as ten years ago; that the production of wheat has increased nearly fivefold, of oats and barley nearly fourfold, and of hay nearly ninefold; and that the Indians own about three times as many horses and mules, six times at many cattle, seven times as many swine and about seventy-five times as many sheep as they did ten years ago. The Board remarks: “This exhibit of results is certainly encouraging, and presents a strong argument against any radical change of policy.” The Conference urge three measures upon the President and Congress: 1. That courts of law be established on Indian reservations, with jurisdiction in all cases where both parties are Indians. 2. That common schools be provided for Indians the same as for white children, under some regular system. 3. That the homestead law be so modified that an Indian may select his homestead within the limits of the reservation to which he belongs.

—The joint committee, consisting of three Senators and five Representatives, to whom the question of the transfer of the Indians to the War Department was submitted, being equally divided, have made two reports. Congressional experts have been trying to decide which of the two should have precedence as a quasi majority report.

Senator McCreery and Representatives Scales, Hooker and Boone favor the transfer. Their report claims that the present system actually prevailed even before (in 1848) the Indians were given in care of the Interior Department, as the War Department neither appointed nor supervised the agents, but only received their reports. All past evils are therefore traceable to this system. The peace policy in 1868 was a confession of its failure. The army control will be better, because of the high character of army officers, and the system of accountability to which they are subject, because it will cost less money and avoid wars.

Senators Sanders and Oglesby, and Representatives Stewart and Van Voorhes report against the transfer, because of the abuses when the management was in the hands of the War Department down to 1849; because the Indians and the army officers agree in personally disliking the proposed transfer; because of the progress in civilization already made; on the ground of economy and appropriateness; and because not one-third of the Indians need military supervision in any form. They ascribe the failures of the past to the unwise recognition of the tribal relation, exclusion from the protection of civil law, and of landed rights. They recommend that the Indian Bureau be made a distinct department, with a Cabinet officer at its head, and that the President be authorized to transfer temporarily the control of hostile tribes.

The proposal to transfer was rejected by a vote of 101 to 88.

—The Committee on Education and Labor has introduced a bill, which has been passed in the House, forbidding the master of any vessel to bring more than fifteen Chinamen at any one time to the United States, under a penalty of $100 fine for each passenger, and imprisonment for six months. We hope the Senate will have the good sense to refuse its consent to such action, which is a slight upon the Chinese Embassy here, and may easily lead to a withdrawal of the privileges to American citizens in the Flowery Land, which it was thought worth a good deal of effort to obtain.

We print with great satisfaction the two following answers to the question about the training of nurses. The first tells what is being done in Le Moyne Institute; the second lays down foundation principles.

I note with interest the “query” in the January Missionary relative to the training of nurses. It is but one of many indications of a rapidly growing dissatisfaction with the present system of education in this country. More and more it is coming to be the feeling that education, in its true sense, is not designed, as has been thought in the past, to fit people for “higher positions,” but rather to fit them to make the most of life in the positions they do occupy, and which must, in any event, be filled by some one. To satisfy this most reasonable feeling, more of the things that pertain to practical life must be thought and talked and taught in our schools. It is no doubt a serious question as to how a safe transition can be made from the present highly artificial system to one that will have a more practical bearing on the every-day life of the masses. In this case advice of a similar nature to that which Horace Greeley gave about resumption will prove, at least, the most reasonable. The best and only way to make the change is to change.

But for the query. At Le Moyne School, where we have one almost continuous daily session from 9 A. M. to 3 P. M., at least an hour of this time each day must be given by the pupils to some branch of practical or industrial knowledge. We cannot wait for all the desired appliances in this work, or to have a beaten track pointed out to us. We are beginning with such appliances as are at hand, and we expect to learn from our own experience as well as from other sources; but at any rate in time to earn success.

In the direct line of training nurses, each girl in the school, sixteen years old or over, will devote the industrial hour, for two days in each week, to studies under this head, including special lessons in anatomy, physiology and hygiene. For the present, at least, no text-book is to be placed in the hands of the students. They are to gain their knowledge from lectures, which are to be followed by general and familiar conversation between instructor and pupils on the same subject. Each girl will be required to take notes of the lecture, and to write out what she can of the knowledge imparted. After a subject is completed, each member of the class is required to prepare an essay, putting in the best possible form her knowledge of the entire subject in all its bearings.

This is, in a general way, to effect the theoretical training. We hope to find opportunity to give members of the class at least a little practice: First, in their own homes or circle of friends; second, possibly in the woman’s ward of the city hospital, located near us; third, in private families desirous of forwarding our work; or fourth, among the destitute poor really in need of such services. Our work is to commence with the simpler and more commonly occurring complaints of this section, as colds, accidents that happen often, chills and fever, etc.

I should like to write more fully of our plans as they relate to other industrial matters, but space forbids. We are thoroughly convinced, however, that in this matter of practical teaching, something more effective than “tracts” is required to make sure of accomplishing any great amount of good. We must come to closer quarters in this struggle; it must be made a hand-to-hand conflict. Along our part of the line we should have no fears of success if we could have placed at our disposal the appliances really needed for the work. In the training of nurses, we need and must have a good manikin, a human skeleton, some forms or models of different organs of the human body, etc., etc. Who will come forward and help us to them?

A. J. Steele,           
Le Moyne Normal Institute, Memphis, Tenn.   

The treatment which preserves health is the best treatment for its recovery. We should lead our pupils to see that wholesome diet eaten at proper hours, and sufficient sleep taken at the time which God appointed for sleep, will impart more physical vigor than any other two agencies; and that a disregard for them is a fruitful source of much sickness, especially among colored people.

Sunlight and pure air are important factors in making the sick well, and keeping the well from being sick. The temperance pledge is also a cheap and safe medicine. A knowledge of the chemistry of food, of digestion, circulation and respiration is important, and may be taught to comparatively young pupils. Nature, like a sensible dame, resents an insult; and sickness is the punishment she imposes to avenge her injuries. Nor will punishment cease until reparation is made.

Amos W. Farnham,           
Avery Institute, Charleston, S. C.   

We are happy to make mention, which is all it would be proper for us to do in this place, of the book for boys written by Gen. O. O. Howard. Our friends are so largely his friends, that many of them will want to read “Donald’s School Days,” published by Lee & Shepard, of Boston.