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American Missionary Association.

• President, Merrill E. Gates, LL.D., Mass.
• Vice-Presidents.
  • Rev. F. A. Noble, D.D., Ill.
  • Rev. Henry Hopkins, D.D., Mo.
  • Rev. Alex McKenzie, D.D., Mass.
  • Rev. Henry A. Stimson, D.D., N. Y.
  • Rev. Washington Gladden, D.D., Ohio.
• Corresponding Secretaries.
  • Rev. M. E. Strieby, D.D., Bible House, N. Y.
  • Rev. A. F. Beard, D.D., Bible House, N. Y.
  • Rev. F. P. Woodbury, D.D., Bible House, N. Y.
• Assistant Corresponding Secretary.
  • Rev. C. J. Ryder, D.D., Bible House, N. Y.
• Recording Secretary.
  • Rev. M. E. Strieby, D.D., Bible House, N. Y.
• Treasurer.
  • Henry W. Hubbard, Esq., Bible House, N. Y.
• Auditors.
  • Peter McCartee.
  • James Mitchell.
• Executive Committee.
  • Charles L. Mead, Chairman.
  • Charles A. Hull, Secretary.
• • For Three Years.
    • William Hayes Ward,
    • James W. Cooper,
    • Lucien C. Warner,
    • Joseph H. Twichell,
    • Charles P. Peirce.
  • For Two Years.
    • Charles A. Hull,
    • Addison P. Foster,
    • Albert J. Lyman,
    • Nehemiah Boynton,
    • A. J. F. Behrends.
  • For One Year.
    • Samuel Holmes,
    • Samuel S. Marples,
    • Charles L. Mead,
    • William H. Strong,
    • Elijah Horr.
• District Secretaries.
  • Rev. Geo. H. Gutterson, 21 Cong'l House, Boston, Mass.
  • Rev. Jos. E. Roy, D.D., 151 Washington Street, Chicago, Ill.
  • Rev. W. E. C. Wright, D.D., Cong'l Rooms, Y. M. C. A. Building, Cleveland, Ohio.
• Secretary Of Woman's Bureau.
  • Miss D. E. Emerson, Bible House, 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; letters relating to woman's work, to the Secretary of the Woman's Bureau.

DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

In drafts, checks, registered letters, or post-office orders, may be sent to H. W. Hubbard, Treasurer, Bible House, New York, or, when more convenient, to either of the Branch Offices, 21 Congregational House, Boston, Mass., 151 Washington Street, Chicago, Ill., or Congregational Rooms, Y. M. C. A. Building, Cleveland, Ohio. A payment of thirty dollars 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 label 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 give and bequeath the sum of —— dollars to the 'American Missionary Association,' incorporated by act of the Legislature of the State of New York." The will should be attested by three witnesses.

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THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY

OUR FINANCIAL OUTLOOK.

Our debt is large, but we rejoice to say that during the last three months it has been slowly diminishing. It reached its highest point November 30—$82,425.58. December 31 it was $82,032.07; January 31, $79,502.77; February 28, $76,431.49. The cause of this decrease varies in the different months. Sometimes the legacies are in advance, and sometimes the donations. The expenses have been largely reduced in all departments.

While these figures are somewhat encouraging, yet the size of the debt is ominous. The winter months, usually most fruitful in collections, have passed away, and the time for the annual appropriations is near at hand. Unless the debt can be greatly reduced, the cutting down of the appropriations for the next year must be disastrous to this great work. We do not lose our trust in God, nor our hope that the friends of these ignorant and yet struggling people will not suffer the work to be seriously hindered. We respectfully invoke pastors to secure for us as liberal contributions as possible, and we ask individual donors to remember the work with special gifts.

DEATH OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

The unexpected and sudden death of Mr. Douglass has awakened a sense of profound sympathy never before expressed toward a person identified with the negro race, and seldom toward one of the white race. We are not surprised at the manifestations of profound respect and sorrow of the colored people, and we rejoice, too, that the white race has shown almost equal regard for his memory, by their attendance when he lay in state in Washington, and when his body was interred in Rochester. The press has voiced the sentiment of the nation in the full[122] and eulogistic notices of his life. Frederick Douglass deserved it all.

No man, perhaps, in this country has broken through so heavy a crust of ignorance, poverty and race prejudice as was done by this boy born on a slave plantation, stealing his education, fleeing from his slave home and then achieving for himself a rank among the foremost men of the nation in intelligence, eloquence and of personal influence in the great anti-slavery struggle of this country. He has achieved honors in the public service of the nation, and has faithfully and honorably fulfilled every trust laid upon him.

Mr. Douglass is among the last survivors of that band of Abolitionists that were so potent in their influence in arousing the nation to the evils of slavery. The recent death of Theodore D. Weld, in his ninety-first year, recalls a name now almost forgotten, but that two generations ago indicated the foremost orator in the anti-slavery ranks. The poet of anti-slavery, Whittier, has gone recently, and now the most conspicuous name left of that noble band is that of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe.

The American Missionary Association has reason to congratulate itself that its last annual meeting was made memorable by the presence of Mr. Douglass, and its vast audience stirred most deeply by his eloquent address. In that address he expressed his gratitude for himself and his people for the work done by the Association in their behalf. And in a letter subsequently addressed to the senior secretary of the Association, he says, in speaking of that address: "I am very glad to have been able thus publicly to record my sense of the value of the great work of the Association in saving my people. I am a friend of free thought and free inquiry, but I find them to be no substitute for the work of educating the ignorant and lifting up the lowly. Time and toil have nearly taken me from the lecture field, but I still have a good word to say in the cause to which the American Missionary Association is devoted."

ITEMS.

Of the twelve millions of families now in the United States, it is said that one million cannot secure the needed work to procure the luxuries and comforts of life. On this basis the one and a half millions of colored families are at a special disadvantage. They have to contend not only against the hard times, but against the immense disadvantages of race prejudice.

The appointment of Bishop Whipple, of Minnesota, to be a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners was an appointment eminently fit to be made. Few men in this country stand higher in their knowledge[123] of the Indians and their wants, or have shown a more intelligent and self-sacrificing interest in their behalf.

The Indian Territory, occupied by what has been regarded as the Civilized Tribes, is in a precarious position. The recent investigation by the Committee under ex-Senator Dawes has brought out the facts in startling distinctness. The recommendations of the Senator are very clear and radical, but it is feared that delay in the settlement of the question will only protract and aggravate the difficulty.

The "Missing Link" has been discovered. It was found, we are told, in some fragments of skeletons dug up somewhere in Java. What an attraction this will be to lead scientific doctors to neglect living beings and wrangle over these old bones. In this country the real "Missing Link" is that charity on the part of the white people that recognizes the colored man as a fellow-citizen and a fellow Christian. Let that link be found and burnished up and a good many serious problems will be solved.

THE PROSPERITY OF THE SOUTH.

From time to time there loom up prospects of great advancement in the Southern States. Iron and coal are found in close proximity and in unlimited quantity. At once the boom starts and great cities spring into existence with busy foundries and added railway facilities. But somehow or other the boom loses its fervor and the bright hopes are delayed. Yet the South has vast resources, though they can only be developed gradually, and as capital shall become assured that the labor problem in the South is satisfactorily adjusted.

We are told again that cotton mills are to be transferred from the North to the South. Hitherto cheap cottons have been the product of these Southern cotton mills. But now the promise is that the finest grades of cotton will be produced. Labor is cheap in the South, but skilled labor is very scarce, and no cheaper than at the North, and to transfer such labor from the North will be at the additional cost of transportation.

Great efforts are made from time to time to induce immigrants to settle in the South, and high hopes have been built on such endeavors. But immigrants continue to go to the North and West, and do not go South. This is not because the South is not rich in minerals, in a productive soil and a beautiful climate. Why is it? Capital in the hands of the whites in the South continues to crush labor in the person of the black man under the heel of prejudice. Perhaps the laborer from Europe may dread the same thing.

In spite of all drawbacks, the South is improving, and will continue[124] to improve, and the process will be hastened as the white man lays aside his race prejudice and the black man lifts himself above it by acquiring property, intelligence and character. Whatever helps this consummation does more for the future good of the South than can be done in any other way.

NOTES-BY-THE-WAY.

SECRETARY A. F. BEARD.

Among places of greatest interest which I visited in my late Southern tour one was Tougaloo University. Its location is unique, and its work is also. In the very heart of the black belt of Mississippi, it is sending out its light among thousands who are in darkness. It would quite repay one who would study the problem of saving these children of the rural districts of the black belt to go far out of his way to visit Tougaloo. He should take time for it, to ride over its broad acres of cultivated land, its cotton fields, its fields of sugar cane and corn, its hay fields, all under the care of those who are being educated. They should see its shops for iron working, for wood working, and its varied other industries. They should see those who work by day, diligent students at the books all the long evenings until late. They should see the self help of all. They should go through the grades and notice the quality of the work done and its character, its classes in mathematics and in languages, and its work in the physical sciences. It is a great school—Tougaloo—and if people could see it, they would quote it more for its economy and efficiency. Not always are efficiency and economy found pulling equally in the same harness.

A little incident in Tougaloo interested me. A discussion of the topic, "How can we improve our homes," called from one student these words: "I find the negro lacks race pride. He despises his own makeup. Who of you ever heard any negro say that he thought the general characteristics of his race were as becoming as those of other races? Nor are they. The Anglo-Saxon is proud of his race characteristics. The Indian is, also, but the negro despises himself and would be anything else than what God has made him. But how can we escape hell if we hate ourselves because we are negroes, when this is the divine wisdom of a just God? We may talk about improving our homes by getting an education as much as we please, but we will never be anything until we have a race pride and try to carry out the great plan of God who made us and knew what is best for us. Let us be genuine negroes, pure and good, and not desire a drop of other blood in our veins."

This seems to be the spirit of Tougaloo. Its graduates whom I have met are manly and womanly, self-respecting and self-helping.

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TOUGALOO UNIVERSITY, MISSISSIPPI.

BY PRES. F. G. WOODWORTH, D.D.

MANSION.

GIRLS' DORMITORY.

The chartered schools of the American Missionary Association, though doing an essentially similar work, are yet strongly individualized. Tougaloo University is emphatically the black belt plantation school of the Association, located in the country, in the midst of America's darkest Africa, touching that by far most numerous and important class on which the future of the negroes mainly rests—the plantation negroes. Forming the bulk of the colored population, least tinged with white blood, they are at once the most ignorant and the most hopeful class. Within seven miles of Jackson, the State capital, on the Illinois Central road, easily accessible, not only from Mississippi, but from large regions of Louisiana and Arkansas, it draws pupils from a wide area and sends its trained teachers and graduates to a region still wider. Its location is healthful and one of beauty, and, removed from town distractions and temptations, it is admirably situated for efficient work. The school was established in the autumn of 1869, and the early reports show a surrounding region which in its drunkenness, fighting and iniquity, is[126] quite in contrast with the present condition of affairs. Five hundred acres of land were purchased and with them a fine mansion (page 125), then not many years old, intended for the finest plantation house of the State and built for a bride who came not. As the illustration shows, it is a handsome structure—the only one with any decided architectural pretensions in the place. It served at first for school rooms and dormitory purposes, and has been thus used during most of the life of the school. Now it contains the offices of president and treasurer, the main library—which greatly needs more books—music rooms, the doctor's office,[127] teachers' rooms, and the president's home. There are now nine large buildings for school use, with several smaller ones. The next oldest of the large buildings is the girls' dormitory, just south of the mansion, where is the common dining room, with the necessary kitchen, laundry and bake house appliances, and dormitory room for several teachers and eighty to ninety girls.

BALLARD HALL.

BOYS' DORMITORY, STRIEBY HALL.

THE PLANTATION BARN.

BIBLE HALL.

Washington Hall, built just north of the mansion about the time of the girls' dormitory, was burned some years ago, and now on its site stands the Ballard Building, containing the study and recitation rooms of the grammar and intermediate departments, which lead up to the normal and the chapel, where all general exercises and Sabbath services are held. One of the greatest needs of the school is a church building, that can be specially devoted to religious purposes. There is a grand chance for a memorial building. A little northeast of Ballard is the[128] boys' dormitory, Strieby Hall, erected in 1882, a brick structure 112 x 40 feet, and three stories high, with a basement which has a laundry and bathrooms. In this building the normal and higher work is carried on, with a fairly good physical and chemical laboratory and reference library, but needing great enlargement and additional facilities. The normal work is of chief importance, for the future of the race lies largely with the trained teachers of the common schools. Those who have gone from Tougaloo have won golden opinions from both races and do a work which in its scope and missionary character multiplies greatly the influence of the supporters of the school. Strieby has, by crowding, dormitory room for seventy to eighty boys. A separate building for normal work is greatly needed, one having a library, reading room, recitation room, museums and laboratories. Just northwest of Strieby is the large barn, which, with the picture of the cattle, will [129]suggest the large agricultural department of the school with its stock, garden, fruit raising, etc. Here, too, a building is greatly needed for the farm boys and a foreman, where a special course of instruction can be given in fitting out good farmers. Not a few graduates and former students have been successful in the conduct of farms and market gardens, some of them in connection with teaching. Back of the mansion is a little and not at all beautiful building that has been a slave pen, day nursery for slave children; then, under the American Missionary Association, a dormitory known as Boston Hall, then a carpentry class room, then girls' "Industrial Cottage" and is now dignified as Bible Hall, and houses the theological department, which was established two years ago. This department has the beginning of a library, but needs books and maps very greatly, and has two courses based on the English Bible, one of two and one of four years. Though having this year but few pupils in the regular course, it is doing very thorough work. The evening class for outside preachers has been for some years a power for good. A glance at the picture will convince anyone that theology should have better quarters. Who will give them? Berkshire Cottage, of which a picture is given, accommodates the industrial training[130] work of the girls. Here are classrooms for needlework and cookery, with courses extending over four years, and which all girls in the grammar grades are as much obliged to take as they are the English branches. To the normal girls special instruction in dressmaking is given. Berkshire, besides accommodating several teachers, has a kitchen, dining and sitting room, and several bedrooms, devoted to practical housekeeping, where, at present, four girls at a time keep house practically for six weeks at a time, so becoming competent for homemakers. Not far from this cottage is the Ballard shop building, where the manual training of the boys is carried on. Here to the small boys of the Hand school instruction in knifework is given, and to the boys of all higher grades careful instruction, in accordance with the best manual training methods, in [131]wood-working, with excellent accommodations for more than twenty boys at a time. Forging, at which eight at a time can work, and mechanical and architectural drawing, with tables and tools for two dozen. The outcome of this work and of the girls' industries, teachers of which are supported by the Slater Fund, which has done, and is doing, so grand a work, has been most satisfactory and encouraging in the skill manifested, the increased earning capacity imparted, the greater ability to gain and maintain homes, and the development of character.

BERKSHIRE COTTAGE.

BALLARD MANUAL TRAINING SHOP.

One other picture, the Hand Primary building, suggests the practical work of the Normal department, for here the Normal students have practice during the two closing years of their course, gathering pupils from surrounding cabins.

CARPENTRY.

FORGING.

Underneath all the work of the school is the dominating thought of the development of Christian character. The preaching, the Sabbath school, with its class prayer meetings directed by the Sabbath school teachers, the religious societies, the Covenant for Christian service, the personal influence of teachers and older pupils, all tend in that direction [132]with most blessed results. Upon the surrounding region growing influence is exerted through the four Sabbath schools from two to four miles away, in which teachers and students from the University assist. A picture of one of the schools, McCharity, is given here. Mention should also be made of the "Tougaloo University Addition to Tougaloo." One hundred and twenty acres of land have been divided into five-acre house lots, which are being sold at $100 each to former students and those who wish to educate children at the University. In a few years it is expected that a fine community will be there.

Around three great fundamental ideas the work of Tougaloo, with its nearly 400 students and 23 instructors, with its theological, college preparatory, normal, agricultural, industrial, musical, and nurse training departments, its religious work, is grouped and carried on with notable success. These are the development of the family and home, leadership, and pure religious life. Who will endow a chair? Who will endow the University, and perpetuate one's influence in a most fruitful way? Successful as Tougaloo has been, its largest, widest work is yet to come.

DANIEL HAND KINDERGARTEN AND PRIMARY SCHOOL.

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LINCOLN MEMORIAL—SPECIAL METHOD.

MRS. G. W. ANDREWS, TALLADEGA, ALA.

McCHARITY SUNDAY-SCHOOL MISSION.

There has been much enthusiasm here since Sabbath morning in starting an "Abraham Lincoln Cent Association" in order to give the poorest among our people an opportunity to do something toward helping to lift the debt of the American Missionary Association. There will be four departments of giving, one cent per day, one per week, one per month, and five dollars will constitute one a memorial member of the Association. The collection from those who pay a cent a day will be taken at the time of devotional exercise in the schools in the morning; the cent per week every Tuesday morning, the cent per month on the twelfth day of each month. Every quarter the treasurer will gather the different sums and send to the American Missionary Association treasury. The twelfth day of February each year will be a rallying day, when we trust much more[134] will be realized. It is hoped by those who have this plan in hand, and we are all working in unison here in it, to extend it throughout all of our schools and churches in the South, that the present debt of the American Missionary Association may be brought close to their hearts, and kept there, as the proposition is that this association shall continue until the debt is lifted.

LINCOLN MEMORIAL DAY IN THE SOUTH.

BY REV. W. J. LARKIN.

On Lincoln's birthday most of the churches connected with the American Missionary Association in the South took occasion to make a contribution to it, and many gifts not large in themselves, but representing a great deal of sacrifice, have been received by our treasurer in New York. The pastor of our church in Marion, Alabama, sends a contribution of over $16 from his church, which amount represents more sacrifices than thousands of dollars would represent from many of our more favored churches. He writes: "We had a Lincoln's exercise on Lord's day, 10th, by the school at the church. It was a very cold, dark night, but our offering was $16.09. You will consider the hard times here—and they are hard, indeed, this year—we have had intense cold now nearly two months with the mercury nearly to zero. When ice is six inches thick in this part of Alabama it means intense suffering for the half-clad and half-fed negroes. We add to this $16.09, $11.26, which we have collected at our missionary prayer meetings, making in all $27.35."

"I called on a few of the old ex-slaves for some experiences of bygone days. Among others here is one: 'When I was a boy about twelve years of age there were several boys together telling what we would do when we became men. I said, "I am going to be free and keep a store, and perhaps employ some of you boys as my clerks." Among these boys standing there was a white boy, who, when he went home, told his father what I had been saying. Shortly after a lady, when I was passing her house one day called me in and said, "Steve, is that you?" "Yes, marm." "I want to see you; I hear you have been talking some bad talk with other boys." I said, "What is it, marm?" "You said that you were going to be free some day. Now let me tell you, if you do not stop talking such talk you will be hung and nobody can possibly save you. Let me tell you, you were ordained from the foundation of the world to be a slave; that is your destiny."' He continued, 'Although I never employed any of those boys as clerks, yet from that white boy, who reported my conversation, I have bought thousands of dollars' worth of goods since. I began by selling cakes on the railway cars. I [135]remember down in Tennessee about the year 1852 a man came and preached, and was said to have abolition ideas. The white people took him and hung him. Oh! children, if I only had had the privileges you now have! I thank God for the American Missionary Association. It took my children and made men of them. When I was a boy a good Christian man taught me to read a little. The white people discovered it and said, "You stop teaching niggers," and cut off his forefinger for teaching us to write.'"

THE LOUISIANA ASSOCIATION.

BY REV. G. W. MOORE, FIELD MISSIONARY.

The Louisiana State Association held its twenty-sixth annual meeting with the church at Thibodeaux, February 1-4. It was one of the best meetings in interest and attendance in the history of the association.

The reports from the churches showed a steady growth and hopeful outlook, in spite of the hard times. These churches of Southern Louisiana are in the black belt of the State on plantations and in towns adjacent to the large sugar plantations. Many of the planters have become bankrupt by the changed conditions of giving up the sugar bounty, while the poor colored laborers have been the greatest sufferers.

The stories of their hardships and struggles in their efforts to live and carry forward their church work are full of pathos, heroism and self-sacrifice. Laborers have had to take fifty cents a day and board themselves, to keep the wolf of starvation from their door, and many of them are unable to get work at any price.

It was a revelation to the brethren to hear the report of Rev. James Herod, of the American Missionary Association meeting at Lowell, Mass., and of Mr. E. H. Phillips, of the Cleveland Christian Endeavor meeting. It was the first time these colored men had been North or East, and had come in contact with Northern civilization. First-class trains, hotels and Christian hospitality from "our brother in white" were all new to them.

Mr. Herod is a graduate of Straight University, and is our pastor at Abbeville, La. His face beamed with grateful joy as he told the story of the meeting and the wonders of the North, and of the warm welcome of Northern friends, while the brethren of the Association were held spell-bound by his graphic recital. It is hard to tell which was the happier, the speaker or the audience.

Mr. Phillips, of Morris-Brown Church, New Orleans, is a zealous Christian Endeavor worker. The State of Louisiana was represented at the Cleveland Christian Endeavor Convention by two colored delegates, Mr. Phillips and Dr. Nelson. The reception these colored[136] Endeavorers received at Cleveland made all of our hearts glad. It was so refreshing to see this star of hope rising in the hearts of our long oppressed brethren, and to have them realize somewhere in the land the meaning and sweetness of the words of our Lord, and the Christian Endeavor motto: "One is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren."

The report made by our field missionary of the Sunday-school Convention held in London, Eng., also inspired the brethren with the hope that the good time coming will come ere long, when they will be measured by their worth and work, and not always be despised and oppressed because of the accident of birth and condition. The Woman's Missionary State Union, with Miss Bella Hume as president, held an interesting meeting. They are assisting in the support of a missionary at our Indian Mission at Santee, Neb. The Sunday-school State Association, Rev. J. W. Whittaker, moderator, also held an inspiring meeting. Mr. Alfred Lawless, Jr., was appointed general Sunday-school superintendent to visit needy Sunday-schools in the State, and especially to assist in organizing Sunday-schools on the sugar plantations.

The neat little chapel built a year ago by the American Missionary Association at Thibodeaux was dedicated Sunday, February 3. An impressive and helpful sermon was preached by Rev. Prof. G. W. Henderson, of Straight University, followed by addresses by the pastor, Rev. J. E. Smith, Trustee Matthew Dickerson and the field missionary.

As the train left the little town the delegates sang, "God be with you till we meet again." The coach was curtained off, to separate the white and colored passengers, but as this song of benediction rang out on the train the curtain was lifted by the white passengers, and for a season we were all one company. May the angelic song of the Nativity of "peace on earth and good will toward men" so abound that the curtains that separate men will be raised and its refrain of "peace and good will" extend to our common humanity, that we may all be bound together and united to Christ.

FIELD ITEMS.

The organization of Young People's Societies of Christian Endeavor among the young people in the mountains is being carried on very successfully by the missionaries and superintendents of the American Missionary Association in that region. A recent report from one of the superintendents gives a list of nine places at which Endeavor Societies have been recently organized. The American Missionary Association has been especially active in this work of spreading the Endeavor movement among our young Highlanders of the South. The Endeavor[137] Society meets just their need, and furnishes opportunities for development and growth which are greatly appreciated.

Extract from a letter, Andersonville, Ga.: It is pitiful to see the children come so regularly four or five miles to school, their feet protruding from their broken shoes, bringing their baskets of tuition in the way of chickens, eggs, etc., to pay their school bills. One longs to cook up the things brought and give food to the poor children and wrap them in warm clothing, but I know the only way to make them self-reliant and keep them from the spirit of mendicancy is to require them to pay.

New Orleans, La.—Rev. Geo. W. Moore writes: About thirty of the boarding students and fifty of the day students have avowed their faith in Christ since Friday evening, when I first began the Gospel exercises in their behalf. All of the boarders of Straight University are now in the Christian household of faith.

MISS AMY WILLIAMS.

On Sunday, February 24, at Rochester, N. Y., another of our valued missionaries passed on beyond the work and opportunities of this life to her blessed reward.

Miss Amy Williams entered the service of the Association in 1868 as missionary teacher at Augusta, Ga. The next year she was transferred to Atlanta, Ga., where she was for many years the principal of the Storrs School. Retiring from this principalship in 1885, she spent a few years North, but her heart continually turned to her loved people, and in 1893 she accepted appointment as principal of the Slater Normal School, at Knoxville, Tenn., where her work was characterized by the same thoroughness and ability as that at Atlanta. Finding that her health would not permit her to return the second year, she wrote in December: "My heart just aches to go back South. Every other work seems insignificant."

Mrs. T. N. Chase, of Atlanta, Ga., writes as follows:

"Nearly twenty-five years ago, in the beauty of her young womanhood, she took charge of Storrs School, shaping it through those plastic years, and leaving the impress of her grand life upon it. At supper table to-night I ventured to ask one of the older girls who sits beside me if she remembered Miss Williams. How her face lighted up as she said: "Oh yes; she gave me my first Bible." Hundreds of boys and girls have entered the college preparatory class at Atlanta University who, but for her, would never have gone beyond the grammar school. In the early days, before electric cars, she often walked out here,[138] nearly two miles, to see how her Storrs children were getting on. One day I wanted to walk back with her a little way, but she said: "I must go on a mile further to the home of a poor boy who ran away and has been sleeping in my schoolroom two nights, because his father beats him so he does not dare to go home." That boy is now Rev. John W. Whittaker, class of '84, and pastor of First Congregational Church, New Orleans, La. I think of hosts of others who will rise up to call her blessed. So, as much as I loved her, I cannot grieve for her, but only sit and wonder how that one crown can contain all the stars that must be circling round her brow."

The Indians.

COLLECTION FOR THE DEBT AT SANTEE AGENCY.

The response of an Indian church to the appeal for help in view of the financial distress upon the Association, is certainly worthy of any Christian church anywhere. In reporting their collection, Dr. A. L. Riggs writes as follows:

"On February 10, our mission people and Pilgrim Church responded to the call of the American Missionary Association, and made a subscription of two hundred and sixteen dollars. This subscription will be paid in before the first of April, and it will likely be increased some. Of course the larger part is the gift of the missionaries, but the Indians did well, a number contributing five dollars apiece."

In giving an account of a service the day this large collection was taken at this Indian church, Mr. F. B. Riggs writes:

"Two of the mission people started the pledge with twenty dollars each. That rather startled the people, but several soon ventured ten dollars each. Then one pledged ten dollars on condition that nine others pledged the same. The nine were found. One Indian woman pledged ten dollars. Several Indians put down four, five, six and seven dollars each. We would sing and then call for pledges; speak and sing again, and then pledges again. The committee was instructed to canvass the matter farther immediately. The work is now going on outside. In the meanwhile the pledges are being paid very fast, and I expect to be able to remit to you soon. This contribution from Pilgrim Church means much from the hearts of our members. They have gone right down to the suffering point in this giving. The pupils in the school have done well in helping, too. I have been astonished that many members of America's great churches think that missionaries and people in our mission fields are only recipients. I wonder if the good people in all our large churches did as much to lift the debt of the American Missionary Association on Lincoln Memorial Sabbath as did[139] the members of this Indian Mission Church on the prairie. If so, the debt is wiped out."

LETTER FROM AN INDIAN.

David Tatankaota recently wrote the following letter to Miss M. C. Collins. David is the missionary in Thunder Hawk's village, a new mission recently opened by the American Missionary Association. Miss Collins writes that David sent his report together with this letter and a collection of $5.50 from the Indians in his mission:

Translated by Miss Collins.

The Chinese.

GLEANINGS FROM THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE CALIFORNIA CHINESE MISSION FOR
THE YEAR ENDING AUGUST 31, 1894.

BY REV. W. C. POND, D.D.

This is old news. But the report has been delayed in order that the treasurer might keep his books open till the very last offering pledged to us in aid of the work for that year could be collected, and thus, as much as possible be paid of the salaries which remained unpaid at the end of the year. We had no deficit. The mission does not run in debt. It never uses the resources of a new year to pay the arrears of the one preceding. Consequently there was only one thing to do when it became apparent that our resources would not be equal to our needs, viz., to authorize our workers to cease work and close the schools, and to say that should they continue in the work, we could promise them only this, that we would do for them all that was possible to us. The final result was that our workers—steadfast and faithful—after having given their usual donations, squared accounts in January by extra gifts amounting to $374.90.

And while we are on this matter of the finances, we will give an[140] abstract of the treasurer's final statement respecting current expenses in our general work:

In addition to this, the work for Chinese mothers and children cost us $557.70, a little less than one-half of what we could have used with rigid economy and good results.

The statistics of the work show twenty-one missions in which schools have been maintained, as follows: Fourteen during the entire year, except as recesses were taken at Chinese and American holidays; four with but one month's vacation; two during the four months that the fruit men have comparative leisure, and one—that at Watsonville—a new mission which commenced work four months before the fiscal year closed.

The total number of months of labor was 431.

The aggregate enrollment of Christian Chinese connected with our missions, so far as reported, is 596. The number concerning whom we may hope that they have been led to Christ during the past year is 60, making the total number of whom this hope has been cherished, and who have given "credible evidence of faith in Christ" from the first more than 1,100. How many of these will appear in the church of the first-born "clothed in white robes" it is not for human judgment to decide. Sometimes the human, the frail, we may almost say the devilish crops out in a way to put hope and courage to a test that is terribly severe, but never anything to compare with that which Paul had to confront in those at Corinth, whom he nevertheless denominates "the sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints." The Good Shepherd knows his sheep, and those thus given to him by the Father shall never perish, neither shall anyone pluck them out of his Father's hands.

The limits of our space forbid that we follow the report into its accounts of the year's work in each one of these missions. Two points deserve special notice. One of these has been referred to in a previous [141]number of The Missionary. More attention must be given to preaching in the street and in our schoolrooms, which make very comfortable little chapels. The other is that many Chinese children—native-born Americans—are growing up not only in the great centers, but also in interior villages, and we must open the doors of our schools to these; make such arrangements as will secure their attendance, and so bring it about by the grace of God that they grow up not in darkness, but under the healing beams of Him who said, "I am the light of the world."

Offerings of our Brethren.—It is not possible to segregate their gifts to our treasury with perfect accuracy, but we are within the truth when we place them at $1,905.40. In addition to this they have given for the local expenses of their several Associations $1,134.10, for Missionary Work in China $675.65, for their Worldwide Missionary Society (through the American Board) $63.60, and for relief to needy brethren and others $358, making an aggregate of $5,136.75 as their offerings for the year; and this, be it understood when the pressure of the times cannot but be felt by them, on the average, more severely than by any others. The goods a Chinaman has to sell are likely to be those that in hard times we dispense with. If wages are to be reduced, the reduction begins with the Chinaman. It is no great sin in the view of many to steer clear of paying a Chinaman. If anybody is to be dismissed from service when economy begins it is the Chinaman. We cannot but think that under the circumstances the financial showing at this point is highly creditable.

Bureau of Woman's Work.

WOMAN'S MISSIONARY UNIONS.

THANK-OFFERING DAY, APRIL 12.

It is heart cheering that the Women's Unions have planned for thought, prayer and special offerings on Friday, April 12, or Easter Sunday, the 14th, the day which, in the words of the resolution adopted by the State organizations at their annual meeting, "commemorates Christ's gift of Himself to the world."

Surely liberal offerings must follow sober thought and earnest prayer for the redemption of those whom God seems to have given into our special charge here in our own country. Our Lord Himself said, "Ye have done it unto Me." What if it does cost self-denial? Shall we not plan more liberally for Christ than for self?

Wanted, to supply demands for libraries, copies of The American Missionary for January, February, March and April, 1862, January, 1866, January, 1867, and January and August, 1875. Also, copies of The Annual Report for 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863.

RECEIPTS FOR FEBRUARY, 1895.

CURRENT RECEIPTS.

EXTRACT FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

BY HON. FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

I esteem it an honor to have been invited to speak a word in this presence upon this very interesting occasion. I am here, however, not so much to deliver an address, or to make a speech, as to put myself on record. I am here to pay a debt long due. I have wished, by my presence here, to emphasize my gratitude to the members and friends of this Association for the beneficent work which they have done, and which they are still doing, for the people with whom I am identified. I would not disparage the labors of any other organization in this direction inside of the church. I am thankful to all such, but I know of none to which the colored people of the Southern States are more indebted for effective service than to this American Missionary Association.

Long before the abolition of slavery, this organization bore a consistent and faithful testimony against that stupendous wrong. When it was abolished this Association did not disband nor discontinue its work, but went forward as earnestly as ever to advance, enlighten and elevate the colored people of the South.

There is a beautiful story told about a little child in the orphanage of John Falk at Weimar. They were having supper in the dining hall, and the teacher gave thanks in the ordinary way before the children began their meals, saying, "Come, Lord Jesus, and be our guest to-night, and bless the mercies which Thou hast provided." One little boy looked up and said, "Teacher, you always ask the Lord Jesus to come, but He never comes. Will He ever come?" "Oh, yes, if you will only hold on in faith, He will be sure to come." "Very well," said the little boy, "I will set a chair beside me here to-night to be ready when He comes." And so the meal proceeded. By-and-by there came a rap at the door, and there was ushered in a poor, half-frozen apprentice. He was taken to the fire and his hands warmed. Then he was asked to partake of the meal, and where should he go but to the chair which the little boy had provided? As he sat down there the little boy looked up with a light in his eye and said, "Teacher, I see it now. The Lord Jesus was not able to come Himself, and He sent the poor man in His place. Isn't that it?"

Aye, that is just it. And so, brethren, the Lord Jesus isn't able, according to his plans for this world, to come personally yet among us, but He has sent these colored people, Chinese, Indians and heathen, to make appeal in His behalf to us, and who among us will set a chair for Him? There are many friends with whom I hardly agree who are very anxiously waiting for the appearance of the personal Christ among us, and they are wondering what they shall do to welcome Him. Would that the eyes of these brethren, and our own, too, were opened to the perception of the Christ that is already here, in the persons of those needing to be helped and educated and elevated, and that their ears could hear His words, "Inasmuch as ye do it unto one of the least of these his brethren ye do it unto Christ." That is the Christian philosophy of giving, and if a man does not feel the force of these considerations, I should be disposed to say he has not yet begun to be a Christian.