Читать книгу: «The American Missionary. Volume 43, No. 07, July, 1889», страница 3

It was a glorious victory, due to the conscience of the rank and file of the Assembly, a victory of the Christian heart of fellowship with the humblest over the pride and ambition of greatness and power. The Assembly has done its duty by its colored members, and every colored member's face was radiant with delight. We have never doubted that if the subject once came fairly up for discussion, the Conference Committee would learn something they did not know before about their denomination. Encouraged by the indorsement given by the Presbyterian Assembly to the position we have maintained against the separation of Christians in the Church of Christ, we shall not neglect the same conflict going on among the Congregationalists and Episcopalians.

From the Christian Union

The question whether the Church of Christ shall recognize the color line is coming up to vex in turn each one of the great Protestant denominations in the North. We say Protestant denominations advisedly; for we do not believe that the Roman Catholic Church would for a moment entertain the notion of excluding a man either from its sacraments, its worshiping assemblies, or its priesthood, on the ground of color, or would recognize in its worshiping assemblies any distinction except the broad one between clergy and laity. To do so would be to violate all its traditions and history.

In the Protestant denominations of the North, the question is complicated by two considerations: a strong anti-caste prejudice in the Northern constituency, on which the missionary organizations are dependent for their support, and a strong ecclesiastical ambition and spiritual desire, commingled in various proportions, to push on the work of church extension in the South, where it cannot, apparently, be pushed forward with early success, if caste is ignored and colored Christians are admitted to white churches, and colored clergymen to white ecclesiastical assemblies, on equal terms with their white brethren. In the Diocesan Episcopal Convention of South Carolina it is, therefore, proposed to amend the diocesan constitution so as to provide for two Conventions, a white and a colored. In the Presbyterian Church the difference of opinion on this subject constitutes one bar to a union between the Northern and Southern churches, or even to co-operation between them. This has been for the time removed by a sort of concordat by which the relations of the colored and the white members in the two churches respectively are allowed to remain in statu quo, and the settlement of the problem is relegated to the future. In the Congregational denomination, the question is likely to come up before the meeting of the American Home Missionary Society at Saratoga early in June, and again before the National Council at Worcester in October. In the State of Georgia, there has been for some time an Association of Congregational churches mainly composed of colored people, and largely under the fostering care of the American Missionary Association. A Congregational work has latterly been started among the whites under the fostering care of the American Home Missionary Society. And recently a body of independent Methodists, really Congregational in the principles of their government, and having a considerable number of churches in Georgia, and some in other Southern States, has become also Congregational in name. Both bodies will have representatives, presumably, at Saratoga, certainly at the meeting of the National Council at Worcester in October, and the latter body, if not the former, will have to determine whether it will recognize two Congregational Associations in one State, the sole difference between them being that one Association is composed wholly of white people, and the other chiefly of colored people; unless, indeed—and of this there is some hope—the Congregational Associations of Georgia solve the problem by coming together and forming one body. There have been some correspondence and conferences to consider the possibility of such a union.

We find ourselves on this subject occupying a position midway between the radicals on the one side and the conservatives on the other. In some parts of the South, the whites and Negroes must for many years to come be educated in separate schools and worship in separate churches. They need, to some extent, a different education; they desire, to a large extent, a different kind of religious worship and instruction. The preaching which appeals to the Anglo-Saxon race appears cold and unmeaning to the warm-blooded Negro; the preaching which arouses in him a real religious fervor appears to his cold-blooded neighbor imaginative, passionate, unintelligent. To attempt to force the two races into a fellowship distasteful to both, to attempt to require the two to listen to the same type of sermon and join in the same forms of worship, is a "reform against nature." Even if the erection and maintenance of two churches where one would suffice for the worshipers of both classes involves some additional expense, the expense may not be greater than the resultant spiritual advantage.

But to close the doors of any church on any Christian is in so far to make it an unchristian church. To go into the South to establish white churches from which, whether by a formal law or by an unwritten but self-enforcing edict, men are excluded because God made them black, is to deny one of the fundamental tenets of Christ: All ye are brethren. It is to introduce into a church already divided by sectarian strifes a new division. It is to rend afresh the seamless robe. To say to any man asking for Christian fellowship on the simple ground of faith in Christ, "Stand back: for I am whiter than thou," is simply a new and indefensible form of Pharisaism. The church exists to proclaim certain truths, among which the brotherhood of man stands pre-eminent. It is difficult to see with what consistency a Christian minister can preach on the parable of the Good Samaritan if his church refuses to recognize a Christian brother in one of another race because he belongs to another race. There is no reason for an attempt to corral all men of all races in one inclosure; but for any church, especially for a church of the Puritans, to enter upon missionary work in the South, and initiate it by refusing to admit to its fellowship a black man because he is black, is to apostatize from the faith in order to get a chance to preach the faith. To assert equality and brotherhood at the polls, to reaffirm it in a public school system, to reassert it by courts of law in the hotel and the railroad train, and then deny it in the church, would be indeed a singular incongruity, and would make the Nation more Christian than the church.

The principle, then, by which the color-line question is to be settled is very simple, though its application may in some cases present some difficulties. The whites and Negroes are not to be coerced or bribed into uniting in one and the same church organizations. If they prefer to worship and to work separately, they must be allowed so to do. This is within their Christian liberty. But it is not within their Christian liberty to refuse the fullest and most perfect Christian fellowship to each other. The doors of every Christian church must stand wide open to men of every race and color. The only reason of exclusion must be in moral or spiritual character. And in the higher representative bodies these churches must be one. To organize, for example, in the State of Georgia two Congregational bodies, one white and the other colored, would be to organize a church to perpetuate divisions which the church should aim to obliterate. It were far better that the Northern Church should not go with its missionary work into the South at all, than that it should go with a mission which strengthens the infidelity that denies that God made of one blood all the nations of the earth for to dwell together.

THE SOUTH

MOUNTAIN WORK IN TENNESSEE

BY DISTRICT SECRETARY C.W. HIATT

I have found the man of iron. In one short day, he travelled one hundred miles by rail, walked twelve miles over a steep and rocky mountain, rode fourteen miles horseback through a pouring and drenching rain, and at nightfall preached an earnest, telling sermon to an audience of railroad employees, besides performing the duties of organist and janitor. The next morning he was up at four o'clock and away for other tasks of similar sort. One who watches Brother Pope, must do it on the run. One of the fairest spots on the Cumberland Plateau is Grand View. Here the American Missionary Association holds a strategic position. The wild, magnificent scenery and the cool, bracing air, tingling with ozone, make it an ideal spot for a great religious and educational centre. Already eyes are turning upward from the surrounding valleys to this mountain school. The first words I heard on landing at Spring City, six miles away, were in its praise: "They've got a mighty good school up thar." Such is the fact. What is needed now to balance things is a "mighty good school" building. If the insignificant frame structures which are hidden among the trees, and only half supply the needs of the institution, could be exchanged for a good, roomy, handsome edifice, placed on the summit of the mountain, where it would be visible for miles along the line of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad, besides being a benefaction to the cause, it would be the best, cheapest and most attractive advertisement of our mountain work, conceivable. It is to be hoped that someone will visit this beautiful spot ere long whose enthusiasm will not all run to words.

Within easy reach of Grand View are various churches flanked by their educational departments, which will one day become tributary to the great central institution. At one of these points, Deer Lodge, a fine church building is just nearing completion. The community is all loyal to the American Missionary Association, whose help it has received and appreciated. A good many Northerners are coming into this section, induced by climate, whose co-operation in his work Mr. Pope is very prompt in securing.

Glen Mary is a mining settlement hidden in the oak forest about a mile from the above mentioned railroad. Here, Mr. Pope recently found a small Sunday-school battling against great odds. Intemperance and profanity were rife, and the demand for gospel labor was very urgent. Meetings were held with blessed results, so that shortly ago a church was organized, now one of the strongest in this region. One consecrated young man is at the bottom of the whole movement. Two years ago, he started a Sunday-school with no assistance. At first, he met his pupils in the colored people's meeting house, but was obliged to change after a time, because of the prejudices of color which started among the blacks! He then took an axe and cleared a spot in the woods to which he invited his school. Here Mr. Pope found him. After the interest began to grow, a subscription was started among the miners, resulting in money sufficient (including help from the mining company) to erect a comfortable little church edifice. This building has recently been enlarged by one-third, to accommodate the crowds. The membership of the church is less than forty, and yet it has raised one collection for the American Missionary Association amounting to twenty-four dollars!

These people have no pastor. They are dependent on the scattering ministrations of two or three of our overworked missionaries from other points, who have undertaken to supply them by turns. There are one hundred and fifty families in the community, fifty being colored, without pastoral training. I am assured that it would not be hard to raise money enough in the community to nearly, if not quite, support a minister. The people are hungering and thirsting for teaching in spiritual things. After repeated and urgent invitations your pilgrim was prevailed upon to suspend his trip for a day or two, that he might tell these people of the "good news" of Jesus Christ. It was evidently of the Lord, for last night at the first exhortation, eight persons, two men and six women, gave themselves to the Master. The entire congregation seemed to hear the word with gladness. It is a great field. And so it is in many places, I am told. Glen Mary is anxious for a resident minister and a Christian teacher. The influence of an educated, godly woman is sorely needed in these homes. The gospel has already done much for the place, but there is still a great work to do. Thank God for such tireless, self-forgetful men as Mr. Pope. With the brain of a general and the zeal of an apostle, he is planting the cross of Christ so firmly on this plateau, and in such commanding positions, that it cannot be dislodged, but will shed its saving influence far and wide forever. After preaching once more I hope to move on to Nashville in time for the commencement.