THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

DECEMBER, 1889.

VOL. XLIII. NO. 12



CONTENTS.

EDITORIAL.

OUR ANNUAL MEETING

FINANCIAL

THE DANIEL HAND FUND

THE LITERATURE OF THE MEETING

NOTICES FROM THE PRESS

THE "AMERICAN MISSIONARY"

BRIEF NOTES

ANNUAL MEETING.

PROCEEDINGS OF ANNUAL MEETING

SUMMARY OF TREASURER'S REPORT

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION—ITS PLACE AND WORK. BY SECRETARY STRIEBY

THE MISSIONARY VIEW OF THE SOUTHERN SITUATION. BY SECRETARY BEARD

REPORTS OF COMMITTEES

ADDRESSES ON THESE REPORTS, BY MESSRS. WRIGHT, WOODBURY, TAYLOR, HIATT, FISK, FOSTER, RIGGS, STIMSON, GOODWIN, AND SALISBURY

CLOSING ADDRESS BY REV. DR. TAYLOR

BUREAU OF WOMAN'S WORK.

REPORT OF SECRETARY

WOMAN'S STATE ORGANIZATIONS

RECEIPTS

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NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

Rooms, 56 Reade Street.

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Price, 50 Cents a Year, in Advance.

Entered at the Post Office at New York, N.Y., as second-class matter.

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American Missionary Association

PRESIDENT, Rev. WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D., LL.D., N.Y.

Vice-Presidents.

Rev. A.J.F. BEHRENDS, D.D., N.Y. Rev. F.A. NOBLE, D.D., Ill. Rev. ALEX. McKENZIE, D.D., Mass. Rev. D.O. MEARS, D.D., Mass. Rev. HENRY HOPKINS, D.D., Mo.

Corresponding Secretaries.

Rev. M.E. STRIEBY, D.D., 56 Reade Street, N.Y. Rev. A.F. BEARD, D.D., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.

Recording Secretary.

Rev. M.E. STRIEBY, D.D., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.

Treasurer. H.W. HUBBARD, Esq., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.

Auditors.

PETER McCARTEE. CHAS. P. PEIRCE.

Executive Committee.

JOHN H. WASHBURN, Chairman. ADDISON P. FOSTER, Secretary.

For Three Years.

S.B. HALLIDAY, SAMUEL HOLMES, SAMUEL S. MARPLES, CHARLES L. MEAD, ELBERT B. MONROE.

For Two Years.

J.E. RANKIN, WM. H. WARD, J.W. COOPER, JOHN H. WASHBURN, EDMUND L. CHAMPLIN.

For One Year.

LYMAN ABBOTT, CHAS. A. HULL, CLINTON B. FISK, ADDISON P. FOSTER, ALBERT J. LYMAN.

District Secretaries.

Rev. C.J. RYDER, 21 Cong'l House, Boston. Rev. J.E. ROY, D.D., 151 Washington Street, Chicago. Rev. C.W. HIATT, 64 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio.

Financial Secretary for Indian Missions.

Rev. CHAS. W. SHELTON.

Field Superintendent.

Rev. FRANK E. JENKINS.

Secretary of Woman's Bureau.

Miss D.E. EMERSON, 56 Reade St., N.Y.

COMMUNICATIONS

Relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to the Corresponding Secretaries; letters for "THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY," to the Editor, at the New York Office; letters relating to the finances, to the Treasurer.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

In drafts, checks, registered letters, or post-office orders, may be sent to H.W. Hubbard, Treasurer, 56 Reade Street, New York, or, when more convenient, to either of the Branch Offices, 21 Congregational House, Boston, Mass., or 151 Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. A payment of thirty dollars at one time constitutes a Life Member.

NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.—The date on the "address label" indicates the time to which the subscription is paid. Changes are made in date on ladle to the 10th of each month. If payment of subscription be made afterward, the change on the label will appear a month later. Please send early notice of change in post-office address, giving the former address and the new address, in order that our periodicals and occasional papers may be correctly mailed.

FORM OF A BEQUEST.

"I bequeath to my executor (or executors) the sum of —— dollars, in trust, to pay the same in —— days after my decease to the person who, when the same is payable, shall act as Treasurer of the 'American Missionary Association,' of New York City, to be applied, under the direction of the Executive Committee of the Association, to its charitable uses and purposes." The Will should be attested by three witnesses.

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THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

VOL. XLIII. DECEMBER, 1889. NO. 12

American Missionary Association.

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OUR ANNUAL MEETING.

We return from our Annual Meeting held in Chicago with a deep sense of gratitude to God and to the many friends who in various ways helped to make it one of the most pleasant and profitable of our anniversaries. We did not have the remarkable uplift of a munificent gift like that of Mr. Daniel Hand, which made our meeting at Providence so memorable, but we had, in the strength and appropriateness of the sermon, and in the ability of the addresses, papers and reports, that which will render this meeting a cheering landmark in our history.

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FINANCIAL.

$500,000 FOR 1889-90.

Our financial exhibit, with the able report upon it, was one of the encouraging features of our Annual Meeting. The report of the Treasurer announced the gratifying fact that the books closed with all obligations and indebtedness paid, and with a balance on hand of over $4,000. The able Finance Committee gave a careful examination of the Treasurer's books and papers, and made very commendatory report as to methods and accuracy.

The National Council, at its meeting in Worcester, recommended that the churches contribute to the Association for the coming year $500,000. The Finance Committee after careful examination of the needs of the work endorsed the recommendation of the Council, and the Association heartily adopted the report. This sum, therefore, is what, in the judgment of competent persons, is imperatively needed; and we, therefore, take pleasure in going before our constituents, appealing for that amount.

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THE DANIEL HAND FUND.

This noble gift, which awakened such enthusiasm at our annual meeting one year ago, came with its echo of work well done during the year—an echo which we trust will reverberate with steady force through all the years to come. In the Treasurer's report the figures were given as to the appropriations made from the income of this Fund during the year; in the General Survey cheering statements were made as to the many pupils it had stimulated to industry and education, and the buildings it had erected; and in several of the papers and addresses, grateful mention was made of the benefits conferred by it. We trust that other large givers may be stimulated to follow in the footsteps of one who has so wisely invested his money for the uplifting of the most needy in our land.

A recent letter from Mr. Hand shows his deep solicitude that his gift shall be used for the highest moral and religious purposes. He says: "I have feared that the teachers might be more concerned for letters than for morals. My bequest was given to you chiefly as a religious society. Religion is the first, chiefest and best of it all."

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THE LITERATURE OF THE MEETING.

This presents a genuine case of the embarrassment of riches. We never had better. We wish all our friends might have the opportunity for the careful study of it, for it is worth their time and attention.

Full reports of the proceedings were made daily in the Chicago Inter Ocean. They were all gathered into a supplement, and have already been widely scattered. Some copies are still on hand at our offices in New York, Boston, Cleveland and Chicago, and can be had on application.

The annual sermon, as usual, will be printed with the Annual Report. This number of the MISSIONARY (an enlarged number) will contain the Minutes and the official papers, including reports and the speeches upon them, (the latter necessarily somewhat abridged) Secretaries' papers, and the closing address of Rev. Dr. Taylor. Other papers and addresses, including the Representative Addresses, will be published hereafter as far as practicable in subsequent numbers of the MISSIONARY or in some other form.

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NOTICES FROM THE PRESS.

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FROM THE ADVANCE.

No meeting of the American Missionary Association has ever been better than this last one. Dr. William M. Taylor, who with such consummate felicity combines so many of the best characteristics of the Scotch, the English and the Yankee, presided. The topics of the several papers and addresses, though covering a large range of thought all converged to the same main point, and were especially pertinent to the hour. Those who had been invited to prepare papers showed, by the manifest pains they took with them, their sense of the importance of the occasion. They brought the results of their best and most earnest thinking. And it is rare that such speakers are confronted by a more earnest, intelligent and sympathetic audience.

The meeting was a good one in every respect; it is not easy to overestimate either its delightfulness or its moral power. It is not possible for a great society to place before itself a more eminently Christlike purpose. It has been greatly honored of God in its results thus far. And no decently intelligent history of America will ever fail to note the vital and decisively critical part which, in the Providence that overrules all history, has been given to this so timely and so sagaciously Christian organization to take in preparing the various despised races of America for good citizenship in our common country, so that Negro, Indian, Chinaman and whatever other race representatives are among us may sing in glorious unison: "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty!"

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FROM THE CONGREGATIONALIST.

The Annual Meeting in Chicago was remarkable in many respects. All the sessions were good. There was no talking against time. There were no displays of eloquence. No one spoke for effect. The ruling desire seemed to be to get at the facts, and to learn the lessons which they teach.

Subjects were carefully grouped together, so that at the close of the meeting one felt that the fourfold character of the work of the Association had been fully and intelligently presented. Speeches were almost entirely by those whose names were on the programme, and who, therefore, had given time and thought to the matters on which they had been invited to enlighten others. Every one came with the idea that he might speak, that he had the liberty of the floor, and yet few cared to use this liberty. Debate is good, but on matters which concern the treatment of more than ten millions of people—eight of Negroes, two of mountain whites, besides Indians and Chinese—extempore addresses are not the best use of time. As a result of this preparation, Wednesday, the day when most of the papers were read, will compare favorably with the best days of the American Board. The ability of the younger men in our denomination was conspicuous. None of our great benevolent enterprises will suffer in their hands.

While there was great seriousness, there was also evident hopefulness, and an unshaken confidence in the power of the gospel to remove all the difficulties in the race problem, the Indian and the Chinese questions, and in the treatment of the Mountain Whites. While a unit in sentiment as to the importance of the school, the convention seemed to be equally a unit as to the importance of making it a missionary school, and of keeping it in closest union with the church. The conviction seemed to prevail that to separate the one from the other would, in the highest degree, be unfortunate. It was evident, furthermore, that the work of the Association has only just begun, that no backward step can be taken, and that the churches ought to give larger sums for the support of the Association year by year. It deserves, and will reward, their confidence and generosity.

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FROM THE CHRISTIAN UNION.

The Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association, held in Chicago last week, and of which a full account will be found elsewhere, brought out anew the directness and energy with which this society is bringing its aid to the solution of some of the most immediate and perplexing problems in this country. The Negro, the Indian and the Chinese are the especial objects of its care, and it has rendered immense service to these races in this country, not only by its direct answer to the appeal for help which comes, consciously or unconsciously, from all of them, but by its educational influence upon the country at large. The importance of the race question in the South cannot be overstated, and it is a question the very gravity of which makes all partisanship on either side the gravest offense against the welfare of the country. The American Missionary Association, planting itself resolutely on the principle of equal justice to all races on our continent, and holding firmly to the method of Christian education, holds distinct leadership in the only direction which can bring permanent peace and safety. There is no missionary work in the world so urgent and so important as that among the Negroes of the South. It is not often that the work of a great Association is so plainly marked, commends itself so thoroughly to the support of the country, and converges so directly upon those things which are most urgent in their demand upon the best thought of the best citizens, as the work of the American Missionary Association.

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FROM THE INDEPENDENT.

The meeting of the American Missionary Association in Chicago had no debated question to excite difference. All agree that the meeting was one of the most earnest and effective in the history of the Association. Beginning with the opening sermon of Dr. Meredith, and closing with the address of Dr. Taylor, all the reports and addresses were thoughtful and pertinent. Some of the papers on special topics were of a very high order, and it may not be invidious to name the remarkable paper by Colonel Keating, of Memphis, Tenn., which places him alongside of Drs. Curry and Haygood among the leaders of thought in creating the true New South.

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FROM THE HARTFORD COURANT.

No society in all this country of societies is doing nobler or more useful work than the one which has been holding its yearly meeting this week in the city of Chicago; none more thoroughly deserves the favor and sympathy (expressing itself in dollars) of the public.

Look at a few eloquent figures. This American Missionary Association, not yet fifty years old, has one hundred and thirteen missionaries at work among the Negroes, the sadly neglected white mountaineers and the newly arrived immigrants in the Southern States. It has established and maintains there one hundred and thirty-six churches; also five chartered institutions of learning, eighteen normal and graded schools, and thirty-seven common schools, served by two hundred and sixty instructors. Among the Indians it has half a dozen churches and three times that number of schools, sixty-eight missionaries and teachers; among the Chinese in this country, sixteen schools, thirty-five missionaries and teachers. Its expenditures during the year footed up a little over $366,000—a little over a thousand dollars a day. What a work these figures represent, not merely for the Christian religion, but for civilization, for morals, for good citizenship!

The American Missionary Association ought to have at least half a million dollars to work with, this year, and Hartford should show well up toward the top in the list of contributors.

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"THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY."

The rich treat which this number of the MISSIONARY presents may well suggest the privilege and duty not only of reading, but also of circulating it. Let each reader possess himself of these important facts and figures—these broad views as to the great work laid on the hearts of American patriots and Christians—and then hand the magazine to some neighbor. Let us suggest farther, that the MISSIONARY, in its monthly issues, is full of the same sort of facts and thoughts, and should be more widely read—it should have a larger list of paying subscribers. Please read the subjoined letter from a converted Chinaman and then "go and do thou likewise."

LOS ANGELES, CAL., Sept. 25, 1889.

Dear American Missionary:

I am sorry to say that I have utterly forgotten to pay you for the American Missionary for the year 1889. Now I beg your pardon for that. You know I have used to send the money through our pastor Dr. Pond, but since I had left San Francisco visiting missions in different towns and cities and therefore the American Missionary did not reached me while I am away from Los Angeles, so my attention of paying for it was dropped from that point. Now I sent you one dollars including a new subscriber, our brother Jue King. While I am writing this note another brother came in who wish to get one also, and therefore have to send you $1.50, one dollar & 50 cents. This brother name Leung Chow, Los Angeles. Address Jue King's to the same P.O. Box as mine and oblige. God bless the American Missionary.

Respectfully yours,

LOO QUONG.

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BRIEF NOTES.

REV. C.J. RYDER, DISTRICT SECRETARY.

A little swarm of "Busy Bees," in Dover, N.H., have been making honey for the needy children in one of the missions of our Association. Their gift, amounting to sixty-five dollars, has been used to furnish a Reference Library for the school at Wilmington, N.C. Special rates were kindly given us on books by the Congregational Sunday-school and Publishing Society and other firms in Boston, so that this sixty-five dollars furnished a number of very useful books. Have not these "Busy Bees" in New Hampshire set a good example to other children's societies?

Speaking of the Sunday-school and Publishing Society reminds me of two things. The first is the kindly interest and generous help of that society in the work being done by the Association in various fields. Literature is abundantly supplied from their press, and in some instances they have sent colporteurs and missionaries into the various fields, who do a grand good work.

The other thing suggested by reference to this society is a queer contribution which was brought in to Mr. Hall, a missionary of the Association at Fort Berthold, Dakota. I chanced to be there when it was brought in. Mr. Hall had told the Indian boys and girls of the useful work done by the Sunday-school and Publishing Society in different parts of the land. It has always been the policy of the Association, as our friends know, to present the other Congregational Societies in our missions, and distribute the small gifts which it is possible for these poor people to give, among the different societies and not absorb it all in the Association. These Indian boys had not money to give to the Sunday-school Society, but they saw a premium offered for killing gophers. They are a mischievous little animal, devouring a large amount of wheat, corn and other grain every year. The farmers pay two cents for each dead gopher. The proof that the gopher has been killed is his tail. Now these little Indian boys had been so interested in the story told of the work being done by the Sunday-school Society, that they spent their Saturday afternoon holiday snaring gophers. They brought the tails in the envelopes of the society, as their contribution. I took some of the envelopes, paying two cents apiece for each tail and brought them East with me. On one envelope I found the following: "Richard Fox, one tail." What could be more appropriate!

* * * * *

Another of our District Secretaries not long since took a cup of coffee at a lunch counter kept by a colored man in Northern Ohio. After paying, he spoke of the work of the American Missionary Association. The colored man's face lit up at once.

"Are you in that work?"

"Yes, I am."

"Take back that fifteen cents, sir."

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FORTY-THIRD ANNUAL MEETING

OF THE

American Missionary Association.

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The Forty-third Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association convened in the New England Congregational Church of Chicago, Ill., on Tuesday, October 29, 1889, at 3 o'clock P.M.

The Association was called to order by the President, Rev. William M. Taylor, D.D. The hymn, "I love thy kingdom, Lord," was sung, after which the President read the thirty-fifth chapter of Isaiah and led the Association in prayer.

Dr. Norman Seaver, supplying temporarily the pulpit of the New England Church, welcomed the Association, and was responded to by Dr. Taylor.

Rev. N.A. Millerd and Rev. E.N. Andrews were appointed tellers, and while the roll was being made out, Secretary A.F. Beard read the portion of the Constitution relating to membership in the Association. Rev. J.C. Armstrong, of Illinois, was elected Secretary, and Rev. E.S. Williams, of Minnesota, Assistant Secretary.

The President was instructed to appoint a Nominating Committee.

The Treasurer, H.W. Hubbard, Esq., presented his annual report with schedules and the certificates of the auditors. The report was accepted and referred to the Committee on Finance.

Field Superintendent Rev. Frank E. Jenkins read the General Survey of the Executive Committee. The document was accepted and the parts were referred to the special committees to be appointed.

The President appointed the Nominating Committee as follows: Rev. G.S.F. Savage, D.D., Rev. H.P. Higley, D.D., Rev. A.W. Archibald, Rev. A.B. Allen and Rev. A.C. Hodges.

The Association was led by Secretary Strieby in a concert of prayer with the workers in the field, Rev. Flavel Bascom, D.D., District Secretary Roy and many others participating, by remarks or prayers, in the exercises.

The Nominating Committee reported the following committees, which were appointed:

Committee on Business.—Rev. G.H. Ide, D.D., Rev. C.R. Bruce, Rev. M.W. Montgomery, Rev. D.P. Breed, Rev. E.M. Williams.

Committee on Finance.—F.J. Lamb, Esq., J.H. Moore, Esq., Pres. David Beaton, Pres. Albert Salisbury and Rev. W.S. Rugby.

Committee of Arrangements.—Rev. Norman Seaver, D.D., Wm. Dickinson, Esq., Wm. H. Bradley, Esq., O.B. Green, Esq., Rev. F.A. Noble, D.D., J.H. Hollister, M.D., District Secretary J.E. Roy.

EVENING SESSION.

The exercises Tuesday evening opened with a selection by the quartette choir of the New England Church.

The Association was called to order by President Taylor, and Rev. W.B. Wright, D.D., read the Scripture and led in prayer. "Watchman, tell us of the night," was then sung, after which Rev. R.R. Meredith, of New York, preached the Annual Sermon, from Isaiah xlii, 1-4.

The sermon was followed by the administration of the Lord's Supper. The following named persons officiated at the service: Ministers: Rev. H.P. Higley, D.D., Rev. Graham Taylor, D.D. Deacons: S.D. Hastings, W.H. Bradley, Wm. Dickinson, C.F. Gates, H.W. Hubbard and Chauncey Collom.

At the close of the communion service, adjournment was taken to Wednesday at 8 A.M.

The benediction was pronounced by President Taylor.

WEDNESDAY MORNING.

The prayer-meeting from 8 to 9 o'clock was led by President E.D. Eaton. At 9 o'clock, President Eaton was called to the chair temporarily, and was succeeded by the Vice-President of the Association, Rev. F.A. Noble, D.D.

The minutes of the previous day were read and approved.

The President, Dr. Taylor, then resumed the chair.

The Nominating Committee reported the following special committees, who were appointed:

Committee on the Chinese.—Rev. H.A. Stimson, D.D., Rev. E.P. Goodwin, D.D., Rev. Wm. Walker, Rev. J.G. Aikman, D.J. Pike, Esq.

Committee on the Indians.—Rev. A.P. Foster, D.D., Gen. C.H. Howard, Rev. Clinton Douglass, Rev. C.V. Spear.

Committee on Educational Work.—Rev. W.B. Wright, D.D., Rev. F.P. Woodbury, D.D., Rev. Amos Dresser, Rev. H.M. Tupper, Rev. F.A. Ragland.

Committee on Church Work.—Rev. Graham Taylor, D.D., Rev. Warren F. Day, Rev. L.B. Maxwell, S.D. Hastings, Esq., O. Davidson, Esq.

Committee on Mountain Work.—Rev. D.M. Fisk, D.D., Rev. S.E. Lathrop, Rev. S.A. Norton, Rev. E.P. South, Rev. W.E. Barton, Robert F. Wheeler, Esq.

A paper on "The American Missionary Association, its Place and Work," was read by Secretary M.E. Strieby, and referred to a committee to be appointed.

Following this, Secretary A.F. Beard read a paper on "The Missionary View of the Southern Situation," which was referred also to a committee to be appointed.

The report of the Committee on the Chinese Work was presented by Rev. Henry A. Stimson, D.D. and accepted, and an address was made by Rev. E. P. Goodwin, D.D.

The Nominating Committee nominated the following special committees, who were appointed:

Committee on Secretary Strieby's Paper.—Prof. G.B. Willcox, D.D., Rev. J.F. Dudley, D.D., Rev. E.D. Hill, D.D., Rev. Flavel Bascom, D.D., Rev. C.W. Camp, Rev. W.L. Tenney, Rev. J.E. Snowden.

Committee on Secretary Beard's Paper.—Rev. H.M. Tenney, D.D., Rev. C.O. Brown, D.D., Rev. E.M. Williams, Rev. E.F. Williams, D.D., Rev. Calvin Keyser, Deacon G.N. Palmer.

Right Rev. H.B. Whipple, of Minnesota, then addressed the Association on "The Future of the Indian in our Country."

After which, remarks were made on the Chinese question by Dr. H.A. Stimson and Rev. M.F. Sargent.

After announcements of committees and programme for the afternoon, President Taylor pronounced the benediction, and recess was taken until 2 o'clock P.M.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON.

The Association was called to order by Vice-President Noble. "Saviour, visit thy plantation," was sung, after which Dr. Noble conducted the devotional exercises for a half hour.

A paper on "The Future of the Negro in our Country," was read by Rev. C.H. Richards, D.D., of Wisconsin, and referred to the Executive Committee with power to publish.

Rev. C.F. Thwing, D.D., unable to be present as announced, forwarded his address for the use of the Secretaries of the Association.

Rev. A.P. Foster, D.D., presented the report of the Committee on the Indian Work.

Addresses were then made by Rev. T.L. Riggs, of Oahe, and Rev. C.W. Shelton, Financial Secretary for Indian Missions.

After singing, "Sow in the morn thy seed," the Association was addressed by Rev. W.B. Wright, D.D., on the Educational Work, presenting the report of the committee and speaking in its behalf. Rev. F.P. Woodbury, D.D., spoke also on the same topic.

After announcements, Dr. Noble pronounced the benediction, and the Association took a recess until 7:30 P.M.

WEDNESDAY EVENING.

The Association was called to order by Secretary Strieby, who invited E.W. Blatchford, Esq., of Illinois, to preside during the evening in the absence of President Taylor. Professor G.B. Willcox led the Association in prayer.

On being introduced by Secretary Strieby as representing the American Board, Mr. Blatchford said:

"I have no authority from the American Board to convey to you any special message; and yet I know that they will be glad to have me express to you their sentiments of sympathy with you in your work. The work is one. In carrying forward the work of the American Board and the American Missionary Association we are obeying the same command of our Lord: Go ye into all the world and disciple all. We are inspired by the same prophetic promises, that the time will come when this world shall obey the command of God as it is obeyed in heaven. In fact, this gathering is in itself a type of the unity of this work; for as I look around me I see brethren and sisters representing the different societies in which we are all interested. I see them here from the New West Commission; I see the workers and representatives of our Home Missionary Society; I see, of course, many representatives of the American Missionary Association, and those deeply interested in the work of our American Board. So that we have here in this very meeting an illustration of these words of the Apostle: 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism.'"

Mrs. J.J.M. Angear, in charge of a Chinese Sunday-school in the First Congregational Church, Chicago, spoke of her work, her Chinese choir singing "Stand up for Jesus," and later a verse of "Sweet By and By," in both English and Chinese.

Representative addresses then followed, Mr. Chin Kue speaking for the Chinese, Mrs. Elizabeth Winyan for the Indians, Rev. T.L. Riggs interpreting, and Rev. Mr. McClellan for the Negro. A verse of "Shall we whose souls are lighted," was sung, after which Rev. W.E. Barton spoke of the Mountain Whites.

President Eaton's paper was deferred, owing to the lateness of the hour.

After Secretary Strieby had led the Association in prayer and pronounced the benediction, recess was taken until Thursday morning at 8:30 A.M.

THURSDAY MORNING.

Devotional exercises from 8:30 to 9 o'clock were conducted by Rev. E.S. Hill. Vice-President Noble called the Association to order.

The minutes of the previous day were read and approved.

A letter to Secretary Strieby from Col. J.M. Keating, of Tennessee, on the "Southern Problem," was read by Secretary J.E. Roy. A rising vote was taken, expressing approval of the sentiments of the letter and requesting the Association to publish it. Dr. F.A. Noble was instructed to correspond with Col. Keating, assuring him of the Association's appreciation of his address.

The report on the "Mountain Work," was presented by Rev. D.M. Fisk, D.D., who followed it by an address.

District Secretary C.J. Ryder read a paper on "The Debt of our Country to the American Highlanders."

"My Country 'tis of Thee," was then sung, after which Secretary Ryder's paper was referred to the Executive Committee of the Association with reference to publication.

President Taylor resumed the chair at this point and introduced Rev. H.M. Tenney, D.D., who read the report of the committee on Secretary A.F. Beard's paper. The report was accepted and referred to the Executive Committee.

An address on the Church Work was made by Rev. C.W. Hiatt, District Secretary of the Association, and was followed by several brief addresses on the Mountain Work.

The report and an address was then made by Rev. Graham Taylor, D.D. The report was accepted and its recommendations adopted.

After announcements, Dr. Noble was instructed to reply to Dr. Arthur Little, of Massachusetts, in response to his telegram of greeting. After the benediction by President Taylor, recess was taken until 2 o'clock P.M.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON.

The Association was called to order by Vice-President Dr. F.A. Noble. A verse of the hymn, "In the cross of Christ I glory," was sung. F.J. Lamb, Esq., read the report of the Committee on Finance, supplementing the report with a brief address. The report was accepted.

The report on Secretary Strieby's paper was presented by Prof. G.B. Willcox, D.D. The report was accepted and referred to the Executive Committee.

Following this, Secretary Strieby made a statement respecting the Hand Fund. Dr. E.P. Goodwin, President Salisbury and President W.M. Taylor spoke on the Financial Report, and the report was adopted.

The Association then adjourned to the chapel, and the church was occupied by the Woman's Missionary Meeting under the auspices of the Woman's Bureau of the Association. Mrs. George M. Lane, of Detroit, Michigan, presided. The report was made by the Secretary, Miss D.E. Emerson, after which addresses were made by the missionaries: On the mountain work, by Miss Hayes, of Tennessee; on the colored people, by Mrs. Shaw, of Georgia, and Miss Plant, of Mississippi; and on the Indians, by Miss Barnaby, a native teacher.

The Nominating Committee reported the following list of officers for the ensuing year:

President,

REV. WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D., LL.D., N.Y.

Vice-Presidents,

REV. A.J.F. BEHRENDS, D.D., N.Y. REV. F.A. NOBLE, D.D., Ill. REV. ALEX. McKENZIE, D.D., Mass. REV. D.O. MEARS, D.D., Mass REV. HENRY HOPKINS, D.D., Mo.

Corresponding Secretaries,

REV. M.E. STRIEBY, D.D., 56 Reade Street, N.Y. REV. A.F. BEARD, D.D., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.

Recording Secretary,

REV. M.E. STRIEBY, D.D., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.

Treasurer,

H.W. HUBBARD, Esq., 56 Reade Street, N.Y.

Auditors,

PETER McCARTEE, CHAS. P. PEIRCE.

Executive Committee,

For Three Years.

S.B. HALLIDAY, SAMUEL HOLMES, SAMUEL S. MARPLES, CHARLES L. MEAD, ELBERT B. MONROE.

For One Year.—ALBERT J. LYMAN.

A ballot was taken and the brethren named were elected. After the benediction by the President, recess was taken until 7:30 P.M.

THURSDAY EVENING.

The Association was called to order by President Taylor. "Stand up, stand up for Jesus," was sung, after which Rev. Simeon Gilbert, D.D., led in prayer.

The records of the previous sessions of the day were read and approved, and the Secretary was instructed to complete the minutes.

The invitation to hold the next Annual Meeting in Northampton, Massachusetts, was accepted.

President George A. Gates, of Iowa College, addressed the Association, and was followed by an address by President Cyrus Northrop, D.D., of Minnesota, and also by President E.D. Eaton, D.D., of Wisconsin.

The closing address of the Association was made by President Taylor.

The following minute read by Secretary Roy was then adopted:

When, just eighteen years ago, this city was smoldering in the ruins of the great fire, which had consumed the holy and beautiful house of this New England Church and the homes of every family in it, the pastor, searching among the ashes within these walls for some memento, found a charred leaf of the pulpit hymn-book on which he was able to decipher these words:

"Daughter of Zion, awake from the dust, Exalt thy fallen head: Rebuild thy walls, thy bounds enlarge, And send thy heralds forth."

That hymn was sung at the first service in the rough board tabernacle erected upon this spot.

We give thanks to God this day for the faith and courage by which this people did awake from the dust and rebuild these walls, and by which they have gone on building up their spiritual temple and participating largely in the whole round of service for extending the Redeemer's kingdom, a part of which has been the inviting and the welcoming of this missionary convocation to their sanctuary and to their homes, and for which, to them, along with all others in the sister churches who have joined them on this occasion in exercising this grace of hospitality, we express our heartiest thanks.

We here call to mind with grateful emotion one of the manliest of men, one of the truest disciples of Christ, Dea. C.G. Hammond, who counted it an honor to have ministered at this altar from the day of its setting up to the day of his translation, and who for many years had served as one of the Vice-Presidents of this Association, and had been giving largely of his substance to its treasury.

At this closing hour, we are also thankfully reminded that the First Congregational Church of this city was ready thirty years ago to entertain this Association in the days of its weakness and of its cross-bearing witness for Christ and for his lowly poor: and likewise, ten years ago, to open its doors to receive the same body then brought along by the providence of God to a position of honor and extended usefulness.

And so we gratefully name the Union Park Church, which is now lending us its pastor as one of our Vice-Presidents, and which, with the other two churches mentioned, has furnished us with the three grand annual sermons of Drs. Goodwin, Noble, and Little, and the Plymouth Church, which, from the day of its organization, with its testimony and its offerings, has stood by this Association, and all the other churches of this vicinage, grown now to be such a comely sisterhood, which have shared with these others in the support of our work.

To the four great railway passenger associations, which have extended to us their courtesies; to the city press, which has so immensely broadened the influence of this missionary convocation; to the gentlemen who, at no small sacrifice of time and labor, have honored this occasion by their addresses, reports, and clerical service; and to our honored and beloved President, who has guided our deliberations with such skill and grace, we express our obligations of thanks.

Rev. Norman Seaver, D.D., responded for the New England Church. He said there was a saying that lightning never struck the same place twice, yet, though it fell to him to welcome the Association, it had also fallen to him to respond to this vote of thanks. He had asked Secretary Beard what he would say on this occasion, and was answered, in his witty way, "Tell us Godspeed, and we are glad to get rid of you." Dr. Seaver felt that the local people were the recipients, and the visitors the benefactors in what had been done. The President had inspired them with his spirit; he had not withdrawn his presence, and very late might he return to the heavens. Students and young ministers had been benefited by listening to those many learned men and devoted servants of God, and were inspired for future usefulness. "We are not the benefactors, we are the recipients, and we wish you Godspeed."

After having sung the doxology, with the benediction by President Taylor, the Association adjourned, to meet at Northampton, Massachusetts, for its next Annual Meeting.

J.C. ARMSTRONG, } } Secretaries. E.S. WILLIAMS, }

* * * * *

SUMMARY OF TREASURER'S REPORT.

EXPENDITURES.

THE SOUTH.

For Church and Educational Work, Land, Buildings, etc. $255,083.84

THE CHINESE.

For Superintendent, Teachers, Rent, etc. 11,070.75

THE INDIANS.

For Church and Educational Work, Buildings, etc. 51,781.00

FOREIGN MISSIONS.

For Superintendent, Missionaries, etc., for Missions in Africa, income paid to the A.B.C.F.M. 4,754.22

For Support of Aged Missionary, Jamaica, W.I. 250.00

PUBLICATIONS.

For American Missionary, (23,200 monthly), Annual Reports, Clerk-hire, Postage, etc. 7,230.31

AGENCIES.

NEW YORK.—Woman's Bureau, Secretary, Traveling Expenses, Circulars, etc. 1,361.74

FOR EASTERN DISTRICT.—District Secretary, Clerk-hire, Traveling Expenses, Printing, Rent, Postage, Stationery, etc. 4,589.59

FOR WESTERN MIDDLE DISTRICT.—District Secretary, Traveling Expenses, Printing, Rent, Postage, Stationery, etc. 1,246.33

FOB WESTERN DISTRICT.—District Secretary, Agents, Clerk-hire, Traveling Expenses, etc. 6,196.97

ADMINISTRATION.

For Corresponding Secretaries, Treasurer, and Clerk-hire 12,505.00

MISCELLANEOUS.

For Rent, Care of Rooms, Furniture, Repairs, Fuel and Light, Books and Stationery, Rent of Safe Deposit Boxes, Clerk-hire, Postage, Traveling Expenses, Expressage, Telegrams, etc. 5,541.43

Annual Meeting 577.05

Wills and Estates 3,385.07

Annuity Account 407.93

Amounts refunded, sent to Treasurer by mistake 122.77

—————-

$366,104.00

Debt Sept. 30, 1888 5,641.21

—————-

371,745.21

Balance on hand September 30, 1889 4,471.67

—————- $376,216.88

==========

RECEIPTS.

From Churches, Sabbath Schools, Missionary Societies and Individuals $189,299.57

Estates and Legacies 114,020.41

Income, Sundry Funds 10,947.26

Tuition and Public Funds 34,126.69

Rent 506.36

United States Government, for Education of Indians 16,408.85

Slater Fund, paid to Institutions 8,899.99

Sale of Property 2,007.75

————— $376,216.88

==========

DANIEL HAND FUND, INCOME ACCOUNT.

Income received to September 30, 1889 $36,999.71

Amount expended $20,311.15

Balance in hand and appropriated 16,688.56

————— 36,999.71

==========

RECEIPTS FOR THE WORK OF THE YEAR 1888-89.

For Current Work $376,216.88

Income from Daniel Hand Fund 36,999.71

Total —————- $413,216.59

ENDOWMENT FUNDS RECEIVED DURING THE YEAR 1888-89.

The Daniel Hand Fund for the Education of Colored People, Securities received, face value $1,000,894.25

Foltz Endowment Fund, Estate of Rev. Benjamin Foltz. (Balance) 500.00

——————- $1,001,394.25

H.W. HUBBARD, Treasurer, 56 Reade Street, New York.

* * * * *

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION—ITS PLACE AND WORK.

BY SECRETARY M.E. STRIEBY.

We commemorate the forty-third anniversary of the American Missionary Association. During these years, its place and work have become somewhat definitely settled, and I take this occasion to set forth the position that it now holds in relation to its constituents, its sister societies, and the great work providentially thrown upon it.

1. The Association recognizes the control of its constituents. That recognition was one of the corner-stones on which it was founded. It sought its members and its funds from persons of evangelical faith and practical morality. Of such, it offered membership to any one who contributed to its funds. Thus broadly was it placed on a popular basis.

At length, however, it began to be felt by many of its supporters that there were evils in this method—that the acts of the society were liable to be regulated by the local attendance at each annual meeting, and that such meetings might easily be "packed" to carry out a purpose. The officers of the Association, true to the cardinal principles of its founders of control by its constituents, welcomed the discussion and cheerfully accepted the present constitution, which was adopted after due deliberation. That constitution designates as voters, life members and delegates from the churches, local conferences and state associations. The Executive Committee believe that we have now reached a satisfactory basis, but if it shall be the will of the constituents to make further modifications hereafter, the fundamental principle of the Association will dictate a ready acceptance of any change that will not set aside the evangelical, missionary, and philanthropic basis on which the Association was founded, and that will not impair contracts or endanger invested funds. The Association belongs, under Christ, to its constituents.

2. The work of the Association embraces all forms of effort in both the church and the school. It was organized and chartered as a missionary society. This was its fundamental aim. It was not till 1869, twenty-three years after its organization, that the word "educational" was put into its charter. But this change did not alter the character of its work—the school is missionary, the church an educator—and this church and school work are inseparably blended. The people among whom it labors are children in knowledge, and will remain so for a long time, for there are millions of blacks, mountain whites, Indians, and Chinese in our country who cannot read and write. In Northern communities where the children grow up in Christian homes and are environed in cultured society, with the best of common schools, the church finds the material for its membership, so far forth, prepared to its hand, but among these millions of unlettered peoples the church, if it is to be pure and intelligent, must be the outgrowth of the Christian school; and the branches of the tree might as well be expected to grow up without the roots, as such churches without these schools. The work among them begins in the primary school, and follows them through all departments of industrial, normal, collegiate and theological instruction.

In all this long process the teachers are with them at every step—in the shop, the school, the Sunday-school, the prayer meeting, and the church, and often the principal of the school is the pastor of the church. Thus the church, which grows up within or along side of the school, gets the priceless boon of the personal example and influence of these Christian teachers, in refining the manners and in making character; and as the pupils are converted they enter the church to become its stable members and intelligent officers. On the other hand, the families in the church, with their kindred and friends, furnish the pupils for the school and help to sustain it by their money and prayers, both the church and the school being stronger by their mutual support and more potent in their influence in the community than if they stood apart. And even after the scholars have left the school and have entered upon the business of life, the Association is especially fitted to gather them into churches. It has occurred in several instances, in starting new churches beyond the range of our schools, that we have found them to be made up first almost wholly of graduates and students from our different institutions, and that these have remained the most intelligent and reliable members.

We have found, too, that when a church was thus organized where we have no school, we are very soon importuned to start one. In localities with a scattered population there might not be sufficient public funds to open a colored public school; in many more places they would sustain the school for only two months in the year, and in larger towns it sometimes has happened that these public schools were of such a character that the parents begged for a Christian school as a means of saving the moral purity of their children. Thus, in every way, and under all circumstances, the school and the church need and help each other. And what is true of the colored people is equally true of the whites in the mountains and elsewhere, among whom the Association is working so auspiciously, planting its schools and churches in mutual helpfulness.

The suggestion that all the church work of the denomination in the home-field be given to one society, and all the educational be concentrated in one other society, deserves thoughtful consideration, for it meets with this very serious objection, that it provides for but one collection for work that now receives two or three. The experience of our churches is conclusive against the hope that one enlarged collection would be given to the one society. For a time, a brief time, spasmodic efforts might, as in former cases, result in some special contributions, but the new experiment would certainly be more disastrous, if it should fail, than those already tried, because it would involve far greater interests.

It is not to be supposed for a moment that such consolidation is contemplated in order that the churches may escape the large responsibility now resting upon them; and if economy and efficiency are the only objects sought, we fear the result would be disappointing. Such an arrangement would not save in the number of workers in the field, and surely it is not wise business management to leave great interests inadequately supervised. Even if the consolidated society were divided into separate departments or bureaux, the supervision could not be less, if efficient, while the combination would be likely to lead to complications, and would weaken, in the several departments, the sense of individual responsibility and take away the impulse of historic life and achievement.

More work well managed and vigorously pushed seems to me to be the only plan that will satisfy the Christian conscience or meet the approval of the Master.

3. The work of the Association extends to all races of men. This claim is sanctioned by the fraternal agreement existing between it and the American Home Missionary Society, by its own history, and by the needs of the field. The agreement with the sister society says explicitly that the Association is "to pursue its educational and church work in the South among both races." The history of the Association shows that at the beginning the populations reached by it in America were all white except the Indians and a few colored refugees in Canada.

Its home missions at the North and West were among white people: and so were they even in the South before the war. John G. Fee and his heroic associates in Kentucky, and Daniel Worth and others in North Carolina, founded churches and schools only among the whites. Berea College was for whites only, at the outset. It was not till the era of emancipation with its overwhelming flood of freedmen that the Association turned its direct and almost exclusive attention to them. It heard the voice of God in the tramp of these millions marching out of bondage into freedom, and in that voice it heard the call to itself, providentially prepared for the new era. It answered the call, without, however, abandoning its mission to preach the gospel to the whites also; and now, with its schools and churches well established throughout the South, with an open door to the whites, and especially to those in the mountain regions, it hears the voice of God calling it thither. The ready adaptation of its methods to these people, and the success of its efforts among them, attest the validity of its call and the wisdom of its response.

4. The work of the Association is not a transient one. A New England pastor at the beginning of our work for the freedmen, gave me a hearty welcome to present our cause in his pulpit, telling me frankly he did so the more cheerfully because he thought our work would soon be over—say in twenty or twenty-five years. Now that good man believed that home missions in the West, and in some of the older Eastern States, would be needed well nigh on to the millennium, yet he imagined that the blacks, just escaped from bondage, utterly poor, ignorant and degraded, would (perhaps he hardly stopped to think how) rise in twenty-five years above all need of help from any quarter in their upward struggle! But the fallacy of such a supposition is realized more since these twenty-five years have passed than it was then. It is now clearly seen that these ex-slaves will require for three or four generations the most abundant help to bring them up to the level of those Western settlers, including the Swedes, Germans and Norwegians crowding in thither, who are comparatively well-off and intelligent. And then, after that preparation of the Negro has been made, the regular work of home missions will only be fairly begun among them. The work for this people, therefore, is not transient, and the missionary society that has it in hand has before it not only a great but long-continued task.

And for that great work the Association has had a manifest call and preparation, and has gained an experience and an influence of peculiar value in its further prosecution. The Association has wrought itself into the schools and churches, into the industries of the colored people, the improvement of their homes, the preparation of their sons and daughters for home and business life, and for teachers and preachers and physicians; it has wrought itself into their better aspirations for both this world and that which is to come. It has won upon the confidence and respect of the white people by its unselfish and Christian work, its kind but firm adherence to principle, and by the blessing it has conferred upon both races in aiding the South in the only true solution of its great problem.

The Association has become anchored to this great work by the large amount of invested funds intrusted to its care. It has received thousands of dollars from the Freedmen's Bureau, from the Avery estate, from the gifts of Mrs. Stone and others, and added to all these is the large sum placed one year ago in its hands by the munificence of Mr. Hand. These several sums aggregate more than two millions of dollars—an amount of endowment, we believe, without a parallel among our Congregational societies for the home field. While no inconsiderable share of these funds is in plant, and therefore increases instead of diminishes current expenses, yet the Association is the only legal custodian of these funds. They constitute, therefore, a strong evidence of the confidence of large donors in its usefulness and stability and in the importance of its work, and at the same time they make a strong plea for current contributions to sustain that work. God has moved the hearts of noble men and women to lay these firm foundations. Will not others equally able and far-seeing in their benevolence add to these gifts and thus extend these foundations, and will not the churches build thereon with diligent and cheerful hands?

These forty-three years under review have been memorable in the history of this Nation. They have witnessed the reign of slavery in the height of its arrogant domination. They have seen the rising protest of conscience and religion against that domination, with the mad resistance of slavery, until it culminated in one of the bloodiest wars of modern times. They have beheld a united Nation emerge from the conflict, and not a slave in all its broad land. They have seen the uplifted hands and hearts of the freedmen grasping for knowledge. And, last of all, they behold the new power seated on the throne vacated by slavery, dooming the colored man to a position of inferiority scarcely less degrading than slavery itself.

Along all these lines the sympathies and efforts of the Association have run. It pleaded for the slave in his bondage, when to do so cost odium and ostracism; it joined with others in the appeal against slavery, with the hope that righteousness would avert the calamity of war. When the slave came forth free, it went with prompt hands to fit him for his new position, and now, as he enters the long and dark struggle against poverty, ignorance and race-prejudice, it girds itself for the great struggle, armed with what have ever been its only weapons, the light of knowledge and the love of the gospel of Christ. The contest may be long, the work will be great, but the triumph must be sure. May the church of Christ, the patriots of the land, and the abundant blessing of the Almighty God strengthen and help us in this great undertaking!

* * * * *

THE MISSIONARY VIEW OF THE SOUTHERN SITUATION.

BY SECRETARY A.F. BEARD.

The Southern problem is a National peril. Problems are not always perils. This is a problem large with political and religious perils, and whether political or religious it can not be ignored, nor can its consideration be postponed. It is here. It is our problem. It is nearer to the South, and more immediate, than to the North, but it is ours. We are not foreigners in any part of this country. It has been settled once for all that we are to be fellow citizens in a common country when we come from Boston to Chicago and when we go from New York to New Orleans. The problem which belongs to a country to which we belong, is ours. This might as well be understood. We have no right to take our hands off from that of which we are a part and which is a part of us. No part can say to another, it is not your concern.

This is true politically. Thrice true is it religiously—Christian faith is not confined to State boundaries. It belongs everywhere. The problem is not a new one. It has its roots bedded deep in history. When years ago it began to be discussed by a few they were called agitators, as if the discussion of right and wrong were itself a wrong, as if the letting in of light upon the darkness were a deed of darkness. Nevertheless, the Nation became thoughtful over the question of the rights of man. While it was musing the fire burned, and an irrepressible conflict came. In the issue it was settled that no man should be held by another man in involuntary servitude in this common and inseparable country.

A quarter of a century has elapsed since this settlement of a problem which involved the destiny of two races, and of our whole country. The question now before the Nation and before the churches is a corollary of slavery. It is the second section of the first chapter. The first question was: How shall liberty be proclaimed to the captive and the enslaved become free? The second is: Being free, how can the two races—as distinct and separate as are the white and black races of the South—now equal before the law, live side by side under the same government, and live in Christian truth and peace? This is the problem, and, like the first, it is irrepressible.

In one sense it is a new question—that is, a new generation of white people has in part come forward to participate in the duties of citizenship, since all men became men in the law of the land. To them the question is practically new. The situation as they find it, is this: The Negroes, who, twenty years ago, were four millions, are now eight millions. The increase of the blacks above the increase of the whites in the period of twenty years, is fourteen per cent. In his work on the African in the United States, Professor Gilliam, having in hand the figures of our Census Bureau, forecasts with the demonstration of mathematics our population one century hence. We do not know what may modify his figures, but he computes that at the present rate of increase there are to be in the old slave States in one hundred years, ninety-five millions of whites and double this number of African descent. Therefore, whatever may modify, it is probable that before one half an hundred years are over, the numbers of the blacks will furnish them sufficient guarantee for their legal rights.

There are those in this presence who have seen the population of this republic multiply itself nearly three times. Our childhood's geography taught us that twenty-three millions of people lived in the United States. Now our children learn that there are sixty millions. Twenty years ago four millions of Negroes and eight millions to-day. Therefore, as large as the problem now is to us, it will be greater for our children if we err in our solution of it.

This race of African descent has been declared by constitutional enactment to be entitled to whatever privileges belong to man, as man. Standing on this, and beginning with nothing but the heredity of hindrances, with the brand of color and the prejudice of race against them, this people have climbed up from their low estate with a remarkable progress. They have applied themselves to take hold of knowledge as no other people ever did in the annals of history. They have made great inroads upon their previous illiteracy. They have rapidly acquired property. They have developed industrial skill, and established the evidences of business facility. They have shown themselves capable of good citizenship, both in the understanding of its duties and the practice of them. They have vindicated the act of emancipation and the decrees of citizenship.

Yet to-day their standing both as citizens and as Christians is opposed. The question of their rights is discussed as if it were an open one, and in the South it is coming to be increasingly denied. Under the plea that it is unsafe for the black man to exercise his civil rights, there arises a condition of affairs that can have no standing under our government except a revolutionary standing. And the question whether the rights of man as man shall be regarded, is to-day a more pressing question than it has been at any previous time since the slaves were declared to be men.

The Southern press, which both creates and voices public opinion, reveals an attitude of mind increasingly hostile to the equal civil rights of the black man, for the simple reason that he is not white, which is calculated to fill the friends of American institutions with gravest apprehensions, and which demands the serious attention of us all. Almost every week discloses to us the fact that intimidation, oppression and violence do override the government of the land, in its application to the Negro people. Influential Southern journals have pronounced the Fifteenth Amendment a living threat to the civilization of the South, and declare that Christian statesmanship demands its abrogation.

A thoughtful book published in New York, written in a calm and judicial tone by an able lawyer in Virginia, in its chapter upon the future of the Negro, says: "The social aspect of the Negro suffrage is certain to grow more threatening as the blacks increase. The motives which have led the great body of whites to vote together in this age, must augment in force in the age to follow. To day the rapid increase of the black population constitutes a greater danger to the stability of our government than any that is sapping the vitality of the European monarchies. The partial disfranchisement of the Negro in the future would appear to be inevitable, essential, if not to the existence of the South, then to the prosperity of the Union." This is a temperate expression of much Southern opinion.

Not a few hold the view that the education and advancement of the Negro tends to create the race problem, and do not hesitate to say that if the Negroes could only be kept as laborers in the cotton and rice and sugar fields, in the furnaces and mines of the South, aspiring to nothing higher and not antagonizing the whites in political matters, there would be no race problem.

Six months ago we could quote from an editorial column written by an ex-Confederate officer for an influential Democratic paper in the South these words: "The duty of the white people of the South is plain. In the spirit of noblesse oblige we must sympathize with those who are fitting the colored people for the duties of life, remembering what the Negroes were to our forefathers and what our forefathers were to them. No one can doubt that a Negro has a soul to save. That admitted, he is as much entitled to the benefits of salvation as the white man. But", he adds, "what do we see? Nearly all the bodies of Christians even, except the Roman Catholics, shuffling to set the Negro apart and leave him largely to his own ways, shuffling out of their responsibility according to the gospel which they profess as their guide, and putting the Negro apart in spite of the word of God, whom they worship, that he is no respecter of persons. The Negro was brought over here by theft and outrage. He is here to stay, and we must deal with him according to the golden rule, and as we would wish to be done by if we were similarly placed."

This is not a quotation from the National Council of Congregational Churches, where such an utterance would both by nature and by grace find expression, but it is from the pen of an officer of the Southern Confederacy, who knows the light when he sees it, who keeps open an honest eye, and who does not hesitate to speak from an honest mind. This sentiment balances somewhat of that which pleads against the black man, and not a few friends of this kind has the American Missionary Association won to itself throughout the South. It never had so many who are saying: "Yours is the most practical missionary work ever undertaken by a Christian body." "You have won our confidence by your spirit and your methods; you have our cordial sympathy." At the same time we recognize the fact that both prejudice and partisanship are now making strenuous efforts to create the judgment that the Negro should be stripped of his civil rights and that his education is going on too rapidly. For example, the Southern Journal, whose Christian sentiments of six months ago, just quoted, with another editor to-day, comes to us with another deliverance, probably nearer to the heart of most of its constituency, saying: "The Negro is not a fit subject for Northern missionary effort. Northern money is not wanted to build him schools, and Northern teachers and preachers are not wanted to improve his mind nor to save his soul. He should be let alone. He is out in the water: let him swim. He should be left alone to work out his own salvation." The editor who says we must save him is an ex-Confederate officer who has always lived in the South. The editor who says he should be left alone is a Northern man who has gone South to live. The first writes, noblesse oblige. The second does not understand the language. He, doubtless, has the largest constituency.

The pulpit also creates and voices public opinion. Our work is coming to get many a good word from the Southern pulpit. But a Southern white bishop—Bishop Pearce—did not write to unwilling ears when he said: "In my judgment higher education would be a calamity to the Negroes. It would elevate Negro aspirations far above the station which the Negro was created to fill. The whites can never tamely, and without protest submit to the intrusion of colored people into places of trust, profit, and responsibility." This, you will observe, is from a minister of Christ. It is from a bishop of a church. It is from one who prays our Lord's prayer, given alike to white and black. "After this manner, therefore, pray ye." "Our Father." This is from one who believes in the baptism at Pentecost, when devout men from every nation under heaven received the impartial benedictions of God. This from one who read the story of Peter and the sheet. "Alas, my brother."

All this, then, is the atmosphere of the situation. Some prophetic souls are looking out upon a most perplexing and perilous problem with profound solicitude, and extending to us their sympathy and prayers for our work. More, many more, are teaching and preaching that God has created the Negro race to fill forever a place of inferiority, and that he must stay down in the bog or in some way be destroyed. It is not surprising, therefore, that ignorant white people should give form and substance to these hostile opinions in scenes of violence and cruelty. They believe in the inherent inferiority of the blacks, and have a mighty fear lest this doctrine should prove to be untrue. The Negro, twenty-five years ago in absolute poverty and illiteracy, has been greedy for education, and has seriously thought of nothing but to rise from his low condition.

The intelligent white man now, and to his great surprise, is all at once confronted by the intelligent black man. They are not so numerous now as to be an element to fear, but the whites are foreseeing the not distant day when they can not be relegated to inferiority because of their color. The calamity that Bishop Pearce deplores and would prevent is not far away—educated Negroes with aspirations, in other words, men.

The general Negro illiteracy is gaining fast upon the white ignorance, and the despised Negro is found to be living above many of his illiterate white neighbors. This makes it easy work for designing men to sharpen race prejudices, which by force and fear shall keep the Negro down.

On the Negro side, he has been patient and forbearing. With these outbreaks of persecution some are discouraged, and are ready to surrender their manhood. On the other hand, some are no longer patient, but are enraged. They would retaliate. They feel that defense against wrongs is right. An influential Negro paper says, "EDUCATE, AGITATE, RETALIATE. Does one strike me? With the power of God on high, back also will I strike him." This feeling grows. Add to it the fact that the Negro is developing the power of organization. There are leaders. They are in their councils and conventions. They are feeling deeply, speaking plainly, and organizing efficiently.

This is the situation! "How shall this problem be solved? How shall we prevent the conflict between races?" A Southern author says: "These problems have been solved in the past in four ways. By reducing the weaker race to slavery, or by expulsion, or by extermination, or by the amalgamation of the races. Slavery is out of the question—that is settled. Equally repugnant is expulsion or extermination. Amalgamation is abhorrent." Therefore, the problem will not be solved by any historical precedents. The two races must live here in the same sections, equal before the law, with mutual rights, and all rights must be sanctioned and confirmed.

The American Missionary Association is living with this problem day by day. It is trying to see it with the look of Christ. This Association foresaw this question forty years ago. It took on itself the preparation for it. It guided itself to meet the problem in the fields before the armies in the South were disbanded. It went with its distinctive and unpopular principles. It went in the patience and love of Christ. For the most part it met a natural and unconcealed hostility. It did not retaliate even in spirit, but it stood firm in spirit and in truth. It has lived on in the South, and taught the same ever-living and everlasting gospel for all men, of whatever race or color. Its record is before the churches. They have never had reason to feel other than grateful to God for its work. Beginning with a great number of little primary schools, and with thousands of beginners in the alphabet of learning, it has gradually passed into larger and more far-reaching influences by teaching teachers and preachers, who shall go, and who do go out and reach multiplied thousands.

In order that applied Christianity may have the power of self-help and self-care, industries are introduced. In that the people are being fitted to save themselves. All of our work from first to last is missionary, and instinct with the motive of salvation; our schools are means to an end; fitting preachers, teachers, mechanics, home makers to meet the problem and the peril. It is not by education that the question is to be solved. The missionary view is not simply the educational view. This society is not an educational society. Education is not the panacea for the ills of man. Ignorance is a great evil, but it is not the worst one; sinfulness is worse and more difficult to cure. The one who is educated may make trouble and not heal it; secular education can not meet the problem; State education can not protect against the peril, but sanctified education can, for it has in it the power of God. This society is a missionary society which, like the American Board, teaches in order to save. You can scarcely save ignorance. This means Christian schools not only full of ethics, but vital with faith. It means also the twin life of school work and church work. To put these factors apart would be a great disaster to each; nay, it would put away from the only society that can effectively, and we believe effectually, meet this problem, the chief factor in the solution of the impending and serious question. Education alone is not equal to this question, and those who have won the ear and the sympathy of those who need to come under the power of the gospel, who have been their friends and teachers, who have their confidence and trust, are the ones to take this gospel to them and show them how to take it to others. The schools reach parents, the schools reach pastors, the schools reach the people, the schools are intertwined with all the church life that has any hope in it. This is the missionary view. When this people in the wilderness cried out in their distresses, "Who will speak for us?" the Association spoke for them. When they needed sympathy, sympathy it gave. When they needed instruction, it went to them in the name of Christ. In his name it stood for the Negro. In his name it stood by the Negro. In his name it stood with him. It stands there to-day. It is his friend and counselor. When the Negro is cast down, the churches will hear one voice and they will wish their own society to be found faithful in this.

With this charter as a missionary society for schools and churches, we present to the Negro race continually the personal hope of souls not only, but the hope of the race. When they think that the progress is slow we tell them that Christianity is sure. When they tell us that they can not wait, but must organize and retaliate, we tell them to wait upon God. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." We ask them to remember that a quarter of a century, or a century, is a short time in the history of a people. We point to a million—a round million—of Negro children in the schools to-day. We are teaching them to be men. We are saving them to be Christians. We teach them not to remain down and not to be put down. Being men, they are to stand like men, but like Christian men, to conquer prejudices by worthiness, to meet race hatred with only a stronger purpose to command respect, not to render evil for evil, but contrariwise, blessing; not blow for blow, but to go on upbuilding themselves, deserving their rights, and remembering that a great element in the solution of this problem must be an intelligent faith in God. With this missionary view we stand firm. We have learned that the Southerners of our own race, even when they hold their prejudices against our principles, respect those who stand in a Christian way for their principles; and that these principles will never be accepted in the South by our holding them loosely, or in suspense, or in any sort of abeyance. They respect us when we teach our people that they have all the rights of manhood and womanhood; that they are to respect themselves and to be worthy of self-respect; that they are not to consent in their own minds to any assertion of superiority based upon the tint of the skin, and that they are never to feel guilty for being black. We are teaching the colored people to hold honor with themselves.

What this Association and other missionary forces have done and are doing—this Association more than others—will be the balance of power to prevent the dreaded conflict of races; the balance of power to settle the question; How can the two races live in the same section with mutual respect for each other's civil and Christian rights? This may take time. Christianity takes time. It is ours to take Christianity to teach that the beginning of Christianity was the death blow to wrong principles and evil practices of men, however well intrenched and fortified these forces may be.

It is this which gives us courage to grapple with centuries of wrong and to undertake the slow reduction of these evils. When Christianity came, the era of conscience came, and in His gospel is the power of intelligence and moral determination that shall not be overcome of evil, but shall overcome evil with good.

"Men bound with right are strong: Right bound with right in Christian faith Will conquer a world of wrong."

The missionary schools and the missionary churches are, we believe, the only safeguard against the conflict of races. They are the guardian against this national peril. This being so, the churches must speed them more and more. They must not hinder them nor tie their hands. The guarantees of this peaceful solution are in the hands of the churches. Multiply and hasten the Christian energies. Multiply the Christian prayers that we may be workers together with Him of whom it is written, "He shall not fail or be discouraged."

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REPORTS OF COMMITTEES.

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REPORT ON EDUCATIONAL WORK SOUTH.

BY REV. WM. BURNET WRIGHT, D.D., CHAIRMAN.

It is an ominous fact that in the South illiteracy is steadily increasing. It is an encouraging fact that in the region surrounding our chartered and normal schools illiteracy is steadily diminishing. The colored people are multiplying more rapidly than the means of educating them. If the supply of school accommodations to-day exactly equalled the demand, so that every colored child of suitable age was provided for in some school, there would be at the time of our next annual meeting 255,500 children asking to be taught their letters to whom we should have to say, We cannot teach you. But the supply does not yet nearly equal the demand.

In respect to education, the South is a dark sky rapidly growing darker, but flecked with patches of lighter shade, which are gradually growing brighter and larger. Such a bright space frames each of our chartered and normal schools. Fisk University, Talladega College, Tougaloo University, Straight University, in New Orleans, and Tillotson Institute, at Austin, Texas, are doing work which vindicates each year more distinctly the strategic sagacity which located them. In these institutions alone nearly two thousand students of both sexes are being trained to be light-bearers to their race. Besides these, each of which is essentially a normal school, and includes a normal department, eighteen distinctively normal schools are sustained at different points of strategic importance. Two new schools have been established during the year. Good work has also been done among the mountain whites. The income from the gift of Mr. Daniel Hand has enabled the Association to enlarge its school accommodations, and to assist more than three hundred students, who, without it, would have been unable to attend schools of any kind.

The committee would emphasize among special needs of the work, funds for a girls' hall at Tillotson Institute, and for the endowment of a theological school for training colored pastors. Two facts are pre-eminently gratifying. The first is that in nearly all the schools of the Association some kind of industrial training is provided, and that the influence of such training is conspicuously shown in improved ideas of home life and comfort among those connected by family or other ties with our students. The second fact is, that in all our schools the students are taught that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and that consequently the separation between religion and morality, which is the supreme danger of the Southern black churches, is perceptibly diminishing.

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REPORT ON CHURCH WORK.

BY PROFESSOR GRAHAM TAYLOR, CHAIRMAN.

The mission of the American Missionary Association is shown to be a specialty and a unit by its church work. It is the work of a specialist among Christian organizations that alone could have produced these churches. To meet the demands of an exigency which could not be met by the pre-existent ordinary agencies, this child of Providence was born of God and the times. For the accomplishment of ends for which no means had been found, its methods were providentially chosen by a process of spiritual selection. Its agencies are the accretions of the Divine purpose in its progress toward the salvation of the undermost, and the edifying of the whole body of Christ. To the production of its unique Christian institutions the exclusive devotion to the study of the peculiar conditions of these entirely distinct communities was necessary. There have been generated by this devotion and acquired through the experience of nearly half a century a knowledge and skill which claim for this Association the recognition of the world as its foremost expert in the successful application of Christianity to the solution of the most difficult race problems of modern civilization.

And yet in the accomplishment of this great achievement, loyalty to the common faith and to our own polity, as well as to the teachings of experience, demanded only the new application of the old prime factors of God's own choice, the local church with its evangelism and Christian nurture.

In the work of this Association these two great agencies are uniquely one. The pastor is often teacher and evangelist. The sanctuary is school-house and mission station. At twenty-three points on the field God has made of these twain—the church and the school—one. The church is the unit of this unity. For while the church is generally the offspring of the school, the school finds both its profoundest reasons for existence and its highest consummation in the needs and ends of the church. In it the work both of the teacher and evangelist co-ordinates and culminates.

It will not be so very long before these schools and colleges will find their chief sources of supply in these churches, which although now so dependent, must ultimately be depended upon to maintain and develop their own institutions. Even now it is to be remembered that the appeal of this evangelizing church work meets with the wider and more popular response from the giving constituency of the Association, while the educational institutions are more dependent upon the larger gifts of interested individuals.

Moreover, it is the church which opens the springs of the family life from which the schools must draw their scholars. And it is the church which creates the environment necessary to the Christian homes, to which the graduates are sent back again to live their lives, and from which, as the heart's fulcrum, their saved lives can best lift up the lost.

These little church groups of evangelized and educated families are at once the prime sources and the constituent elements of the new Christian civilization which already heralds the coming of the kingdom to those neglected, outcast peoples, to secure whose human rights, Christian privileges and church fellowship is the first, loudest, longest call upon the Congregational Churches of America.

Therefore, in the name of this Association, whose heroic type of missionary and teaching service makes our whole membership and ministry the more attractive and ennobling; in the name of its schools which became churches, and its churches which are schools; in the name of their 8,400 professing Christians, and their 15,000 Sunday-school scholars, and the 1,000 converts of the year; in the name of the races of three continents to whom the Father is sending these our brethren as we are sent to them, we pledge the fidelity of the American Missionary Association to the two-fold agency of its one work, the discipling of these races by the evangelizing church, and the Christian nurture of its schools. And we re-echo the call which the National Council makes upon our churches for the $500,000 required by the exigencies and opportunities of this year's work for the neediest and most helpless of all our fellow-countrymen.

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REPORT ON MOUNTAIN WORK.

BY REV. D.M. FISK, D.D., CHAIRMAN.

The formal report of your committee can without injustice be brief; not because the field considered is narrow, or the work unimportant as a missionary movement, but from the fact that a certain unity pervades both, making it possible to comprehend in one view even the diversities of a population of over two millions, and an area of above one hundred thousand square miles.

The official summary of the year's work, on which we report, once again sets before this Association the situation and its involved problem; a situation full of contradictions, a problem at once serious but not hopeless.

Here is the amazing spectacle of a self-isolated people, begirt with the active life and thought of our eager times, yet sharing neither. Here is an empire that is content to live in the past: having rich resources it neglects to develop them; a productive soil but niggard crops. Amidst a veritable Lebanon of forestry it has shanties for homes; with coal deposits that are the envy of the world, its shivering women in stoveless hovels attempt to defend themselves about their domestic toil with coarse homespun shawls and slat-bonnets. In an age that has harnessed mechanism, beast, and steam to the plow, scythe, sickle and flail, these owners of mountains of iron and mines of power still indolently vex a grudging soil with tools of such barbaric simplicity that their intrusion is scarcely more than a provocation to weeds.

Here is needless poverty in the lap of potential wealth, thriftlessness in the face of every seeming stimulus to diligence. Here is a diversified landscape that should inspire and a climate that should invigorate, but in place of vivacity and health we find apathetic endurance and intrenched disease. Scrofula and its parasite kin are domesticated in the debilitated blood, and pills, calomel, and death jointly contend for the prolific cradle, and even when temporarily defeated succeed in transforming childhood into unlovely age, without the long interval of intermediate active, zestful manhood.

And yet, pitiful as is this exhibit of deficiency, these Highland dwellers are none the less men and our brethren. Slavery robbed them of their lands half a century ago, and roughly shouldered them off into the mountain wilderness dowered with the pauperizing maxims of oppression, notably the indignity of toil, and their shrewd native mother-wit has been left to rust to dullard loss in the absence of schools worthy the name; worse still, their natural devoutness has been warped by unworthy shepherds, till superstition, bigotry, and gross immorality have taken fierce possession of many a society, hearthstone and heart. If to-day the schools are inefficient and some of the preaching blasphemous; if self-satisfied idleness has turned over this mountain realm to want and the slavery of low living, and (as ever) made woman at once the servant and the victim of its barbarism, it is but another historic count in the awful indictment of human selfishness. And all these crying deficiencies are but make-weights with our conviction of responsibility to this mountain flock of God, that often has been misled and unworthily sacrificed.

The only problematical element in this matter is the measure of our faith in God and man and all-prevailing truth. Wherever the ground has been broken by faithful men there is a crop to show as returns for invested toil. More than a thousand children are now under Christian instruction in our schools. Our pupils are in hungry demand as teachers, even to a minimum of years that to us would seem absurd (15 and 16 years). Over twenty churches are holding up a reasonable religion, as a life rather than merely a profession. New fields plead for mission work. Our already planted churches and schools are stimulating other denominations to redoubled diligence in church planting. Courage is in the tone and look of our frontier workers. The officers of this Association feel in an aggressive mood. The question resolves itself into one of faith and contributions. What, my brethren, shall be our answer?

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REPORT ON INDIAN WORK.

BY REV. ADDISON F. FOSTER, D.D., CHAIRMAN.

The committee on the work of the American Missionary Association among the Indians respectfully report that they gratefully recognize the good hand of God in the work already done.

Since the American Missionary Association took the work, the expenditures have increased from $11,000 to $52,000, the out-stations for direct evangelistic effort from seven to twenty-one, and the churches from two to six. This last year, the Association has established three new out-stations: the Moody station among the Mandans, fifty miles north of Fort Berthold; the Moody Station No. 2 among the Gros Ventres, twenty-five miles north of Fort Berthold; the Sankey Station among the Dakotas at Cherry Creek. It has just put up a mission house, with a room for church worship, at Rosebud Agency. It has organized anew church at Bazille Creek, some distance out from Santee; a branch church at Cherry Creek, on the Sioux Reservation, and is just forming a church at Standing Rock, for which a building is now completed.

This record is certainly gratifying and shows that the Association appreciates the emergency, and is striving to meet it, so far as the means put in its hands allow. But your committee feel also that never before was there so great an opportunity as now brought before the Christians of this land, and especially our own denomination, for work among the Indians.

The relations of the Government and of the churches in Indian work are now unusually harmonious and kindly. The present Administration is thoroughly in sympathy with missionary operations, and will do nothing to impair their efficiency. We believe it to be sincerely actuated by a desire to promote the best welfare of the Indians, and ready to co-operate with all good people in efforts in this direction. It aims to educate every Indian child. We desire to see this done, and believe that when the Government assumes, as it should, the primary education of all Indians of school age, we shall be called on to turn our efforts to a much larger work for direct evangelization.

Our opportunity is enlarging further by the breaking down of the old pagan prejudices of the Indians. The testimony of all the workers on the field is to this effect. The Indians are desirous of living as white men. They are rapidly losing their distinctive Indian ideas and are imbibing the notions of their white neighbors. This is seen in their burials, which now are not uniformly, as of old, on scaffolds, but are more and more interments. It is shown in their feeling and behavior when death comes into their households. They no longer fill their houses with hideous outcries, but instead seek the missionaries to inquire about the life in the other world.

A further opportunity is to be noted in the fact that the Dakota Indians have specially fallen into our care. Our chief missions are located among them, at Santee, Rosebud, Oahe, Standing Rock, and outlying stations. But the Dakota Indians number 40,000 in all, or about one-sixth of all the Indians in the country. We have mastered the Dakota language; and a Bible, hymn-book, dictionary and other books are printed in that tongue. We have, then, special ability to carry on mission work among them, and are bound to utilize it to the full. The time is ripe for immediate action. It must be taken without delay if taken at all. The opening up to white settlement of a large strip of land though the center of the great Sioux reservations is to bring the Indian into contact with the influence of white men as never before. It is impossible that that influence shall be altogether good. The contact of the Indian with the frontiersmen of our own people has resulted most deplorably in the past, and we cannot hope for much better results now. Rum and licentiousness are sure to work untold harm to the Indian unless they are met by the gospel. This opening up of Indian territory to white settlement lays, therefore, a most imperative and immediate obligation on Christian people to protect the Indian from ruin by giving them the gospel.

We are satisfied that nothing but the gospel will suffice. Education alone can not save, and may simply give new strength to evil habits and influences. It must be a Christian education; schools should be simply preliminary and altogether subsidiary to the most energetic and wise presentation of the gospel. The uniform policy of the American Missionary Association in all departments of its work has been in this direction, and we gladly recognize the fact that its Indian work has steadily progressed with the idea of evangelizing the Indian.

We know very well that the Association is laboring for 8,000,000 Negroes and for 2,000,000 Mountain White people and for 125,000 Chinese, as well as 262,000 Indians. We know that the proportion of the Indians is comparatively small. At the same time we urge that this disproportion is to a large degree counterbalanced by the special opportunities we have considered. The Indian problem is before us for immediate settlement. It admits of no delay. Care for these few Indians now, Christianize them now, as we may, and the Indian becomes as the white man, and our missionary efforts will then be released for other fields.