Читать книгу: «The American Missionary. Volume 42, No. 11, November, 1888», страница 4

We point to these great institutions which have been planted and fostered by the A.M.A., together with those which are still upheld by us, with a feeling akin to that of the renowned Cornelia when she said, "Behold my jewels."

We have, in addition, 17 Chinese Schools on the Pacific Coast, with 39 teachers.

CHURCH WORK

We turn now to our Church Work.

In every school we have an incipient church; in many of these are organized churches. From all of them there is a continual going forth of a predisposition towards Congregational Churches, which will make for churches in the future.

The statistics are as follows:

Four new Churches have been organized during the year. These are at Decatur, Ala., Crossville, Deer Lodge and Pine Mountain, Tenn. A fine church edifice has also been erected in Ironaton, Ala., which is soon to be dedicated. The members have sacrificed nobly to secure it. The church at Meridian has united with the Association in the erection of a beautiful house of worship which, with the new school and the teachers' home, will be ready in a few weeks for occupancy. The church at Knoxville has been enlarged and is practically new. It will soon be re-dedicated. The church at Pine Mountain is a year old; is already the center of four Sunday-schools, with an attendance of 415 children, only 10 of whom had ever been in a Sunday-school before.

Revivals of religious interest have been reported from our churches in Washington, Wilmington, Charleston, Talladega, Mobile, Athens, Marion, Selma, Birmingham and New Orleans. Those of the churches which are side by side with our educational institutions are most hopeful; but wherever we have planted churches, they stand forth to represent the ethics of Christianity, the purity and truth of character which must be contained in a worthy discipleship. A large proportion of our pastors are children of the A.M.A. Parsonages have been built for our churches in Mobile, Ala., and in Dallas, Texas.

MOUNTAIN WORK

This year has laid great emphasis on the fact that we have entered, in the Southern mountains, a missionary field of vast importance, pressing needs and unbounded hopefulness. We have in this region, where a few years ago there was nothing, two normal schools, two academies, five common schools, and twenty churches.

In a territory five hundred miles long, and more than two hundred miles broad—twice the size of all New England—are at least between three and four hundred counties with a population greater than that of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut combined, without schools worthy of the name, without Sunday-schools, without prayer meetings, without an educated, spiritual, or even moral ministry, without a weekly Sabbath religious service of any kind, or any of the institutions of the gospel which really elevate them. They have a religion which is not a pure Christianity and which does not even involve morality.

The Christian work, lately introduced and already done among them, demonstrates that they are capable of a rapid and radical change, when once the vivifying touch of the gospel has reached their hearts.

Instead of twenty Congregational churches among them, there is room for a thousand, and instead of nine Christian schools, if there were twenty-five normal schools, it would be only one to each hundred thousand people; and if there were a hundred common schools, there would be one to each three or four counties for models. There should be one good college. If there were Congregational churches in this region in the same proportion as in New England there would be a full thousand. If they were in the same proportion as Connecticut, there would be twelve hundred churches; as New Hampshire, thirteen hundred; as Vermont, sixteen hundred.

Congregationalism goes to these people as the representative of pure, intelligent and progressive Christianity. We can gather them into schools, Sunday-schools and churches, anywhere where we can put a Christian worker. Our only limit is consecrated workers and the support for them. The field is as ripe this very day for a thousand as for a score. But the school and the church must go together.

This is one of the richest of the mineral regions of the world. Great forests of black walnut, poplar, and other valuable timber, are awaiting the woodman's ax and the lumberman's mill. Railroads are either built, building or planned for every part to carry away its wonderful natural resources. The people are poor, but the land is rich, and a few years hence will see wealth in the place of poverty, in the hands of either the natives, or those who will have displaced them. All the motives which urge the establishment of the church and the school for the incoming population of the West, press us to build them in this great empire of the South; and they become doubly imperative when we take into account the fact that a population of between two and three millions is already in the land and needs to be saved now. The motives for home and foreign missions are thus combined, and impelling us for Christ's sake, for humanity's sake, and for our country's sake, to give the gospel to this people.

We are not building pauper institutions in this mountain country to be forever a dead weight for the Northern churches to carry, but institutions which will very speedily take care of themselves, and give to others as they have received.

This is a portion of the South where slavery scarcely existed. When war came, it was loyal to the Union almost to a man. This fact shows that they have a natural affiliation with "Northern ideas." The caste spirit is among them—as it is indeed in the North to some extent—but it much more readily yields to reason and loving teaching than in other portions of the South. Vigorous and extensive missionary work can and will mould the ideas and sentiments of this whole region, and thus establish no-caste churches and schools, where they would demonstrate to the South that they do not carry with them social disorder and every baleful influence.

Amid the success, joy and hopefulness of the year's work, came the affliction of the shooting of Prof. George Lawrence, while about his duties in our school in Jellico, Tenn. It was the work of a miserable creature whose brain was fired with whiskey, and who was urged on by the saloon element as a retaliation for earnest temperance work. After long and anxious weeks of intense suffering, a brave fight against death proved successful, and we now hope that our missionary's life is spared for many years of usefulness. Nearly a hundred men have been shot already in this one place, and the place itself is not more than six years old. Is it strange that these mountain people who have a glimpse of better things, are appealing to us every week of the year to plant institutions among them? Is it not the voice of Christ clearly commanding us to possess and subdue this land, and to transform it into a part of his peaceful and beneficent Kingdom, which shall join hands with us to pass on the torch of Christ to others yet in darkness?

THE INDIANS

The people of America are determined to press the Indian problem to a speedy solution. Provision has been made for giving lands in severalty, and the next great movement should be to induce the Government to provide secular education, and the churches to furnish religious instruction to all the Indians. The American Missionary Association, during the year, has responded to this new impulse by enlarging its work—in the opening of new stations, in the erection of new buildings, and in the appointment of more missionaries and teachers.

At the Santee Agency, Nebraska, our oldest mission station and school has had marked prosperity in its normal, theological and industrial departments, and, better than all, in a deep and wide-spread religious interest that has pervaded the school and the church. The new building, named Whitney Hall—from its giver—has been erected, affording accommodations for twenty-two of the larger and more advanced pupils, and furnishing rooms for the treasurer's family. A liberal gift from Mrs. Henry Perkins, of Hartford, Conn., provides, for the present at least, for the running expenses of the Boys' Hall, and, in appreciation of the gift, and of the interest in the school which the gift implies, the building will hereafter be called Perkins Hall.

At Oahe, Dakota, on the beautiful Peoria Bottom, both the school and church have prospered. The school is crowded to its utmost capacity and a greater number of pupils has been granted in the contract with the Government. A new building is urgently called for. The closing exercises of the school were attended by a picturesque group of three or four hundred Indians, who were encamped around the station. Some of these came a hundred and twenty-five miles to attend the exercises.

One marked feature in the enlargement of the work has been the opening of two more Central Stations: one at Rosebud Agency, the other located at Fort Yates, near the junction of the Grand River with the Missouri. The new mission house has been built, and by the aid of special gifts from benevolent friends at the East, a commodious building has been erected for a hospital.

A peculiar and very interesting feature of our Indian work is the out-stations, located remote from the Central Stations. These stations, numbering twenty-one, have been hindered and also enlarged during the past year. The hindrance came from the interference of the Government. In its well-intended zeal for the introduction of the English language, it surpassed the limits which experience had fixed, by requiring that the vernacular should not be taught, nor even spoken, in any Indian schools on the Reservation including these mission stations, which were wholly sustained by benevolent funds. Under this ruling, thirteen stations were closed from September to January. But the remonstrances coming from almost every denomination of Christians in the land induced the Government to modify its orders, and the schools have all been re-opened.

Some new buildings have been erected on this part of the field—a new house for dwelling and school on the Grand River, and a cheap structure at the Cheyenne River Agency, in which religious services are held at the times for the disbursement of the rations, when large numbers of the Indians assemble and remain for many days. A new impulse has been given to this out-station work by contributions received at one of the missionary meetings in Northfield, Mass. Four new stations were provided for at that time by the contribution of $400 for a building at each station, and $300 for the support of the teacher. One was the gift of Mr. Moody, another of Mr. Sankey, whose names these two stations will bear.

Fort Berthold, in the northern part of Dakota, has authorization from the Government for a larger number of pupils under contract than last year. But our exigencies require for this only a few and inexpensive repairs and additions to be made on the buildings.

The Skokomish mission continues its stable progress. The missionary, Rev. Myron Eells, has been tempted during the past year by several calls to enter more lucrative fields of service, but his attachment to the work, begun by his most honored father, and continued by himself, is so great that he prefers to remain with his people, and to aid them in their progress in civil and Christian life.

The Indian school at Santa Fé, New Mexico, has had some changes, but the arrangement between the Association and the trustees is continued, and the school, under the charge of Prof. Elmore Chase, maintains its useful service in the training of the children of the Apaches, one of the most hopeful and promising tribes of Indians on the continent.