Читать книгу: «The American Missionary. Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889», страница 5

OBITUARY

Another of our educated, consecrated and useful colored pastors has passed away. Rev. Welborn Wright, pastor of the Second Congregational Church of Lawrence, Kansas, died at his home, August 14th, of consumption. He was born in South Carolina, and had been pastor of the church in Lawrence over six years. He was a man of thought, earnest in his convictions, and had acquired a large influence over his own people. His church had prospered greatly under his care.

He won the esteem of the white people. Two years ago he was elected a member of the Board of Education of the city, and proved himself to be a man of good judgment in practical affairs. His funeral was attended by Rev. Dr. Cordley, Rev. R.B. Parker and Rev. A.N. Richards. He was Secretary of the Minister's Meeting of Lawrence, and resolutions of warm commendation and sympathy for his family were passed by that body, and also by the Board of Education of Lawrence.

We have just learned that Mr. A.J. Berger, formerly industrial teacher at Macon, Georgia, died at Claremont, Virginia, September 2d, at the age of sixty-six years.

News has also come to us of the death of Miss J.P. Bradshaw, a former teacher at Tougaloo University, Miss. For five years she bravely battled for life, but finally died of consumption.

STUDENT'S LETTER

A BIT OF EXPERIENCE

BY A TALLADEGA STUDENT

Not long since I was forcibly reminded of the work and worth of the schools of the American Missionary Association by witnessing the services in a church. In a room large enough to comfortably seat one hundred were fully two hundred and fifty, and a large crowd hovering about the door. There was abundance of singing and praying. The songs were mostly on the solo and chorus style—not set to music, what we call plantation or "made-up songs." While singing, the leader adds new words to suit his fancy and emotional fervor; thus the song often undergoes several changes of words in the course of a few months, all the time retaining the same tune. This is what is meant by "made-up songs." Among those of my people in whom the emotional tide runs high this kind of singing is very popular.

In that meeting, while singing the last part of each song the audience would rise and turn their backs toward the pulpit. One started the prayers, but soon the multitude of voices made it impossible to know who was leading or what was being said. The minister came in late. He slowly turned the pages of the Bible until he found his text. With a murmuring voice he read a few verses and began preaching. Moving off slowly, like an express train, he soon gathered a rapid motion of body and a furious rattling of words. With head down and the white of his eyes turned upward he kept up a constant spitting and walking for forty or forty-five minutes. All the while the hearers responded with thrilling animation. The sermon over, the singing was started as before for a long jubilee. A few nights ago, at such a meeting, not far from the writer's church, a young woman so mutilated her head while going through a muscular jubilation, that she had to go to the doctor to have her head repaired.

Less than a quarter of a mile away was another audience, not one-fourth as large as the one referred to above, with an educated preacher, worshiping in the spirit with the propriety and with the gentleness of the gospel. So unlike was the deportment and so different was the character of the two audiences that but for their common color one might have thought that they were composed of two distinct races. The question may be asked, what makes the difference? They are the same people, worshiping the same God out of the same Bible. Education and the lack of it make the difference.

The conduct of audiences like the first here spoken of seems to vary with the style of the speaker. I once preached to such a congregation. Their behavior was orderly. During the sermon their responses were a few amens. Knowing their habit in worship, I was somewhat annoyed with the thought that I was muzzling their feelings and the sooner I got through the gladder they would be. That class of people have a way of calling the minister "Cold water preacher," if he does not preach them into something like a spell of hallucination. Their composure led me to believe that I would earn the title. Still I endured, and endeavored to give the plain truth plainly and earnestly; having a strong feeling that as I was in authority I must command in the right way. After dismission, many said to me, "You gave us the pure word and we enjoyed it." "That's what we need," said another. I was heartily invited to come again. I find now I am welcome with that people.

"The fields are white already to harvest." Great is the opportunity of the rich and enlightened churches. The helpfulness of our schools to my people and to the country, is beyond calculation. Our missionary schools are like so many lighthouses along this dark belt of the Union. Their light is being reflected by thousands of colored youth who without these schools would have grown up in gross ignorance.

This brings to mind an incident of my life, which now I believe was providential. Seventeen years ago, when my education was very limited, while working in a restaurant, I visited Talladega College and was deeply impressed with the school, and the intelligence and advancement of the boys. I decided that I would enter school immediately, and did so, though my money was scarce and a few weeks before I had agreed to continue work in the restaurant at twelve dollars per month, board and bed furnished. That was good wages for a boy of my age, but I know now that giving it up and going to school was a thousand times higher wages for me. I felt my imperfections so keenly then I was ashamed to talk to the boys in the college. The stimulation for an education, which I received on that visit to Talladega College has never left me. I regard it most fortunate for an ignorant young man to visit our best schools.

THE INDIANS

FORT YATES, DAKOTA

MISS M.C. COLLINS

During the recent measles epidemic a large number of children died on the Agency. At this village, a little child had been conjured until they thought it was dying, and then they sent for me. I found the poor little one all bruised with the hands of the conjurer. I showed the mother how to bathe it, and I poulticed the throat and sent Josephine over again to change the poultice, and she reported the child as breathing quietly. The next morning the swelling had gone down and the baby seemed much better; all day it continued to improve, and the next day sat up and ate rice soup which I carried it. The mother said, "She is well now!" I said, "O, no, she is not; keep her in the house three days and I will visit her, then she will be well perhaps." If an Indian is not in a dying condition, they do not consider anything the matter. So, after I left, she took her child out and walked about two miles. The child caught cold, and that afternoon grew worse. They had an Indian to conjure it, and it died immediately. They sent for me to come and pray with them. Josephine went for Elias, and we went to the desolate home. The baby had been dead an hour and was closed up in a box, the grandfather singing a mourning song, the mother wailing, "O my daughter, my daughter, I loved her and she has left me." Over and over again she cried out in her sorrow. The grandmother had cut her flesh, and the streams of blood running down from her hair over her face only made all seem more desolate, and more weird and terrible. They were trying to be Indians, and yet they had asked for me to come. I suppose it was to give the child the full benefit of both religions, so that there should be no mistake in the future world.

My Bible class now numbers ten; six of them are candidates for church membership. One of them spoke very nicely at our last prayer meeting. Among other things he said: "No man can kill God's Word. It will live and his church will grow. We have tried to kill it in this village, but look at it now. It has taken hold of us, and we who have fought against it are now its followers. No man can kill God, because he alone is the creator of life, and it is only foolish to try to stand upon his word and keep it down. The Indian customs fall before the Word of God wherever the Bible has gone. My friends, stop fighting against God, believe on him and rejoice." This is Wakutemani (Walking Hunter) whom I named Huntington Wolcott for Mr. Wolcott of Boston. Because he said he wanted a long name and the name of a good man, I combined the two. He is now ambitious to become a teacher. He will be ready for an out-station whenever you are able to build one. He says they have already asked him to come up on Oak Creek to teach them, and I gave him a Bible and hymn books and primer, and he goes about reading and singing and praying for Christ. May he be indeed the Walking Hunter, going about seeking souls. God be with him to the end.

Nearly all of our Indians signed the bill to open the reservation. John Grass took the lead. He is a very wise man, and a good one for an Indian who represents the wild Indians. I attended all the sessions of the Council except the last. I see by the papers that a Roman Catholic priest on this Agency says he touched the pen first, and that caused all the Indians to sign. Grass says he wants me to dispute that, that he refused to sign last year because he did not like the bill. This year, the Commissioners were men of brains and the bill was a better one, and was so explained that the Indians understood it, and that they of their own accord thought the best thing they could do was to sign it, that the said priest had no power or influence over them whatever. He said, "Tell our friends this for me, and tell them the Commissioners know that we signed it of our own will because we believed it was for the good of our people." I told him I would write it East.

The instability of the Indian.—It used to be a proverb among the Indians that "The white man is very uncertain." The following brief extract from the letter of a missionary among the Indians not only shows that the Indian is unstable, but illustrates the difficulty of fixing the Indians in a given locality and at steady work:

The Commissioner was at – the other day, and our Indians had a chance to sign, and almost all of them did so, but still to many of them the opening seems an evil. I am afraid they are not going to maintain their places in the face of settlement by the whites. Already six families have slipped away to the Indian Territory, and I shall not be much surprised if in the next two years a considerable majority of them go; and still it is about as difficult to tell what an Indian will do, as it is to forecast western weather. I think they have never done so well in farming as this year, but one case will illustrate how unstable they are. One man sold three young horses for about half what they were worth. He had about eight acres of wheat, twelve acres of corn, and an acre of oats, all of which he abandoned to go South, though all his crops were very fine and had been well worked by himself.